Be Mine, King (The Crown Duet #1) - Chelsea McDonald Page 0,5

that the wrong people had caught up to him.

My heart pounded in my chest, so hard that it hurt. The strain made it difficult to breathe. The ringing in my ears did nothing to drown out the gunshot. My whole body started to shake violently as silent sobs wrecked me. The hurt worsened because I was so torn.

I hated my father, but I loved him.

I could’ve killed him, but I didn’t wish death on him.

Heavy footsteps thudded against the wood floors. The door slammed behind them. I shook as I waited, giving them a good five-minute head start before my dam broke. I wailed into my arms, the physical ache in my chest causing me to be sick. My chest heaved but I didn’t care, not about anything.

At some point, I guess I cried myself to sleep because when I next opened my eyes, a uniformed officer had his hand on my shoulder gently shaking it.

I watched from afar as to not arouse any suspicion. She was perfect.

She was all I’d been dreaming about, but something was different about the real-life version. I knew inevitably that this was what it would come to. For me to finally get my way, he had to be out of the picture. I knew that.

In all my time waiting, fantasizing, I never imagined this day. Maybe because subconsciously I didn’t want to. This had to be one of the worst moments of her life, but it was one of my best. It didn’t feel right.

I was a bastard.

I was a sadistic, selfish bastard.

I didn’t have a choice. I would have loved to give her time. By no means was I a patient man, especially when it came to her. But it didn’t matter, I would have waited - given her time to grieve her fathers’ death properly. But this was out of my hands. I hoped that one day she’d let me explain that to her.

If I didn’t act now, I’d miss my chance. Who knew how many people would be after her. Anton had a lot of enemies, all of whom would’ve been happy to force Anastasia into her fathers’ place.

The thought that she could’ve ended up somewhere else, somewhere so much worse, had my fists clenched on my thigh. Just thinking of the unspeakable things that could’ve happened to her if the wrong people got their hands on her.

In a way, she should be thankful.

Or at least, that’s what I tried to convince myself as I looked out the window.

My eyes found her again in an instant. She hadn’t moved, hadn’t cried, hadn’t even spoken from what I could tell.

I longed to be next to her, to hold her and comfort her. Tell her that I was sorry, that everything would be okay. But I doubt she would’ve believed me anyway. Not yet anyway.

I’m sorry Anastasia.

I turned away as the man started to raise the gun. I knew what was gonna happen next - that made it even harder to keep my cries quiet. I didn’t want the last image of my father to be one of a bullet going through the back of his head. The shot rang throughout the house. Then they left.

I sat there, never moving from my position under the stairs. I made sure to keep my eyes from wandering by staring at the wall, at the floor, at the painting on the wall that I had always loathed. My cheeks were a never-ending pool of wetness.

I awoke to an officer asking me a flurry of questions. It took a minute for my mind to process all the background noise. Cops flooded the house, the courtyard, even as far back as the street. Flashing lights greeted me as officer Harvey led me away from the scene inside, he sat me down on the porch steps and wrapped me in a blanket. But nothing had been enough to pull me away from last night.

Physically I may have been sat with the police outside but mentally, emotionally, I was back under the stairs. The sun started to lighten the sky, I watched as the rest of the world continued to move, the world continuing to spin…as my world seemed to be crumbling away.

The sight of my aunt, sneaking in from her boyfriends’ house, finding me there outside hours later, crushed what little was left of my soul. The way her face fell at the sight of the cops huddling together. Everything happened in slow motion. As if to torture me