My arm snakes around her waist, and I guide her through the chaos. Not towards the exit but towards a discreet, unmarked door behind the main bar. The crowd is so focused on the balcony that we move through it like ghosts. I key in a code, and the door opens into a quiet, soundproofed hallway.
I lead her to a plush, dark-wood-paneled office—Asher’s private study within the hotel—and close the door, plunging us into silence.
“Stay here,” I command, my voice softer now but no less absolute. “Don’t open the door for anyone but me.”
She just stares, her mind clearly reeling.
I turn and walk back out, closing the door on her shocked face. My mask of the grieving nephew slides perfectly into place. I stride back through the ballroom, my expression a carefully constructed portrait of shock and distress.
I return to the balcony just as David is speaking into his wrist communicator. “Paramedics are en route, sir. ETA two minutes. I’ve secured the area.”
“Good,” I say, my voice strained, letting the tremor of my recent adrenaline surge sound like grief. I kneel beside Asher’s body, my fingers going to his neck, a perfect pantomime of checking for a pulse I know is long gone. I look up at the horrified onlookers, my face a mask of tragedy.
“Someone call 911!” I shout, the performance of a lifetime begins. “My uncle… I think he’s had a heart attack!”
I am the sole heir, I am the only family. I am the one who was with him last, and I will be the one to tell them exactly what happened.
The king is dead. The coronation has begun.
Thirty Nine
Kinsley
The silence is the first thing that registers.
One moment I am a statue in a sea of screaming, the cacophony of panic a physical force against my skin. Next, I am plunged into a silence so absolute it feels like drowning. The heavy, dark-wood door clicks shut behind me, and the world disappears.
I am in a study. Asher’s study. It smells of him—of expensive leather, old books, and a faint, cloying scent of whiskey. Theroom is a cage of dark wood and darker shadows, and I am the bird trapped inside it. My heart hammers against my ribs, a frantic, panicked rhythm against the crushing quiet.
He’s gone.
The words echo in the space where West’s voice just was. Asher is dead. My mind struggles to catch up, but the sequence of events is a fractured, chaotic mess. The argument is bleeding through the glass; The sickening crack of his head against the marble, the first scream that shattered the night, the stampede of glittering bodies. It all replays in a frantic, looping reel.
My legs give out, and I sink into one of the plush leather armchairs. My other hand slides to the chain around my neck, the platinum locket a lead weight against my skin.No one can tell me I can’t have you.The childish rhyme has become a terrifying prophecy. The one person who could, the one person who would have tried, is dead on a balcony floor.
The realization hits me not like a thought, but like a physical blow. The air in my lungs vanishes. I gasp, but nothing comes in. The room, already dark and suffocating, begins to shrink as the walls close in. The screams from the ballroom finally find their echo inside my own head. Black spots dance in my vision. My heart is a wild animal trying to beat its way out of my chest, the rhythm too fast, too hard. A cold sweat breaks out across my skin and I begin to tremble, a deep, uncontrollable shudder that racks my entire body.
This is it. The storm inside me, the one I have spent my life trying to contain, is finally breaking free. I slide out of the chair, landing on my knees on the thick rug, my hands pressed to my chest as if I can physically hold myself together. I can’t breathe. The silent scream is trapped in my throat, choking me.
The door opens.
Through the black spots in my vision, I see a dark silhouette against the hallway's muted light. West. He closes the doorbehind him, plunging the room back into near-darkness. He doesn’t rush to me, he doesn’t call my name. He simply walks across the room with a calm, deliberate stride, then kneels before me.
“Kinsley.”
His voice is not gentle. It’s not a question. It’s a command—a solid, immovable object in the swirling chaos of my mind.
“Look at me.”
I can’t. My eyes are wide, unseeing, fixed on some distant point of horror. My body is still convulsing with silent, gasping sobs. I’m not afraid of him. I’m terrified of the world, of death and the chaos, and the fact that my own mind is coming apart at the seams.
He reaches out, his hands framing my face. His grip is firm, solid, and an undeniable physical anchor. He physically turns my head until my frantic eyes are forced to meet his. His eyes are dark, intense, and utterly calm. There is no pity in them. There is only focus.
“Breathe,” he commands, his voice a low, steady rumble. “You’re not breathing.”
I shake my head, a strangled sob escaping my lips. I can’t.
“Yes, you can,” he says, his grip unyielding but not painful. “You’re going to breathe with me. Now.”
