Ruthless Empire (Royal Elite, #6)

by Rina Kent

One moment you’re there, in the middle of your happiest moments, and the next, everything ends.

Since Helen turned out to be a psychopath who had an obsession with me. Who hurt other women so she wouldn’t hurt me. Who wrote books so she wouldn’t kill the other women as much as she wanted to.

A part of me died that day. The part that believed in Helen. The part who loved her and felt sorry for her.

I took my first breath of resurrection the moment after she died. A death for a life.

It’s the fact that I didn’t see Cole after that day.

The fact that he’s not answering my calls or talking to me.

The fact that he told me through Papa that he’s moving out until he ha...

The fact that he didn’t let me console him or b...

Even during Helen’s funeral, he nodded at us, accepted my parents’ condolences, and spent the entire ...

Papa wanted Helen exposed, but Frederic and Mum talked him out of it. He’ll have no chance to stay in politics if he does that.

If he’s known to have been married to a psycho, a serial attacker who threatened his daughter’s life under his own roof, he’ll be shunned forever and our lives will turn into hell.

“And I’ll pretend to console you,” Mum said. “Then everyone will say I suit you better than that bitch who, by the way, I said was a psycho. I can’t believe she hurt my baby.”

She hugged me to death then. Mum has been hugging me every night and has practically moved back in with us.

I stop when I make out his tense back. He appears melancholic, his shoulders drooping underneath his jacket. He’s standing in front of the pool, only, it’s empty now. No blood water or any water.

I tried asking Aiden how Cole was doing, but that bastard wouldn’t give out any information and I’m too exhausted to plot anything to force him.

“You told me to go home. You’re my home, Cole.”

“I’m not your home. I’m the son of the woman who almost fucking killed you.”

“Maybe I am. I’ve lived my entire life thinking I inherited the fucked-up genes from my father, but it turns out, they were from...

“Because you shared my loss. You called it our loss, Cole, remember? You told me my pain is yours. You’ll never be her, because you care. In your own way, you care.”

The fact he’s not his parents. He never will be. I know that for a fact.

“And I’m your chaos.” I smile through the tears pricking my eyes. “So you can’t leave me alone or I’ll haunt you.”

“Because I love you, Cole. I’ve been in love with you since you found me in the park that day and pulled my hair and told me you wanted my firsts. I’ve loved you more through the years, and I hated every time I had to face the reality that I couldn’t be with you.”

“That was my way of saying I love you.”

He taps my nose. “You’re so weird.”

“Not more than you. You’ve been a dick to me f...

“That’s because I wanted you to stay interested in me. To never get tired of me. I beat you in everything just to see that fire in your eyes as you challenged me for a rema...

“Really. I might have been in love with you for as long as you’ve been in love with me.”

“Does that mean you’re mine now?” “I always have been.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” I whisper-yell as Cole leans against the bathroom’s door and clicks it closed behind him. “This is the ladies’ room.” “I know.”

With every passing day, I fall harder and faster into him. With every day, he becomes my everything.

I can’t be with him officially. At least, not yet. Papa won the election and became the prime minister, then remarried Mum a year after Helen’s death.

We’re bigger than the world, he and I. They’re not ready for us.

I’d be lying if I said this was our first time violating public indecency codes. Cole doesn’t show it, but he’s the adventurous type. He doesn’t stop when he wants something done — that something being me.

“I’ve only loved you. Just you. You’re my first and last.”

Fall into him. Fall into us.

“I love you.”

“And I love you.” He kisses my nose as I stand to my unsteady feet, stupid gravity pulling me down.

We’re kinky, we’re dorks, we’re nerds. Or, rather, Cole is. We’re in love. We’re happy.

“You’ll marry me, right?”

“Is this because everyone else is getting married?”

“Fuck everyone else. I’m asking you

“Oh, Cole.” I spin around and face him. “Of course, I’ll marry you. You’re the only one for me.”

“The only one, huh?” “The only one.”

Cole is still low-key mad at Aiden for the three years I was engaged to him, and he seizes every chance to take revenge.

just glad he finally put Helen behind him. We both did. Now, we only focus on us.

When he demanded my firsts, I saved them for him. In return, he saved me his. We’re each other’s everything.

“One day, I’ll shout at the top of the world th...

“And you’re mine, Silver, always...

Ten years. It took me ten fucking years to finally shout to the world that Silver is mine.

We had to wait until Sebastian got out of office and then give the world time to forget before I could marry her.