Ruthless Empire (Royal Elite, #6)

by Rina Kent

It was a silent type of chaos. You can hear it in your head, but you can’t see it with your eyes or feel it with your skin.

Chaos is the only thing that makes me stop and stare. It’s a pause button to my brain.

After I met Chaos, I stopped crying, amongst other habits like wondering why Mum and I were stuck with him, or if I’d done something wrong by being born.

Chaos taught me many things, and the most important of all is: you have to start it yourself.

And I mean, all of her. The porcelain skin, the baby blue eyes, the golden hair, and the pink dress with ribbons and tulle. It’s like she was made for me. She was. My own doll. My special doll.

But who I hate the most is Cole. He offered me his hand to help me up and then he pulled on my ponytail and said, “Go cry in the park.”

I hate that he knows how important this place is to me. He’s been using it to taunt me every chance he gets. Sometimes, he follows me here just to make fun of me. He doesn’t do it in front of the others because everyone believes Cole is a good boy. They think Aiden is slightly mischievous and Xander is the bad boy, but they don’t

know that Cole is a first-cl...

Cole didn’t cry at his father’s funeral. He doesn’t cry in general, but I thought he would that day.

I pushed Kimberly away because if I hadn’t, Mum would’ve hurt her in some way. Mum’s too direct and doesn’t think twice before saying truths — no matter how ugly they are. She doesn’t care about who she crushes on her way to success. She doesn’t stop to think about the consequences for other people. She simply doesn’t feel like the rest of us do.

It’s certainly not because of her arsehole son. I hate Cole Nash.

They don’t know that everything is a game to Cole. If he compliments someone or acts nice to them, it’s usually because of a dare he has with Aiden on who gets whose favour.

Aiden likes playing the king who comes out a winner, but Cole strives to be the player who controls not only the king but also every piece on the board.

We mostly avoid each other. The more I see his true self, the more he sees mine. I hate that.

I’m Sebastian Queens and Cynthia Davis’s daughter and I’m as tenacious as my parents. No one gets past me. No one.

“You look beautiful, Helen,” I tell her as we mix up eggs with butter. Her warm smile makes an appearance. “I do?” “Of course you do. If you go out there, you’ll come back with ten men.”

Cole. Cole becomes my brother.

“You’re not bad compared to the others,” he says. The others. Plural? My eyes snap open and I shove him away with a force I didn’t know I possessed. “Don’t you ever touch me again.” I storm out of the room with tears in my eyes. I hate Cole Nash. I despise him.

I still don’t like Silver Queens. And not because she acts like a bitch to everyone at school, but because she’s not actually a bitch. She’ll go out of her way to snitch to the principal on anyone who bullies Kimberly, but she won’t talk to her. She’ll even hurt her if she feels her ex-best friend, Kim, might get close to her.

Silver Queens is the most popular girl at school. A piano prodigy. The school’s queen B. And fake. She’s so fake, I can taste the bitterness of it on my tongue.

“You can go to hell,” she tells me as Aiden steps to her side.

The moment the door closes behind her and Aiden, something inside me slams shut too.

So what if he has sex? I don’t care. Why should I care? Cole can go to hell for all I care.

“What do you want, Aiden?” I grit out through my teeth. “If this is some sort of game between you two, I’m not playing. I’m not a pawn on either of your chessboards. I’m a queen on mine.”

I used to be fine watching from the sidelines, being proud of my creation and of how she was turning out. I liked the fact I knew about her and she didn’t know about me. Isn’t invisibility a wonderful thing? I’d played it before when I hid from my father. All I had to do was look at my doll and pretend he wasn’t there.

Every one of those times, Cole has found me in that park. It’s like he hunts me down just so he can catch me crying. He sits beside me in silence, mostly reading from a book, and that’s enough to make me stop crying. It’s enough for my tears to turn to hiccoughs before they eventually disappear.

His hair is tousled. Sometimes, I wonder if he bothers to comb it after showers. His physique has started to fill Royal Elite Junior’s uniform. Even the hollow of his neck has become muscled. His shoulders have broadened, his legs have lengthened, and in no time, he’s become way taller than me. He’s so different from the boy who sat beside me that day at the park. The boy who saw me cry and was about to leave until I made him stay.

If he wants a war, then war is what he’ll get.

I’ve had my suspicions since that night when I stopped crying once and for all, but lately, I’ve been noticing the abnormality more than usual. I’ve been reading books about deviant behaviour and thoughts. The thing is, those theories don’t really apply to me.

The answer to the latter is no. I don’t care about people enough to want to hurt them.

Besides, I love my mum. In my own way. She’s the reason I still believe there could be something else for me.

Chaos is still one of my secret tende...

Ronan says I’m addicted to books and I should seek therapy, but fuck him. He’s only literate because his father is an earl. No kidding, he’s the type who’d say, ‘How do you read this shit? There are no pictures in it.’

Reading is one of my defence mechanisms to not get caught up in the world. The world makes me think of worldly things,

like that night, and I hate ...

Silver wrote in her journal about it. Cole saw me cry today. He didn’t hug me as Xander does to Kimberly whenever she cries. He wanted to leave, the tosser. But he told me divorces happen and that Papa and Mummy will probably be happier apart. I hate that. Cole also told me his secret. He wants to be my first. I told him, I’ll only do that if I’m his first too. Otherwise it’s not fair. Papa says to always negotiate so it’s fair. And now, Papa and Mummy won’t be together anymore. I can’t stop crying. Why did they get married if they don’t want to be together? Why did they give birth to me?

And yes, I recall every entry I read. I usually memorise anything by reading it once. I took special care of her journal. Now all her words, her vents, and her confusions and fake personality are integrated into my head.

She’s fucking chaos.

Cole has mastered the art of lies so well, he can even manage to convince you that the truth might also be a lie.

“That’s because you didn’t keep your promise. If you didn’t save me your firsts, why should I save you mine?” That need

to cry hits me again and I lower my head. “It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s too late now. It’s —”

As soon as I release a breath, Cole lifts the two fingers that were inside me to his lips and sucks them into his mouth in one go, not breaking eye contact with me.

“Remember. You said anything, Butterfly.” “Anything but this.” “You should’ve specified it then. You made a mistake and now I want you to suck yourself off my fingers.”

You can run, but you can’t hide. I didn’t believe in that saying until this moment.

Cole sits on the edge of Papa’s conference table, reading from a book titled The Rule of Law by Tom Bingham.

His chestnut hair that has darkened over the years is styled back, showcasing his forehead and the sharp lines of his face. His green eyes fall on me as his lean fingers hold the book — fingers that were inside me a few weeks ago. Fingers that brought me to a height I’ve never experienced. Fingers that —

He remains silent for a beat too long, watching me in that unnerving, quiet way that makes me want to snap out of my skin or hide underneath the carpet.

Cole has always had that effect on me. I’ve denied it, I’ve run away from it, but it doesn’t disappear.

“C-Cole…” It’s supposed to be a protest, but it comes out as a messy, lustful moan.

“Say it again.” He skims his lean hand over my naked back before he stops at the middle, easily pinning me against the surface. “My name with a moan.”