79. Kingsley
79
KINGSLEY
T he penthouse feels emptier than usual without Dante’s presence. The vast expanse of glass and steel, usually comforting in its modern elegance, now seems cold and exposed. I stand by the floor-to-ceiling windows, my arms crossed as I watch the Seattle skyline glitter against the quickly fading daylight.
Dante had left as soon as he got the information he needed, chasing down a lead about Tate. It was urgent, he’d said, and I’d insisted I’d be fine, even as my stomach twisted with unease. The memory of the black roses, their ominous card, lingered in the back of my mind like a shadow that wouldn’t fade. If he was chasing down Tate, there was no risk to me here in my own home.
I’d spent the evening trying to focus on work, but my thoughts kept wandering, my nerves on edge as I worried about Dante’s safety. Something about tonight feels wrong, though I can’t quite put my finger on what’s bothering me.
I move toward the bedroom, but a faint sound stops me in my tracks. A soft tap, like a footstep. Or someone setting something down on a table. My pulse quickens as I scan the room, my heart pounding.
“Hello?” My voice echoes in the silence.
Nothing.
Shaking my head, I scold myself for being so paranoid. But as I turn toward the hallway, a shadow moves. Before I can react, Fiona steps into view, her presence startling in its calm audacity. She wears a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, and in her hand, she holds a kitchen knife that gleams under the soft light.
“Fiona?” My voice is sharp, my shock quickly replaced by anger. “What the hell are you doing here?”
* * *
The slap Fiona deals to my face just about knocks the wind out of me.There’s a deranged look in her eyes as she moves towards me. She tilts her head, her gaze flicking over me as she assesses her next move. “You always did like to act superior, didn’t you? Like you’re untouchable.”
“How did you get in?” I demand, sliding back against the tiles as I try to put distance between us.
Fiona’s smile widens, the knife twirling in her hand, like a dance she’s practised to death. “Let’s just say the help isn’t as loyal as you’d think.”
Realization dawns on me. We deactivated her swipe card. Yet she’s here. In my penthouse. Why? How? “You’ve lost your mind.”
Fiona’s laughter is low and bitter. “No, Kingsley. I’ve found clarity. I’ve spent years in the shadows, waiting to claim what should’ve been mine. The name, the money, the life. Then you came in and paraded around like some perfect little princess while I was cast aside.”
My breath catches. “What are you talking about?”
“You don’t even know, do you?” Fiona steps closer, her voice trembling with rage. “I’m your father’s little secret, Kingsley. Cast aside. Unwanted. Ignored. He gave you everything and left me with nothing.”
The words hit me like a slap. My mind races, trying to process the accusation. My father had been a lot of things, but this? It couldn’t be true. He would never neglect one of his own.
“You’re delusional,” I tell her, my voice steady despite the fear tightening my chest. “If you think breaking in here and threatening me will get you anything, you’re wrong. This is not the way.”
Fiona’s eyes darken. “I’m not here to ask. I’m here to take … what’s mine.”
She lunges, the knife slicing through the air. I barely dodge out of the way, rolling against the tiles as I try to avoid her. I grab a heavy glass vase from the side table. I throw it with all my strength, the shattering impact sending shards flying as Fiona staggers but doesn’t fall.
I use the moment to scramble to my feet, stumbling past her to get to the front door; it’s my best bet as I try to save myself. All I can think about is Dante; if I die here today, I will never see him again. And that is a thought I just can’t stomach.
“You’re not as tough as you think,” Fiona hisses, her movements quick and deliberate as she comes at me again. She grabs my foot and pulls; I fall flat on my face before she slides me back into the room, further away from the front door and my one and only escape.
She turns me over and straddles me; I fight back with everything I have as I struggle against her. Fiona’s strength is fueled by her rage as she lifts the knife in the air with two hands and prepares to drive it into my chest. I grab at the knife, holding it back, and the blade cuts deep into my palm. Adrenaline courses through me. It’s me or her. And I refuse to have come this far only to let her destroy me.
But Fiona is determined, her fury unmatched. A sharp pain tears through my side as Fiona finally frees the knife from my hand and drives it into my torso. I cry out, the searing heat of the wound threatening to overwhelm me as pain lances through me. I writhe; Fiona topples to her side as she struggles to remove the knife to drive it into me again. The knife is so deeply embedded that it’s stuck; I tremble, clutching my side as blood seeps between my fingers.
Fiona looms over me, a triumphant smile on her face. “You’ll never understand, will you? What it’s like to be invisible while someone else lives the life you should’ve had.”
My vision blurs, but I refuse to give in, even as I feel the last ounce of hope leaving me. Summoning the last of my strength, I grab a shard of broken glass from the floor and swing it upward. The makeshift weapon slashes across Fiona’s leg, drawing a scream as she stumbles back.
I don’t hesitate. I tackle her, using my momentum to pin her to the floor. “You’re insane,” I hiss, my voice shaking. “Whatever you think you’re owed, it’s not here. It was never here.”
“I’m going to kill you!” she hisses, as she tries to buck me off her. I have no doubt that she means it. My strength is slowly fading as nausea starts to take over me. I’m bleeding out like a tap, and the knife is still stuck in my side. I have a fifty-fifty chance here, but not if I lose consciousness and she gets to finish the job she started.
I grab another shard of glass, my body swaying against hers as I lift my arm above my head, ready to drop it once again.
Fiona struggles beneath me, her eyes wild. “It’s mine! It’s all mine! He told me!”
“Who told you, Fiona? Who?”
“My father,” she whispers, right before I drop my arm and drive the shard of glass through her neck.
* * *
My recovery is slow. It’s excruciatingly painful. It takes me weeks to even be able to get up and walk about without assistance. But finally I’m on the road to recovery, with Dante right by my side.
Fiona’s dead. From what we were able to piece together about her life, she was Tate’s daughter. Whether biological or not, he somehow made her believe that she was actually my father’s daughter, banished and cast aside because she was born out of wedlock, the rightful heir to the Murray empire. It seemed like that was Tate’s Plan B. If he was unable to get to me, the obvious next step would be to pass her off as Kingsley Murray. I don’t know how long he’d been planning and scheming, nor how his plan had devolved over time, but I can only imagine that no-one knowing who Kingsley Murray is or what ‘he’ looks like would have only helped him in his cause.
There’s been no trace of Tate, and he didn’t claim Fiona’s body, so it’s anyone’s guess where he is and when he’ll strike again.
* * *
My hands look clean. But they’re not. Beneath the soap and water, beneath the illusion of normalcy, they’re slick with blood—blood I can never wash away. My first kill. A milestone in this world of shadows and whispered threats. I tell myself it will be my last, but the lie rings hollow in my ears. In our world, nothing is certain, except that there’s always someone waiting in the dark to test your resolve.
This life isn’t something you ease into. It grabs you by the throat and drags you under, suffocating you with its rules and rituals. The first lesson you learn? Trust no one. Everyone wears a mask. Allies can become enemies overnight, and enemies might one day save your life. You walk a tightrope every day, balancing loyalty and survival, knowing one wrong move could send you plummeting into the abyss.
My initiation is brutal. It comes at the expense of taking another human’s life. But make no mistake, it was either her or me. One of us was going to die that day. I just didn’t choose it to be me.
With this, I’ve developed a second skin, one that’s impervious to fear, doubt, and pain. And yet, beneath my hardened exterior, I’m still human, still haunted by the things I’ve done and the things I know I’ll have to do.
This life doesn’t just change you; it consumes you. It seeps into your soul, turning every decision into a gamble, every relationship into a potential liability. You start to question who you are, who you’ve become. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. In this world, survival trumps identity. And survival demands sacrifice.
This is what I tell myself every night before I go to sleep. Even as Dante wraps his body around mine, cocooning me in his protection, careful not to lean into my healing wound, a guard dog intent on never letting me out of his sight again.
We’ve been inseparable since Fiona crashed into my home and made a mess of things. Mainly, my floor as her blood soaked into the marble tiles. I can never look at those tiles again and not remember what happened, so I’ve moved into Dante’s place while mine is getting retiled. Then I plan to lease it out. It doesn’t make sense for a couple that’s soon to be married to be residing in two different places.
The companies, too. We’re consolidating everything and merging our empires to form a dynasty. One that I know will take us to new heights. One that we can run together, creating a legacy for generations to come.
* * *
“Where to?” I ask, like an excited school girl when Dante suggests we go for a drive. Things have been relatively quiet in the weeks after Fiona attacked me. There have been no more threats, no more roses, and no indication that Tate is still in the country. Of course, I don’t miss the security that’s been ramped up in the lead up to our wedding, but I guess that’s what happens when you run a multi-billion dollar industry. Dante’s not taking any chances when it comes to our family’s safety, and I don’t blame him.
Dante is tight-lipped as we make our way to the underground garage. He opens the door and steps aside for me to walk through. He pushes his hand to the small of my back and guides me to the lift, shooting a spark of electricity through my bones. His touch alone is enough to undo me each and every time his hand makes contact with my body.
We drive out of the city in the Maserati and head towards the Cascade Mountains. Dante decides to ditch the security detail in favor of a few hours of sanity, and I’ve never felt as free as I do in this moment, sitting beside him, shutting out the rest of the world as we fly through the streets unhindered.
The work to repair the damage done to Dante’s home when Tate’s men broke in is done and Dante’s eager to show me the finished product. He promises the house looks nothing like it did before, and my excitement matches his as we speed through the countryside on the way to the estate.
“I thought you said you were going to burn the house down to the ground,” I remind him.
He shakes his head. “I could never do that.” His gaze moves from the road to settle on me as we wind down the gravel road that leads to the house. “It’s the house where I spent my first few years with my mother before she passed. It’s the home where all my memories reside.”
“The house where we’ll make many more memories?” I ask. I’d like nothing better than to move away from the city and into the house that started my love affair with Dante Accardi.
“You never did tell me whose room you put me in.”
“That room belonged to my brother Rollo,” he says, and I’m momentarily stunned into silence. Dante never speaks of Rollo. I never even knew he had a brother until I read the letter my father left in his will.
“You never mentioned him,” I whisper, my eyes never wavering from him. Even when we drive up to the house and he switches off the motor, I make no move to exit the car, so engrossed am I in watching every little emotion on his face.
“It’s not easy for me to talk about him.” Dante stares through the windscreen, but his mind is trapped somewhere in a past he cannot let go of. And even though he says he doesn’t like to talk about it, I feel like I have to talk to him about this. I want to know, need to know. With every fiber of my being, I need to know each and every event that’s shaped his life and made him who he is today. How can I not?
“He was older?” I ask him. He nods, swallowing past a lump in his throat as he tells me that Rollo had been four years older than him. He exits the car and comes around to my side, opens the door and holds out his hand to me.
“Come on,” he smiles, and I’m disarmed by his beauty as I stare up at him, watching him push his hair back off his forehead. It doesn’t matter how hard he tries to style his hair back, it somehow always seems to make its way across his forehead to fall in a jagged streak over one eye.
He holds my hand as we make our way up the wide stairs and he nods at the guards at the front door. He’s made some major changes to the house. So much so that you would not think it was the same house that had been standing here a mere few months ago. The changes start with the huge entryway door, which has been replaced by double doors in black steel with a keypad on a side wall. It’s modern and sleek and beautiful, and it tells me Dante has gone to extreme measures to ensure this fortress will not be infiltrated ever again. He reaches up and scans his palm to the system, then enters keys in a selection of numbers, before the doors swing open and we’re standing in the foyer.
“My God,” I breathe, a hand flying to my neck in surprise. He’s totally overhauled the foyer. From the stairs going up to the first floor, down to the balustrades. A huge chandelier drops down into the foyer, flowing fragmented light on every surface. Everything about the house seems to have changed, down to the tiles, and I’m amazed at the sheer volume of work that’s been done in so little time.
I take a few steps into the foyer, circling my own shadow as I wonder where to look. The house looks immaculate, with no visible remnants of the horror that once took place here.
“We can hire staff once we’re ready to move in,” Dante says, his hands in his pockets as he walks towards me. “That is, if you want to live here.”
“What about Seattle?” I ask him. Even though I’d love nothing better than to move here, we’re both based in the city. How will moving a two hour drive to the countryside benefit either of our businesses? Dante gives me a lavish smile that melts my heart.
“What about it?” he asks, like he has not a care in the world. “We can work from anywhere we wish to do so. And if we do need to go into the city, the helicopter’s always on standby,” he informs me.
I open my mouth to ask a question, then smack it shut, realizing there is nothing I could ask that hasn’t already been thought of.
“Let me show you upstairs.” We make our way up the winding staircase, Dante gripping my hand as he pulls me along with him. My eyes are flicking every which way trying to take in the changes in the decor, and I’m mesmerized by what he’s created.
He leads me to his room, opens the door and waits for me to enter. Everything about it has changed. Every little corner has been re-designed to accommodate even the most discerning eye. The room has been done in beiges and different hues of brown with gold undertones. The ceiling has been turned into a mosaic of light wooden tiles and beams that mesmerize and lend the room a light, airy vibe. There is a huge industrial print hanging on the wall behind the super sized bed, and all I can think of is blissful tranquility. There is a bench at the base of the bed and a sitting area off to one side of the room. I can see the ensuite and walk in on the other end of the room, and I can tell he’s knocked out a couple of walls to make the space larger than it had previously been. It’s become a self-sufficient suite with everything one could ever need.
“This will be our room,” he breathes, his soulful eyes devouring me whole. “You can change anything you like.”
“I love it.” I’m breathless. I’m shattered. I’m bedazzled. Everything he’s done is perfect, and I couldn’t have done a better job.
He walks me to what used to be my room, and opens the room to a flood of light and warmth and color. He’s stripped the whole room and converted it into a nursery. Even though we haven’t discussed children, I know we both want them, and I love that he was thoughtful enough to prepare for this eventuality. On one wall, there’s a huge mural of a jungle with various animals peeking out from behind the foliage. It is the most amazing artwork, and I can’t stop looking at it.
“I thought we could furnish it together when the time comes,” he tells me, and I love that he wants us to do that together.
“We can,” I agree, reaching up on my tip toes and placing a chaste kiss on his forehead.
His arms come around my waist and he pulls me to him, inhaling deeply as he clings to me, his hands sliding down my back.
“This was Rollo’s room.” He tucks me under his chin. “They ruined this room for me when they took you. Rollo would be happy that we’ll be filling this room with new memories.”