Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Evangeline
Three steps to the window. Four steps back to the bed. Five steps to the bathroom door.
I'd been pacing my royal suite for hours, wearing an invisible path in the plush carpet. Outside my window, camera flashes, like lightning, punctuated the darkness as journalists and photographers all clamored for a statement or a glimpse to feed the frenzy.
Viktor Kozlov. My husband. My nightmare.
The marriage had been my mother's solution to the scandal five years ago—arranged hastily six months after the initial incident, a private ceremony with only the palace chaplain and two witnesses present.
"A Russian businessman with excellent connections," she'd said. "This union will make people forget the photographs. It will save your reputation."
What it had done was save the palace's reputation. And it had cost me everything.
Within weeks of the ceremony, Viktor had shown his true nature—controlling, manipulative, cruel—a man accustomed to ownership rather than partnership.
Viktor placed the bruises carefully, ensuring clothes hid them.
The emotional wounds cut deeper still. The marriage lasted only three months before the palace lawyers secured an annulment, burying the records so thoroughly that even most of the royal staff never knew it had happened.
By then, I was a shell of myself, hollowed out by fear and shame.
And then, three years ago, Viktor had simply vanished. No demands for money, no threats of exposure, nothing. Until the death threats started coming to the palace, and the dead kitten had appeared at my door with its ominous note.
Now Viktor was dead, his body found bloated and pale in the river that ran through our capital.
The police had ruled it suspicious circumstances—Viktor didn't simply fall into that river.
Someone had put him there. But the investigation had stalled, with no clear suspects and no obvious motive beyond his known criminal associations.
The timing felt deliberate, though. His body surfacing just as my life was stabilising, just as I was finally finding happiness.
Someone wanted me to remember, wanted me afraid.
And the truth—about our marriage, about what had happened five years ago—was threatening to spill out like blood from a wound.
I stopped at the window, peering through a gap in the heavy curtains.
The media presence had only grown since morning.
Palace security had cordoned off the main gates, but enterprising photographers had found vantage points in nearby buildings and trees.
One particularly persistent reporter tried to scale the garden wall before being apprehended.
My phone lay silent on the nightstand. I hadn't heard from James since he'd left for London a week ago. Not that I expected to. We'd agreed to one night, no strings attached. I'd known he would return to his life, and I to mine.
Except my life had just imploded spectacularly.
A soft knock on my door startled me, breaking the silence in my gilded prison.
"Your Highness?" It was Dara's voice. "You're needed in the Queen's study. Immediately."
Something in her tone sent ice through my veins. This wasn't about Viktor or the press. This was something else.
"I'll be right there," I called, quickly checking my appearance in the mirror. My eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep, my skin pale. I pinched my cheeks to bring some colour back, smoothed my hair, and straightened my shoulders.
Royal posture. Royal composure. They drilled the lessons into me repeatedly since my childhood.
Walking to my mother's study felt longer than usual, the palace corridors stretching endlessly before me. When I finally arrived, the uniformed guards at the door exchanged glances before allowing me entry—a subtle interaction that heightened my dread.
Inside, I found chaos.
My mother, the ever-composed Queen Sophia, was sobbing openly, her face buried in her hands. The Prime Minister stood to one side, ashen-faced, while several royal advisors spoke in hushed tones by the fireplace. Roger Halliwell hovered uncertainly near the door, looking entirely out of his depth.
"Mother?" I approached hesitantly. "What's happened?"
When she lifted her face, the devastation I saw there stopped me cold. Grief had drowned her eyes, which were so like my own.
"Alexandra," she managed, her voice breaking on my sister's name. "There's been an accident."
The world seemed to slow down, and sounds became muffled, as if I were underwater. I felt myself sink onto the sofa beside my mother, though I had no memory of moving.
"What kind of accident?" I heard myself ask.
The Prime Minister stepped forward, his expression grave.
"Her car veered off the road in the Alps while she was travelling back to university in Switzerland.
There had been black-ice on the mountain pass.
" He paused, swallowing hard. "I am so deeply sorry, Your Highness. Princess Alexandra did not survive."
There must have been more words after that, but I didn't hear them. A strange numbness spread through me, a protective fog that kept the reality at bay. Alexandra couldn't be dead. My perfect, poised, responsible older sister. The heir. The future queen.
I was physically struck by the truth: Alexandra was gone, and that meant—
Confirming my realisation, one advisor said, "the succession falls to you now, Evangeline. You will receive the crown after the appropriate mourning period."
Queen.
The word echoed in my mind, bringing with it the weight of a thousand expectations I'd never prepared for.
Alexandra had been groomed for this role since birth—etiquette lessons, political briefings, diplomatic training.
I'd been the spare, allowed to dream of veterinary clinics and a life beyond palace walls.
Now those dreams felt as dead as my sister, buried beneath the crushing reality of duty I could never escape.
My mother's sobs grew louder, her entire body shaking with grief. I should have comforted her, should have found words of strength or solace. Instead, I found myself frozen, unable to process the collision of these two cataclysmic events—Viktor's death and now Alexandra's.
Roger stepped forward, placing an awkward hand on my shoulder. "Your Highness, perhaps you should return to your room. Rest. This is a lot to take in."
His touch, meant to be comforting, felt intrusive. Wrong. I shrugged away from him, rising to my feet with mechanical precision.
"I need air," I said, my voice sounding distant to my own ears.
"Princess, I don't think that's wise with the press—" Roger began, but I was already moving toward the door.
"Let her go," I heard Dara say quietly. "Give her space."
As I passed, I caught Dara's eye, recognising the sympathy in her gaze.
She understood, perhaps better than anyone, what this meant.
Not just the loss of my sister, but the irrevocable change to my entire future.
No more university, no more veterinary dreams, no more freedom—however limited it had been.
From this moment forward, I was the Crown Princess, the heir apparent, the future Queen of Bellavista.
My steps quickened as I left the study, breaking into a run once I reached the main corridor.
I didn't care who saw me, didn't care about royal decorum or propriety.
I needed to escape the suffocating walls of the palace, the weight of expectation and duty that had just become a thousandfold heavier.
When I burst outside, the frigid December air hit me like a slap, but I welcomed the shock. Darkness had fallen completely now, the palace grounds illuminated only by security lights. I ran blindly, my only thought being to get away, to find somewhere I could breathe.
My feet instinctively carried me to the stables—where I'd always found solace, and more recently, where I'd found James. Where we'd begun, whatever this thing between us was.
The stable was warm and quiet; the horses shifting in their stalls at my sudden entrance. I walked past them to the empty stall at the end, where they had kept Brutus before moving him to the royal winter pastures. No one would look for me here.
The grief I'd been holding at bay finally crashed over me, a tsunami of emotion that brought me to my knees in the clean straw.
I pressed my fist against my mouth, trying to stifle the scream building in my chest. But it was too much—Viktor, Alexandra, the crown, James's absence—a perfect storm of loss, fear, and overwhelming responsibility.
The scream tore from my throat, raw and primal and filled with all the pain I couldn't put into words.
But one scream wasn't enough. Another followed, then another, each one ripping through me like a physical wound.
Screaming, I knew Alexandra would never laugh at my terrible jokes again.
I screamed because someone stole the future from both of us—her life and my freedom.
For the little girl who dreamed of saving animals, I screamed instead of ruling a kingdom.
My hands clawed at the straw beneath me, desperate for something solid to hold on to as my world spun apart.
The stable walls seemed to close in, the weight of the crown I'd never wanted pressing down on my chest until I couldn't breathe.
Queen. The word felt like a death sentence.
I wasn't Alexandra—I didn't have her grace, natural authority, or unshakeable sense of duty.
I was the spare, the backup plan, the daughter who'd caused nothing but scandal and heartache.
And Viktor—even in death, he was still destroying my life. His ghost would follow me to the throne, his secrets a constant threat hanging over my reign. Could I rule a kingdom while my past provided ammunition against me? How could I protect my people when I couldn't even protect myself?