Chapter 22 #2
The pain and grief of my parents being strangers to me overwhelmed me and I found myself sitting on an ottoman in their living room. When I realized it was different than the last time I’d been in there, it took everything I had not to stand and kicked it away.
“Get it out now and let’s go fly,” Iris pushed.
She didn’t mean to break things. She meant take it all in and process all the changes I didn’t know about because my parents never wanted me around. She was saying to take the time I needed this once.
I snorted. This wasn’t going to be a one-time meltdown. Not even close.
People were more complicated than dragons like that.
I went to my mother’s huge closet and looked through the gowns and outfits I knew from social media—from pictures. My father’s suits and ties that I recognized even if sometimes they all looked the same.
The media commented on just about everything the royal family did, so even the ties were picked on sometimes. Silly, but right then it was painful. Not one looked familiar from when I’d been with them.
It felt intrusive to go through drawers and snoop around, but… That was what kids did, right? They were curious and wanted to try on their parents’ stuff or see their rooms?
“Funny how I get to now that you’re dead,” I whispered as I turned away from Mother’s nightstand.
I ended up in the study off the living room, impressed that Father had upgraded to have so many monitors on the computer there. He had three different mounted TVs for conference calls or—I’d known that from the video calls we had.
It was the only way I saw my parents most times.
I sighed and sat at the desk, not even being nosy now.
I needed to see what was on the computer since there was probably a lot more hidden than the one vault in his main study.
I frowned, this computer wasn’t on his private network.
I already had access to that and I knew where those were located.
They looped in with security and… This wasn’t listed.
It made sense actually to have some devices separate and hidden in case the castle was hacked.
But this meant I didn’t have the password or couldn’t call in the tech guy to get me in. No, that wouldn’t be smart.
I turned it on and it asked for a pin with **** listed. So four numbers.
Frowning as I put in his birthday, glad he wasn’t that silly. Then I put in Mother’s and it didn’t work either. I tried a few more ideas of dates I knew were important to him. I winced when it warned me I only had one more attempt before the hard drive was locked.
I snickered as I typed in my birthday. Yeah, the father who couldn’t seem to stand his own child would use that for a password.
Apparently, he did.
No, it’s not sentimental. It’s so you can always open it. Don’t fool yourself no matter the theories or ideas now.
I took in a deep breath and slowly let it out before opening the main file folders. Then I decided to check what he’d looked at lately. It was mostly basic things one would think a king should focus on. Requests and updates from Alphas. Plans for certain regions or even disaster relief responses.
I was about to close it all with a note to make a master copy just to be safe when one file caught my eye.
And then my heart was beating in my ears.
There was a file “Kole Conley – PI Results.”
It honestly wasn’t that he had Kole investigated. It would honestly be stupid if he didn’t when I was the heir of Thovudin.
It was that he’d done it and not told me and there were results.
And apparently over two hundred gigabytes of results. The folder was massive.
“I’m really sure I’m going to let Myriam win after this,” I whispered. She’d complained that she couldn’t get her favorite wine here since the country didn’t trade with Thovudin… But she could.
And I loved that wine as well. It was extraordinary.
I opened the main folder and then couldn’t seem to process all the files inside. Most were dates though. I decided to pick the oldest one which was over two years ago—a year or two into my dating Kole. I frowned.
Have I actually been with him almost four years?
Time really did fly, but also we barely saw each other. He rarely made the effort and… I didn’t truly care if he did. He more gave me cover from other men pursuing me than anything else.
Yes, that was horrible of me to admit, but apparently if I’d known him better, this relationship would have ended years ago.
I wish it had.
The next round of shock in all of this was what was inside the folder.
Namely, pictures and videos. After realizing that it was a blur of clicking to open them all—watching
“I’m done,” I whispered as I sat back in the chair. “I’m so fucking done with all of this.”
With caring about Father.
With Kole.
With being patient and a proper royal.
All. Of. It.
I found a blank thumb drive and copied enough to give me what I needed before locking the computer and leaving. The guards flinched when I left the suite with steam practically coming out of my ears, but they were wise enough to leave it alone.
My anger only increased when Kole wasn’t in his room and no one seemed to know where he was.
“He shouldn’t even be here still,” I hissed under my breath. Then I asked for Lydia, one of the few female guards and the one who had been honest with me about everything the night of my parents’ funeral.
Oddly enough, it turned out she was looking for me.
“It’s not my place but—” she started to say.
“Spill,” I bit out, trying to control myself and remember none of this was her fault.
“He was headed towards the solarium, but he… Something was off,” she told me. “Every hair on the back of my neck stood up when I saw him glance around. It reminded me of a crap movie where an idiot immediately gets caught stealing something.”
The audacity of him doing something illegal or immoral in my castle after saying I couldn’t end things with him was… Apparently right in his character from everything Father’s private investigator had found.
“Tell Benson you’re promoted to my detail. I want someone on it who I actually trust and pays attention,” I said firmly before turning and heading the way I needed to.
Which of course wasn’t the right way. She cleared her throat and I spun the other direction.
“I really need to learn my own castle,” I seethed quietly, not caring she could hear me.
Seriously, I did though.
Then again, I was pretty sure a lot of people could have made the same mistake in such a massive place when that upset. Maybe?
The solarium wouldn’t have many cameras, probably because it was so open and all glass. All the plants in there would also block too much. It was maybe technically an arboretum or—who cared. It didn’t matter right then.
It was a perfect place to do something he shouldn’t.
I just didn’t guess what he’d have the gall to do in my castle.
Or who, to be more accurate.
I heard noises as I got closer, but it wasn’t until I slipped inside the far end that I understood what it was.
Moaning.
I pulled out my phone and started recording, holding it by my hip so it wasn’t obvious, more like I was about to use my flashlight. There was enough light from the security ones outside, so it was far from pitch black.
“Fuck, this is what I needed,” Kole grunted as I came around a tree… To find him fucking Elira.
She lifted her head to answer him, bent over the table where my mother had had tea parties and entertained at. Her gaze landed on me and she smirked. “She doesn’t give you this?”
He snorted. “Never. She’d never let me bend her over like this.”
She let out a pornish moan. “She doesn’t understand you’re Alpha and need to dominate. You need someone to submit to you.”
He chuffed and screwed her harder. “I do. Fuck, I do. Fuck, you feel so good. You make this place bearable, Elira. Fuck, gonna come.”
“Do it. Own me like she won’t let you, Kole,” she encouraged, mocking me with her expression. “Give me everything she won’t let you give her.”
“She will. Soon she will too. I’ll make her.”
I wasn’t letting them finish and this go on, smiling widely when Elira opened her mouth again… And raising my phone so she saw what I was doing.
“No, that will never happen,” I chuckled darkly.
Kole’s head shot up and he tried to detach from Elira. “Sagan? This isn’t what it looks like.”
“Oh yeah, you tripped and fell into her?” I asked.
“I was never stupid, Kole. I just didn’t care enough about you to pay much attention.
” I gestured to what was going on. “I already ended things, so do her all you want after you take her home with you. Get out of my castle now—both of you—or I won’t simply send this to Vex and Onyx, but the media. ”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Kole growled. “No, we’re not—”
I held up the thumb drive. “Should I release the evidence my father had regarding the dozens of other affairs you’ve had?
This is why he was trying to end things, but your father ignores anything bad you do.
I won’t. You cannot blame going into heat when you were taking them to fancy dinners and making out in coffee shops. ”
“That’s all bullshit and—”
“Kole, don’t make this worse,” I warned him quietly.
“Get out and run back to Vex with your tail between your legs or once I’m queen I’ll reject you becoming Alpha.
” I nodded when they both froze. “You were cheating on me the entire time. Years. I will release it all just to get you out of my life. I am not a prize you earned, you selfish bastard.”
“Sagan, just cool down a bit and—” Elira tried to interject.
I smirked at her. “Glad you were finally useful. How does it go? You didn’t steal my man, you stole my problem? Thank you, Elira. Truly. Your psychotic jealousy of me was finally useful.”
The icing on the cake was when Benson came into the solarium with Lydia and a whole detail. She’d gone to find him and report what was going on just in case things went south.
I chuckled as they all crashed into each other at what they found, understanding what was going on. Fine, they weren’t having sex, but Kole’s shirt was off and pants still open. Elira’s sweater was half off and she was still bent over the table.
It didn’t take a genius to put it together.
I looked at Benson. “He says it’s not what I think it is.”
“The fuck it isn’t,” he chuffed. “Tell me we’re not following royal protocols and waiting for Darren to get Vex to handle this.”
“Oh no, get them out of my castle immediately. Stick them on one of my planes with pilots to take him directly to Vex.” I handed the thumb drive to Benson. “And have the pilot give that directly to the Alpha.”
“Sagan, don’t you dare give—”
“You do not speak her name again,” Benson snapped. “Or we will break you. Quit while you’re so far behind you honestly have no chance of becoming Alpha even.”
“My thoughts exactly.” I met his gaze. “Glad we’re finally on the same page.” I didn’t care that he reacted like I kicked him in the stomach.
He deserved it.
I deserved to be free of both Kole and Elira.
And now I was.
The End