Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 30190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 151(@200wpm)___ 121(@250wpm)___ 101(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 30190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 151(@200wpm)___ 121(@250wpm)___ 101(@300wpm)
It was all a lie.
She had been trying to protect him.
And he had let her go.
Aretha could feel the tension rising from the sheikh like heat from a flame.
Something had shifted. Something in his expression, in the set of his shoulders, in the way his fists had clenched at his sides. And when he slowly turned to look at her again—
No.
She knew that look.
She had seen it once before, years ago, when a servant had been caught stealing from the palace treasury. The sheikh had worn that same expression then—cold and terrible and utterly without mercy.
He knew.
Somehow, impossibly, he had figured it out. Had pieced together the fragments and realized that she was the reason Aurora had left.
For a long moment, they simply stared at each other.
And then something inside Aretha snapped.
To hell with it.
To hell with getting back in his good graces. To hell with convincing him to honor their betrothal. To hell with becoming queen of Layla and ruling by his side.
None of it mattered anymore.
All that mattered was making him suffer.
“You’ll never find her.”
The words came out cold. Vicious. Nothing like the fragile, sympathetic woman she had been pretending to be.
Mik’hail’s blood went cold. “What did you do to her, Aretha?”
Chapter Fourteen
I RAN.
My feet slammed against the marble floors, my breath tearing from my lungs in ragged gasps. Behind me, footsteps echoed—heavy, relentless, gaining—and all it did was remind me of Royce’s words.
The accident was fake.
The words crashed through my mind like shattered glass, but I forced myself to get past it. To keep running. A maid appeared at the end of the corridor, and I nearly crashed into her.
“Milady,” she gasped in surprise.
“The s-sheikh. M-Mikhail.” I found myself stammering in my rush to get the words out. “Do you know where he is?”
“The hospital wing, milady. He went to see Lady Aret—”
“Thank you!” I threw the words over my shoulder, already running as fast as I could because I knew. I just knew I was also running out of time, and I had to get to the sheikh before...before...
She paid Royce to stage it. The car going off the cliff, the bodies never found—all of it was planned.
I wished I could shut my brain off. Or at least just the part that kept reminding me of all the awful things Royce told me. Things that my brain wished were all lies...even as my heart already knew the truth.
‘She contacted me because she knew I loved her,’ Royce had said, his wild eyes filled with something that looked almost like grief. ‘And I was stupid enough to believe she loved me back.’
The corridor blurred around me as I ran faster, my chest burning, my legs screaming.
Your parents weren’t supposed to die.
I choked on a sob but kept running. I could still hear Royce behind me, his footsteps a thundering echo of my own.
But instead of blaming herself, she blamed him.
I knew this palace like the back of my hand.
Left turn. Right turn. Another corridor.
Knew every shortcut, every hidden passage.
But right now, it felt like a labyrinth designed to keep me from the one person I needed to reach.
‘When I refused to help her again, she decided to escape from me. Frame me as her captor.’ Royce’s laugh had been bitter, broken. ‘The woman I loved turned me into a monster in everyone’s eyes.’
The hospital wing was close now.
Please. Please let me make it in time.
I could see the doors at the end of the hall, but all I could hear was Royce’s words, tearing me apart again and again.
I made the mistake of introducing your sister to Frankie. He’s ex-cop. He knows his way around the palace. When she couldn’t get me to do what she wanted, I’ve got no doubt that she went to him next. And Frankie...he’ll do everything for the right price.
The only reason I believed Royce was because he had also given me proof. Living proof. He had pulled me to a side corridor, and inside a supply closet was a man, bound and gagged. The man had confessed to being hired by Frankie to kidnap me. But that was all, the man swore. He didn’t know what Frankie or Aretha planned to do with me. The only other thing he was sure of was how my sister wanted the sheikh dead...no matter what.
Royce and I reached Aretha’s room just as we heard a sound that stopped my heart.
“What did you do to her, Aretha?”
It was Mik’hail.
And my sister’s reply, sweet as poison.
“It’s too late for both of you. She’ll be dead before you find her.”
I didn’t think.
I just moved.
I shoved through the door, and the scene before me registered in fragments.
Aretha in her hospital bed, but sitting up now, something glinting in her hand—a knife, where did she get a knife—
Mik’hail standing over her, his back to the window, fury and horror warring on his face—