Steel Princess (Royal Elite 2)

I pull my phone and type in Google’s search bar, Alicia King’s death.

Several articles come by. All of them state that Alicia died in a car accident. Her crashed car was found at the bottom of a cliff. The coroner’s report says that it took her several hours to die. Since the place is desolate and it was raining that day, it took people some time to find her.

I swallow, my fingers hovering on the screen of the phone.

How did she feel during those hours as she slowly and painfully died in her car?

It hurts to even imagine it.

Some reporters speculate that she had suicidal tendencies and King Enterprises is just camouflaging it as an accident.

They also speculate that James King, Jonathan’s eldest brother and Levi’s father, who was reported to have died from an accident four years ago, actually died from an overdose.

If that’s true, then Jonathan does a lot of media play to make his family appear so mighty and without weaknesses.

I flip back to Alicia’s articles and stare at her pictures. She was petite with dark brown hair and pitch-black eyes. Even her features are so tiny, they’re distinguishable.

She’s like those maidens in period films. Sophisticated, elegant, and with a mysterious smile.

“What exactly happened to you, Alicia?” I whisper to her image. “How did you end up with a man like Jonathan?”

Except for the small beauty mole at the side of her right eye, Aiden looks nothing like her. He’s definitely a carbon copy of his father.

Even after seeing her images, it brings nothing to memory.

My eyes skim over the article, and I pause. The date of Alicia’s accident was one day before the fire that took my parents’ lives.

No.

It must be a coincidence.

Alicia died in London. We were in Birmingham.

There’s no way my parents killed her as Jonathan told Silver.

I type my mother and my father’s names in the search bar, John Steel and Abigail Steel.

No photos or articles come out. Even the article I read a few weeks ago about the domestic fire has completely disappeared.

That’s… weird.

Well, my parents weren’t as important as Alicia King or James King.

I scroll through my phone’s gallery and find a picture I took of an old polaroid of Mum and Aunt.

The fire destroyed everything I had of my parents. This old picture is the only thing I have left of her. I stole the shot from Aunt a few years ago.

Aunt doesn’t like to talk about my parents or anything in the past, basically. She always says that I’m better off saving my energy for my future.

In the picture, Aunt Blair grins wide at the camera, her arm surrounding Mum’s shoulder. Mum has a small smile that barely reaches her eyes.

Even though Aunt is the eldest, she was wearing fashionable denim shorts and a tank top. Mum, on the other hand, wore a straight knee-length dress and her golden hair was pulled into a conservative bun.

They were about my age at the time the picture was taken, or maybe a year older, but Mum appeared like she was thirty.

It’s uncanny how much I resemble her. The eye colour. The shade of hair colour. And even the facial form. It’s like I’m staring at myself from a different time.

“What happened, Ma?” My voice is brittle. “I wish you were here to tell me.”