Twisted Kingdom (Royal Elite 3)

“I’m hurt you don’t remember me.” Knox pouts like a child who’s been deprived of his favourite toy.

“Remember you?” I ask.

“Yeah. You ought to remember me after —”

“Knox.” The warning in Dad’s tone is loud and clear.

Knox shrugs and goes back to scrolling through his phone.

Okay. That’s weird.

Super weird.

I meet Dad’s brown eyes. They’re so wise and deep, you could get lost in there and never find a way out. He must use his penetrating gaze as an intimidation method during business meetings.

“You’ve been raising Knox all this time?” I try not to sound bitter, but I’m not sure I succeeded.

Da

d left me for ten years. All this time, I thought he was dead and buried somewhere I would never find while he was actually alive and well. Hell, he’s been raising another child while his only daughter lived with relatives.

“Nah, not really. We raised ourselves,” Knox says.

“We?”

He smirks. “There’s another one.”

“Another one?” I meant to shout, but my vocal cords constrict so the only thing that comes out is a choked murmur.

“Shut up for a second, Knox.” Dad sounds both exasperated and resigned.

“Whatever.”

Dad focuses back on me. He removes his jacket, and before I can react, he wraps it around my shoulders.

My fingers dig into the expensive material as he settles back into his seat.

It smells like cloves and cinnamon. It smells like Dad.

“You’re shaking.” He taps the wall between us and the driver. “Turn on the heat, Joseph.”

“Yes, Sir.”

I’m not shaking because of the cold, but I don’t say that.

My mind crowds with so many questions and theories, but I struggle to form words. My head keeps flashing back to the vision of blood while Dad lay in it. This is how it feels like to be shackled by the past. It’s always there, wrapping wires around your neck, threatening to chop it off.

“How much do you remember?” Dad asks.

“Not everything.” My voice is barely above a whisper.

“Told you,” Knox says.

Dad shoots him a glare before he focuses back on me. “Do you remember the night of the fire?”

I shake my head once.

A mixture of disappointment and relief covers his features. “I see.”