Reign of a King (Kingdom Duet 1)

Problem is, knowing his intentions doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be easy to stop him. One, Aurora is unpredictable as fuck. If she gets something in her head, she’ll do it, my opinion be damned. Two, his game could be bigger than this, and being unable to pinpoint it keeps me uneasy.

“Come near her and I’ll consider it a declaration of war, Ethan.”

His lips twitch in a smirk, showing his true self. “Careful of your own battalion, Jonathan.”

“Stay. The. Fuck. Away,” I enunciate every word, pause to make my point clear, then I turn around and leave.

Behind me, I hear Elsa ask him about the truce her father and I agreed to when she and Aiden started officially going out a year ago.

We did that to score an important deal with a duke’s family business, but Ethan and I both know there’ll never be a truce between us. We’ll be ninety years old and in wheelchairs, and we’ll still fight to see who gets to own the world.

We’ve been like that since university. Due to our competitive nature, we clashed in everything. Then after we graduated and embarked in the world of business, our rivalry grew. It started with a simple chess game about who got to own a yacht then extended to gambling subsidiaries and net profit numbers.

We rivalled each other in everything, including how to start a family. Since we were bored with the easy pussy we got, we made a bet to marry mentally unstable women. It wasn’t a necessity or even forced. It was by choice.

I found Alicia and he found his late wife, Abigail.

Since then, everything has gone downhill.

That’s when I realised the monstrosity of human greed. If nothing satiates you, you’ll slowly but surely deteriorate to a worse state of mind, and eventually to your downfall.

That’s what happened with Alicia. Her condition wasn’t that serious when we first got married and had Aiden. But over the years, her mental state declined and nothing could’ve saved her.

Aiden thinks I could’ve. But Aiden doesn’t know everything.

And it’ll remain that way. For his sake.

I head to the entrance and opt to leave or, more accurately, follow Aurora.

Harris will bitch at me all night about the late-night meeting with the Chinese. But Harris is always displeased in one way or another.

“Johnny!”

I summon the patience I don’t have as I stop and turn around to face Aurora’s weird friend.

“Call me by my actual name and I might grant you permission to talk to me.”

“Relax. You’re too uptight. Has anyone told you that?”

Your friend. All the fucking time.

“Do you need something, Miss Hussaini? Because you just wasted a minute of my time.”

She rolls her eyes and shoves a pink bag at me. “Aurora left this behind. Her keys are in there.”

I take it from her and turn to leave.

“Treat her well!” she calls after me. “Remember, black belt karate.”

No idea how a quiet woman like Aurora came in contact with this bizarre existence. They’re dissimilar personality-wise, but perhaps their differences are how they grew H&H’s capital in a considerably short time.

I stare at the bag in my hand. The fact that she left it and her keys means she didn’t go to her car.

Where could she have gone this late at night?

I stop at the entrance and search the car park area. She couldn’t have left in a taxi, considering her money is in here. Did she leave on foot?

The problem with Aurora is that I can’t tell what she’ll do next, and because of that, I can’t exactly plot something for her. And if I do, she thwarts it.