Rise of a Queen (Kingdom Duet #2) by Rina Kent

She pulls back and wipes my tears with the back of her sleeves. “Johnny gets brownie points for taking you away from here so you could clear your head. His Daddy status is reinstated.”

“You’re awful.” I smile through the tears.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, Lay.”

“Which name do you prefer? Clarissa or Aurora?”

“When I was Clarissa, I was happy, but it was at the expense of other people’s suffering. I don’t like being her anymore. I don’t like the memories associated with her or the fears she went through.”

“Aurora it is, then. It’d be super weird to call you anything else.” She grins tentatively. “Why did you pick that name?”

It’s my turn to smile as the memories of summer and marshmallow scent filter back in. “Alicia said if she had a baby girl, she would’ve named her Aurora. I guess it’s stayed with me.”

“I’m so proud of how far you’ve come, mate.”

“Are you being sappy right now?”

“Who? Me? Never!” We laugh and she scoots closer, her expression morphing into one of seriousness. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’m still thinking about it. Hey, Lay, don’t you miss work?”

“Honestly? I’m going out of my mind here. You know I hate staying still, but it’s okay. I can take it.”

“Well, I can’t.”

“What do you intend to do?”

“I’m going to stand tall like I was supposed to sixteen years ago.”





The following day, I go to the prosecutor’s office. I don’t tell Jonathan, because he’d stop me.

I refuse to live my life in fear, scared about when they’ll come knocking on my door, or when they’ll catch me while I’m walking down the streets.

Although I don’t share my plans with Jonathan, I make my way through the building, armed with his words to me.

You did nothing wrong.

He’s right. I haven’t. And now, I’ll own up to it.

They take me to a white room with a grey table in the middle. I keep my cool as the prosecutor tries to intimidate me with his questions.

The prosecutor, who introduced himself as Joffrey Dale, is an older man with a few decades of experience under his belt. It makes sense that they’re assigning him to an important nationwide case like this.

His bushy brows are drawn together as if they were made to judge people. His suit is a size too big and his head is half-bald with a few streaks of hair combed in the middle. But that doesn’t take away from the sharp look in his light brown eyes.

After a long silence, which he spends reading the file in front of him, Joffrey finally lifts his head. “We’ll start with the basics. What’s your name?”

“Aurora Harper.”

“Your legal one, Miss.”

“Aurora Harper. I registered it.”

He nods as if the information is new to him, when it’s most likely a tactic. Even the white room we’re in, which seems sterilised, must be some psychological trick. The police played them a lot on me back in the day, but I was too young to recognise them.

“Why have you come here, Ms Harper?”

“Voluntary questioning.”

He fixes me with his bland eyes. “For what?”

“Maxim Griffin’s parole hearing.” My hands grip each other on my lap, but I force them to loosen.

“What’s your relationship with Mr Griffin?”

“He’s my father.”

“And you’re the Clarissa he’s accusing of being his accomplice?”

I nod.

“Are you admitting to his accusations?”

“I’m admitting to being his daughter that used to be named Clarissa. That’s all. His accusations are entirely false.”

He focuses back on the file, retrieves images of the murdered women, crime scene ones, too, and lays them in front of me. I force myself to stare at their faces, even though tears start rushing in.

“Do you remember them, Ms Harper?”

“Of course I do. I dream about them all the time.”

“Who are they?”

“My father’s victims.”

“Do you remember their cause of death?”

I swallow a deep breath, the air sticking in my throat. “Suffocation by duct tape.”

“Do you know how long it takes for death by suffocation?” The question is clearly rhetorical since he continues in his flat tone, “Normally, it’s twenty minutes, but in their cases, he left a small opening in the duct tape to slow the process. Their death processes ranged from four to twenty hours. They spent all those hours begging for air, only to find death.”

“I know that! I also know he stalked them and made them feel like he was their dream on earth before he lured them to the cabin. I also know he cut their arms, played with their bodies while they suffocated, then kept the duct tape as a trophy before he buried them. I also know those seven reported victims weren’t his only ones, and that many other cases were closed for lack of evidence. So why don’t you look into those instead of this entire masquerade? Why the fuck are you allowing that sick bastard the right for parole?”

Despite my outburst, Joffrey’s voice and expression remain cool. “Because, Ms Harper, we might have evidence that he wasn’t the only one involved in those murders.”