sweet & brutal || h.s ✔️

~22~

Aria's POV

"You son of a bitch" I growled at Nigel.

"Why is he here" I glared at him.

Nigel looked confused but then smirked.

"You think I brought him here?" He asked.

I gave him a look that said "What else asshole".

"Oh Harry. What lie did you tell her?" He chuckled. I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion at Harry but he just continued to look at the floor.

"You won't tell her? Fine, I will" Nigel said.

"Harry here is one of my trusted men"

I gasped and looked harry with disbelief.

No.No.No.No.No.No.No.No.

This cannot be happening.

"See while you were planning on raiding the Savages' cash house, Harry here was getting ready to go on a mission. To kill you."

My vision was going hazy with tears and so was Harry's apparently. He looked at me with guilt. My Harry was here but he still betrayed me. I didn't even know who the real Harry was. The one who rejected me and broke my heart or the one who treated me with respect and adoration but still broke my heart.

"Being the fool you are, you trusted him. Fucking women. He made you fall in love and then right when you told him. He broke your heart."

I was too focused on Harry's betrayal and the feeling of my heart being ripped to shreds, to pay attention to Nigel's insults.

"Why didn't he kill me then?" I lowly asked.

"Killing you was merely out of spite for my own daughter. Kidnapping you was for my personal gain. I called him, telling him to lead us to you instead."

"When" I glared.

"The day we hacked the cameras"

I winced visibly and closed my eyes. The day I became his girlfriend. The day I gave my all to him, he was plotting my infortune with my father. The man who killed my mother and chooses to take the kingdom I was meant to rule.

I kept my eyes closed. I couldn't bear to look at him. I didn't open my eyes when they untied me or when someone threw me over their shoulder and carried me somewhere unknown to me. I just didn't care.

The person threw me onto a cold floor but even then I didn't have the mind to punish them for doing so. I felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest and then thrown into a burning pit of fire.

I absolutely loathed the feeling. I felt weak and used. I felt nonexistent. I didn't even have the strength to remember or use my mother's words as advice or encouragement. I completely shut down.

I had gotten to the point where tears couldn't flow because even that would hurt me.

I wasn't in pain on the outside besides the small bruise forming on my cheek from Nigel's assault, but the emotional pain from the inside was enough to make my entire body ache with despair, guilt and betrayal.

Guilt, because if my mother didn't take precautions or block out my father for my sake she wouldn't be dead. She would be ruling the kingdom, raising me to follow after her. I would be in her arms that were filled with warmth and love.

In my right mind, I would have known better than blaming myself for a thing that wasn't entirely my fault but I wasn't in my right mind.

I didn't even have the energy to be angry and that said a lot. As a young child I held a lot of anger against my father. Over these last few years, fighting had become a therapy for me. It was an escape that helped me better my skills and also unleash my anger.

That's what forced them to ban me from combat training in mafia school. Because when I started, I couldn't stop. I had become obsessed with fighting from a young age. It was a way to harness my pain and anger. I already had achieved black belt in three forms of martial arts before I turned 11 years old but I still continued because I couldn't stop myself. It was like an addiction and like all addictions they make you do horrible things but there is always that one relapse that made you do something terrifying.

That relapse was my brutal act as a 6 year old. It was the moment that set off a wave of fear and rumors that the reckless princess might actually be psychotic. But they were later proven to be untrue when the psychiatrists saw otherwise. They just saw a young child who was severely traumatized and that's when they recommended fighting to be my recovery.

My mother allowed me to do martial arts and boxing as a sport when I was young, only because she constantly witnessed my fits of anger getting worse. She said that my anger was brewed from memories that were created when I was 3 years old. When I was with my father.

That was another thing, my mother.

She was another topic of pain. She was the only person who didn't use my anger to her advantage. People at school, sometimes even Jordyn would purposely provoke me to fight someone because when I became angry I would see red and it was amusing for everyone. It was fun for them but every day I felt myself becoming tired of my constant anger at the world. At some points I felt like a human killing machine. Something I didn't want to be.

I did believe that my anger was the source of my power though. It drove me to do more and achieve more.

It wasn't my source of strength but it was the only thing that helped me through life.

It was the perfect thing that could help me through this moment.

But I just couldn't feel it yet. I was numb. There was absolutely no anger coursing through my body. I didn't even know if there was actual life running through me. I was just in so much pain.

Pain

I felt like standing at the edge of a cliff and just screaming that word. There was just so much. Too much.

I sighed loudly and finally decided to open my eyes. But just as I did, I saw nothing. It was complete darkness except for the slight sunlight coming from my small window that was made out of a few metal bars.

The palace dungeons.

Dungeons that I intended on breaking out of.

They didn't call me the Reckless Princess for nothing.

------

Nigel's POV

"Boss, would you like me to offer her the papers now" Andrew asked.

"No need. She won't sign. Let her drown in her sadness first" I smirked as I organized papers in my new desk. It's made out of wood from Spain. The royals always have the best things.

That's why I must find a way to make her sign those papers. However, that stubborn bitch won't crack.

But first, I have to settle my mafia business before I expand it by becoming king. Once I become the leading and best mafia in the world, I can expand our drug trade in the kingdom and with other countries.

"Clint, up to my office now" I said into my machine.

"Yes Boss" He replied.

He arrived a little later, walking over to my desk. I beckoned him to sit and he obliged.

I smirked. The little brat is going to be begging me for those papers.

"Let's knock the BlackCobras out of first place. Shall we?" ss=MsoNorK!>