Page 2 of Microburst

Which should have made anyone with a brain stop and reassess the situation. Who just announces she was “adopted” into the royal family, noneofthe royal family saying that, and people just accepting it and calling her my sister?

No, it was so much more than that with Raquel. Her family had served mine for generations. She was anassumedpart of the castle, more her home than mine and felt ownership over it instead of just dedication or loyalty.

Which meant I couldn’t fire her without people hating me again. I had to constantly tiptoe around her, accept unacceptable behavior, and basically nod when she said things would get better but really didn’t.

So I generally didn’t give a shit what Raquel wanted and this project was more important than her dislike of the shelves.

And we needed to make progress on that fast. There was no way to guard those residences. The Alphas wanted to have some of their people vacation to guard them, but I didn’t trust them not to steal anything.

Same with private security that I didn’t know.

So there was no good answer. Ever.

The guard nodded and warned me that there was going to be a shift change in about ten minutes so I wasn’t startled if he wasn’t there. I thanked him as he let me in and told him that I just had to look up a few things while I ate but yes, it might takea while, so to please warn the next guard to keep it quiet unless there was an emergency.

“It’s not a bad hiding spot,” he joked, but then cleared his throat awkwardly. “No one would think to look for you here. I’ll make sure we keep it quiet.” He cleared his throat again. “My thanks for the treats. I really loved those chocolate-covered dates. That shop is great.”

“They are.” I went inside, grateful that the people who worked at the castle were trying harder to show they liked me, but it was awkward sometimes.

Most times.

I ignored Father’s study this time and went into what was obviously Mother’s turf in the living area. I snorted that she didn’t even get her own room, just a section off of the main living space. Fine, it was how the suite was set up, but they were king and queen—they could have renovated.

Except they were broke and left me in huge debt so probably not. How pathetic.

Clearly, my anger issues towards them were something I would have to work on someday.

Someday when I wasn’t drowning in the mess they left me… Which would probably be never.

I set my tray down on the coffee table and sat on the sofa. I had several bites as I just stared over her area trying to understand her a bit, mostly to try and figure out where to like start. I really wanted to talk to her aides and staff, but the ones who weren’t thieves or complete monsters like Elira had been were fiercely loyal to Mother and wouldn’t tell me anything.

Even if it would help me now and that was what theyshoulddo to help Amelia’s daughter. They would put her and her memory first.

Fools.

I was glad when both my dragons snorted in agreement. I was still pissed that one of my mother’s friends had deleted her emails, texts—everything I should have had andneededas her daughter. I was validly furious she’d erased a part of my fuckingmotherfrom me.

It wasn’t like the joke of clearing your browser or porn history from your family. She deletedeverythingand acted like I was petty when I told her she was way out of line and refused to let her walk with me at the funeral. No, that was over the line.

And I was furious it had worked. We couldn’t recover the texts since Mother didn’t back them up which was ridiculous in itself.

But we were working on her emails. It probably wasn’t that big of a thing, but it was a matter of prioritizing when there was a huge,importantlist of so much like all of the elders’ corruption. They were still going through security footage and more.

So unfortunately, reviewing the castle’s backup servers to find the deceased queen’s emails really didn’t take priority.

Right then they would have been so useful. I wanted to bring that friend up on charges. She had no right to do that and—there had to be a law against that, but even Darren had said it would have played wrong to the media. That I didn’t know my parents well enough to know their wishes if they died and—I had enough against me.

But I thought it was important enough to fight back against, and some people would have supported a daughter upset that someone took away a part of her mother from her. No matter our relationship.

Then again… No one in Thovudin seemed to support me on anything and constantly reminded me that my parents didn’t want me around.

Darren and the others were probably right, but I would never forgive that woman. I made it clear she was blacklistedfrom everything and had better never be near me again. She didn’t even apologize or give me any real excuse besides it was what my mother would have wanted and she didn’t need to explain herself to me.

Except she really did, so the fact I had to let that go ate at me. How did I know she didn’t delete it all to cover up her crimes of something?

I actually locked on to that thought now that I had some distance from the situation and decided to have Myriam or someone with her father investigate that woman. I shouldn’t let this go even if I did publicly.

Settled with that, I focused on my food… Until my gaze caught something on Mother’s vast bookshelves. Then I stared at it, the edge of a memory or something tickling my brain. It was like right there, but it also looked like a normal leather-bound book.