Page 112 of The Fighter
“She was so angry with Marcus and being a teenager, she was stubborn and unreasonable.”
Magni’s next words reverberated through the room. “You killed Dina?”
“Nooo, it wasn’t like that.” Erika’s voice broke and her shoulders bobbed as tears filled her eyes. “She was my daughter, I would never harm her. Dina was young, she didn’t understand the devastating level of shame and humiliation she would cost your father and me. We had guarded that secret for so many years and she was threatening to destroy everything we had worked so hard for.” Erika raised her voice. “We sacrificedeverythingfor this country and she would have destroyed it all. I couldn’t let her stay unsupervised in case she talked, so I went to bring her home. Marcus and I were going to talk some sense into her. To make her understand what was at risk.”
“But Dina didn’t want to come home, did she?” I asked.
Erika’s head fell down and she sighed. “No. She said she was done being our puppet and when I called for my guards to bring her to the drone, she ran up the stairs and locked herself in the attic. I tried pleading with her but she wouldn’t open the door.” The tears were streaming down Erika’s cheeks. “The guards had to break down the door and when I entered, Dina had crawled out the window. I ran over and by instinct, I wanted to pull her back in but when I grabbed for her, she tried to break free of my hold on her and it made her lose her balance and then…” Erika’s body had shrunk, with her shoulders and head low. She was looking down at the carpet with glassy eyes and I saw tears drip to land on her shoe. “I can still see her falling, my hands reaching out for her and her hands reaching out for me. Her scream mixed with my scream… There… There…” Erika’s shoulders bobbed with suppressed sobbing before she forced out the words. “There was nothing I could do.”
Complete silence filled the room, and I wasn’t the only one with moist eyes.
“I ran down to her but her blond hair was red with blood and my little girl was gone.” Erika looked up at us. “At first I thought that maybe… I mean, her blue eyes were open and as pretty as ever… but she wasn’t there anymore.” Her face twisted in pain and she couldn’t hold back the sobbing anymore. It made it hard to understand her words, “Dina was dead and no matter how many times I shook her and called for her to come back, she was gone.”
Mila rushed from the bed to hug her grandmother and Pearl rubbed Erika’s arm. “Take a deep breath.”
Their show of sympathy calmed Erika, who continued talking like getting it all out was a relief. “I can only remember glimpses from back then now, but I remember the guards pulling me from Dina’s body and hearing them explain everything to Marcus when we got back to the Manor. After that Marcus left to clean up the mess.”
“Mom, do you remember telling me and Magni?”
Erika shook her head. “No, I don’t remember that at all. I suppose I was in a state of shock and grief.” She dried her nose. “After Dina’s death I went back into a depression. Marcus had me on suicide watch because I kept telling him that I didn’t want to continue living when our daughter had died because of me.”
CHAPTER 27
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Leo
“Is that why Marcus erased all traces of Dina from the Gray Manor?” Laura asked Erika, who had just confessed to causing Dina to fall from the window.
Mila and Pearl helped Erika to sit down; Mila kneeled down next to her grandmother and held her hand while Pearl returned to stand side by side with Khan.
“I never asked Marcus to remove everything. Even though he said he did it for me, I believe it was as much for him. He wanted life to go on. It had to. We had two sons and a country to think about. We were all grieving, but life had to go on.”
Raven crossed her arms. “And Dina’s husband, Henry, what happened to him?”
“All I know is that he made accusations after she died,” Erika breathed.
Khan had deep frown lines on his forehead and his eyes seemed black at that moment. “So, Marcus had him killed.”
Erika met his eyes. “Of course. It was the right thing to do.”
Pearl shook her head. “You wanted power that badly?”
“We wanted to live, Pearl. There’s no such thing as a retired ruler. We couldn’t afford for the public to know the truth. Marcus would have been lynched and we would have been killed by the next men seeking power. It’s how things work here.”
Pearl was squinting like she was trying to shield herself from all the ugliness coming to light. “But…”
“There’s nobut, Pearl. People would have branded Marcus as a fraud if they knew that he hadn’t been able to protect me from being raped. He was playing a role as a mighty ruler exuding confidence and strength but in reality, he felt like a failure of a man. We were broke. The whole country was broke, and if people knew that Marcus stole Dina’s bride money from Henry…” Erika waved her hand like she was trying to find the right words. “Every day I feared the people would come for us. Every day I wondered if it would be our last.”
Laura’s voice was full of sympathy. “I had no idea.”
“That’s because you’re too young to have lived in anything but peace, but I grew up with a steady changing of rulers and kings.” Erika dried away more tears. “Living in constant fear is the curse of being the ruling family.”
There was a moment of complete silence and then Pearl turned to Khan. “Now do you see why democracy is betterfor everyone?”
Khan groaned and began pacing the room while Laura walked over to sit on the foot end of Magni’s bed. “What are we going to do?”
Magni looked exhausted when he muttered, “How many know? We have to eliminate the threat.” His face turned to us and his hand shook when he pointed a finger at Raven and me. “You’d better fucking guarantee us that we can trust you!”
