Prologue

“Father! You can't be serious!” I whispered-yelled as I glared at him behind the huge oak table in his office.

“The Kingdom needs  this union, Victoria.” He looked tired like he had been battling an invisible battle for weeks now. Maybe he is. But what about me? I can't fight the Kingdom's battle for them. 

I don't want this marriage. I haven't even seen the man I was supposed to marry. For years I've been dreaming of a love like my parents—a fairy tale. A King and a commoner deeply in love with each other.

I don't care if the man wasn't from a royal line as long as he loves me. At least I would experience falling in love before my blood dried up.

I had lived a sheltered life. I wasn't even allowed to play outside with other kids. Never allowed to eat and learned on my own. 

I don't know about the business or the politics inside the palace. The only thing I knew is, I would only marry the man I love. To the man that I could risk everything even my life. 

“What about Caleb? He's the heir to the throne. He had lived his life in normalcy while I was a prisoner in my own room.” I reasoned with him. But father's face was set like a hard immovable stone.

“Caleb proposed a merger without the wedding but Enrico Hernandez insisted about it. Victoria please understand we don't have the capacity to go on war with the Hernandez clan.” Our Kingdom designs and manufacture state-of-the-art weapons. But over the years we don't have any reason to go on a war. The kingdom grew complacent, only paying close attention to the new weapons to sell all around the globe.

Until father made a wrong business deal. The Hernandez clan. They've had the biggest bureau of assassins stationed all over the globe.

And they were called The Guild.

“Father, please I beg you. This marriage is not for me, it would be another lock on my prison.” Father's face considerably softens at my plea. 

But he looked conflicted and sad, and tired.

He gave me a tired small smile. The same smile he'd always given when I was a child. “The wedding would be on your twenty-fourth birthday, there's no stopping this Victoria or our people would suffer.”

How dare they threatened our people. The same descent of people that give their lives to our family for generation after generation. I don't think if I could take that security from them. They love the island and the security of it but one small mistake and everything is slowly crumbling down.

“They wouldn't dare!” I shouted, standing up. 

I glared in my mother's direction but she won't even see me in the eye. She was just on her corner silently wiping her tears. She couldn't even defend me now. Where was the mother who won't let me run in fear that I would bleed to death? Or the mother that had been so patient with all of my questions.

“We could only hold it for a couple of years if this merger won't happen but after that? How am I supposed to die knowing that the land that my great-great-grandfather had to perish on the hands of the murderers.”

His conscience? How about me?

“But Father you should also know that the peace and security that this marriage will bring won't last forever. One way or another the Hernandez clan would find a way to usurp this kingdom. They want this kingdom father neither me nor the marriage. You should make peace of that fact before you die.” I said with conviction.

“And I would be long dead before I could witness that.

“Victoria! I did not raise you to be a disrespectful brat!” Mother scolded from her corner. 

Can't she see my pain? All the years that had been robbed from me because I'm sick. How about me? Isn't this marriage is disrespectful itself? Marriage is for those who love each other. It's not a means to an end.

“So this is all for your conscience? How about me? Could you sleep at night knowing that his son might be abusing me?” A gasp sounded from my mother followed by a heart-wrenching sob.

I didn't dare spare her a glance.

My father's face pales at the mention of abuse. They had cared for me for almost twenty-four years, making sure I won't bleed to death only to give his only daughter to the hand of a murderer.

“He wouldn't dare!” But he couldn't know that. I shook my head, my face warming in anger.

I gave him a dry laugh. “You can't know that, Father. What happened when we're alone in a room. No one would hear me scream at the dead of the night and whatever happened to me it'll be all on your conscience.” My voice might be taunting but underneath my strong facade was the slowly slithering crack on my resolve. 

“Victoria, the ink had been dry for a week now. I couldn't change it even if I want to.” I felt betrayed by my own family. How could they take that decision off me? If my shock and disappointment had shown on my face, I didn't want to know because the next instant, I wiped all of the traces of emotion on my face.

“Then what about my dreams?” I questioned, my body half-turning from him.

“They would stay at that. Dreams.”

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