The Queen: Love's Death || ✔️

Chapter 23: Hateful Woman

Estelle

The house was fuller than what was legal. I understood that it was a mansion but it was smaller than my apartment back in London. In this moment, I missed my childhood home, the King mansion.

Claudia's family had arrived last night with Bullet and the first thing they did was pray. Not cry, greet or even ask for food. They just started off with prayer as though God would bring them back from the dead. How pathetic.

I looked at everyone in the livingroom and rolled my eyes for the millionth time at how sad and frustrating the atmosphere felt. I didn't have time for any of this, I had a funeral to plan.

"I can't believe she's gone." A pale girl with jet black straight hair and an unfortunately skinny body mumbled through her sobs. If I remembered correctly, her name was Mary, but she was supposed to be mixed race. She was so pale.

"I miss her." A small boy, no older than eighteen, with freckles and cute light brown curls said with the pale girl in hand. I guessed him to be Daniel.

I had lived with these people for a few weeks five years ago when Charles and Claudia were at war but I still struggled to point out who was who because there were just so many of them.

I stood up from my seat and began to walk out, but was stopped by Claudia's mother, Sarah Bryan.

"Estelle, where are you going?" She asked me, as though she had every right to know. I turned around to face her with a scowl on my face and answered as nicely as I could.

"I don't have time to be crying. Someone has to bury my brother."

"What about Claudia?" The eldest sister, the blind Charlene, asked while looking up at me as though she could see me. I guessed that her hearing was amazing.

"She's not my family. I don't bury people I don't love."

"Estelle..." Bullet tried to talk but I never gave useless people a chance to speak. I didn't have time for that.

"... no matter what any of you think or say, at the end of the day, Claudia will always be the reason why my family was destroyed. I know and understand that you all loved her, for whatever reason I still don't fully get, but I won't sit here with you and grieve for a person who killed my family. That'll be me betraying my entire family. You guys still have each other, but all I have are my brother's children. Zeus. Athena. Hera. Poseidon and Mason. And no matter what you think or believe about me, I actually do care about the people I love. I don't love Claudia so I won't care enough to bury her. She's your problem. Charles' funeral will be in a week's time. I'm already working on getting his remains shipped here and I already have half of the funeral planned. You'll deal with Claudia."

"We don't want you to bury our sister and you don't have to because we won't force you." Cynthia said to me almost defiantly, standing up with her child in her arms.

"Good." I shrugged.

"What's your problem with us?" She asked me and I stepped forward towards her.

"I just really don't like Claudia." I snarled and then walked away, not giving any of them a chance to protest.

I wasn't raised with Claudia. I didn't wake up with her by my side each morning and I certainly didn't even bother to eat my meals at the same table as her because she killed my entire family. I didn't know why they all expected me to care enough to bury her. She didn't matter to me but she did to them so they'd bury her. I couldn't care less. Charles was my only family and I'd give him a grand funeral, better than what Claudia had given him before.

"Estelle!" Someone called me just as I was about to leave through the front door. I turned around to face Blade who walked a bit fast to make it to me.

"What?" I asked him rudely while turning around to face him and crossing my arms over my chest.

"That was very rude of you. They're all grieving in there." He pointed out with a pint of disappointment in his tone.

"Ok." I nodded sympathetically, then rolled my eyes while sighing.

"You need to show some respect to the dead. I get that you blame Claudia for a lot of things but you also need to come to terms with the fact that Charles loved her. How do you think your brother would feel about you talking so badly about the love of his life?"

"Blade, I get we didn't grow up together so you don't know that much about me so let me just point something about me that you don't seem to know. I, Estelle King, have never given a damn about what anyone says and I'm not about to start now. I am my father's daughter, I grew up without a conscience. You don't seem to get me when I try to explain how I feel about Claudia."

"Estelle, you tell us all the time..."

"... yet you still don't get it." I shook my head.

"I understand everything."

"No, Blade, you don't. I was there when both my father and brother fell into shitty love with her. She's the reason I became scared of love. I saw what she did to the love that was around her and that scared me from loving anyone anymore. Claudia had a weird habit of destroying everything in her path and I didn't want my one true love to fall apart because of her. I admit that I've never been a selfless person but I know for a fact that I had a heart. I gave it to someone and then had to take it back just because I didn't want that wretched Claudia anywhere near it. I saw how she took my father from my mother and I didn't want the same to happen to me."

"I-I didn't know..." Blade stuttered from realisation, but I didn't want his pity.

"... no-one knows. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go see my niece. Someone has to visit the poor thing." I said, turning around and walking out.

Once I made it to my car, I pulled out my phone and went to my gallery and looked at a specific picture which had been edged in my mind since I was young.

It was a picture of my family. My parents were standing in the back with my brothers in front of them and me in the centre. I was fourteen when the photo was taken, but we looked so happy. I missed that and Claudia took it all away.

No matter how much I wanted to forgive her, I just couldn't. It was all her fault. Claudia should've died ages ago.