The Rebel's Princess (Completed)

Chapter 1

New York City

I watch as my father's coffin is being lowered into the ground. The memories of two weeks ago flashes through my mind like a movie scene and I can't help but feel the light fear crawl up my skin. It may have happened days ago, but the memories...they're still very vivid.

I just hope the FBI will find the brutal killers sooner than later.

I shiver as I remember how my father laid in a puddle of his own blood on the wooden floor of his office. The windows were shattered and all the drawers of his desks in the room was ripped out. All the belongings of those drawers laid scattered across the floor. Every single paper was shredded, and every single file was scattered.

What were they looking for?

I remember running up to him, but I didn't notice the man behind me. The man didn't touch me, instead my mother had run in and whacked him across the head with a lamp. The only time my mother stood up for me. My cheeks are soaked with tears and my eyes feels puffy. I am tired. I couldn't sleep with the memory of my dad's dead body.

I remember crying and begging my father to stand up, to laugh it off and tell us it was one of his sick jokes. But he never did. I suddenly missed those sick jokes and appreciated it more when he made them, because if it was a joke, he would still be alive. I remember his dead eyes when I turned him on his back...those dead eyes that made me scream so loud and back away from him in fear.

I was never afraid of my dad, but those eyes...

The crime scene was investigated, and the FBI made a promise to find the killers. I just don't understand who would do such a thing. My dad was a loved man. He was a family man. A businessman with a good reputation. He never even tried to harm someone on purpose, and he even tried helping those in need with no favours to ask back. It doesn't make any sense.

I look around me at all the grim faces. Most of the people are old friends and business partners of my father, but to him they were family. My eyes travel to my younger sister, she's sobbing into her fiancée's arms. Her blond hair is left loose and she's wearing one of those hats that has the net over the eyes.

She has always been a fashion diva. A spoiled little brat. Her hands are covered in short black gloves and her dress is tight, reaching just below her knees. Her black heels go perfectly with the sad scene unfolding in front of me. She stands out from everyone else, even my mother looks dull next to her, and they are both very fashionable with what they wear.

I look away from her and my eyes lands on my older brother. He has a straight face. His arm is around his wife's shoulders and his other hand hang loosely by his side. He's wearing a black tux without the tie; he never liked ties or bow ties. The first two buttons of his grey shirt are loose, and his hair is a mess.

He's a mess.

I feel slightly scared. What if those people hunt him down next? After all, he was next in line for my father's business. He owns it now that my father is dead. Will they come after him as well? Is it even about the business? I stare at him for a while longer, my eyes burning with newfound tears.

They can't take him. My eyes meet the figure next to him. His wife. They have been together ever since high school. Two years after graduation he proposed to her and now, three years later, she is expecting a baby boy. My eyes drop to her seven-month baby bump. She will be a wonderful mother, just as she is a beautiful wife. My brother loves her with everything he has. If they take him...a sob escapes my throat.

I look up at my mother, who's standing at the foot of my father's grave. She's crying hysterically in my uncle's arms. My uncle, my father's older brother and my other father figure was the only one left of my father's family tree. My father has lost his parents in a terrible hit and run; he was an only child before my uncle's parents' took him in under their wing.

He loved his brother, they love each other. I have never seen them separated. Neither of them even tried to move away from their hometown, well city. I wipe away the tears with the napkin my father had given me once when my cat died. "Don't cry, Principessa." He had whispered to me while wiping away my tears.

"Any last words, Principessa?" I look up at my uncle and shake my head. My throat is too hoarse to even try and speak right now. He only nods his head in understanding and hold my mother a while longer. I don't even bother to comfort her, because she never even tried to comfort me. Instead, I looked around again to see if I recognize anyone else.

Mostly men in suits were strangers to me. My father's co-workers, I presume.

I stayed until after my father was buried and everyone left. I miss him already. I lower down and place the white daisies gently on top of the place he is now buried. They were his favorite flowers, and he used to call me his white daisy, when he didn't call me Principessa. Everyone calls me princess, so White Daisy was his nickname.

"Ti amo papà." I whisper to the cold head stone.

"Karla." I stand up and turn to look who the strange voice is. A man steps out from under a tree and walks slowly towards me. I have never seen him before. My defense kicks in and my muscles tightens. I clench my hands in to fists and bite the insides of my cheeks. He isn't a familiar person; he doesn't look like any of the business men my father had talked to over the years.

He has an evil grin on his face as he looks me up and down, "My, my...your father sure do have a lovely daughter," he smirks, and I step back. His voice isn't friendly at all and the way he purrs out his words is very uncomfortable. "Wh-who are you? And what do you want?" my voice is still hoarse and a bit shaky. He tilts his head to the side, chuckling slightly. I feel pathetic right now.

"Your father left all his money in your will, every last penny, senõrita. All I want is for you to hand it over," he pulls out a gun from behind him and shrugs before pointing it at me, "No fight, no kill." Sounds like an easy deal, but I am not about to fall for that. It answers a question that has been lingering in the back of my mind. He is one of the killers.

I was about to open my mouth when I hear a car come to a halt behind me. I turn around and my uncle's head pops out of the window. "Karla! Get in the car!" I make a run for it, but a sudden grip on my wrist causes me to jolt backwards. A squeak pushes past my throat as I face the man, but in instinct I raise my fist and punch him right on the nose. He screams, his grip loosening, and he grabs his now bloody nose in both hands. I run again, my knees feeling weak with the adrenaline.

I jump into the backseat and my uncle speeds off, a few gunshots hitting his bumper while making a run for it. Uncle Sam peeks at me through the rear-view mirror and I grip my now bruising wrist. My heart is hammering in my chest and my hands is shaking. Out of all the scenarios that can happen after a funeral, that wasn't what I was expecting.

I can't believe what just happen.

(Edited.)