by Sienna Blake
All men.
My blood turned cold. My mind flashed back to the night that Eddie and Tate tried to rape me. There was nothing to stop these men from doing whatever they wanted with me. A shiver went down my back.
My gaze fell on the one face I dreamed of and yet, feared to see.
Roman Tyrell.
“Roman,” his name tore from my lips in a desperate pained whisper. Every cell of my being yearned for him. I dared not move.
He looked stunning as always, a king of darkness in a tailored dark gray suit, a black shirt underneath. Coldness wafted off him as he glanced over me. As if he barely knew me. As if he hadn’t been embedded in my heart. As if I had no place in his.
This is just a mask. Roman Tyrell loves you. He will get you out of here.
What are you doing here? Did you know I was here? Please tell me you have a plan. All these things I desperately wanted to ask but couldn’t. We weren’t supposed to love each other. I shoved all my feelings, all my love and desire, back down inside me.
I forced myself to glare at him, at all of them. My heart thumped against my windpipe.
“Welcome, Detective Capulet,” Giovanni Tyrell called out.
I said nothing. I could barely breathe. It took all of my energy to keep my heart rate steady. What did they want with me?
Abel reached around me to grip my throat and I let out a strangled cry. He pulled me right up against him. I could feel every inch of his slimy body. Oh my God. He was hard against my ass. I cringed. He was enjoying my fear. Getting off on it.
“When Mr. Tyrell speaks to you, you speak back, you disrespectful girl,” he hissed into my ear.
Roman didn’t move. He didn’t flinch. Although I could see by the tension on his jaw that he was two seconds away from launching himself at Abel and ripping his face off. If he did, he’d give himself away.
I had to act as unaffected by Abel as possible, for Roman. I couldn’t let Roman see how disgusted I was, how much this evil man touching me was like having bugs crawling around under my skin.
“Speak, girl. And be respectful,” Abel hissed over my shoulder, his nose running down my neck, his disgusting worm of an erection twitching against me. I struggled not to squirm. I would not let him see how much I was screaming inside.
“What’s going on?” I found myself asking, my voice quivering much more than I wanted it to. “Why am I here?”
“You’re going to help us send a message to your father,” Giovanni said.
“Whatever it is,” I said as defiantly as I could, “he won’t agree to it.” Abel tightened his hand on my throat. “Sir,” I added, my voice straining. Abel loosened his grip, but only just.
I could see Roman’s jaw twitch.
Don’t do it, Roman. Don’t give yourself away. We just have to get through this, then figure out a way to escape together.
Giovanni smiled at me. “Oh yes, I think your father will agree. Because it’ll be a small thing, some money, to get you back. And he’ll pay. He’ll pay because it’ll be small enough that he can pay. It won’t be worth involving the police. And he, of all people, knows how badly the police can fuck up hostage situations.”
I frowned, glancing between him and Roman. “You kidnapped me for a small amount of money?” I didn’t know whether to be insulted or terrified that there was something bigger that I wasn’t seeing.
It was Roman who began to laugh. “Stupid girl,” he said, his voice hard and cruel. “You don’t see it, do you?”
“See…what?”
“The money is a decoy. What we will have when we make the exchange are photos, hard evidence, that your father is corrupt.”
I gasped. “But he’s not. He’d never…”
“Never make a cash trade with a Tyrell?” Roman said, his lips lifting in a sneer. “He will for you, his precious only daughter. His weakness. Love makes us weak, doesn’t it? We’d do stupid things for love, wouldn’t we?”
He doesn’t mean that. He doesn’t. He’s just playing the game. He loves me. Love makes us stronger. It gives us a reason to keep fighting.
“But I’ll know the truth,” I said. “I’ll tell—”
“The public doesn’t care about the truth,” Giovanni said. “They just love to lap up the latest scandal. Your father, the ‘incorruptible’, proven to be corrupt? They will eat that up. Photos don’t lie.”
They couldn’t. My father would be ruined. Everything he’d built would be destroyed. All the criminals he’d ever put away would use his “corruption” as an excuse to get their sentences overturned. All the good he’d done under his command would be turned into a pile of rubble all because of me.
I sank back against Abel in horror.
“Shall we begin?” Giovanni said.
“Begin what?”
“The message to your father.” Abel’s voice slid into my ear. “Roman has agreed to cut off your finger.”
My…what?
Giovanni pulled a long butcher's knife from the sheath being held by one of his men. It glinted in the light as he handed it to Roman. Roman took it and turned towards me, his face remaining cold.
My blood froze. Oh my God. He was going to do it. Had he turned on me?
No, Roman would never. He would figure out a way to get us out of this. When? How? If he refused to cut my finger off, he’d be punished.
Abel rubbed his erection into my back. “Go on, girlie,” he whispered in my ear so only I could hear him. He let go of my throat to caress my cheek with his gloved hand. “Scream a little. Bleed for me. You’re in good hands when you pass out. I bet your blood tastes like your pussy will.”
No. No fucking way. I turned my head and sank my teeth into his hand. Soft leather, warm flesh and wetness spilled into my mouth.
He let out a scream and shoved me away. I heard tearing. His glove and part of his palm came away in my teeth. I spat it onto the ground, a mess of black leather and blood.
“You fucking bitch,” Abel said. He backhanded me with his uninjured hand so hard that my head rang. I fell to the cold floor at Roman’s feet.
“Back off, dog.” Roman stepped in front of me, the knife meant for me aimed at Abel.
Don’t defend me, I wanted to scream. You’ve given yourself away.
“I knew it,” Abel yelled. “I fucking knew it. You’ve got a thing for her. You’re the one who had Tate and Eddie killed.”
Tate and Eddie. The two men who had been hired to kidnap me. Giovanni Tyrell had been behind it after all.
“We need her alive, you fucking idiot,” Roman scowled. “We can’t return her to her father all broken.”
“You’re cutting off her finger. What’s another bruise or two? Or are you too soft to do it?”
“Enough, Abel,” Giovanni called out, his voice calm and steady. “Roman is right. We need her alive. And relatively unharmed. I know that you can often…get carried away.”
Only then did Abel back down. “Yes, sir,” he said as he clutched his shirt with his right hand, now gloveless and bleeding down his inner wrist in rivulets.
I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
“You…” Roman’s voice shook. I snapped my face towards him. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.
I looked towards where he was staring, where the knife was now pointed. To the back of Abel’s hand.
There in the center was a raised pink circular scar.
A circular burn.
Like a cigarette lighter.
Roman spun towards his father, his face a crumpled mask. “Why did you do it? Why?”
Giovanni straightened up, his chin thrust abnormally high. I swear I saw a flash of fear in his eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“My mother, my fucking mother,” Roman yelled. “Why did you have her killed?”
“I didn’t—”
“The night she was murdered, the night I watched her die, she attacked her murderer with a cigarette lighter, leaving a circular scar on the back of his
hand. Like the one that Abel has.” He pointed at Abel with the knife that was meant for me. “That’s why you wear the gloves.”
“Fucking bitch,” Abel hissed, glaring at me, his other hand covering up the scar as if it were a mark of shame.
“Your dog doesn’t do anything without your instruction,” Roman said, his dark eyes fixed on his father.
Oh, Roman. My heart twisted. His own father had his mother killed. He sat back and watched as the media crucified Roman, as rumors spread around of a little boy so monstrous that he killed his mother at the age of twelve. How could he do that? How could his father do that to his son? The throbbing in my cheek faded as I became overwhelmed with rage for Roman. I burned for Roman. I shook where I sat.
Giovanni’s face curled like the withered leaves of a poisonous tree. “She was going to leave me, leave us. She was going to run off with that bitch prosecutor and leave us all behind. But I fixed it.”
Bitch prosecutor.
I choked back a gasp. A final piece of the puzzle clicked into place.
Joan. Joan from the taped conversation in my mother’s case file. The one I couldn’t find a file on. My mother had been talking with Maria Tyrell. Maria wanted to testify against Giovanni in exchange for a new life for her three children.
My mother showed up dead in an alleyway a few hours after Maria Tyrell was killed. This was not a coincidence.
Nobody connected the two deaths at the time because they were two very different women, so far apart in their social circles, both killed in two different parts of the city, each with a different MO. A break and enter gone wrong. A random mugging in an alleyway. A knife. And a gun. Even I hadn’t connected these two deaths for this very reason.
I leapt to my feet. “You son of a bitch.” I only saw Giovanni Tyrell, the edges of my vision fuzzy and black around him. “You had my mother killed.”
“What?” I heard Roman cry, his voice sounding so far away.
“Your mother,” Giovanni snarled at me, “shouldn’t have tried to take my wife away from me and her boys. She filled Maria’s head with such nonsense. She turned Maria against me. She deserved her bullet.”
“You know, you look just like her,” Abel said to me with a cruel smile. “Such a strong woman until she was begging for her life.”
Abel had shot my mother. He had staged the fake robbery in the alleyway where she was found.
“She was a good woman, a loved woman.” I began to blubber as my heart tore into pieces. “You had no right. No fucking right.” My gaze narrowed to the gun on Roman’s hip. I didn’t care that I was surrounded by men with guns who would fire back. Rage flared around my body, gripping me tightly in her burning hands. I was reborn out of the flames like a phoenix, a creature of justice. I would avenge my mother.
I lunged for Roman’s gun, snatching it from his hip. I swung it towards Giovanni. The warehouse filled with the sound of weapons being drawn and hammers being cocked. There were at least five guns, now pointing their cruel black eyes at me.
“No!” Roman lunged in front of me, shielding me with his body.
I screamed at Roman just as Giovanni yelled, “Don’t shoot!” His face turned red as he spat, “Don’t you dare shoot my son!”
A violent crash sounded in stereo. The windows burst in as if a bomb had gone off on all sides. Guns appeared at the openings. Shots rang out and wood splintered as bullets ricocheted around the room like ping pong balls.
“Jules, get down!” Roman yelled at me, shielding me with his body as I dropped to the gritty ground. The smell of hay and dirt hit my nose.
Giovanni’s men ran for cover, yelling, returning fire. It was an ambush. The Veronesis? Or…the police?
How did they know we were here?
In the chaos, Roman and I had been forgotten. We could try to make a run for it.
Something glinted to the right of me. My vision zeroed in on the barrel of the rifle pointed at Roman from one of the broken windows. From the outside, the police wouldn’t know the difference between Roman and all the other Tyrell men.
“Roman!” I screamed.
He turned. The rifle fired, the barrel kicking back. Everything seemed to slow.
I saw the bullet hit before it did. I saw the nightmare before it began. In that split second, the life I thought I might have was torn from me. Our future, the one with Roman and me in it, happy, together, disintegrated. I could do nothing, helpless, as it unfolded.
The bullet hit Roman. It hit him, but I could feel it ripping through me.
He fell to his back on the ground, grabbing at his stomach, looking down as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, a rush of blood soaking his clothes. He lifted his head, his eyes caught mine. A cold rush flooded over me like I’d just crashed through the ice into a watery grave.
“My son!” Giovanni Tyrell rose from behind a crate, screaming in a battle cry. “You shot my boy, you bastards.” He turned to fire, getting off a couple of shots before the first bullet hit him. Three stains appeared on his chest as he toppled to the ground.
The firing seemed to fade around me as I kneeled beside Roman. His stomach was a bloody mess. “Oh God, Roman.”
His eyes caught mine. I saw resignation in them. “It’s bad.”
“It’s not so bad,” I lied.
“Jules, listen…”
“No.” I pressed my mouth to his to shut him up. My hands clutched at his stomach, trying to stop the bleeding. “Help is on its way. Just hang on.”
“All those years I thought I was living,” his voice rumbled against my lips. “I was merely waiting for my life to begin.”
“Stop talking like that, you’re going to be fine.” This could not be goodbye. I wouldn’t let it be. The blood just kept pumping out of his stomach, squeezing between my fingers like grains of sand even as I tried to stop it. What are two hands against a tide?
He grabbed my hands and pulled them off his stomach, his grip surprisingly strong. He brushed my fingers with his mouth, smearing it with liquid the color of roses. “My life began with you. It will end with you.”
“Roman.” A rising panic choked me. Tears blurred my vision. He was saying goodbye. Fuck him for saying goodbye. This could not be goodbye. “Please hang on.”
“I love you,” he said. The three words I’d longed to hear. My heart swelled to bursting. Then shattered. “I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you.”
“Please,” I begged. I begged with every aching piece of my soul. “Don’t leave me.”
“Be brave for me, Julianna,” his voice grew hoarse. “Be happy…” His eyes fluttered shut. He stilled, his fingers unraveling from mine, slipping from all the blood, and fell out to his side.
He let go.
He let go of me.
He wasn’t supposed to let go.
I heard someone screaming, a long, pained scream of anguish. As if the very core of the universe were ripping apart. I realized it was coming from me.
Someone grabbed me, cruel, strong arms ripped me back from Roman’s body. “Miss, you have to let go of him.” I would not. I sent out a desperate plea to God, to Allah, to the devil if he were listening, don’t let him die. All their lives for Roman’s. I would trade all their lives for his.
They dragged me back. I felt my bond with Roman pulling, coming undone like a rope about to snap.
“Let me go,” I screamed. “He needs me. He needs me.” If Roman could just feel me near him. If my soul could just reach out and catch the tail end of his and pull it back into his body. If our love could do that. It was strong enough to do that, wasn’t it?
They wouldn’t let me go. The sight of Roman was lost to me as he was surrounded by the dark blue uniforms I used to love so much.
29
____________
Julianna
I sat in the back of a police van, numb, wrapped in a blanket. My father, still wrapped up in his tactical gear, was standing in front of me, explaining…trying to explain.
“R
oman came to me. He said he would do anything to save you. Even turn on his family.”
My stomach clenched. Oh, Roman. Why did you have to try to save me?
“He made a deal with us,” my father continued. “He gave us this location where they were keeping you. He was supposed to wear the wire so we could get something incriminating on tape. So we could end the Tyrell empire. He installed the recording device inside the barn last night.”
“Looks like you got what you wanted,” I spat out. Bitterness coating my tongue.
“He knew the risks.” My father sighed. “You were right. Roman Tyrell…was a good man, in his own way. He died a hero.”
Finally, my father believed me. But it was too late now.
“But no one will know that, will they?”
My father gave me a guilty look. “It’s better if we don’t reveal publicly how we were able to get the recording or to find the location of the barn.”
Angry tears fell on my gray fluffy blanket. This was so unfair. I could scream, but my throat was choked up. “So he dies a criminal.”
“I’m sorry. If it means anything, I think he really did care about you.” My father looked at me with such sorrow I almost softened.
I remembered the barrel of that rifle pointed at Roman. I looked up, glaring at my father. “Your man shot him. Whoever shot him did it on purpose. I saw—”
“It was crazy in there, Jules. You don’t know what you saw.” My father’s jaw twitched. Was he lying? Did he know something he wasn’t saying? If his team knew that Roman was on their side, then someone had shot Roman on purpose. My father was covering for them.
I pulled the blanket tighter around me. “I’d like to be alone now.”
“Julu…” My father slipped a hand on my shoulder.
I flinched from his touch. “Don’t call me that.”
He sighed, dropping his arm to his side. “You’ll get over him, love. You will.” He walked back among the officers who were processing the scene.
My heart curled up into a withered pile of ash. I’d never get over Roman. Never.
* * *