by Sienna Blake
His eyes flashed with possibility.
Shit. “Why don’t you stay in Verona a bit longer?” I asked, before he got any ideas.
He shook his head, his lip curling. “I can’t stay here.”
“Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “And I can’t leave.”
He let go of me and stepped back, the cold air rushing in between us like a jolt of reality.
“It was a stupid idea anyway.”
“Roman, please…” I pleaded. I hated that he was angry at me. I hated that we were saying goodbye like this.
His phone beeped. “My ride is here.” Roman slipped it into his pocket and grabbed his duffel bag. He turned to walk out.
“Please don’t leave angry with me,” I said, quietly.
He froze. He glanced over his shoulder and his gaze caught mine. I could see it, the sadness and regret underneath the anger. The same things that were burning inside of me.
For a second I thought he might turn around and walk across the room towards me, closing the distance like I desperately wanted him to do.
“The room has been paid for until tomorrow,” he said.
Then he was gone.
No goodbyes.
No last kiss.
Just gone.
13
____________
Roman
I threw myself into the passenger side and slammed Mercutio’s car door, my duffel dropped at my feet. Weird emotions swirled around inside me. I hated myself for walking out on Julianna the way I did, as if she had meant nothing. But I knew, if I had crossed that room to kiss her one last time the way I’d wanted to, I’d never fucking leave. And I had to leave.
I could feel Mercutio staring at me. He still hadn’t pulled away from the curb. I glared at him. “What?” I snapped.
He snorted. “Hello to you, too, motherfucker. Thanks for making your excuses to everyone last night. You’re the fucking best for picking me up and taking me to the airport.”
I slumped into my seat. “Sorry, Merc,” I said, my voice soft and genuine.
He made a grunting sound and I knew it was his way of accepting my apology. “You look like shit.”
That was him telling me we were okay. “Thanks.”
He pulled away from the curb and into traffic. I sat in silence. I could feel his eyes glancing over to me every few seconds. “Who was she anyway?”
I shook my head. “The girl of my dreams, Merc. The girl of my fucking dreams.”
“Seriously?”
“She makes me laugh, she’s so fucking easy to talk to. And the sex…”
“TMI, bro. I don’t need to know.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Merc.” I let out a growl. “Every woman before her and after her is going to pale in comparison.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Does this mean you’re only fucking dudes from now on?”
I punched him in the arm, causing him to swerve. The car next to us beeped loudly.
Merc cursed and straightened the car. “Shit, you know I’d support you even if you did fuck dudes. Wouldn’t be into it, but I’d still love you, man.”
“I’m not turning gay,” I muttered. “Maybe joining the fucking priesthood.”
Merc laughed. Until he glanced over at me. I was furious. Furious at life for dealing me the family I had. Furious at my father for being the tyrant that he was. Furious at my brother for dying, causing the spotlight to shine firmly onto me, meaning that I had to get away from Verona, now more than ever. Most of all I was furious at myself for walking away from Julianna.
“Jesus,” Merc said, “you’re really cut up about this girl.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“She’s really that perfect.”
“More than perfect.”
“And you’re letting her get away?”
“I asked her to come with me. Offered her a ticket to Paris…” I gritted my teeth. That’s what really fucking hurt. I was alone in feeling like our connection was worth pursuing until the wheels fell off.
“And she said no.”
“She said no. Just like you. Both of you bitches. I’m not good enough for either of you to leave this piece of shit city. Even if I pay for it.”
“Roman…”
I growled. “Yeah, I know. You have your fucking reasons.” Mercutio may have grown up with me, but his family was not well off like mine. Mercutio had refused to get involved in the “life”. He was too proud to take a handout from me. He worked a steady job in IT after taking night classes while working a menial job at a factory. He refused to let me help him out with money. He’d always said, he’d come visit me in Europe when he could afford to pay for his own damn ticket. Proud fucker. I loved him like a brother.
I stared out the window, watching the city flash past me. Verona was like an old prison, the buildings its bars, blackened with soot and mold, barely letting the light seep down to the crumbling streets. The alleyways were in a constant haze from all the white smoke puffing out of open exhausts, and the pipes webbing across the sides of buildings cracked like joints. This was a place where the rules were harsh and unwritten. Where hidden players held the dice and decent people had no idea that they were merely sheep in a valley of wolves.
The next time I came back, it’d be for my father’s funeral.
Once I got to London I had to figure out what to do with myself. Maybe, get a job at the boxing gym I’d attended for the last eight years. Learn how to save and shit. I couldn’t keep living off my father’s allowance. Especially now.
“So…” Merc’s voice broke into my thoughts, “girl of your dreams, huh? What was her name?”
“Her name’s—”
“Holy fuck.” Mercutio slammed on the brakes. I jerked forward and my seatbelt caught me across the chest. A chorus of beeps blared around us. The car skidded to a halt. A black Escalade had driven across the lane to barricade the road in front of us. Another black SUV blocked the road behind us. The few cars behind us began trickling around us in the farthest lane, slowly. I could feel their eyes and curiosity peering at the blockage in the road.
My heart began thumping in my chest. Either this was a planned hit from the Veronesis or my father’s men had finally found me. I don’t know which one I feared more.
Of all the times to be without a fucking gun.
“Are you packing, Merc?” I opened the glove compartment and rummaged through it, finding only papers and a small black torch.
“What? Hell no.”
Damn him and his no gun policy. I slammed the compartment shut. The passenger door of the front Escalade opened. A figure stepped out.
Fuck. It was Abel.
Which meant my father was here for me.
I inhaled deeply and cursed my last name. I couldn’t put my father off any longer. It was better to get out of the car and see what he wanted. I was cornered now. I took a deep breath and braced myself to face the dark presence that had been waiting here to catch me.
“Stay here,” I said to Merc. “They want me, not you.”
“I’m coming with—”
“Merc, it’s my father. He won’t hurt me.” At least, I hoped not. “He probably just wants to talk to me.” I hoped. I wouldn’t put anything past my father.
I opened the car door and stepped out.
“Roman,” Merc called.
“Yeah?”
“Call me if you need me, k?”
I nodded, patting my jeans pocket to make sure my phone was with me. Then shut the door so I could face Abel.
They say that you should never judge a book by its cover. With Abel, he was every bit the monster on the inside as on the out. He was a wiry man, a few inches shorter than my six foot two, a scar that ran down from his left ear, down to the corner of his lip, as if he had once been caught in a fish hook and torn away from it. For almost as long as I could remember, he wore black leather gloves so he’d never leave a fingerprint anywh
ere. It wasn’t his strength or fists you ever had to worry about. It was the various knives he always had in his possession and his ability to wield them like scalpels. And the fact that he had no soul. No remorse. No conscience. He would gut his sister’s baby in front of her if it suited him.
He strode towards me, hatred rolling off him. I stood my ground. If there was one thing my father taught me, never let them see you flinch. If you flinch, you’re dead.
Abel sneered and his scar puckered. “Your father wants you.”
A black limousine rolled up beside us and stopped, the passenger side door by my side. Abel opened the door, holding it wide open for me. “Get in.”
“I have a plane to catch.”
Abel pulled out a gun and cocked the weapon, pointing the black barrel at my head. I had no doubt he’d shoot given half the chance. “Get. In.”
14
____________
Julianna
I stepped in through my front door and dropped my keys into the bowl on the side table.
“Where the hell have you been?” a voice behind me demanded, making me jump. A tiny figure stood in my doorway, hands on hips.
“Nora.” I let out a breath of relief, stepping aside to let her in. “Jesus Christ, you scared me.”
I walked towards my kitchen for a glass of water. She swatted my ass as I passed her.
“Ow. What was that for?”
“That was for making me worry when you didn’t come home last night.”
I stiffened. “How did you know I didn’t come home last night?”
She gave me a look. “Firstly, I waited up for you so long here that I fell asleep on your couch. I wanted to tell you about my date.”
“Oh.”
“And secondly,” she waved her finger at my tight black dress, the one that I had been wearing for almost twenty-four hours, “that is a walk of shame outfit if I ever saw one.”
“Nora! How do you even know what a walk of shame is? Wait…wait. I don’t want to know.”
She snorted. “Please, I might be old but I’m not dead.”
I turned back to my glass of water, hoping to avoid all further conversation.
When I didn’t answer, she swatted me again, making me hiss. “And that is for making me wait to get all the dirty details.”
I rubbed my ass, glaring at her. “Remind me to get my spare keys from you.”
“Don’t change the subject. Who was he and how good was he in bed?” A wide toothy grin spread across her face.
I felt my cheeks heat up as the memories of the last twenty-four hours assaulted my mind.
Nora’s grin grew wider. “Dear Lord, the man has made you speechless. Tell me everything. Did you meet him out somewhere?”
“Well…not exactly.”
“Through a friend?”
“No.”
She let out a huff. “So? Where’d you met him?”
“Um, at Mom’s?”
Nora’s mouth dropped open. “Are you actually telling me that you picked up a guy at the cemetery?”
I winced. “No. He asked me out.”
“So, you allowed yourself to be picked up by some guy you met at a graveyard?”
“Kinda?”
“I knew it. You,” she waggled her finger at me, “are a closet freak.”
“What? I am not.”
“Freaky deacky leather squeaky.”
I laughed, mostly out of embarrassment. I was not having this conversation with a woman who was old enough to be my grandmother. “It’s not like that.”
“Did you make out with him at the cemetery?”
“Ew, Nora, we were at a cemetery.”
“Didn’t stop you from thinking about it, did it?”
I had more than thought about it. I remembered how Roman had pressed his finger to his mouth in a shushing motion, drawing my eyes to his lips. Those perfect lips, the most beautiful lips I had ever seen on a man. I had wanted to pull them against my mouth and taste them. I had wanted it with a fierceness that had taken my breath away.
“I knew it.” Nora was grinning at me, her head nodding slightly. “I could see it all over your face.”
I didn’t bother denying it. I gulped down water, trying to quell the heat rising up my body.
“Did you sleep with him?”
I choked, spluttering water everywhere. “Nora!” I admonished, my cheeks flushing red-hot as images of the last twenty-four hours with him—his skin, his tongue, his body—washed over me.
“Oh my lolly gobble bliss bomb! You did sleep with him!” she screamed.
“Nora, shhh.” I cringed as I imagined my other neighbors hearing.
“Tell. Me. Everything. Height, specs, penis size.”
“I don’t know his penis size!”
“Lame.” She huffed out a breath of air. “Tell me everything anyway.”
My stomach fluttered, forcing a grin out of me. “Okay.”
We sat on my couch. I launched into a recap of what had happened with Roman, leaving out the sexy specifics despite Nora’s attempts to tease them out of me. “Every second with him felt so incredible, so natural, like breathing. It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, unlike anything I even thought possible.”
Nora clasped her hands together and let out a sigh, her eyes going all misty. My belly clenched tighter as I spoke about him.
I missed him.
I missed his touch, his voice, I missed laughing with him.
When I told Nora about his offer to take me to Paris, she let out a shriek. “What? Why are you still here?” Her eyes bulged. She looked like she might hit me. “You said no?”
“I couldn’t have just taken off like that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, you could have. That’s an excuse because you,” she glared at me, “are scared.”
I tried shrugging off her words, but they had settled like tiny knives in my belly. “What was the point anyway if I did say yes? My life is here in Verona and his is in London. It’d never work out.”
“When you get my age, you realize that life is short. Sometimes you don’t need to know the ‘point’ of it before you jump in. If it feels right, then do it. Carpe the fuck out of that diem.”
I bit my lip. I wasn’t scared. I was just being responsible. Right?
So why did it feel like I had done the wrong thing by not taking a chance with Roman?
My stomach sank as I realized I could never make it right. He was gone. I was never going to see him again.
15
____________
Roman
In the limousine, my father sat facing forward in the middle of the black leather seat, waiting for me. I slid into the seat opposite him, my stomach knotting into a ball. I hadn’t seen my father since I left Verona at eighteen. His dominating presence hadn’t changed.
He was in his early fifties now but he looked as though he still worked out regularly. His shoulders were linebacker broad, his barrel waist showing little signs of flab in an expensive Armani black pinstripe suit, black shirt and a red silk tie with a matching pocket hankie. He cut an imposing figure, one arm outstretched across the luxuriously soft leather seat, his ankle holster showing a little under the hem of his slacks as he sat with one leg resting on his other knee. I knew he’d probably have a pistol tucked under his suit jacket too.
His dark hair was slicked back. His goatee was showing the first signs of silver hairs. His black hooded eyes that looked so much like mine bore into me, the lines between his brows set in a permanent frown. I should be used to his look of barely disguised disgust, of bitter disappointment. It never failed to feel like a knife twisting into my gut. I hated him, but for some fucked up reason, I still needed him to approve of me.
Hi, son. Nice to see you see you again after eight long years. Gee, you’ve grown into a man now. He didn’t bother with such niceties. He rolled his gaze over me, assessing me. Probably wondering why he’d been cursed with such a disappointment.
“No,”
my father said, as Abel tried to get in the back with us. “Get in front.” He turned towards me, his eyes flashing like a storm. “I want to speak to my son, alone.” His voice hadn’t changed; heavy and gravelly, it was the voice of my childhood nightmares.
Abel shut the door. My father and I were left alone. The bulletproof and soundproof partition was up between us and the front cab. I bit down the growing apprehension in my gut.
The limo began to move. I shifted in my seat and tried to unclench my jaw. “Where are we going?” I asked my father, the first thing I’d said to his face in eight years.
“For a drive.”
I swallowed as I stared out the tinted windows, Verona flashing past us as we turned off from the highway. “I need to be at the airport by eight to catch a flight.”
My father smiled but it was not friendly. “You thought you could come to Verona, slip in and out of your brother’s funeral without saying hello to your old man? What did I do to deserve such disrespect?” I could hear the cold anger in his voice. He was pissed. More pissed at me than I think he’d ever been.
I cringed. “I ran out of time. I had too many friends to see and…” I glanced over to him. He was still glaring at me. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me,” I said, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice. “You seemed happy when I left Verona.”
“Family comes first,” he said. “Family is the most important thing. I’d think that even you’d have learned that by now.”
I tried to ignore his dig. I tried not to feel his disapproval rolling over me in heavy waves. I was never his favorite son; he had always made that clear. That honor had gone to Jacob, a demon he created in his image, then to Marco, the middle child who got himself exiled from Verona years ago, thanks to his tendency to lash out with violence first, talk never.
I’d been my mother’s favorite. I’d been born premature and she’d almost lost me. I had been the smallest of her three sons. Because of that, she had treated me with kid gloves, to the disgust of my father. She’d made me soft in his eyes.
We drove for a few minutes in silence. My phone pinged.