Setting. Me. Free.
“It’s finished.” I found myself saying, my voice cracked. I might as well have crashed against the floor like Troy.
I knew I was different than him.
But it didn’t change the fact that I’d stolen her away from them.
Kept her for myself.
Hurt her for my pleasure.
Only to leave her behind.
“Take her home,” I added, nodding at them to do as I demanded.
Needed.
Wanted.
Despite feeling like I was going to die.
Romeo froze; his expression went from shocked to grave as Juliet collapsed against him, bursting into tears.
“Donovan?”
I couldn’t look at her. “It’s what’s best. Take her.”
“But … I don’t understand.” Tears streamed with blood down her face, mixing with our tainted love story and tragic end. “You’re my home, Donovan—Master—”
I flinched when she fell to her bloody knees and wrapped her arms around my legs.
“Pet.” It came out harsher than I would have liked. Harder. “It’s time.”
“You promised!” she screamed. “You swore I was yours forever! You said it, Donovan, you said it!”
My pained expression met Romeo’s, looking at him to do what I couldn’t.
Comfort her.
Love her.
Make her feel safe.
In that one moment, I was just a man looking at another man, and we saw eye to eye—keep her protected, get her healed.
I needed to stop being the reason her heart was breaking.
Even though she wouldn’t realize it in that instant.
I needed to set her free.
Romeo picked her up off the floor, and she clawed at his body to get away from him, to get to me. Memories rushed through me of the first time she’d reacted the same way she was right now, when she woke up tied to a piano. However, I was hard as fuck for her back then; now, I was just hardened.
A solitary tear slid down my cheek and onto the floor.
Juliet saw it, but I didn’t budge.
I closed my eyes and mourned the only way I knew how.
By imagining all those times I asked her to play, and all the times she mended a broken man with her smile.
“Goodbye, Juliet,” I affirmed to only her.
“You said you weren’t a liar! That you would always tell me the truth! I know you love me, Donovan! I can feel it!”
I didn’t say a word.
“Tell me you don’t love me! I deserve at least that! If you want to set me free, then scream to me that you don’t love me!”
Instead of giving her what she begged for, I spun and left her there.
Breaking.
Bleeding.
Dying for me.
I wondered if she heard my scream minutes later as I collapsed to the ground and tugged at my hair, trying to tear it out of my scalp. I wondered if she realized how many times I stared at the knife in Troy’s chest and pondered if it would feel better to just end my story there.
One blade to the heart.
One bullet to the head.
It would be so easy to take my own life, but death was far too good for a villain like me.
An hour later, Elaina walked in, a bottle of Jack in hand. “Thank you.”
“For what?” My voice was hoarse from screaming, and it hurt to talk. “Making him finally pay.”
She walked over and kicked his body. “The Sinacores are sending a cleanup crew.”
“Good for them.”
“Where is she?”
I stared into the amber liquid. “Home.”
Elaina wisely said nothing as I opened the bottle and tipped it back, waiting for the rest of the men to arrive.
With nothing but my dark, seedy world crumbling down on me.
Juliet
Could the world hear my heart break? Could Donovan? Why would he? Why? Why take me only to give me back?
I couldn’t even feel the physical pain anymore, the trauma, the bruising. Mentally, I couldn’t even focus on the shame or fear. All I had was loss.
Loss of him.
Not my master.
Donovan.
My love.
“It’s best this way,” Romeo declared once we were back at the house, once the doctor had made sure I was okay and treated all of my wounds.
He sent me away.
Master gave me up without fighting for me first. He surrendered like I was nothing more than a toy he no longer wanted to play with.
“Juliet,” Romeo barked my name this time. “Did you hear what I said?”
“Does it even matter anymore?” I stared down at my phone. The tears wouldn’t stop, and it was like my body was made to create only tears at this point. Until I drowned in a river of them, my head sinking below water with one last thought—him.
Romeo sighed. “He’s not normal, Juliet. He did the right thing; he came to us, and—”
“You don’t know him the way I do,” I snapped. “You don’t know what he’s been through, how he saved me.”
“He fucking kidnapped you!” Romeo yelled, his fists clenched at his sides. “How do you not see that?”
“I see it.” I finally looked up. “I know he had other reasons. I’m not stupid, Romeo, but things changed; they shifted. He was … mine.”