My Juliet.
It felt like my body was moving through a thick fog, walking in slow motion down the hall. My hand was heavy as I held the gun in my right hand.
But my thoughts were clear.
Get her out.
Get her safe.
Get her away from the bad guys—even if that meant I was getting her away from me.
A sudden pain attacked my chest, then spread outward and down my limbs until my entire body was heavy as sand.
“Where would he be?” Romeo asked, his eyes wild, glaring through the corridor at all the different rooms.
I stopped in front of the one Troy used to love to play in, knowing in my gut this was where he was. I kicked open the door and rushed in with both men at my sides.
Juliet looked up, scared. Her skin was marred from head to toe with blood, and chunks of flesh were missing from her thighs and chest.
Her right eye was completely swollen shut, her lips bloody, cheeks bruised.
He’d broken her body.
So I would break his now.
“You sick son of a bitch!” I roared.
“Oh.” Troy looked over his shoulder. “You brought your own playdate.”
“Get the fuck away from her,” I said in a lethal tone. “Now!”
Troy finally turned and looked at the men, slightly paling at the sight of one of the most formidable mafia families staring him down with guns pointed in between his eyes.
“You really think you can take me down?” Troy laughed. “I have connections. I know every senator in—”
Romeo shot at his leg, nearly taking it off. “That’s what I think about your fucking connections.”
I laid my hand out in front of him. If anyone was going to kill this motherfucker it was going to be me.
Tears ran down Juliet’s cheeks.
I mouthed, “Are you okay?”
She nodded slowly.
My angel.
Broken.
Bloody.
While the devil stood by and watched it happen.
Troy was still screaming out in misery when I ran up behind him, catching him by surprise, and grabbed the cat o’ nine tails from his hands. I didn’t waste one more second of what I came to do, what I’d hoped for, what I’d prayed for in who knew how long.
To have his blood on my hands.
“Donovan—”
Not allowing another moment to go by, I started raining holy hell all over Troy’s body, forcing him to his knees.
“You fucking hit her,” I seethed. “Now it’s my turn to hit you!” I slammed the whip down across his back. “You made her bleed, and I’ll steal every ounce of blood you have left! You made her fucking scream, cry, and scarred her perfect skin for you!” I crashed it down so hard it took away chunks of skin from his forearms. “And I’ll make your body unrecognizable. Wishing you were never born!”
Troy held his arms up, blocking each strike, making it easy to take more and more of his skin, pouring out more and more blood, until a hand came back and grabbed my wrist.
“You’ll kill him.”
I glared back at Romeo, stressing, “Good.”
His eyes widened.
“Give me your knife.”
Without hesitation, he handed it over, and I grabbed Troy by the hair, exposing his throat, and drove the knife straight into his chest, all the way to the hilt.
“My boy.” A tear slid down Troy’s cheek. “So proud, so, very, very.” He smiled through the blood oozing from his mouth. “Proud.”
He fell in a gory heap to the floor.
Cursing me one last time, even in his death, as if I had somehow given him a hero’s burial. In his eyes I’d killed him, taken him out in a reign of final glory without even realizing it.
Hating myself more for giving him exactly what he wanted.
Letting my eyes linger on his dead body for far too long, I wanted to remember this moment and look back on it when I needed to smile, to stay calm, to find peace in a world that only caused distress and disorder. Once I was finished, I spit in his face, resisting the urge to piss on it instead.
Quickly, I looked toward Juliet while her father was undoing the ropes on her wrists before helping her off the X. She stumbled on her feet, strangling a cry as she ran past me, directly into Romeo’s arms and then her father’s.
In the end, the good guys won, and the bad guys didn’t.
One of us was on the ground, in a pool of his own blood, while the other had just watched his everything run past him and into her real hero’s arms—her brother, her father—her family.
“I missed you so much, sweetheart.” Romeo kissed her forehead.
“We need to get you looked at.” Her father cupped her chin tenderly.
Not aggressively.
There was no fear in their touch, despite the fact that they were trained killers; there was only care, love, security, warmth.
The only thing I could compare it to was the way I had begun to feel when Juliet looked at me, when she touched me, and the way my mother’s music used to wrap itself around me, setting me free.