“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.
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.