My feet slam against the concrete ground and I barely notice the soft splash beneath them before glancing down to find the basement floor soaked with water, not even the desert heat doing enough to dry this out. I want to pause to ask what the fuck is going on, but there will be time to answer questions afterward.
I look over every fucking cell, desperate to see those rosy cheeks and that beautiful long blonde hair, but I find nothing, and the desperation quickly sets in as I hear my brothers and Shayne on the stairs. How the fuck could Shayne do this? She just left her behind to rot in a fucking cell. I know she was fighting for her life, but leaving her? I thought Shayne was better than that. I know we had a rocky start, but we moved past that. I thought we were cool now. I’ll never let her live this down. Something else has to be going on. There has to be more to the story.
“FELICITY,” I call, my panic starting to overwhelm me as I find myself spinning, looking back and forth, trying to get to her. There’s a woman at the opposite end and she gapes at me in horror before hiding her face and scrambling back in her cell as though I’m here to rain hell over her, but to be completely honest, I couldn’t give a shit about her. The cell is open so she’s free to leave whenever the hell she wants.
I was so sure that Felicity was dead when her body gave out in my arms, but Marcus was right about her being his shooter. I just couldn't entertain the idea that the love of my life was still out there, fighting for hers in a world I was supposed to protect her from. She was so innocent, thrown into this bullshit just like Shayne was, only she wasn’t as strong as Shayne. Felicity needed me; our baby needed me. The girl I once knew would have never shot my brother. Our father put her up to it; there is no other explanation.
But there’s still time to turn this around. I’m here now, and I can bring her home, protect her, start over again in the hope that one day she’ll forgive me for abandoning her here for so long.
I could have killed my brother when that accusation came flying out of Shayne’s mouth at my dining table. How dare he try to fuck with her memory like that? But he kept at it, determined that it was her, and I was a fucking idiot for not believing him. I saw the signs and I ignored every last one of them. There is still time. If I’d only listened, if I’d given it the time of day, I could have saved her from this bullshit.
My father will pay for keeping her from me. I’ll fucking destroy him for this.
My gaze skims over a cell that has signs of an attack, torn underwear, dried blood, and a pair of pants that are inside out. My mind takes me to the worst fucking place, and I find myself looking up at Shayne. There’s something oddly familiar about those pants. They’re not Shayne’s though. She’s still fully dressed in the clothes she was wearing the day she was taken.
Felicity. They must be hers.
“Where the fuck is she?” I roar, looking up and meeting Shayne’s stare on the steps, hiding behind my brothers as though she’s terrified that I’m about to take out my frustrations on her. I would never hurt her like that, not after the bullshit I’ve already put her through, but fuck, if one of my brothers wanted to try me right now, I’d be more than happy to take my guilt out on them.
Shayne nods toward the cell just down from me and points. “She’s in there,” she starts. “But—”
I break away, spinning on my heel and darting toward the cell to find a fucking mess. “FELICITY,” I rush out, my brothers racing down the rest of the stairs.
“Roman, wait,” I hear Shayne calling out, whatever she needs to say is not important right now, all that matters is getting to Felicity.
I reach her cell within two big strides and dive through the open door, my gaze shooting down to the body sprawled out on the floor, unable to understand what the fuck I’m looking at. This isn’t my Felicity. This is … this is nothing but a shell. Her stomach is swollen and her bright blonde hair dirty and matted. Those lips that would brush against mine are thin and gray, the color completely drained from her body. Her stiff, decaying body.
“Fuck,” I hear Marcus moving in behind me, his hand falling to my shoulder and making me realize that I’m on my knees.
I reach out to her, gripping onto her perfect, delicate little hand unable to believe what I’m seeing. She can’t be dead, not when I only just got her back. My hand clenches around hers, the red-hot anger burning through me. She looks as though she’s been gone for at least a few days, and that realization has pure agony spearing through my chest.
My eyes sting, a feeling I’ve never experienced before, and I want nothing more than to sink my fingers into someone’s chest and tear their heart right out of their body.
“FUCK,” I roar, this feeling weighing down on me, something I haven’t felt since that night my father stormed the castle and shot her through the chest. She was supposed to be gone then. I’d come to terms with it, but she’s been alive this whole fucking time and I left her here to rot, left her in my father’s grasps, too fucking overwhelmed by grief and anger to even question it.
I failed her. I let her down and I’ll never fucking forgive myself.
A broken sigh sounds beside me, and I feel Shayne’s presence like a fucking beacon calling to me. “How?” I breathe, the word getting stuck in my throat.
She moves in closer, and it somehow makes the pain just a little more tolerable. She drops to her knees, looking down at Felicity as though they were best friends. She reaches out and brushes the matted strands of hair off her face, revealing the sunken hollows of her cheeks, cheeks that were once full of life.
“Your father has kept her locked up this whole time,” Shayne starts, lowering her voice to a whisper as she struggles to get the words out. “The night I got here was when it happened. She was all alone in here, already in labor. She was screaming. I’ll never forget it. I was locked up across the basement, but I couldn’t ignore it. They were just upstairs, acting as though nothing was happening and I …”
She trails off, realizing there are more important things she needs to share right now. “I knocked out one of the guards … the one you just shot outside, and I helped her. She was so scared. She didn’t want to push because she knew what your father was going to do the second the baby was delivered.”
Dread pulses through me and my chest sinks, fearing the worst. “My baby,” I breathe, feeling it deep in my gut. He’s gone. My father would have killed him in front of her eyes before killing her just to get his fucking rocks off.
“No,” Shayne rushes out, taking my hand in hers and holding it so close to her chest that I feel the rapid beat of her heart beneath. “She gave birth to a beautiful little boy, Roman,” she tells me, her eyes watering as she recalls the magical moment. “He was perfect, and fuck, he had a good set of lungs on him. Felicity,” she continues, pausing for a moment to find herself. “She held him in her arms, and seeing the way she looked at her son, it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
My heart constricts and the agony tearing through me is like never before. I’ve never been so fucking jealous. I would have loved to witness the birth of my son, to be here as he was brought into the world and see that unconditional love shining through Felicity’s eyes as she looked down at him for the first time. “Stop dancing around it,” I demand. “Give it to me straight. What the fuck happened?”