I walk towards the screams that had become low moans and groans, placing my ear against the door, instantly recognising the voice as my father.
“How?” his voice hitching, as if in pain and taking every piece of energy to force out that one word.
Gianni answered. “Your faggot son couldn’t keep his mouth shut, told Romeo where you were. Told you we should have killed him.”
All the breath left my lungs. That's why we were running because they had found out about my relationship with Romeo. It wasn’t welcomed in our world. The price, death.
I watch through the gap in the door as they brutalise my mother. As they slit both their throats. Feeling the blade as if it has gone across my own skin. Romeo had betrayed me.
Chapter Ten
Romeo
I wake to a throbbing in my head, only taking two seconds to realise where Remy had put me. In the self-made cell. My head is still buzzed: Dante is Remy! The same guy I died alongside when my father told me his whole family had been murdered. The guy whose grief still cloaks me like a blanket, suffocating me with memories. The reason no one has been able to get close since. Only now, my heart feels like it’s been dug out of my chest; bleeding with no way to stop it because everything in me told me my father had lied. There is only one reason Remy killed them. It's easy to see, now I understand the darkness that crawls beneath the surface is revenge. It fuels him like oil to a machine.
My family was responsible. Roberto, Gianni, and even Alec had been there that night. What I didn’t know was why or how? Or what it had to do with me?
But I knew one thing: Remy wanted to break me piece by piece, slowly destroying me. It wouldn’t matter how much I screamed, he would ignore my yells until he was ready.
It’s mental torture; was he coming back or leaving me here to slowly die. Where no one would hear my screams, my pleas for mercy in my self-made crypt.
But I was fucking sick and twisted because a part of me didn’t want to leave. I want to be here because it meant being near the only man I have loved. I craved to have his hands cover my body, be that in pain or pleasure, I would take it all. Knowing he is alive, that his heart still pumps, sends a wild emotion through me. Knowing he had been watching me for years, sent a shiver of desire down my spine. I was his prey, and I should have been scared. I had seen what he had done, but it excited me, sent a dark ripple of pleasure through me.
I felt him approaching before he appeared.
“Are you ready?”
The dark way he says it has the air in my lungs disappearing as my dick twitches. I don’t answer him as anger also mixes with the pleasure. We had both changed in the years that had stretched before us. I was no longer the guy that followed him like a puppy. His death had changed me. The same darkness that covered him, also drenched me.
I knew what he wanted from the dominant way he stood; my submission. But I wouldn’t give it up easily.
I watch as his lips curl, like he finds my residence funny. Every step he takes towards the glass, I match. It had always been this way between us, drawn to each other, and even in the darkness we saw each other.
He opens the door, a sick twist of his lip. “Get on your knees.”
“No.” The word is out before I can stop it. But watching Remy’s eyes dilate, the flare of his nostrils, it is worth anything that follows.
The pain across my scalp as he digs his fist in the strands has me hissing between my teeth.
I fall to my knees, looking up at him. “You're scared.” He grins.
I shake my head. “Never,” I grit between my teeth. Only it isn’t the truth. Remy has always scared me. The power he held over me. How much I felt for just this one man. How deep those feelings went. Like we were tied together; a force more powerful than anything human.
“Do you know how many years I’ve watched you? How many times I’ve gotten close enough to slit your throat?” His words come out raw.
Tears sting the back of my eyes. “I didn’t know.” Revealing my truth, but knowing Remy is too blind to see it.
He spits in my face. “You told them where we were.” I frown, not understanding. Then I remember ringing Remy’s phone, and the desperate messages I had sent. When he finally called, he told me where he was. My father must have bugged my phone.
“I’m sorry.” The weight of the words, resting on my shoulders.
Chapter Eleven
Remy
Seeing Romeo on his knees, that look of fucking pity in his eyes, makes my whole-body lock tight. How dare he fucking pity me! I wasn’t weak! He had stolen everything from me, and I had survived and avenged my family. Made those who had hurt them die in agony. He was the weak one, fell in line just like daddy wanted. Every dream he told me, whispered in the safety of our cocoon, he achieved none of them. He became everything we both despised. His father.
Tightening my grip, I lift him off his knees
