Page 137 of Dark Romeo

Julianna froze, perhaps shocked at the desperate turnabout of my attention. I wanted to roar and beat my chest, lock her away here with me and never let her out of my sight. That would be the only way I could protect her.

You can’t protect her. Just like you couldn’t protect Mama.

I let go of her before I scared her any further. Before I scared myself with the violence of my desperation. “Be careful,” I said, trying not to let fear creep into my voice.

The smile she gave me back was forced.

* * *

Abel was waiting for me on my couch, robed in black like a Master of Death, when I returned to the Tyrell apartment at about ten past six that morning. “Where’ve you been?” His face was twisted into a snarl, probably from having to wait for me.

“For me to know and for you to find out.” I walked past him into my bedroom, barely glancing at him, an obvious dismissal.

He followed me. I could practically smell his acrid breath over my shoulder. “You’re late. Your father’s waiting.”

“Calm down, dog. Let me drop my gym bag and we can be off.”

As I dropped my bag on my still-made bed, I felt my burner phone buzzing in the bottom of the bag. Julianna. She was the only one who had that number. Why was she ringing me at six in the morning A strange feeling echoed in the pit of my stomach. Whatever it was, I couldn’t take her call now. I’d have to wait until I got back from…whatever my father had planned. I grabbed the gun from my bedside table and strapped it to my hip.

“Where are we going?” I asked when the driver of the limo that drove Abel to fetch me missed the turnoff towards my father’s mansion, continuing down the highway out of Verona. Seeds of apprehension sprouted weeds in my gut.

Abel smirked at me from the opposite seat, a slimy thin-lipped smile that made his scar whiten. “For me to know and for you to find out.”

Bastard. I strained not to fidget in the leather seat, watching the city hurtling past.

My stomach had become a knot of thorns as the limo pulled up into a small airfield. My father and a small entourage of black-suited men were waiting, a private jet waiting behind them, our family crest emblazoned in gold on the tail and wings.

“I said seven o’clock takeoff,” snapped my father to Abel as we got out of the limo.

“Apologies, sir. We were delayed.” Abel shot me a murderous stare.

My father grunted and turned towards the plane. I repeated my question to him as I strode beside him, watching our long morning shadows like ominous twins before us on the tarmac.

My father clasped me on the shoulder, pushing me forward to take the short flight of steps up to the jet. “It’s time you learn about our business, son.”

ROMAN

____________

Six hours later, we landed on a private airstrip, a leveled field in the middle of a dense jungle. Our entourage piled into three camo-painted four-wheel drives and took off down a dirt track through the forest. My stomach was rumbling as I was thrown around in the back seat, the air humid and stifling so that with every breath it felt like I was taking in less and less oxygen. My father sat to my left, Abel in the front seat.

We broke through the jungle and passed through a heavily guarded gate. Up a long gravel driveway surrounded by trees was a monstrous house on a hill, all glass and whitewashed walls making it look like a ripe, unnatural pimple upon the earth. We could have been on the gaudy side of Hollywood hills, except for the wild monkeys that scattered through the trees as we approached. We pulled up in front of the circular driveway. A thickset figure stepped from the door wearing a pressed white shirt unbuttoned at the collar, matching white pants and blue snakeskin shoes. He had an unlit cigar in his mouth.

“Well, well, well,” he said in greeting. “Baby brother has finally come to visit me.”

Marco, my other brother. I hadn’t seen him in eight years. I didn’t come back from Europe when the news broke that he had been charged for knifing a man in the back during a bar and had fled the country. That had been six years ago.

“Marco. It’s been a while.” He seemed smaller than I remembered. Then again, I’d grown a lot in eight years. He looked less like the fearsome and unyielding brother that I remembered, and more like a man who was trying too hard to be a king. His swagger looked borrowed and his ego seemed much too big for him.

Marco shot me a smirk. “It’s such a coincidence that Jacob was murdered, leaving you to snatch the Tyrell throne. Have you come to steal the rest of my inheritance, too?” he asked, the bitterness clear in his tone.

He should have been the one by my father’s side today, not the one exiled to a savage jungle country. He should be the next in line to the throne, the king of Verona and all that surrounded it. He still hadn’t accepted the fact that he had been the hot-headed idiot who thought that being a Tyrell meant that you were invincible in the eyes of the law; we were, but only if you were smart about it. He was still looking for someone to blame for his demotion, his misfortune. I was the clear target, the usurper to his rightful throne. He couldn’t see that the “prize” was really a chain around my neck. He didn’t realize that the “heaven” he desired with a sickness was actually hell. My hell.

The air filled with hot tension. I could feel all the men’s eyes on me, waiting to see what I would do. I would be judged by my actions. My weakness studied. My faults assessed. I could not look weak or I would be killed in my sleep here by an ambitious soldier. Or by my brother himself.

I leapt out of the jeep and landed toe to toe with Marco, gravel flicking out from my heels. Marco flinched. First point to me.

I lifted my lip in a sneer. “And if I did want to take it, who has the power to stop me? You, brother?” I spat out. I rolled my eyes over his body. I towered over him by two inches now. He’d let himself grow soft, his belly tumbling out of the top of his suit pants. “Too bad you let yourself go. I’d gut you before you could touch me.”

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