Page 196 of Dark Romeo

No. I was not okay. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be okay again.

My father had shot Roman. He killed him on purpose.

ROMAN

____________

“You can stop pretending to be dead now,” a familiar voice said.

Light hit the backs of my lids. A wave of fresh air rolled over me and I sucked it in greedily.

I remembered Julianna’s face just before I “died”, her eyes glassy with tears, pain ripping across her beautiful features. The image was burned into my retinas. It would haunt me forever. A rush of anger flooded through me as I sat up, blinking as I tried to adjust to the light.

“Easy, tiger,” Chief Capulet said. “You’ll get fake blood everywhere. Let them take the bag out.” He stood by the metal table that I was sitting on, watching as an older man in a white coat unzipped the rest of the body bag I’d been transported here in. Wherever here was.

I sat still as the man in a white coat cut away at my suit and removed the blood bag that had been strapped to my stomach. The plan had been executed to perfection. Almost. Julianna’s screaming echoed in my head. She was the one flaw.

I was in what looked like a curtained-off section of a morgue, heavy metal tabletops and square metal drawers along one wall. The air smelled sharply of antiseptic, but underneath it was the thick odor of stale decay. I guessed the man in the white coat must be a medical examiner—the one who had been roped into faking my death certificate.

They hadn’t closed the curtain enough, because just past it, on the tabletop next to me, I spotted a familiar figure. My father, his eyes still open, a look of shock on his face. As if the great Giovanni Tyrell himself couldn’t believe he was actually dead.

Turns out you aren’t immortal.

Under the numbness that coated my body, a rumbling of something dark and painful rippled. I tore my eyes away from my father’s face. I was not ready to deal with this now. Not right now.

The examiner finished wiping my torso of the sticky fake blood. Julianna had almost touched the bag under my suit. I remembered grabbing her hands, gripping them, brushing them across my lips. If only I could touch her hands once more.

You did what you had to. You made the deal for her.

The important thing was she was safe and alive.

The chief’s voice broke through my thoughts. “Your immunity comes into full effect as of now. The paperwork is almost done for your transfer into our witness protection program. We’ll have a car take you to the airport for a flight tomorrow morning.”

Tomorrow? Please, not yet. I wasn’t done here. I needed some reason, some excuse, to stay in Verona. Near her. Just for a few more days…

“I want to attend my father’s funeral,” I said as my eyes came to rest upon his body. “It’ll be in a few days, I’m sure. You wouldn’t deny me that, would you?”

Chief Capulet gave me a suspicious look as he considered my request, his stare edged in hatred. Even with how he felt about me, he wouldn’t deny a son his right to attend his father’s funeral, would he?

“Fine,” he said finally. “But you’ll stay hidden. I’ll escort you myself to make sure there is no…funny business.”

“Of course.”

Julianna’s stricken face came to mind. Her screams echoed in my brain. I had promised I wouldn’t see her or speak to her again—conditions of the deal to get her back—but I couldn’t leave without seeing her one more time.

* * *

Two days later, my funeral was scheduled right after my father’s in Waverley Cathedral. I was escorted from the safe house I’d been hidden away in by two armed guards and the chief himself. I was allowed to remain only on the mezzanine that ran above the church’s main floor, the shadows hiding my face as I watched the funeral below. The chief and his men stood a few meters back from me at a respectful distance while I leaned against a pillar, the scent of incense and lilies clogging my nose.

They kept the top half of the coffin open. From up here I could see my father lying in his coffin as if he were sleeping. He looked so mortal from up here. So much at peace. No trace of his monstrous nature left.

The first wave crashed through me, causing me to grip at the balustrade, feeling unexpectedly like a release. It took me a second to realize that I was feeling…relief. I’d spent so long fearing him, cowering from him, hiding from his disapproval. Terrified of what his next “lesson” might be. Despite all these things, I’d also been driven by a need to please him, a task I could never win. Even when I won, I failed.

It was all over now.

It was all over.

My father was dead.

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