Page 69 of Neverland

Without moving, I threw a quick look around the unfamiliar surroundings. Medical equipment was placed in various spots, an armchair next to the bed, and my arm hooked in a sling.

“Why did you save me?”

Sol looked more nervous than before. “Ah, I’m just gonna get…” he glanced down the hall and back to me, already making an exit. “I’ll be right back.”

I listened to the banging against a door, a short too-quiet conversation that ensued, and then urgent footsteps coming back. I gripped the sheets tighter, not knowing what to expect.

Sol didn’t reappear. Instead, Romeo rounded the corner, his body glistening from a shower, a hand clutching a white towel low on his waist.

I gasped, so many emotions begging for first place.

“Romeo,” I sobbed. “Is it really you?”

He nodded, his own eyes glistening. “Yeah, babe. It is.”

Romeo closed the space, pulling me into his strong arms, holding tight. I cried heavy sobs against his chest, breathing him in, hoping it wasn’t all a dream. He kissed the top of my head, soothing my raw emotions.

“You’re safe, I promise you,” he comforted, waiting until I was ready to face him. I pulled away, staring at the boy I loved who was now all man. Xavier was gone, and in his place sat Romeo, clean-shaven to reveal the smooth tanned skin I’d loved so much and a striking jawline. He was a completely different man, yet the attraction I felt was even more powerful. Without his colored contacts, I saw his beautiful chocolate brown eyes I always fell deep into. His hair was much shorter, slicked back and stylish. Romeo had grown into a handsome man. So handsome, it hurt.

“How are you here? I don’t understand what’s going on,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat. “You were shot.” My hands instinctively moved to his smooth, muscular chest where he’d been hit. Instead of a bullet wound, a hand-sized bruise, all black and purple marred his skin like a violent storm. I traced the marking with my fingertips feeling the electricity between us, a nervous energy yet a sensual familiarity making me heady.

Sweet baby Jesus.

My gaze dropped to what else was on show. His caramel skin and a gloriously smooth chiseled six-pack. Romeo was a well-sculpted man.

He smiled, seemingly being able to read my mind. “It gave me a good slug,” he said, lightly. “I had my vest on.”

A silence fell between us. We didn’t need words, our eyes conveying everything that needed to be said. The hurt. The pain. Loss and love. Romeo caught the tears that slid down my cheeks, his chest rising and falling heavily.

He pulled away, and I felt the immediate loss. Running his hands down his face, he looked uncertain, biting the inside of his cheek. “What happened to you, Lucy? Where did you go?”

I blinked, pushing out a fresh wave of tears. “Life happened.” For the next half an hour I told Romeo everything, about how my world began falling apart the night Mom was killed. The atrocities committed by my uncle and his pedophile poker friends. About what Jillian, Jaden, and Jessica went through on a daily basis and how I desperately wanted to find them. To living months in shelters because I was too scared to hand myself back into CPS in case they stuck me with another abusive family.

How I’d often lock myself in the cleaning cupboard at night, to escape the vile women who’d target desolate young girls, handing them over to child traffickers in exchange for a simple hit of coke. The night I answered an ad for The Boardroom for Franco, the cheapskate, underpaying rapist. And that fateful night I escaped his assault only to find myself homeless and injured and in the path of my next storm. Dominic Salvatore.

That was the hardest to speak of, Romeo taking my hand in his for support. His perfectly defined jaw tensed when I told him of how Dominic had picked me up from a broken place and promised a life that would never see me destitute again. But when I explained the conditions of working in the club, the constant physical and emotional abuse, Romeo’s knuckles turned white. When I mentioned the persistent threats of rape and cases of molestation, Romeo smashed his fist into the wall opposite him.

“I’m fucking sorry, Lucy. I’m so fucking sorry. I should have been there for you. You didn’t deserve any of it.”

When he gathered some composure, I spoke of Blaze and Jonny, and how their brutal and unnecessary deaths were merely to prove a point, and how it had pushed me to escape based on promises from impersonating Detectives Simon and Jason. And then how my father had been so cruelly reintroduced to my life only to have his brains sprayed over me.

“I tried to find you, Lucy.” Romeo’s eyes glistened once more, the weight of my fucked-up world resting on his shoulders. “I couldn’t find anything on you after the age of fifteen. It’s like you just vanished.”

“That’s because I did. Dominic made sure of it.”

Romeo swiped a tear falling down my cheek. “You’re a force of nature, Lucy. I don’t know how you survived this long.”

“I almost didn’t. Dominic received a phone call from Sol requesting the second meeting. What you don’t know is that Dominic promised if he ever gave into his urges, he’d not only rape me until I was broken but ensure he killed me afterward. Well… moments before the call came through, he was about to do just that. Romeo, because you requested me, you saved my life.”

Romeo paled, knowing he’d come so close to losing me a second time. Cupping my cheeks, his thumbs stroked gently, his forehead resting against mine. It was painful being so close to him, our lips grazing until he claimed my mouth with a ferocity that both frightened and delighted me. I needed him, I desired him, I wanted him, and I knew Romeo felt the same.

When we pulled apart, catching our breath, I realized the man in front of me had become a mystery.

“You’re safe, Lucy.”

I smiled, kissing him once more. “Saved by the mobster man.”

Romeo laughed, revealing perfectly white, straight teeth. “Lucy, I’m not a mobster.”

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