Page 146 of His Juliet

The van came to a stop.

The door slid open.

And we were out.

I was the first inside the castle, bursting into a dingy hallway with Leona hot on my heels. I took the stairs two at a time, each pounding step creating the rhythmJu-li-et.

Everything faded away until Iwasthe darkness, the last shreds of my humanity stripped away as the monster took full control.

My gun was an extension of my hand as I led the way down the first hallway. Four doors lined the walls. I opened the first one to find a group of men sitting around a table playing cards. I shot them without hesitation and felt nothing as their bloody corpses slid to the ground. The second and third rooms were empty. The fourth was a smoking room with three men surrounded by a cloud of cigar smoke. The monster hummed with satisfaction while it watched the life drain from their eyes.

A crease formed between Leona’s eyebrows as she glanced over at me, a disturbed expression on her face. I ignored it, striding ahead down the next hallway. I didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought of me, what anyonesawin me. Juliet was all that mattered.

The castle was eerily silent. The place carried a sick, twisted feeling.

I cleared the next room.

And the next.

The monster grew restless, thirsting for blood.

An echo of footsteps caused Leona and me to whip around and aim our guns. We were met by the terrified brown eyes of a young woman carrying a tray of shot glasses filled with a cloudy liquid.

I lowered my gun.

We didn’t hurt women, but I would question her.

She froze as I approached her. “Do you know where the bride is?”

She blinked and spoke softly in Albanian, her voice shaking.

I pulled out my phone and typed my question into a translation app. She stared blankly at the screen, and I was about to give up when she nodded.

Take me to her,I typed.

Her eyes flitted to my gun before she took shaky steps down the hallway. Leona arched her eyebrows, but followed.

“You think she actually knows?” she asked.

I rolled my shoulders instead of answering. She was either leading us to Juliet or into a trap. One reunited me with my love, the other gave me the opportunity to murder. Both acceptable outcomes.

We trailed the woman through a series of narrow hallways until we came to a large wooden door. She pointed at it with a shaking hand.

“Watch her,” I muttered, and Leona lifted her chin in assent.

My heart pounded with anticipation as I pushed the door open. It was a large, gaudy bedroom with a huge bed in the middle.

And on the bed lay two unmoving figures.

A large man was slumped at the head of the bed, but my attention was fixed on the woman beside him. She wore a torn dress in shades of red and gold, wisps of brown hair escaping the bun on her head.

Ice seeped through my bloodstream, winding through my veins as the entire world stopped. I closed my eyes and opened them again as if that would change what I was seeing.

But nothing could erase the horror before me.

A strangled, wounded sound escaped my throat and I rushed forward.

“Juliet, my angel, no, no, no.” I cradled her still body to my chest. “Wake up, baby. Wake up. Please, don’t leave me.”

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