Verona Blood

  But I’m still in a dark room, wearing a stranger's shirt, trying to ascertain whether any foreign objects have entered my vagina while I was passed out.

  Out of nowhere, a lamp snaps on, and I have to choke back a scream. I sit bolt upright, my head swimming, dangerously close to passing out. Breathless, I drag myself away from the source of light and the hand still gripping it, until a wall stops me, and then I drag myself along that wall until that one stops, too, and I’m wedged in a corner with nowhere to go.

  “Don’t worry, I didn’t fuck you,” a low voice says, coming from the same spot where the little light is still shining. It’s blue, in the shape of a cloud, a child’s nightlight. It casts an eerie blue glow around the room, making me feel even colder than I already am, my teeth chattering uncontrollably. And it illuminates the outline of a man, sitting on the floor in front of me, his knees drawn up to his chest as he watches me.

  He’s not wearing a balaclava anymore. Is it the same guy? Something about him screams danger, but he sounds … familiar. Like we’ve met before.

  I’m still cupping a hand between my legs, I realize. That’s why he said that. Don’t worry, I didn’t fuck you. His tone sounded almost … offended. Like he was upset that I’d think him capable of having sex with his unconscious captive.

  I leave my hand where it is, a protective shroud. He put his mouth on me. He kissed me there, like a lover would kiss on the mouth. Will’s gone down on me more times than I can remember, but he’s never, ever kissed me there like that. I don’t want anyone else kissing me there ever again.

  Run, my body screams, my mind joining the chorus. Run! My limbs are loose and bloodless, my head lolling to one side. I couldn’t run even if there were somewhere to go. The shirt covering my body has ridden up at the back while I was moving, and my buttocks are frozen numb on the rough concrete I’m sitting on.

  My eyes begin to focus as I continue to pant heavily. I can see the outline of broad shoulders, the faint blacks and reds of tattoos covering his bare chest.

  He gets up on his knees and moves closer to me. I shrink into the corner, making myself as small as I can.

  “Doesn’t mean somebody else didn’t sample the goods before I got here,” he adds. I shudder, thinking of that, of being thrown onto a mattress and fucked and being totally oblivious to the whole thing.

  Every time he speaks, my head pounds relentlessly. Just the sound of his voice is like walking on broken glass. I know you. Goddamn it, how do I know you? A fresh wave of nausea rolls through me, and it takes every ounce of my strength to hold down the bile that waits excitedly in my stomach, ready to shoot up and projectile from my mouth.

  I start to cry when he stands up, looming in front of me, unbuttoning his jeans. Oh, Jesus. This is it. He’s put me on the mattress so he can rape me. He unbuttons his jeans and pushes them down his thighs, revealing muscled legs, covered in tattoos, and a pair of tight black boxer shorts covering the things I want him to keep covered.

  “Please, don’t,” I whimper. “I’ll do anything you want. But not that. Please?”

  More words tumble out of my mouth that I don’t even know I’m saying. Pleading, begging.

  Please.

  Don’t.

  It’s as if someone has poured cold water on me when his jeans hit me in the face, then land on the mattress in front of me.

  “You’re freezing,” he says, through gritted teeth. “I’m not going to rape you. This is probably hard for a Capulet girl to understand, but I don’t need to force girls to get my dick wet.”

  I look down at the pair of jeans in shock, then up at him as he moves away from me again. My eyes, once blindfolded, are continuing to adjust to the dim light of the room. “Thank you,” I say, taking the jeans and carefully sliding them onto my shaking legs. Why am I thanking this guy? Maybe I just want to appease him, behave, avoid aggravating him. But also, I want the jeans on, an added layer of protection for my poor body, something to cover myself with since my panties are long gone, along with the rest of my clothes.

  The jeans are too big. They swim on me, but I’m still so grateful for them I could cry. Actually, I could cry regardless. My thigh is starting to hum with pain, and the drugs I was injected with earlier are fucking with my sense of balance something wicked. My lip feels puffy and tastes metallic from where he hit me earlier. And between my thighs, I’m on fire, that unwelcome kiss seared into my flesh and leaving a burn in its wake.

  “So,” he says. “Avery Capulet.” He says my name like the words are poison he’s spitting on the ground. “You want to tell me what the fuck is going on?”

  That gravelly voice. The mussed-up hair, long on top, short on the sides. He has more tattoos than he did the last time I saw him. The same morning I found my sister dead, floating in our swimming pool, her hair strewn out around her like some kind of mermaid. He was the one who helped me fish her out of the water. He was the one who started CPR, while I lost my fucking mind and screamed for her to wake up. I remember staring at the dragons and the skulls inked onto his arms as he pumped her lifeless chest up and down. They’re everywhere, starting under his ears, threading down his neck, right down to the tips of his toes. There’s not one part of him that I can see that isn’t inked, other than his face.

  His bloody, swollen face. He looks like he’s been in a fight. Maybe there was a struggle after I passed out.

  And finally, I can see his eyes. It’s too dim to make out the color, but I can see their shape. I can make out the outline of his lips.

  I know who you are.

  It’s as if somebody has ripped my heart out and smashed it on the dirty floor. I’d know those lips anywhere. They were the first lips I ever kissed.

  How could he, of all people, do this?

  “You,” I whisper, recognizing my captor.

  “Hey, Princess,” Rome Montague says, his cheery tone dripping with sarcasm. “Or, wait, I guess you’re the Queen now, right? It’s been forever. When’s the last time we hung out, anyway?”

  I grit my teeth, wincing as pain throbs in my thigh. I wish I had enough energy to jump up and rip his smug fucking face off. “The last time we hung out you were giving my dead sister mouth-to-mouth. But I’m sure you remember that.”

  His smugness vanishes. His eyes narrow, his breathing quickens — did I just rattle Rome Montague with a single sentence? “How could I forget?” he shoots back, his words full of acid and barbs. “But you’re forgetting, aren’t you? That’s not the last time we saw each other at all.”

  His words are designed to hurt me, and they work. I hang my head in shame, guilt thick in my throat as I think of what happened to him because of me. “Is this payback, then?”

  “Little girl, this wouldn’t even be close to payback for what you and your family did to me.”

  Little girl. I might be twenty-five and all grown up, but under Rome’s eyes, I’m still a child that needs saving. Only, this time, he’s the one I need saving from, not the one who will pick me up in his strong arms and take me to safety.

  Grief is like a flash flood; it crashes into me, unexpected, unwanted. I nod as I digest my situation, the shock too fresh for me to think of a way out. I study my surroundings again, different now with the knowledge of who took me. Fitting, even. Because once upon a time, I betrayed Rome Montague in the worst way imaginable. I took away his freedom. In a single moment, a debt was forged that I knew, deep down, he’d come to collect one day.

  I just didn’t think it would be today. Not like this.

  “You were kind when I knew you,” I whisper. “You weren’t cruel. Not like this.”

  Rome’s lips tug up into a smirk. “If you think me bandaging your wounds and giving you my clothes is cruel, I’d hate to see what your definition of kindness is.”

  “Kindness would be taking me home,” I say. My eyes have adjusted somewhat, and I can make out the color of his eyes. They’re bright blue, the exact color of the bottom of the pool where we found my sister, still a
nd floating. His eyes are as cold as that pool, too, but there’s something about Rome Montague’s stare that makes me dizzy with fever. It’s the knowing. It’s the guilt. Being complicit in the downfall of somebody you used to love burns hotter than any sickness can touch you.

  At least, I think I used to love him.

  “Kindness would have been you telling the truth,” he replies flatly. “But there’s no kindness left in you, is there? Only your daddy’s blood, pumping through your veins.”

  My cheeks burn when he talks like that. Because he’s right, just like Will was right. All I’ll ever be is a girl with daddy issues. A girl who would lie for her father, steal for him, cheat for him. A girl who has done all three of those things.

  “Are you going to kill me?” I ask him point-blank.

  Rome laughs. “Jesus, girl. Where would be the fun in that?”

  Now I feel cold. Part of me wishes he would kill me, but that would be kinder than what I’m sure he has in store for the girl who ruined him.

  Rome licks his lips as he studies me. I think of how pathetic I must look: wild, on the floor, bled out like an animal. If my state brings him joy, though, Rome does an excellent job of not showing it.

  “It’s been so long, I thought maybe you had forgotten me.” He makes the words sound almost casual, but I hear the undercurrent in them; the rage. He does think I forgot about him.

  I bury my face in my hands so he can’t see the haunted look I know is in my eyes, the one that sparks back to life like a match against flint whenever Rome Montague slips into my thoughts.

  “I’ve tried,” I say honestly. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”

  “So. The little liar can tell the truth on occasion.”

  “Rome,” I protest, looking up at him.

  “Don’t Rome me,” he seethes. “You sent me to prison. For two years. You.”

  “You almost killed my cousin,” I say, but there’s no conviction behind my words.

  “What an evil man I am,” Rome says bitterly. “Perhaps I should have closed the door and walked away when I saw what Ty was doing to you. That little fuck deserved every broken bone I gave him, and more.”

  I swallow painfully. “I know.”

  “And yet, he got off, scot-free, and I got locked up.”

  Neither of us says anything for a moment. I’m so dizzy, I need to take a beat just to catch my breath.

  “Is that where you got those scars?” I ask finally. “In prison?”

  Rome uncrosses his arms, gesturing to the raised silver and red lines that are almost, but not completely, hidden by his tattoos. “What, these?”

  I nod.

  “Some.”

  “And the rest?” I press, not sure if I want to know the answer.

  Something dark flashes in Rome’s eyes for a second. “There are more dangerous places to be a Montague than inside a prison’s walls.”

  I think about that as my leg starts to throb, the pain more insistent now. The drug that knocked me out has started to wear off, and with it, the opiate cushion that separated me from my own nerve endings. I bite down on the insides of my cheeks as I think of my singular wound, and Rome’s countless scars. Did each of those hurt him as much as this one hurts me? How did he bear it? And did he curse my name with every sharp edge that split his flesh?

  “I think you’re the one lying,” I whisper. “You are going to kill me.”

  “If I was going to kill you, you’d already be dead,” he says finally.

  In my wildest dreams — or my most terrifying nightmares — never once did I think that I’d be trapped in hell with him.

  Never once did I think I’d see him again.

  Tears prick at my eyes as I think of his mouth on me. But — there were two of them in the loading bay at the Palatial Hotel. So maybe it wasn’t Rome who did that. Maybe it was his accomplice. Shouldn’t he have my blood all over him if it was him kissing me like that? I’m so confused, everything heavy and slow.

  “What have you done?” I whisper. “What are you going to do?”

  He doesn’t answer me. Instead, he tosses something at me. I don’t catch it — I’m too weak and bloodless for that — but it rolls to a stop at my feet anyway. Water.

  “You lost a lot of blood,” he says. “You should drink something.”

  I tear at the bottle’s lid greedily, not taking a second to taste it cautiously before I start gulping it down. It’s cool and fresh and satisfying and … drugged.

  Or maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s just how weak I am, with my heart struggling to pump its meager supply of blood around my body, to keep me alive.

  Either way, I’m slumped on the mattress five minutes later, panting shallow breaths as I try to stay awake. The room spins around me like one of those circus rides, where you’re pinned to the side of a spinning disc, and gravity makes you so heavy you can barely blink. That’s how I feel now, looking at the boy who has grown into a man, a man who wants nothing more than to destroy my family.

  “What do you want?” I whisper in the almost-dark.

  His expression is unreadable.

  “Rome!” I insist. “What do you want?”

  “You have no idea what’s happening, do you?” he asks, and I can’t tell if he’s amused, or pained, or both.

  My lips feel puffy and numb, my eyelids unbearably heavy. Why did you bring me here? I want to ask him, but before I can move my mouth again, everything goes dark.

  Chapter Twelve

  ROME

  I’ve never claimed to be a good man. In fact, if I had to tell you what kind of person I am, I’d say I’m the very worst. I’ve done plenty of things that I’d rather forget. Things that I can avoid thinking about until that moment when I close my eyes at night and it all comes flooding back, an avalanche of blood and screams. There’s a reason I live alone, in a ruined house that I once tried to burn down. There’s a reason people don’t want to get close to me. There’s a reason I’d rather stay awake for three days straight and screw a girl I don’t even like, instead of sleeping.

  I’m bad. Bad news. Bad blood. Whatever you want to call it, however you want to spin it: I’m a disease that nobody wants to catch.

  But when I see the girl in the ridiculous dress, Avery Capulet, begging for her life in the loading dock of the Palatial Hotel, just as some asshole lowers a black bag over her head and shoves a syringe into her forearm, something forgotten sparks to life.

  I came here to confront her cousin, to maybe even kill him. But any thought of Ty Capulet eviscerated as soon as I laid eyes on Avery, looking small in a sea of gun-toting bodyguards and her fiancé, as every single one of them dropped to the ground, leaving only her standing and trapped.

  I think I loved her once, even though I hate her now. Even though she damn well ruined my fucking life with her lies. Yeah, even in spite of all that, some protective thing claws at the inside of my chest when I see her being manhandled.

  I want to help her. I want to save her.

  And I hate myself for that.

  “Hey!” I yell, rushing toward Avery as she topples to the ground. I forget about what I’m supposed to be doing here — finding that little fucker, Ty Capulet, and smashing him into a pile of broken bones and blood for trying to get his greasy hands on my formula.

  Maybe it’s my karma, then, that one of them jumps me and smashes the butt of his gun into my face. I step back, stunned by the blow, reaching for the gun tucked into my waistband. I’m normally so careful, normally the one waiting in the shadows with my gun at the ready, but the sudden sight of the girl being tossed between them like a fucking rag doll caught me off guard. My face explodes in a mess of blood, a crunch of cartilage in my nose telling me something is definitely broken, and the hot, paralyzing crack of a taser in the middle of my chest that takes me down. A fist slams into my face over and over, steel-capped boots in my ribs so hard I feel them crack, and I end up on all fours, crawling away from the boots, dragging myself toward the girl in the dress, who is
still lying motionless on the dirty ground, her head completely covered by the black bag. I lift my arm to touch the bag, intending to pull it away from her face, but before I can grip the material a hand grabs the back of my shirt and yanks me away. I switch my attention to the twin fucking ninjas who seem intent on beating me to death so I can stop interrupting their kidnapping mission, and it strikes me as odd that they don’t shoot me, too. I mean, I just stood and watched as they shot six guys who looked like private security guards in a matter of seconds, all big, brawny guys armed to the fucking teeth.

  One of them tasers me again. The pain is white-hot, but more than that, it stops me from moving. It effectively freezes me in one spot long enough for the dude to grab my head between his gloved palms, lift my head up, and smash my skull back into the asphalt until everything turned a dirty black.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ROME

  Rolling on hard ground, and then falling off the edge of something. In that order.

  Falling down. Into hell?

  I land with a crash, and it’s the crash that properly wakes me from my drugged stupor.

  Fuck.

  I taste blood in my mouth. I’m on something spongy — a mattress? A mattress that’s helped to break my fall. But where did I fall from? And where the fuck am I?

  I can’t see. Right. There’s a bag over my head. I pull at the material, shaking my head free of its restrictions as I try to decipher my surroundings.

  Oh, shit.

  This isn’t good.

  Not at all.

  I’m in a room with no outside light. There’s a mirror that runs along one side of the room. I swallow as I realize what it is.