DESPERATE SCREAM.

WARNING: MENTIONS OF ABUSE!

ROME'S POV

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That menacing voice.

Stan.

He released me and shoved my back, instructing me to walk faster.

The old man was a couple of days too early.

This wasn't good. Grandfather was not the type to go out of plan. He always followed his schedule and made those who didn't pay for it. But he was here a week before the actual time he was supposed to come.

My heart raced, sweat soaking my collar despite the slight chill in the air.

I hoped Jade wouldn't be there to see whatever they wanted to do.

When we approached the wooden door, Stan knocked, and it creaked open from the inside.

Metal sheets and chairs littered the floor, and chains and rags hung from the ceiling, allowing the moonlight to slip in. I could feel subtle heat on my back as the door pushed wider.

Was there a fire burning in here?

We stepped in, and immediately hisses, grunts, and a pungent smell of fear, charcoal, and sweat permeated the air.

Whimpers escaped into the quiet night, muffled and pained. I froze in my spot, my heart cementing and sinking into my stomach.

I knew that voice.

Jade.

"My boy," Grandfather's vicious smile gleamed in the dark, magnifying his intentional ignorance of the absurdity before him.

Her muffled whimpers quickly escalated into weeping, causing the gnawing pressure on my chest to burrow deeper.

"So glad you could join us." He gestured to a metallic chair on his left. "Sit, sit. Your initiation into becoming a man will begin shortly. You made it just in time. Right from here, we'll head back to the city."

This had been his plan all along.

I stumbled to my knees.

"Gram- grandfather, please let her go," my hands quivered as tears slowly blurred my sight. A throbbing lump lodged in my throat, my words almost incoherent. "I'll do anything you want, but please let her go."

The cane he leaned on scraped across the floor as he moved to his feet. He drew out from the shadows, his nose high and his eyes low.

Resisting the urge to damn it all and bury my fist in his face, I curled my fingers into my shirt and examined him.

His two-piece suit enhanced his strength and made everything else appear insignificant and inferior. He didn't look a day over sixty with his constantly dyed hair and strong facial muscles, but he was close to eighty, throat cancer already shoving one leg in the grave.

Vivid features were genetic traits everyone of Vander lineage inherited by default. The only thing giving him away was the faint map of wrinkles crawling down from his crow's feet. He stood at six foot one, broad shoulders squared and his large hands swallowing the crystal head of his steel cane.

His hazel eyes, which had long lost their warmth days after he'd made it to the top and mom had died, pierced through me as if to dare me to look away.

I didn't. I would do anything to keep Jade safe, and he knew it.

So he smiled.

Gleefully, of course.

"Well, boy, there is one way you can save her," he nodded to the guard who had opened the door, "choose one."

I knew what that move signified.

Jade once called it a 'fraud's kiss' when I'd explained it to her. I'd witnessed Grandfather force his 'business partners' to do it. It ended with their bodies being carried out to be buried.

I jumped to my feet, trying to ignore Jade's pleas as she screamed for me and snatched the gun out of the guard's hand.

A loud smack reverberated through the room.

"Quiet," then more sounds of fizzling followed by a muffled scream.

I bit my lip. Desperation and anxiety clawed at my thoughts so fast I barely registered that I had fallen to my knees again.

Tightening my grip on the gun, I focused on the sting from the cold metal biting into my palm, no doubt leaving bloody imprints behind.

I stumbled to my feet and braced myself.

I could do this. After all this, Jade was going to hate me, but I needed her to know that she meant the world to me before I was gone.

I sucked in a breath and took in two more to calm my raging heart before turning to focus on the gory scene.

Two large, bare-chested men were holding her down on a metal sheet. The bald one in front covered her mouth with his sweaty, beefy hand, and another in a dark shirt had her beautiful hair in a tight grip, exposing her pale neck.

When the dark-shirt man moved to the side, I could feel the blood drain from my face.

Kin...Kingsley?

He walked over to where smoldering, red heat was rising from inside an oven and pulled a red hot poker out.

Jade's hands were bound, and her feet were tied to the floor.

She couldn't escape.

Unable to stand the scene, I bent over and pressed my palms on my knees, tears pinching my nose and eyes.

Why?

Why?

WHY?!

I choked on a sob. Why did this have to happen?

A sticky lump of desperation settled in my mouth as I weighed my options.

I could try to shoot them, but there could be just one bullet. The other would continue and make it worse for her. The guards hiding in the shadows could have jumped on me by then before I made another move. Her death would be certain then.

"I do it, and you leave her alone," I whispered to grandfather, who was silently watching and assessing.

He never missed a thing. That was my mistake.

I shouldn't have covered my eyes. I should have known. This is what my family has always been about. I shouldn't have let my feelings cloud my reality.

This was another one of Grandfather's lessons that he was teaching.

Silently, he bobbed his head and nudged his palm forward as if to say, "go ahead."

Turning to Jade once more, I memorized her features one last time. Amidst her thrashing and tears, her eyes found mine, and I mouthed my final words before letting the tears fall free.

"I love you."

And as soon as her green orbs widened, I turned away and shakily brought the pistol to my temple.

Our secret make-out sessions, her laughter, her smiles, and the coppery colour of her hair filtered in and crowded out the steady pump of fear electrifying my veins.

Jade's desperate scream pierced through the night as my eyes closed shut.

Then I pulled the trigger.