Page 56 of The Editor’s Choice

“Ya know. I had full intentions of letting it go once I found out Emily was dead. Then I found out your precious little girlfriend was the one who did it, and that piqued my interest, but I wasn’t going to act on it. She had no part in this,” he says, pausing for several beats, as if time has stopped ticking altogether.

“Then I found out how important she was to you, Roman. That sealed her fate. After everything you put me through, it seemed fitting to take the only thing you’ve ever given a fuck about,” he continues, relaxing his hold on her a bit as his eyes burn holes through my skull.

“Why here?” I ask, trying to buy myself as much time as possible to come up with a new plan. If I can keep him talking, I have a shot at fixing this once and for all.

“Of course it would be here. This is the place that ruined my life. It seems like a great place to ruin yours,” he explains, shrugging lightly. “Besides, after I caught your buddy messing with the security cameras in my building, I figured the one you lovingly called home for so long would have to suffice.”

Mind in overdrive, I don’t trust myself to form a full sentence at this point. Her life hangs in the balance, each word from me bringing this closer to an end, one way or the other.

“Let her go and we can figure this out. I’ll give you whatever it is you want, as long as you let her go. She’s innocent in all of this. We don’t take innocents, remember?” I bargain, feeling as if the walls of the warehouse are closing in on me. Every second he has that gun pointed at her head feels like an eternity.

“Deal,” he says easily, the sly grin returning. “Crawl to me. Then I’ll let her go.” As a show of good faith, he drops the gun to his side and waits patiently.

As every fiber of my being screams at me to not obey him, I drop to my knees. Moving one leg and arm at a time, I slowly start the trek to the middle of the warehouse. The shit eating grin on his face is enough to keep my eyes boring through his skull.

Once I reach his feet, he makes good on his word. Pushing hard enough on her lower back to make her stumble, he sets her free as tears roll down her face. When she reaches for me, he raises the gun slightly as a deterrent.

“It’s okay, baby,” I say, doing my best to soothe her. “Go to Finn. He’ll take care of you.” She nods almost imperceptibly before running to him, crashing into his arms as the sobs explode from her chest. The sound fractures my soul in a way that could never be repaired.

“On your feet,” he says, tapping my shoulder with the barrel of his gun. “Time to make amends.”

Following his orders, I stand shakily. Not from fear now, but from the rage boiling in my veins from the pain this has caused Jade. She should’ve never been brought into this in the first place.

Chapter Thirty

Jade

Watching Roman climb to his feet in front of Cain has me coming undone inside, though I do everything in my power to keep it together on the outside. I know showing what I’m feeling would only make the situation worse for him, so I summon every drop of willpower I have left to hold myself together.

“The things you did to me here were unimaginable,” Cain starts, speaking loud enough that his voice echoes through the mostly empty warehouse. “You beat me bloody, taught me the places that hurt the most on the body as well as the soul, and showed me there are no real morals in this world. Except for keeping the innocents out of it, of course,” he says, winking at me. It’s enough to turn my stomach, even from that distance.

“Then you threw me out on the street when I wasn’t of enough use to you anymore,” he says, voice vibrating with years of anger. “You tossed me out like trash, not caring where I went. Not caring if I lived or died.” The venom in his voice has me trembling now. His face is contorted with barely contained rage as he recalls the harsh times after he was kicked out of here.

“I was only 17,” he says, eyes drilling into Roman’s. I can see the hate that fills them from here. I can only imagine how menacing they look that close. A shiver runs through me at the thought. “I was just a kid.”

“I could say I’m sorry, and I really am, but that’s not going to fix anything that happened, Cain,” Roman says, voice miraculously strong even in the face of what I’d consider pure evil. “You went off the rails after I started teaching you. James demanded that I let you go. You were reckless and that wasn’t a risk he was willing to take with the brand he’d built from the ground up.”

“I can’t disagree there,” Cain says, surprising us all. “I did go off the rails a bit. Do you have any idea why that might have been? What have you kept hidden from everybody all these years, Roman?”

Hanging his head now, Roman takes his time before speaking again. Raising his eyes to Cain’s, he takes a deep breath before admitting things I would’ve never seen coming from him.

“I can imagine it was because I fucked your girlfriend behind your back,” he starts, confidence oozing from his voice now. “Or maybe it’s because she wanted to leave you after she got railed by a real man. Or maybe it’s the fact that I caught her beating an innocent kid damn near to death because he stole $4 from her purse while she wasn’t paying attention, so I shot her in the head. It really could be any number of things.”

Cain is shaking with fury by the time Roman finishes. It’s a miracle he hasn’t exploded from the way he’s shaking.

“I fucking loved her, and you knew it!” he screams, pain echoing from every corner of the building. “You took her from me, and then you fucking killed her!”

“You’re right,” Roman agrees, stretching his arms out wide to either side of him. “There’s nothing I can do but apologize at this point. I’ll apologize for fucking her behind your back, but I won’t apologize for killing her. That kid didn’t deserve that. He was only six, Cain. He stole what he could to feed himself because his mom was too fucked up on drugs that you sold to her to even care if he ate or not. I’m not sorry for that.” Holding his head high, Roman faces down the rawest form of evil I’ve ever encountered.

With every word, my chest tightens until it’s painful to draw a breath.

“Maybe that’s true, but maybe it’s all another one of your lies to get what you want,” Cain says, shaking the gun at Roman now. “I don’t have the heart to kill her and take that from you. She doesn’t deserve that. But in all honestly, she doesn’t deserve this either,” he says as he aims and pulls the trigger.

It feels like an eternity before the sound of the shot rings through the space around us. It feels even longer as I watch the blood spray from Roman’s back, coating the floor behind him as he falls to his knees.

As a scream rips from my lungs, I run to him, though every step feels like it’s in slow motion. It takes too long to reach him, too long to pull him into my arms as I watch Cain turn on his heel and run, just as gunshots ring out again. The sound comes from behind me this time. Finn fires his pistol at Cain and his guys as they make their way toward their one shot at freedom.

Cain cries out as a bullet hits home, piercing his calf. Blood runs down his leg as he hobbles to the door and then out into the world beyond it. As the door slowly closes, the dimness of the warehouse filters back in, along with the silence.