Chapter 25 JULIAN #2
I don’t see Ezio. I see Nathan. I see that damn hotel room mirror.
I see the camera red light blinking like an execution countdown.
“You fucking snake—” My fist cracks into bone.
“—you fucking parasite—” Another hit, knuckles splitting.
“—you think you get to touch my life—my life—” My voice breaks, but I don’t stop.
“I’ll kill you—I’ll rip your fucking throat out—give me the phone—you motherfucker—you think this is funny? YOU THINK THIS IS FUCKING FUNNY?!”
Ezio tries to raise an arm to block, but I’m already slamming into him again, nails dragging, teeth bared, hitting, clawing, anything to get at the pocket where he put that phone, where he hid the pieces of me I never wanted the world to hear.
Tears blur everything. I’m choking on my own breath, my own screams, my own history.
The world narrows to my fists meeting bone and Ezio’s groan when I clip his jaw.
Finn moves first—because of course he does, he’s always the feral one—and he grabs me from behind, arms hooking under mine to pull me back.
“Julian—hey—HEY—” Finn grunts as I thrash so violently he almost loses grip.
Luca is right behind him, eyes wide, lips parted in shock he’ll deny later. He grabs my waist, trying to anchor me, muscles straining as I kick, twist, try to tear through both of them like they’re nothing but fog.
“Let me go! LET ME GO!” My voice shreds into something closer to an animal’s roar. “He has it—HE HAS IT—give it back—give it back—you fucking prick—I swear to God—I’ll break your fucking HANDS—”
Ezio is curled to the side, blood all over his mouth, panting, but still smirking. Still fucking smirking. And that drives me even more insane, more unhinged, more desperate to cave his skull in.
But then—Kai. He moves in silence at first, the way only he can—no wasted motion, no panic on his face, just that cold, surgical calm that makes me want to scream louder.
Then his arms wrap around me from behind, tighter than Finn, tighter than Luca, steel disguised as flesh.
“Shhhhh,” he murmurs against my ear, voice steady, steady, steady in a way I’m not. “Julian. Julian. Breathe.”
I can’t. I can’t breathe. The tape is still playing from everywhere. My moans, my humiliation, my past wrapping itself around my throat like rope.
Kai drags me backward off the ice—my blades scraping helplessly along the rubber mats—while I claw at the air, claw at him, claw at myself, anything to get free.
“Stop—Kai—let me—LET ME GO!” My voice breaks entirely. “He has it, he has it, he HAS IT—MAKE HIM—MAKE HIM—MAKE HIM STOP—”
But Kai doesn’t loosen his hold. He just pulls harder, arms locked around my chest, my ribs pressed tight against his forearm as I thrash like I’m drowning. “Julian,” he says again, firmer now, voice low enough only I can hear. “Listen to me.”
I can’t. I’m screaming. And the tape is still echoing from every corner.
Kai’s grip tightens around my chest, but the moment he hears another ripple of that sound—my sound—he snaps his head toward the rink and his voice cracks like a whip.
“Luca! Get him out of here!” He means Ezio.He wants Luca to drag the bleeding Bellini brat away before I get loose and finish what I started.
Luca is already moving, grabbing Ezio by the collar and yanking him toward the far exit while Ezio groans, clutching his shattered mouth, blood pooling down his chin.
Finn trails behind them, shaking his head and muttering something vicious under his breath.
Kai doesn’t even look at them. He’s focused on me.
Only me. And then he stops trying to drag me and picks me up.
He actually lifts me—full force, arms under my knees and around my back, pinning me against his chest like I’m weightless even though I’m thrashing hard enough to bruise both of us.
My blades clang against the doorframe as he carries me out of the rink, and I scream, kick, claw, choke on air that won’t stay in my lungs.
“KAI—MAKE IT STOP—MAKE IT STOP—MAKE IT STOP—PLEASE—PLEASE—MAKE IT STOP!!” My voice tears itself to pieces on the way out.
My throat feels like I swallowed glass. I don’t hear the moans in the rink anymore, but that doesn’t matter—because now they’re in my head, replaying so loud it feels like a drill is ripping through the base of my skull.
Louder than before. Louder than the night the tape ruined my life.
Louder than the conference, the flashbulbs, the press room full of sharks.
It’s all I hear. It’s all I am. My own broken voice, begging a man who didn’t love me. “No—no—no—” I gasp, fists pounding against Kai’s chest even as my fingers slip, weak with shock, shaking so hard they barely close. “It’s in my head—I can’t—Kai, I can’t—make it—MAKE IT—”
My body feels like it’s on fire from the inside, nerves sparking, muscles seizing.
I’m crying so hard I can’t see, tears mixing with the cold sweat on my face, dripping onto Kai’s shirt.
My legs kick uselessly against the air. My chest convulses with every ragged inhale.
My heart is sprinting toward something catastrophic.
Kai holds me tighter—so tight his arms are iron bands across my ribs. My cheek slams against his shoulder as another sob rips out of me, raw enough to hurt my jaw. His voice drops, low and steady, the opposite of my panic. “Julian. I’ve got you.”
But I don’t feel held. I feel hunted by my own memories, by the loop of those moans, by Nathan’s voice sliding between them like a knife.
My hands claw into Kai’s shirt—fistfuls of fabric—like I’m trying to anchor myself somewhere that isn’t drowning.
But the more I hold, the louder the tape plays in my head, drowning everything out in a spiral that feels like the end of the world.
“Kai—” My voice fractures completely. “Make it stop—I can’t—I can’t do this—I can’t—”
Kai shifts me in his arms, one hand cradling the back of my neck, guiding my head against him like he’s forcing me to stay grounded, like he can keep me from disappearing altogether.
His other arm hooks under my knees, holding them tight to his chest as he carries me deeper into the hallway, away from the rink, away from the screams and the echoes and the blood.
Kai’s arms lock tighter around me as he carries me through the compound, boots pounding against the metal walkways that echo like war drums. My head stays buried against his shoulder, but the world is still spinning, collapsing, crushing me from the inside.
I’m sobbing, choking on breaths that refuse to stay steady, still hearing that fucking tape ricochet inside my skull like live rounds.
“Kai—please—please—make it stop—”
“I’m trying,” he mutters, voice low and furious, as if he’s fighting something he can’t simply cut out of me.
But then I hear heavy footsteps and my body knows before my brain catches up.
Rafe. He rounds the corner like a beast unchained—shirt half-tucked, hair a wreck, chest heaving as if he sprinted the full length of the compound.
His eyes lock on me instantly, and something dark and murderous flashes through them, making even Kai tense beneath me.
He must have gotten Kai’s message. He must have known sofort that something was catastrophically wrong.
But when I see him—when my eyes drag up and land on the one person I shouldn’t be seen like this by—everything snaps harder.
“HOW CAN YOU WANT SOMEONE LIKE ME?!” The scream rips out of me so violently it scrapes blood up my throat.
I don’t even recognize my own voice. I’m clinging to Kai, fists knotted in his shirt, trembling so hard every nerve misfires, and I scream at Rafe like he’s the one who ruined me.
“HOW—HOW CAN YOU EVEN LOOK AT ME—” My voice cracks, breaks, dies, but I keep going. “YOU SAW IT—YOU KNOW WHAT I DID—YOU KNOW WHO I WAS—WHY WOULD YOU—WHY—”
Kai grips me tighter, trying to anchor me. “Julian, STOP—”
But I can’t.
Rafe steps closer, walking straight into my breakdown like he’s immune to shrapnel. His voice comes out a low growl pulled straight from hell. “Give him to me.”
Kai shakes his head, tightening his hold. “He’s spiraling, Rafe—he needs something—I need to dose him or he’s going to—”
“No.” Rafe’s voice could freeze blood. “No drugs. Give him to me.”
“Rafe, he’s not breathing right—he’s—”
“I SAID GIVE HIM TO ME.”
Rafe never shouts. Not like this. Not at Kai.
The sound reverberates through the metal walls and through my ribs at the same time.
Kai curses under his breath and tries to adjust his grip on me, but I’m thrashing again—kicking, sobbing, shaking so violently it feels like my bones are going to split.
Rafe doesn’t hesitate. He wrenches me out of Kai’s arms like I weigh nothing.
“Kai—Rafe—no—no—no—PLEASE—”My words dissolve into choking gasps as Rafe drags me back against the wall of Kai’s container. My shoulder blades slam into the cold metal, the impact jarring enough to make black spots explode behind my eyes.
I’m still screaming—still hearing the tape loop in my skull, still seeing Nathan’s face, still drowning in every filthy echo—when the words tear out of me again. “MAKE IT STO—”
Rafe moves so fast I don’t even register what’s happening until it’s already done. His hand fists the front of my hoodie in a brutal grip; his other hand yanks something from the back of his waistband. A glint of black metal. A muzzle.
Then cold steel rams into my mouth.
My eyes fly open so wide they burn. My breath vanishes. My scream slices off instantly, severed at the root. Everything freezes—inside me, outside me, everywhere.
The gun presses against my tongue, against my teeth; the taste of oil and metal floods my mouth, forcing my jaw wide, forcing every other sound out of existence. Rafe’s face is inches from mine, eyes storm-gray and savage, chest rising and falling like he’s barely holding himself together.