Chapter 36
Oscar
Roman’s sitting on the step, staring out at the driveway, a cigarette burning between his fingers. I watch the smoke curl into the air as I hesitate for a moment before stepping closer and sitting beside him.“I thought you quit.”
“I did. Just didn’t realize how hard it’d be having her away from us.”
“It gets easier,” I sign. “She’s with Archer. Nothing’s going to happen to her. So why the cigarette?”
He exhales. “Yeah. Guess the cigarette’s just… something to hold on to. A weird sense of comfort.”
Will appears out of nowhere, looking disheveled.
“What’s wrong?” My hands move rapidly.
“It’s Archer. There’s been an accident. Lottie’s—”
My whole body goes rigid. “What do you mean by accident?”
“She’s gone. One of Lorenzo’s men took her.”
For a second, everything in me shuts down. “What?”
The cigarette drops from Roman’s hand, ember scattering against the concrete. “Where?”
“They ran them off the road. Archer’s alive, he’s being transported to the hospital.
They were driving near the cliffs, and he called me right before he passed out.
I sent police out there, and he was found still strapped in the car, legs pinned.
It was a hit and grab.” Will’s hands shake as he signs, and I can see how much this is affecting him.
“We’re going to the hospital, and hopefully get there just as he does. ”
I’m already on my feet. “Then let’s go.”
The hospital smells like bleach and blood. The kind of sterile nothingness that makes everything feel worse. Archer’s in a room down the hall when we get there, pale under the harsh lights, his face split open along his hairline, a bandage around his wrist.
He’s alive, is what I have to tell myself as I see the way his legs are already starting to bruise from being pinned by the car. Thankfully, it’s nothing serious like a break or nerve damage.
Will’s pacing outside the door, phone clutched tight in his hand, jaw clenched hard enough to crack his teeth. When he looks back through the door, I can see it all. Rage, fear… guilt—all knotted into something dangerous.
I turn back to my best friend, and his eyes can’t meet mine. “They said you got lucky,” I sign. “No breaks, only a few cuts and bruises. Should be able to leave tomorrow since they want to keep an eye out for any delayed issues and nerve damage.”
Roman appears just as I finish talking, Elijah and Crew right behind him.
Roman looks like death incarnate, eyes like black glass.
Elijah’s quieter, hollowed like he’s holding his fury back by a thread, but also like he doesn’t know how to exist without being in Lottie’s shadow anymore.
Crew’s giving me nothing, it’s like he’s completely shut down.
The only thing that tells me he’s losing it is the way his hands are shaking, like he’s desperate for a fix to numb out everything he’s feeling now she’s gone.
“They took her,” Archer’s hands move along with his lips. “They took her, and I couldn’t stop them. I’m not lucky, Oscar. This is every nightmare I’ve ever had all come to life.”
“Archer—”
“They ran us off the road. I tried to get out, to get to her, but I was pinned. I watched them drag her out of the car. Watched helplessly as they broke something… She screamed my name, Oscar. I couldn’t move.” His hands shake, and I see how broken he looks.
“It wasn’t your fault. This is what my dad does, Archer. He was never going to stop until he had her or he was dead, but we’ll get her back… I swear it,” Roman promises.
Crew steps closer, sad eyes tracing over Archer. “Is she really gone?” I watch as his lips move, see the pain twist his face, the disbelief that she’s gone. It’s the look in his eyes that breaks me—the quiet, aching certainty that she is… that we let him take her.
“I’m sorry.” It’s all Archer can manage to say, and I know the guilt will be eating him from the inside out.
Archer looks smaller in the hospital bed, shoulders hunched, jaw clenched, hands gripping the hospital sheets like he could claw the guilt out if he just tried hard enough.
“Nothing to be sorry for,” I sign, even though everything inside me feels like it’s unraveling.
“We’ll get her back,” Elijah says.
Archer’s head lifts, and the same look he used to get in his eyes when he talked about Lottie is there. “Your dad signed his death warrant, Roman.”
“I know,” Roman replies.
Fifteen minutes later, Will’s on the phone with Pacheco, barking orders and calling in favors. “Your father’s having a wedding tomorrow. Pacheco confirmed it.”
Roman’s jaw ticks, his fists flexing at his sides. Will nods once, like he gets it. “Tomorrow morning, at his estate.”
Crew’s pacing near the window. “He’s not seriously going to go ahead with this…”
“He is,” Will signs. “And it gets worse.” He looks at Roman. “Pacheco says he’s been bragging about it. Said he’s finally found someone worth the trouble.”
Roman’s expression hardens, but his eyes flicker with something dangerous. “He’s dead.”
No one says anything else. They don’t have to. The silence says enough.
Then Roman pulls his phone from his pocket, the screen lit up with an unknown number. He answers, placing it on speakerphone, Archer signs for me. “What?”
“That’s no way to greet your father, son.”
Roman’s hand tightens around the phone. “I stopped being your son when you shot me and kidnapped the woman I—” he pauses, realising what he was about to say.
“Nonsense. I thought I’d call you with some good news.”
“If you lay a hand on her—”
“Ah,” Lorenzo interrupts. “So you already know about my fiancée.”
“You’re a sick bastard. Let her go.”
“She’s beautiful,” Lorenzo continues, ignoring Roman. “Brave. Trembling in the very same room she became mine in. You’d like the way her eyes are glaring at me right now. Such a perfect little bird to break.”
I see it all happen at once. The way Roman’s face twists with fury. The rage that nearly got him killed before… that made him reckless, takes over. “If you hurt her, I swear to God—”
“Hurt her? No, that won’t happen as long as she behaves.”
Will mouths stay calm to him, but Roman doesn’t acknowledge it. Too lost in his rage.
“What do you want from me?” Roman grits his teeth.
“Nothing much. Just thought you might like to see her. Meet your new stepmother.”
The words hit like a bullet. The room stills, and Crew throws his hands up, cursing. Elijah’s face drains of color. Archer continues to sign for me, so I’m not missing any of the conversation, but I can see the way his hands are shaking.
Lorenzo continues, oblivious to the storm he’s creating. “Come to the wedding, son. It’s only right that you witness us becoming a family.”
Roman’s shaking, finger hovering over the hang-up icon. “You’re not my family. You never were.”
“Then prove it. Come tomorrow, and watch me marry the girl you could never protect.”
“I’ll be there,” Roman says. “And when I do, I’m going to put a bullet in your head before you can finish your vows.”
The phone goes black. Lorenzo cuts the call before Roman can. We all stare at the phone for a long moment, all of us shaking.