Chapter 31 Rome
THIRTY-ONE
ROME
I follow closely behind Julianna, but I know there’s no hiding the truth. I’ve dreamed of this moment for years, the day I confront Kingsten Capuleti with the truth, that I’ve been married to his daughter, the love of my life for ten years.
My old self would have found any excuse to run, but Julianna’s courage quickly fills that impulse.
“Dad?” she calls.
Kingsten spins around at the sound of his daughter’s voice, and his mouth pulls into a smile when he sees her.
“Jules.” He sighs, happily.
But his entire body language shifts the moment he sees me standing behind her.
His once softened expression hardens. With eyes cutting into narrow slices, his cheeks flame red and his hand is flying to his back. Pulling out his pistol, he holds his arms straight out, pointing it at me.
A chill slips down my neck, and my heart pounds in my chest. I’m no stranger to having a gun pointed in my direction, but it’s the first time Kingsten has successfully pulled one on me.
I throw my hands up in surrender, aware of the gun tucked into my waistband, but I don’t reach for it, hoping we can settle this without them.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Kingsten spits, his lips curling with fury and rage.
“Dad, stop,” Julianna begs. She steps closer to him, imploring him to lower his gun. “He’s with me.”
“No, Julianna.” Venom drips from Kingsten’s tongue. “No, he isn’t.”
I eye him warily. Him pointing a gun at my face isn’t unexpected, but what is unexpected is his response to Julianna. It sounds like this isn’t the first time he’s hearing of us being together.
“Yes, he is.” Julianna exhales. I can tell she’s beginning to panic. Her chest is moving rapidly and she can’t stay still. Every few steps back and forth, she stumbles over the small divots in the ground, her chunky heels getting caught in the soft dirt.
“You’re supposed to be dead.” He sneers, his eyes lighting with indignation, pointed directly for me.
My spine stiffens, and the blood drains to my toes.
Julianna stops cold, her eyes spreading wide. She stares at her father before she takes an unsteady step back. “What are you talking about?”
Creases etch the corner of Kingsten’s mouth as he lets out a brittle laugh. “I knew hiring the Mattia brothers was risky. They were so incompetent.”
“You hired them to go after me?” I ask him, narrowing my eyes. “But I thought that was my father. They worked for Francesco Ferrari in Italy.”
Kingsten scoffs. “Ferrari owed me, so I cashed in a favor.”
Julianna’s hand flies to her mouth to stifle her heavy sob.
I keep my hands up, forcing them to not shake. The last thing I want is Kingsten to think I’m afraid of him, but my hands aren’t shaking in fear. They’re aching to reach out for Julianna. She drops to her knees and bends over, catching herself before she falls completely to the ground.
Kingsten shifts out of focus while I sift through all the memories of the past several years. Like trying to put the final puzzle pieces together, I scramble to connect how the fuck Kingsten brought himself to hiring the Mattia brothers to kill me.
“Look at you. Pathetic fucking Montgomery,” he barks. “Trying to figure it out, aren’t you? I’ve always known my daughter deserved better. If you weren’t a Montgomery, she’d still deserve better than you.”
“Dad,” Julianna cries from the ground, mascara streaking down her cheeks. “You tried to kill Rome?”
“Oh, my precious Jules,” he soothes, his voice low and menacing. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. “All I’ve ever done is try to protect you.”
“I want to know.” She’s clenching her teeth. Her eyes have turned from heartbreak to rage. “I want to know how and why.”
Kingsten frowns, his pistol pointed in my direction.
“I’d done my best to raise my children to uphold our oaths.
An oath to protect every single Capuleti from the stain and poison that is the Montgomerys.
I worked hard to instill that into my children, and I trusted Julianna to uphold her oath until the news broke of Rome Montgomery suing my son for defamation.
” His lip curls and the corners of his eyes crease with vitriol.
“That’s all your family has ever been: poison that needs to be eradicated. ”
“The article was my fault, Dad.” Julianna chokes on her sob, pressing her hand firmly to her chest. “It wasn’t Rome’s. He had every right to retaliate against the magazine.”
“No!” The veins in Kingsten’s neck bulge. “Don’t you take the fucking blame for a Montgomery sin. That’s exactly what they want from you.”
“You don’t even know why you hate me, do you?” I ask him. “Or why you hate my family?”
“I know exactly why. The Montgomerys have wanted to maintain their power over us ever since they betrayed us generations ago, but we wouldn’t ever let that happen.
” He stabs his finger against his chest. “It’s why I became mayor.
I sent a message to your dear father that the Capuletis wouldn’t surrender.
We will always have the power over this city and over them. ”
“Well,” I scoff. “You’ve won. My father died in prison, and I’ve denounced my family’s legacy.”
“Your father is only dead because of me.”
His admission makes me skin go cold. “What?”
“After you sued Holt, and the news was plastered all over the world, I took matters into my own hands. Being mayor, albeit a former mayor, has its perks. I did a little digging into your history only to discover you were married.” Every word pouring out of Kingsten grows louder, angrier.
“Married to my daughter. Then I found medical records from a hospital outside the city. Medical records for a still birth from a Julianna Rosaline Montgomery. I wanted to fucking kill you, but I kept my mouth shut, figuring out what to do with this information until I concluded you needed to be dealt with. While sending your own father to prison earned you very little opportunity, if any, for redemption, all that went to shit the moment I discovered it all.” He pauses, sucking his teeth.
His eyes darken. “I called up my old friend, Francesco, and enlisted the help of the Mattia brothers, under the guise of it being at your father’s direction.
It’s just a shame they couldn’t get the job done.
When Enzo failed to kill you that day, I knew your father needed to be taken care of. ”
My chest hurts. It feels as if a string of barbed wire is wrapped around my heart.
“Dad,” Julianna cries hoarsely. “How could you?”
“Because I love you, Jules,” he offers maniacally. It makes my stomach sick. “Your mother was stolen from me, and I wasn’t about to let that happen with you.”
“You put your own daughter in danger.” I raise my chin. “The man you hired to kill me tried to kill her, too. He vowed to murder her, Kingsten. But I did what you couldn’t. I kept her safe.”
“I had my suspicions.” He tilts his head to the side, eyeing me darkly.
“I had a suspicion she was with you when she called me and said she’d scored a major client and that she suddenly needed to be away from the city for a while.
But Julianna’s tracking was shut off on her phone, making it impossible to find her location. ”
“You failed to protect her,” I remind him coldly. “You put her in danger, then failed to protect her, all because of some bullshit vendetta you have against my family.”
“Don’t you fucking talk to me about protecting her!
” he roars, waving his gun in my direction.
“What about getting her pregnant? What about turning your own father in for the murder of your mother?” He turns to Julianna.
“He will betray you the second he has the opportunity, just like he betrayed his own family. Don’t you see? Montgomerys are poison.”
“It isn’t me who’s poison. It’s you.”
“All you’ve done from the second you sank your claws into her is ruin her,” Kingsten barks. “You’ve brought her nothing but heartbreak and devastation. You’re just like your father and every Montgomery before you.”
“I love Julianna.” I curl my hands into tight fists. “She’s the love of my life and the mother of my daughter. Without her, I would never have known peace and love. She’s shown me a life worth living, different from who I was told to be.”
Julianna looks up at me, her entire body trembling as she cries. I want to reach out to her, wrap my arms around her and never let her go.
“I love you,” she whispers, healing every wound and scar that remains from our past.
I stare at her, taking in her beauty, wondering how in the fuck I got so incredibly lucky. I’ve never been more thankful for a bullshit school assignment than I am for the one that brought her to me, removing the blinders I’d been forced to carry with me my whole life.
But the air is sucked from my lungs when I feel it.
“No!” Julianna lets out a blood-curdling scream as she scrambles to her feet, jumping between Kingsten and me.
A sharp pain stabs me in my left side, forcing me to drop to my knees. They land heavily to the ground as I look up at Kingsten.
He’s standing with his arm stretched out, eyes narrowed pointedly at me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much hatred and vitriol pouring out of someone.
Black dots ebb the corners of my vision before I’m falling to my side. My hand flies to my ribs, and warm liquid seeps through my fingers. Shakily, I remove my hand and look down to see it dripping with crimson blood.
Another shot rings out, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from. For a moment, I worry Kingsten has shot Julianna, too. But she’s suddenly in front of me, cradling my head in her lap. Her hand lands on my ribs, pressing hard to stop the bleeding.
“L-Lark,” I pant, gasping for air. It stings and burns, every breath I draw in more painful than the last. I squeeze my eyes shut before I force them open.
“I’m here, Rome,” Julianna cries, her tears dropping onto my cheeks.
“Well… shit… Lark,” I choke out, looking into her blue eyes. Will this be the last time I get the pleasure of seeing them? “You finally get your wish.”
“What wish?” Her brows pinch together.
“My death… bringing you… peace.” I try to let out a small chuckle, but that shit hurts. I grunt, pressing my hand to my ribs over Julianna’s.
Fresh tears fill her eyes. “Rome Sebastian Montgomery,” she scolds. “I lied. Your death would not bring me peace, you fucking asshole, and you are not dying.”
She looks up and her head frantically turns on a swivel. “Marcus!” she cries. “Help!”
Marcus races over and falls beside me, his phone pressed to his ear.
“Hang on, sir.” He presses his free hand to my arm. “Just hold on.”
“You’re going to be okay, Rome.” Julianna runs her fingers through my hair, forcing me to keep my attention on her, but I feel myself slipping away. It feels the same as it did when Enzo Mattia’s hands were clenched around my throat.
“You need… to know something… Lark,” I croak, lifting my shaking hand to trace Julianna’s smooth jaw.
I run my thumb over her full, pink lip, wishing I could kiss it one last time, but I don’t think I have the strength.
“In case I don’t have… another chance to tell you.
Because I don’t ever… want you to doubt this…
ever again. I meant what I said on our wedding day…
and then again on the day we decided to… separate.”
“What is that?” she asks, her chin trembling and her eyes narrowing.
But I can tell she already knows.
“You’re the love of my life… the loss of my life… and everything in between.”
The black dots clouding my vision grow, and Julianna fades.
“You were worth every second.”