Chapter 27 Nolan #2
She hasn’t said a word in miles, not since Viks, Abel, and Rylie explained the plan.
In lieu of actually breaking in like thieves, we’re going to walk right up to the front door.
What better way to hide what we’re doing than to act as if we have every right to do it.
Like disguising ourselves in plain sight.
Juliet’s profile is rigid, jaw tight, hands clenched in her lap. The flash drive in my pocket feels like it’s burning through the fabric of my jeans, a mission-shaped brand that only matters if we accomplish what we came here for—and we will. I will accept no other outcome.
I keep glancing at her. My girl. My ruin. My salvation. She’s steel now, but I know the cracks that run beneath her surface. Finally, the silence claws too loud at my ears and I can’t fucking take it anymore.
My hand drifts over, cupping her thigh, squeezing hard enough to anchor her. “It’s okay,” I tell her. “I’m here.”
Her eyes close for a breath, her chest rising. “I know,” she whispers. “I just…”
I wait, giving her the time she needs to gather her thoughts. Finally, she breathes out a long breath. “I just don’t want to go back into that house.”
The confession isn’t a shock, but it still slams into me like a blade. She hates this place and we just let her walk away—go back to him. It took me far too long to realize what she was doing, sacrificing herself for us. I turn my dark glare on the mansion that looms larger as we approach.
I pull us up to the front, killing the engine, and step out.
Juliet follows, popping the passenger side door and meeting me at the front of the vehicle.
I take her hand and she tightens her hold on me as we approach the front doors and knock.
Footsteps echo and then the double heavy wooden door opens on one side, a tall, skinny man peering at us down his sharp nose.
The man the others had mentioned, I guess. Stuart Rodgers.
“What do you want?” He bites out the words, obviously annoyed and glaring at Juliet.
I grit my teeth and step in front of her. The smile I offer him is sharkish and he blinks, stepping back on instinct. “Hello there, we’re just stopping by to pick up some things that belong to my girlfriend,” I say.
The man narrows his eyes on me and then glances at Juliet. “We have nothing of yours here,” he snaps before he turns away.
My foot shoots out fast, stopping his abrupt attempt to close the door in our faces.
“I’m afraid that’s not true,” I tell him when Stuart blusters in shock and outrage, seemingly recovered from his first initial bout of fear.
“We’d like you to allow us to retrieve some of her clothes and personal items. Unless…
you’d like for us to get the police involved? ”
The words are a bluff, but I suspect in the reality of this man’s boss being dead, he’s likely been stealing from the property or living here rent-free without any consideration for the actual inheritor of the property while things are still in probate.
I’m no lawyer like Abel, but I have been listening to his advice recently and know that delivering the right threat at just the right time is more helpful than any actual action.
I wait, smiling patiently as a whole host of emotions crosses the man’s face.
With a hard sniff and a jerk of his chin, the man steps back. “Fine,” he gripes. “You have twenty minutes.”
I snort. “We have however long we fucking need,” I inform him. “If you have a problem, take it up with the Silverwood police.”
His upper lip curls back from his teeth and he turns on his heel, stomping down the open foyer towards the staircase. “This way,” he says over his shoulder.
“I know the way, Stuart,” Juliet finally speaks, her voice cool as we move into the doorway. “We don’t require an escort. Certainly not now that Morpheus isn’t here to pay you to spy on me.”
Stuart stops at the bottom of the staircase and turns back to glare at us as the front door closes. He looks like he’d rather shoot the two of us than let us intrude into a dead man’s house. With one hand on the post at the end of the staircase, he sniffs delicately.
“I always thought you were a little snake,” he states. “I’m not surprised you’re here to ransack the place now that he’s gone. I tried telling him you were nothing more than a leech.” Stuart shakes his head. “He should’ve listened to me.”
“Yeah?” Juliet tilts her head and leaves my side, her hand sliding out of mine as she marches towards him. “At least I wasn’t in love with my boss and imagining him fucking me in the ass even as I helped him to kidnap young women and keep them locked in his house.”
“He gave you everything,” Stuart spits at her.
“Do you know how many girls would’ve killed to have such devotion?
” I want nothing more than to grab him by the throat and slam my fist into his face for speaking to her so disrespectfully.
Instead, I hang back. My eyes locked on my girl as she goes right up to him, unashamed and unafraid, her gaze dangerous.
“He gave me a cage and you were the guard dog,” she bites out, standing toe to toe with the other man. He’s not tall by any standards, only standing a mere two or three inches above her. Yet, still, she seems the stronger of the two, the more volatile.
I wait, watching, crossing my arms over my chest and staring the other man down as Juliet digs into him.
“I bet you knew exactly what he did with girls like me,” she continues, her eyes never leaving his face.
“I bet you helped him.” She reaches for the man’s collar, gripping it in her fist. Stuart’s eyes widen and he tries to step back, but she holds him fast. “All along, you wished it was you, didn’t you, Stuart?
You wished he would turn his attention to you.
Did you ever dream of it? Of him pressing you down and fucking you?
Did you think all of the girls he took advantage of were whores?
I doubt it. Or did you want to believe that because you were jealous?
Because instead of having you, he was willing to rape other girls to get what he wanted.
” I shake my head. “You’re just as bad as him. ”
Stuart rips himself free of her grasp so quickly that it pops the first button of his crisp white button-down shirt. With wide, unblinking eyes, he stares at her. “You’re w-wrong,” he stutters. “Mr. Calloway was a pillar of the community. He would n-never—”
“Fucking spare me the act, Stuart.” Juliet shoves past him and I move, trailing her as my arms drop to my sides. “You know as well as I do that Morpheus was just like any other man that was addicted to his own power.”
It takes all of my self-control to pass the little weasel without throttling him, but I manage it as Juliet hits the first landing and turns back, scowling down at him.
“Don’t worry, we won’t be long,” she tells him. “I don’t want any reminders of you or him once we get what we came for.”
With that, she heads the rest of the way up.
I pause and turn to face the man staring up with his jaw partially open and his expression one of stunned disgust. Whether he knew the truth or not, the fact is, he did help Morpheus cage my girl.
He helped hide the truth of her torture and for that, he deserves only pain.
As Juliet’s footsteps fade, I move back towards him.
The closer I draw, the sharper my rage. For the first time since that night, I wish that Morpheus were still alive.
I wish he were here in front of me instead of this man.
I wish I could have killed him myself. Watched the life drain from his eyes and know that I avenged the woman who owns my fucking soul.
Stuart yelps when I reach him and grab him by the front of his shirt.
His hands snap to my wrist. “This will be your one and only warning.” I keep my voice low, nearly vibrating with how much I’m holding back my desire to snap his neck.
“If you ever talk to her like that again, I’ll break your fucking spine.
” I pause and reconsider that. “Actually, no.” My smile this time is barely repressed violence.
“Don’t even consider talking to her again.
You don’t look at her, you don’t even think about her.
If you do, I’ll make you regret your pathetic little pissant life, understood? ”
With a flushed face, Stuart jerks his head up and down.
“Good.” I drop him and relish how he crumples to the floor, scooting back from me on his ass and hands, eyes wide.
It’s unfortunate that murder is such a heavy crime because there are just some people in this world that don’t deserve to live. Those that approve of or protect rapists and monsters like Morpheus are some of those people.
I turn and head up the stairs, jogging to catch up with the woman who owns every part of me.
Despite the dropping temperature outside, the air inside the house feels colder and stale. It’s more like a museum than a home. I find Juliet standing at the open doorway of a bedroom, hesitating at the threshold. Even when I step up behind her and cup her shoulders, her tension doesn’t ease.
“Fuck him,” I murmur, lowering my head until my mouth is right next to her ear. “He doesn’t know dick and he’s a piece of shit.”
“I know.” Her voice is quiet, too much so.
“Hey.” I turn her to face me. “You’re okay, Jules.” I catch her face in my hands and stroke back the faded blue strands until her expression is uninterrupted. “You don’t have to worry about him ever again,” I remind her. “He’s not here anymore.”
“I know.” She repeats the words in the same tone and it breaks my fucking heart.
“Talk to me,” I say. I know I need her to lead me to Calloway’s home office, but nothing is more important than her right now. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”
“I don’t know what I’m feeling,” she admits, voice cracking like a volcano about to erupt. “I— This place… it reminds me of how stupid I was in the past.”
“Trying to protect those you love is not fucking stupid.”
She shakes her head. When her eyes meet mine once again, she looks shattered and furious all at once. God, she’s so fucking beautiful like this—raw, unpolished, real.
Fuck. It’s like someone just dug their fingers into my chest, broke open my rib cage, and is gripping my still beating heart.
“No, not that,” she says. “Before—the night that he…” Her throat closes around the next word, but I already know. For a second I see her through Morpheus’ eyes: a porcelain doll he once thought he owned. My chest tightens with rage. She doesn’t belong to him. She never did.
When she closes her eyes, I growl low in my throat and they reopen with shock.
“Don’t.” The word is sharp, wrathful. “Don’t you ever fucking blame yourself for what he did. You hear me? You survived. That’s not weakness, Juliet. That’s goddamn strength.”
Her eyes glisten. “I can’t wait to leave Silverwood behind. I don’t want to be her anymore. I want to be someone else.”
My thumbs brush away a tear before it can fall. I lean in, my forehead against hers, my lips brushing her mouth until she’s trembling.
“You don’t need to be someone else. I don’t want anyone but you. Neither do Lex or Gio. We want the woman who survived a monster. Who fought back against the entire fucking town that turned you into the scapegoat for their own problems. We want you, Juliet. We always will.”
She exhales a shudder, closing the gap, kissing me like she’s drowning. I give her my lips, letting her crush herself against my chest for a brief moment.
When I pull back, my voice is low, dangerous. “Let’s hurry up and grab a few things so we can do what we came here for.”
Juliet nods, her face still close enough to mine that I can see the wet shine on her lips from my tongue.
Grinding my teeth with the urge to pull her even closer, I release her to the bedroom and Juliet moves inside.
I stand vigilant in the hall, half expecting that piece-of-shit secretary to come up and make sure we’re where he expects us while Juliet gathers a few things, enough to make our excuse believable.
Once she’s done, I take her hand and she leads us through the hallways of the mansion, directing me to the home office. I scan the interior of the home, taking stock in all of the random relics that cost more than my fucking house.
This world—her world—was carved out of money, secrets, and power. I’ve never been part of it. Never wanted to be. Yet, this is the same world that she’d been born in. Silk sheets, false power, and lies.
I want to give her everything, but not this. Never this. She doesn’t belong to them anymore. She belongs with me, with my boys, with the messy, dangerous life we’ve built.
Juliet moves through the halls, her eyes dead set ahead. She doesn’t glance at the vases or priceless artwork on the walls. I worry that tonight, because of this mission, she’ll have nightmares of this place.
“Here.” She slows to a stop and glances in my direction as we stop outside a set of double doors. “This was his home office.”
I nod and move forward to test the handle.
To my surprise, it’s unlocked and I let us in, her scurrying in after me before I let the door swing shut with a near-silent click.
Night has fully fallen over the windows on the other side of the giant desk that takes up a large portion of the room’s space. Neither of us reach for the light.
On silent footsteps, I move to the computer. The screen is on, illuminating a password request. I duck down to the tower hidden in one of the alcoves underneath the surface of the desk and plug in the flash drive before shooting off a text to Rylie and Abel.
“How long do we have to wait?” Juliet whispers as I stare at the clock in the corner of the computer screen. My phone buzzes with a message from Rylie.
RYLIE: I’m in, give me twenty to get everything then you can leave. Take the flash drive with you.
I send her a quick thumbs-up and turn to Juliet, but I don’t answer her question. Instead, I take careful steps towards her and grab the bag hanging from her shoulder. She frowns, but lets me take it.
“I’ve killed for you before,” I say, causing her eyes to widen.
My thumb presses to her lips before she can reply.
“And I’d do it all over again. Twice. Three times.
As many as it takes.” Wide blue eyes peer up at me, illuminated only by the dim light coming in from outside—the moon and the lamps that line the property.
“You are everything to me, Princess, and no matter who took advantage or hurt you before, I’m going to show you why nothing else should matter. ”
Because she’s mine and I know exactly how to prove it to her.