2. Juliet
JULIET
W hen it rains, it fucking pours.
For me, there’s no ‘small’ amount of pain.
It’s all or nothing. There are no breakups, but an absolute wrecking of any and all trust that could have been established.
Then, just when I think I’ve crawled my way out of the dark void of anger and betrayal, I found out that the men responsible for giving me back at least a little bit of my old self are something else entirely.
Sharp, gunmetal gray eyes stare at me and I stare back.
“Juliet, I know what you’re thinking—” He doesn’t. He really. Fucking. Doesn’t.
My eyes latch on to the open doorway and I shift to the side. My hip connects with the computer chair and it rolls into the wall. This room is far too small and as close as the doorway is, Lex’s big body practically covers every inch of it.
“ Juliet .” The desperation in Lex’s voice jerks me back to his face. Lips parted, eyes wide, brows lowered, he looks ready to cry. “ Please . Let me explain.”
“Explain?” I repeat the word, sure I’ve heard him wrong.
How can he explain this ? I turn and gesture to the image on the screen still playing.
I don’t have to look at it to know what it’s showing.
I can hear my own moans and Gio’s filthy voice as I come on his cock over and over again.
“You want to try and explain this?” I gesture to the wall plastered with my face, the various bits and pieces of my old life that even I didn’t know were being invaded. “Or do you want to explain that?”
Lex closes his eyes and his nostrils flare as he sucks in a deep breath. He drops the duffle bag on the floor and his lashes lift once more.
“I love you, Juliet.”
The distance between us disappears in an instant as my fist slams into his jaw hard enough to snap his neck to the side. Lex grunts but otherwise doesn’t say a word or make another move. Slowly, he pivots back to face me. My chest rises and falls in rapid breaths as I glare up at him.
“You claim that you did this because you love me? ” I spit those last two words out, tasting acid on the back of my tongue. “Is this what you think love is?”
Lex grinds his jaw, clenching and unclenching it as the muscle beneath his skin jumps and works itself over. Finally, when he speaks, it’s with a low, reverent tone. “If you don’t want me to say it, I won’t,” he says. “But that doesn’t make it any less true.”
I hit him again, this time on the other side. When I go for a third punch, though, his hand snaps out and grips my wrist. Eyes sparking with a swirl of smoky danger burn into my face.
“I gave you the first one, baby,” he says, his tone remaining low and almost soothing. “The second one, though… that wasn’t very nice. I wish you hadn’t found out this way, but hit me again and I’ll reciprocate.”
My upper lip curls away from my teeth as I bare them at him in the mockery of a smile.
“Wow,” I taunt. “It took so little for you to threaten me after claiming that you love me.” I yank against his hold, but nothing happens.
He doesn’t release me and I don’t move. I pull harder.
Still nothing. With a grunt, I reach up and try to peel his fingers away from my skin.
He merely stands there, holding me and staring at me as if he’s waiting for something.
“You’ve had a rough night,” Lex murmurs. “I think you should finish getting dressed and then when the guys get here, we can have a real discussion about what you just witnessed.”
“I don’t want to talk to any of you about shit! You lied to me!”
Lex ignores me and, without releasing my wrist, he moves farther into the office.
I’m dragged backwards and I nearly stumble over my own two feet as he stops in front of the walls of monitors.
My heart hammers in my chest, pounding against my rib cage as I turn and watch as Lex uses his free hand to click across the keyboard in a series of numbers and letters.
Black password screens pop up and disappear almost as quickly. The video shuts off and then the whole system is powering down.
“Hiding evidence?” I hiss, struggling against his hold.
“Not at all.” Lex turns back to me. “I’ll let you have access to everything if you ask me.”
I go still. He can’t be serious. “You’re lying.”
He shakes his head. “I have no reason to lie to you. Tomorrow morning, once we’ve talked, you can come back in here and I’ll open every single file and folder I have. I’ll let you have it all.”
Liar! I want to scream the accusation, to slam it along with my fist into his face all over again.
There’s no evidence of dishonesty on his face, though.
His eyes meet mine without hesitation. He doesn’t move or fidget or sweat.
He’s calm, cool, and collected—has been since he walked in and saw me in his secret room.
My gaze turns to the pictures on the wall. “Why?” I finally ask.
Lex answers as if he’s been waiting to do so for years.
“Because everything I’ve ever done has been for you,” he says.
“All that I have, all that I am, is yours. You want the keys to my kingdom? They’re yours.
You want to punish me for hurting you? I’ll let you.
Burn me. Break me. Strike me. But don’t think this changes a damn thing between us. ”
Something inside my chest cracks, the sound so loud it echoes through my skull. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. Several long seconds drag on and when I don’t respond, Lex pulls me gently towards the hallway.
I’m not sure if it’s self-preservation or shock, but I don’t fight him as he leads me back into the bedroom. When his hand leaves my wrist, I don’t run. When he strips the towel from my body, leaving me bared to his gaze, I don’t cover myself. I just stand there and I watch him.
“How long?” The question escapes on a rasp of air as Lex bustles around the room, gathering a large t-shirt and a pair of boxers before coming back to me.
“Thirteen years.” I close my eyes as he holds up the shirt and the dark fabric descends over my head. I open them again as it slides over my frame and I react on instinct, shoving my arms through the sleeves.
“You…” Lex bends, going onto his knees on the floor as he lifts first one foot, sliding one side onto my ankle before repeating the action with the second. He pulls the fabric up my legs and over my hips, his face far too close to my core. I pull away, pushing my palm against his head. “Stop.”
I need to think and I can’t do that when he’s touching me. I turn away, pacing towards the wall on the opposite side of the room and turning to retrace my steps.
Thirteen years? He’s been watching me for thirteen years?
This is … insane.
“Do you remember a little boy you befriended in kindergarten?” Lex asks, his voice rough.
I don’t look at him.
“You called him ‘Alex’.” He pauses. “No one else but you ever called me that.”
Old memories resurface. A small, bruised face half turned away. He never looked at me back then. He hid. He didn’t smile. The Lex today is so different, so much… bigger that it’s hard to reconcile the fact that the boy in my mind is the same as the behemoth of a man standing before me now.
“Was it because I ruined your life?” Revenge, I can understand. It’ll fucking hurt, but at least it would make some semblance of sense.
“ What? ” The sheer horror filling that single word forces me to face him once more. “Why would you think that?” Lex demands.
Thunder couldn’t describe his expression.
Dark, rolling fury practically drips from his glare and his snarl erases the facade of all-American beauty he contains.
Except he’s never been all-American, has he?
He’s dark depravity and a secret monster, hiding the sinister obsession underneath the mask.
Maybe he hasn’t changed as much as I originally assumed.
“This isn’t revenge,” Lex says.
More and more of the past comes back to me. “I turned your father in.”
Alex had been my friend. A sweet boy with few friends and too much pain in his eyes.
A boy the teachers had ignored. I’d known he was being hurt.
I’d known it was his father. I’d told. Over and over again, the teacher, another teacher, the principal, my own parents.
I’d told them until no one could ignore it or hide it anymore.
I hadn’t understood what had happened at the time, but the words I’d so childishly released—the truth that I’d revealed—had sped up the timeline of my removal from the original Silverwood elementary school.
My parents had donated even more money to have the Silverwood prep schools finished earlier and I’d been removed from Alex’s life not long after he’d been taken from his parents.
Now I know what happened. Lex had been my friend.
Lex had been taken by CPS and given to his aunt and in the ensuing weeks, his father and mother had both died.
Sancho Medicci had beat his wife to death in a fit of rage and then, rather than facing the shame of his own actions and Silverwood, shot himself. A coward’s ending, but a fitting one.
I’m not sorry for what I did.
“You saved my life,” Lex says.
I blink and he moves closer, cautiously, as if he’s scared I’ll run or punch him again. I remain utterly still as his hands close on my shoulders.
“If I tell you I love you now, will you punch me again?” he asks.
A snort of laughter escapes me before I can stop it and a moment later, I clap a hand over my mouth to keep the sound from repeating itself. His lips twitch and the darkness ebbs away, if only a little.
“I have loved you since we were five, Juliet,” Lex murmurs. “I never blamed you for my parents’ deaths. That was on my father. You saved me.”
I shake my head, dropping my hand from my face. “You’re going to ask me to stay and I don’t?—”