CHAPTER 37 ROMAN
ROMAN
Fae is going to be pissed when she finds out what I’ve done, but I’d rather she be furious than married to him. In three hours, she will be my wife, even if I have to drag her there myself. Even if I have to throw her over my shoulder and listen to her scream my name like a curse.
I can survive her anger. I can survive her hatred.
What I cannot survive is her standing beside Fisher while he puts his hands on her like he owns something that belongs to me.
I can almost cope with her not loving me.
I’m not a good man and my hands are stained in ways that don’t wash clean, my soul was wired wrong from the start.
But if I have to love her enough for the both of us for the rest of our lives, then I will.
I will love her in silence. I will love her in the dark. I will love her even if she looks at me like I am the villain in her story.
When I said over my dead body was she to marry Fisher, I meant it. I will never let another man violate what is sacred to me. And if it comes down to it, if the only way to stop it is to bleed, then I will die protecting her.
Climbing the stairs, I rush through the hallway and push my bedroom door open, already rehearsing the argument we’re going to have.
I freeze at the empty room. The bed is made.
Her shoes are gone from beside it and the air doesn’t hold that faint trace of her perfume that usually lingers like a ghost in the fabric.
My jaw tightens. I pull my phone out and call her but it goes straight to voicemail. I try again and get the same result. I try six more times before my mum’s voice cuts through the panic. ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.’
A slow breath leaves me through my nose as I grit my teeth. The timing for this is everything and we don’t have time to be playing hide and seek. We need to be at the church. We need to move before Fisher or her Father realises I’ve already begun dismantling their plans.
Turning around, I head downstairs two steps at a time.
The house is louder than it used to be. Female laughter drifts from the kitchen.
‘Way Down We Go by Kaleo’ plays out around the surround system which would have never been played before women came here.
It’s strange how quickly this place shifted from cold steel and silence to something almost domestic.
Victor is leaning against the island when I walk in, almost exactly where I left him a couple of hours ago.
“Where’s Fae?” I demand, not caring for pleasantries.
“Thought she was with you,” he says, looking up from his phone with a frown.
“She’s not.”
“I haven’t seen her since this morning,” Riggs states, walking through the doorway. I flick my head over my shoulder to look at him.
“Are you sure?” I ask, my jaw ticking viciously.
“Yeah. Why?” Victor straightens slightly at my tone.
“Because she’s not answering her phone.”
“Well, hate to break it to you, but not everyone whose fucking needs to be joined at the hip,” Riggs declares but I shake my head.
“I’ll check her place,” I mutter.
Turning, I make my way to my car. This crawling feeling that something is wrong starts to itch at my skin. It’s not exactly fear, more like urgency. The clock is ticking whether she wants to acknowledge it or not. We need to be at that church. We need to end this before it spirals.
The journey is quick, thank God. Before long I’m pulling up outside her flat, jumping out of my car and heading to her front door. Her flat is quiet when I unlock it and I step inside and close the door behind me.
It smells like her and her scent is soft enough to make a man forget he has blood on his hands.
It clings to the air like sunlight caught in fabric, sweet but not childish, rich but not overpowering.
The honey is deep and slow, like something left to thicken in the dark.
The vanilla wraps around it, smooth and creamy, settling low in my lungs until breathing her in feels like sin.
“Fae?” I shout, hoping she will call back, but there’s nothing except my voice echoing around the room.
I check the living room, then the kitchen, then her bedroom.
Every room is empty. I even go as far as to check Robyn’s; she sometimes likes to sit here and be cocooned in her memories.
Sighing, I sit on the edge of Fae’s bed for a moment, my palms braced against my thighs.
Too many things are flying through my head, too many moving parts.
Flopping back, I press my face into her quilt and breathe her in like it will give me answers. The internal clock ticks in my head with an incessant need. Pulling my phone out, I try her again. Voicemail. Giving up, I try Felix, but it just rings.
Where are you?
A cold thread winds through my chest, pulling tight, squeezing slow until my breath doesn’t sit right in my lungs. The world feels slightly off-centre, like the ground has tilted a fraction and only I can feel it.
It isn’t fear, yet. I refuse to name it that.
But it’s no longer impatience either. She should be here and the fact she isn’t makes something primal start to rise.
She wouldn’t just disappear when we have this hanging over us.
Not today. Unless she’s being stubborn. Unless she’s decided to fix something herself.
I stand abruptly. This is wasting time.
When I get back, the house is louder. More of the boys have drifted in, along with more women. The air is thick with perfume, testosterone, and noise. It grates against my nerves.
Atlas’ girl, Iris, is at the bar. Victor is standing like a sentinel next to Hazel.
Riggs has… is that Delilah? I do a double take and frown.
Shaking it off because that’s not my business, I scan the room until my eyes land on him.
Thank God. Felix sits on the sofa on his own, half-obscured by the bar.
“Where’s your sister?” I demand as I walk towards him.
“What?” He jolts his head up and frowns.
“Fae. Your fucking sister. Where is she?” I bark. His expression shifts from confusion to something sharper in a millisecond as he stands up.
“I haven’t seen her since Father’s place.”
The niggle grows in my gut as I grind my teeth and count to ten. Felix waits, watching me with intent.
“You haven’t spoken to her?”
“No. Why?”
“She’s not answering my calls. She’s not here. She’s not at home.”
“Roman—” Felix straightens, his body coiling with tension.
Before he can finish, the living room door opens and Atlas steps inside. He spares none of us a look and makes a beeline for Iris. I move immediately, blocking his path, forcing him to stop short.
“Where’s Fae?” I demand, he pauses as he takes in my expression.
“She said she was going to meet Quinn.”
That fucking bitch.
The world narrows as I run through scenarios.
“When?” I ask.
“Two hours ago. Maybe a bit more.”
Something cold slides down my spine. I’m already pulling my phone out again before he can finish. Pacing, Quinn answers on the second ring.
“Roman. I was hoping you’d call—” Her voice is syrup-sweet and it makes me want to vomit.
“Is Fae with you?”
The line goes quiet, only my heavy breathing reverberating back to me but just as I go to press her, her voice comes through. It almost sounds like she’s worried… is she worried about Fae? Since when?
“What? No. Why would she be?”
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Quinn. She was meeting you. Where is she?”
“I’m not lying! I waited for her at the café. She never showed.”
The air in my lungs turns to stone.
“You’re sure?” I husk out, my mouth dry as my heart pounds in my chest. My eyes flick to Felix, who is turning ashen.
“Of course I’m sure. I sat there like an idiot for an hour and she didn’t arrive.” I don’t respond to the faint edge of irritation in her tone.
“When did you leave?”
“Ten minutes ago. Why? Is something wrong?”
I ignore that too.
“If she contacts you, you call me immediately.”
“Roman—”
I hang up. The noise in the house collapses into a dull roar, like I’ve been dropped beneath the surface of something dark and heavy. Sound bends. Faces blur. My pulse isn’t racing; it’s hammering, hard and violent, each beat trying to punch its way out of my chest.
Felix is watching me. Atlas too. Victor and Riggs have gone completely still. They can feel it. They can see it in the way my shoulders have locked, in the way my jaw has set too tight.
Something is wrong.
“She never made it,” I say evenly and the calmness in my own voice is so controlled it borders on unnatural.
The girls gasp. The sound scrapes over my nerves. I don’t bare my teeth at them, but it takes effort. It takes restraint not to snap that this is not their concern, not their moment to gasp and whisper and look frightened.
Panic doesn’t explode inside me. It spreads. Fast. Like ink dropped in water. Black veins thread through my bloodstream, turning everything colder. My stomach drops; not a flutter, not nerves, just a sickening plunge like I’ve stepped off a ledge I didn’t see.
No, this isn’t how this goes. She was meant to be furious. She was meant to be screaming at me as I pulled her down the aisle. She was meant to fight me as I confiscated her weapons. She was meant to let me bleed for her. She was not meant to be… missing.
Heat floods my limbs, but it’s not warmth; it’s adrenaline.
My body is preparing for something before my brain has fully caught up.
Every worst-case scenario slams against the inside of my skull at once.
Is she in a ditch from a car crash? Did her Father come for her?
Did Fisher? Was it the same person who took Robyn? Is she alive?
God, if she’s dead and our last words were an argument…
Three hours. Three fucking hours and then she could have been mine. The air feels too thin. My chest tightens until breathing becomes painful and forced as it feels like a bear is sat on me.
“Roman,” a hand touches me and my instincts react, grabbing it aggressively before I look into Victor’s wide eyes. “Breathe for me, mate. Breathe.”