53. Juliette
JULIETTE
T here’s a beeping noise that won’t shut up, and it’s making my head pulse in time to its rhythm.
My mouth is dry. I try to swallow, and it feels like sharp razorblades cut through my throat.
There’s literally nothing that feels good on my entire body, except for the warmth that’s encasing my left hand.
I force my eyelids open, and they come undone like they were stuck together with glue. I blink a few times to clear the haze from my vision.
My brow furrows. I’m in my bedroom at home, but there’s a beeping monitor, and it’s hooked up to my arm. The noise grows faster as I come to, my heart pounding against my chest, and I’m trying like hell to piece together my memories.
Roman’s mom, and then feeling out of it, and now…I’m here.
I look down and let out a short gasp, my heart ratcheting up even more when I see Roman at my side, his hand encasing mine and his slow, controlled breaths puffing against my arm. He looks concerned even in sleep, his head resting on my shoulder, and he’s gripping me tightly.
The door to my room flies open, Felicity popping her head in. “Everything okay?”
I blink.
“She’s awake!” she yells into the hallway before bouncing around the corner.
I stare at her and she lets out a choked laugh. “Holy shit, Jules. When you decide to let loose and live, you really take that literally.”
There’s a warm hand on my cheek, and I twist to look into the cerulean-blue eyes of Roman.
My heart flutters.
“Juliette.” His voice comes out as a pained croak.
I lift my arm and stroke down his jaw, and he practically rips the glass of water from Felicity’s hand when she reaches the side of my bed, wordlessly holding it out for me.
She scoffs. “Can I not be reduced to the beverage girl in my own best friend’s resurrection arc?”
I laugh, but it makes my head throb.
Roman gives her a look and then holds the straw to my lips, and I drink greedily. The water is cold and perfect, soothing my parched throat.
“You’re here,” I say to him.
“I’m here,” he repeats, bringing my hand up and pressing tiny kisses to the back of it. “Never leaving you again.”
“How did?—”
“Shh.” He reaches forward with his free hand and brushes it down my hair, petting me like he needs the feel of me under his hands to know that I’m real.
“Miss Calloway,” Felicity interrupts, her fingers gripping my ankle. “As your self-appointed and completely untrained nurse, I’m supposed to get your vitals. But also, your entire house is full of large, angry men who keep pacing, so…”
“Give us a minute,” Roman snaps. “Go tell everyone waiting that she’s awake.”
Felicity cocks a brow. “Did you not hear me scream it at them?”
“So tell them again.”
“Fine, but only because I’m a sucker for a good love story.” She squeezes my ankle again before letting go. “But no making out until we’re sure she’s okay.”
Roman doesn’t even dignify her with a look.
Felicity tosses a wink and then disappears into the hallway, shouting loudly again, “She’s awake, you idiots, did nobody hear me?”
“We heard you. Goddamn, you’re like a gnat,” Paxton replies, his voice distant like he’s yelling back at her from the bottom of the stairs.
I raise a brow. “Snippy.”
Roman smiles, pressing another kiss to my hand.
“I was so worried.” He leans in and brushes his mouth against mine. “You are never allowed to get kidnapped again.”
“What, like I did it on purpose?” I narrow my eyes. “It was your mom who took me, in case you forgot.”
“I didn’t forget,” he says, voice quiet. “I will never forget.”
There’s something haunted in his gaze, and it twists something deep inside me. “It’s okay, you know? And it’s not her, Trouble. Remember? It’s the drugs. Not her.”
He grunts. “It was , Juliette.”
I shake my head, then wince at the ache it produces. “No, baby. It wasn’t. Drugs change a person, right?”
His jaw tenses. “You don’t know everything she’s done, you?—”
“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “I mean, it does, but…for your own heart? It doesn’t matter.”
He sniffs but doesn’t give me an answer. And I don’t push because honestly, I’m out of my depth with it, and grief takes time to process.
My chest pulls, and the fog clears just enough for me to remember small pieces. “What happened?”
“The short version? Frederick Lawrence was a piece of shit who has manipulated everyone for years, alongside my mother, and now he’s dead, my father’s also dead, and you’re safe. That’s all I care about.”
“What? Oh my God, Roman ,” I blurt out, my heart aching for him.
He shakes his head. “I don’t want to think about it right now. I’m fine. You’re here. Brooklynn’s safe. And I’m fine .”
I swallow. “Okay.”
My stomach drops as more of reality seeps back in through the haze. “Ty,” I choke out. “Is he…?”
Roman’s jaw clenches, something dark passing through his gaze, but he shakes his head. “He’s in the hospital, but for now, at least…he’s alive.”
“It wasn’t you? I know it wasn’t you, but Bevie said he died and?—”
“Beverly lied to you, Juliette. For years, actually.”
My heart pounds, and as much as I want to rage against what he’s saying, as much as I want to pretend like that isn’t the case, I know that it is.
“That’s not even her real name. It’s Cassandra Troy.”
Honestly, it doesn’t hurt as viscerally as I expect. Maybe so much has just happened, that I’m numb.
“Are you sure she wasn’t tricked?” I ask. “Bevie was everything to me growing up.”
He strokes my hair again. “If they find her, then I promise I’ll make sure you can ask her yourself.”
She’s gone. Of course she is.
He smiles softly, leaning in and brushing a kiss against my lips. “Do you think Felicity will kill me if I let you ride my dick real quick?”
My mouth drops open. “Roman!”
He shrugs, looking anything but sorry. “You’re alive. I’m alive. The last forty-eight hours of my life have been a huge wake-up call. I think we both deserve a little pleasure.”
“I’m hooked up to a heart monitor,” I deadpan.
“Exactly.” He nods. “Now you can’t hide how easily I make your pulse race.”
“You are so annoying .”
He grins, catching my wrist when I reach out to smack his shoulder. “And you love me.”
“Kiss me, Trouble.”
Grinning, he leans down and presses his lips to mine. I tilt my head, but before either of us can fall too far into it, the door creaks again and familiar voices come barreling through.
“Well, is she alive or what?”
That sounds like Alex.
“Thank the lord,” Felicity banters back. “I swear, if I had to listen to Paxton pace one more time…”
“She was almost murdered , Flick.”
Paxton, obviously.
“Oh my God,” she complains. “Don’t make it sound like I’m the villain. Out of all of us, I’m the one who will end up hand-feeding her ice chips and defending her honor.”
They all stumble into the room mid-argument, followed by Lance, who doesn’t say anything.
He just stops and his eyes lock on mine.
And for a second, all of the noise dulls.
His posture’s tense, and his expression is as broody and tortured as ever, but I see the crack in his mask.
“She’s clearly alive,” Lance mutters, his voice breaking slightly over the words. “You can tell by the sarcasm already leaking out of her pores.”
My heart falters and my stomach tangles.
“Good to see you, too,” I say, trying to sound as dry as he makes me seem.
Roman tenses beside me, but I nudge his side. “Relax. He’s been making fun of me since we were kids. This is affection.”
Lance’s mouth lifts in the faintest almost-smile. “He knows how much I love you.”
I lift a brow. “Does he now?”
He shrugs. “What, you think he was the one who saved you? All alone?”
Roman smirks. “I could’ve done it alone.”
Alex groans, dramatically dropping onto the chaise. “Can we not do the whole masculine martyr monologues right now? She just regained consciousness, not upped her tolerance for testosterone.”
Paxton sighs, frowning at me. “We tracked you with Benjamin Voltaire, who for the first time in his life was helpful. Lance got to you before the rest of us.”
“I heard Roman punched a tree,” Felicity pipes in. “Did you punch a tree?”
Lance chuckles. “He totally punched a tree.”
Roman scoffs. “It was symbolic.”
My eyes fling back and forth between all of them. Roman is…joking? With my brothers.
What the hell happened while I was drugged and knocked out?
“You know what else is symbolic?” Alex waves his hands. “The fact Jules survived. Poisoned, betrayed, dragged up a cliff like the last act of a Greek tragedy, and still, she rises.”
Felicity snorts. “You’re so dramatic.”
“I’m just saying,” he continues, completely unbothered. “If this were a play, we’d be in the final act. The masks are off. The villains are dead. The lovers are reunited. All that’s left is the curtain call.”
“Jesus,” Lance groans. “You teach a couple acting classes and now you think you’re the narrator of Hamlet .”
“I’m a philosopher at heart, Lance. You know this. It’s not my fault I’m good at everything.” Alex grins.
“I give it five minutes before he starts quoting Nietzsche,” Paxton mutters, flopping onto the end of my bed like it’s his own personal chair.
“Well that just shows how much you don’t know me,” Alex says. “I’m in my Sophocles era now. Chaos, fate, tragic women with killer one-liners…”
He waggles his brows at Felicity.
I tune them all out, focusing on Roman.
“Thank you,” I whisper, squeezing his hand. “For coming back. For saving me. For not letting us end.” My throat tightens, tears pricking my eyes. “I thought I had lost you.”
“You will never lose me.” He leans in, resting his forehead on mine, ignoring the bickering of my family. “Fate always brings us back together.”
I close the space and kiss him, soft and slow, full of every word I don’t know how to say.
“You still gonna paint me in everything?” I ask, a brow raised.
His lips twitch. “On my hands, in the sky, in the space between one breath and the next.”
“You can’t paint breath ,” I remark.
“That sounds like a challenge.”
I shrug. “Maybe it is.”
Someone clears their throat.
“Okay,” Alex says. “This was a cute moment and all, but if they start dry humping in front of me, I’m leaving.”
Felicity throws a pillow at him. “You’d cry if they broke up. Don’t pretend.”
“I’d cry,” Lance pipes in.
Everyone turns to look at him, and my mouth pops open.
He shrugs, eyes still on Roman and me. “What? I can be emotional.”
“Wow. Vulnerability? In this house?” Felicity jokes.
Lance smirks. “Don’t get used to it.”
“I think it’s sweet,” I say. “I need the vulnerability, especially since our parents aren’t here, apparently.” My voice pitches up. “Where are they?”
Felicity snorts and cuts a look to Paxton. “This guy wouldn’t let them come in with us.”
Paxton shrugs. “I promised you I wouldn’t let them fuck with you anymore, and I meant it.”
I choke on my gratitude, pressing my lips together and giving a sharp nod. If I try to talk, I think I’ll cry.
I’m not sure what the future holds, but I’m positive I’m done with the two people who barely raised me and forgot that love should lead above all.
Lance straightens and my heart sinks as he gets ready to leave. “I’ve gotta go.”
“And do what?” Paxton quirks a brow.
Lance lifts a shoulder. “There’s some people I have to look out for.”
Felicity says something smart back, but I tune them out, watching Lance as he heads for the door. There’s something heavy in the way he carries himself, and I have more questions for him that I’m dying to get the answers to.
“Lance,” I call out.
He stops, turning just enough to meet my eyes.
“Thank you,” I say. “For everything. For being the one who got there.”
His jaw works like he’s trying to find the right words. But in the end, all he does is nod.
Roman kicks everyone else out seconds later, and then he saunters to me with a wicked grin, and I exhale, reaching for him as he climbs into the bed and draws me into his arms.
His thumb brushes along my cheekbone, eyes tracing me with reverence.
“I’ll paint you in the sky, Little Rose,” he promises.
“Then I’ll write you in the stars, Trouble,” I whisper back. “That way we’ll always be together.”
He grins, a playful look in his eye. “That’s exactly what a stalker would say.”
I roll my eyes.
“You love me.”
“I do,” I admit.
And I kiss him to prove it.
They weren’t perfect. They were mess, and complication, and arguments that ended with apologies whispered between silk-laden sheets.
But when it mattered, he showed up, and she let him in. Not because it was easy, but because it was real.
And maybe their story wasn’t built for glass slippers. Maybe they never fit the mold.
But it was theirs. And it was art.
If she was the sun, then he was every constellation in the sky.
For never was a bond the stars could show,
As boundless as Juliette…and her Romeo.