Chapter 8
JULIET
Ididn’t remember when I arrived back at the desolate, cursed bungalow Romeo had condemned me to, nor when exhaustion finally dragged me into sleep.
When I finally opened my eyes the next morning, sunlight filtered softly through the curtains, warming the unfamiliar bedroom.
For one blissful second, I forgot where I was.
Then reality settled over me all at once.
The wedding.
Less than forty-eight hours ago, I had been a free woman. Now I was married to a man who hated me with a cruelty so deep it seemed to have become part of him.
The warehouse came rushing back—the guns, the moment I had thrown myself between him and death.
And then came his words.
They replayed in my mind with merciless clarity.
Yarina is gentle. Kind. Everything you are not. And everything you’ll never be. If you ever cause trouble for her... if you ever hurt her in any way, I will never forgive you.
I closed my eyes, but his voice followed me into the darkness.
My chest tightened.
Reaching for my phone on the bedside table, I noticed a missed call.
Yarina.
A knot formed instantly in my stomach.
After everything that had happened, I almost ignored the call. I let it ring until it stopped, then stared at the screen for a moment before pressing call back.
She answered on the first ring.
“Guess who’s dead?”
Her voice carried an almost playful sweetness.
My blood ran cold.
My mother.
The thought struck so violently that I stopped breathing.
No.
No...
My heart pounded against my ribs as images of my frail mother flooded my mind—her pale smile, the medications lining her bedside table, the hope that somehow she’d recover.
Pain ripped through me so suddenly that my vision blurred.
Before I could speak...
Yarina laughed softly.
“Raven.”
The name hit me like another blow.
I froze.
Raven.
My beautiful cat.
My sweet girl.
She hadn’t been sick.
She hadn’t even seemed tired.
I’d held her yesterday morning before rushing to the wedding, scratching beneath her chin while she purred against my hand as though begging me not to leave.
She always waited for me.
I’d even planned to ask Romeo if I could bring her to the bungalow once everything settled.
The thought that she was gone...
So suddenly...
So senselessly...
Didn’t seem possible.
I tightened my grip around the phone.
“And do you know who killed her?”
Yarina’s voice came through the speaker, low and eerily pleased.
My breath caught. “...What?”
“I did.”
There wasn’t a flicker of hesitation in her voice.
“I killed her.” A small, satisfied laugh drifted through the phone. “And there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.”
My heartbeat faltered.
Her next words landed with deliberate cruelty.
“Consider it the first of many things you’re going to lose for marrying my man.”
The world tilted.
My fingers went numb, and the phone nearly slipped from my grasp.
A crushing weight settled over my chest, squeezing until it became difficult to breathe.
My knees gave out beneath me.
I slid helplessly down the bedroom wall until I was sitting on the cold floor, clutching the phone with trembling hands as tears spilled silently down my face.
No...
Not Raven.
Please...
Not Raven.
My mind drifted backward without permission.
Ten years earlier.
It was my fifteenth birthday, back when my mother still had enough strength to smile without pain hiding behind it.
She had walked into my bedroom carrying a tiny bundle wrapped in a soft cream blanket.
When she peeled it back, two golden eyes blinked sleepily up at me.
The tiniest black kitten I’d ever seen.
“Happy birthday, my strong girl,” she’d whispered, placing the kitten carefully into my arms.
“I thought everyone deserved someone who loves them without conditions.”
I remembered laughing through happy tears as the little kitten immediately climbed onto my shoulder, her tiny claws catching lightly in my shirt.
Mom had smiled.
“She’ll be your shadow.”
She was right.
Raven followed me everywhere.
She curled up beside me while I spent endless evenings buried in books and Bratva financial ledgers.
She greeted me at the front door every single time I came home, no matter how late the hour.
She chased butterflies across the garden while I escaped into novels beneath the old oak tree.
Whenever panic gripped me after particularly brutal family meetings, Raven somehow always knew.
She would climb onto my lap, knead gently against my chest, and purr until my breathing steadied again.
On nights when Father disappeared for days without explanation...
When the house felt far too large and unbearably empty...
She curled against my side and refused to leave until morning.
She wasn’t just a pet.
She had been my comfort.
My safest place.
A tiny piece of innocence that somehow survived inside a family built on violence.
Now...
She was gone.
Because of Yarina.
My grief twisted into something darker and hotter.
My hands curled into fists until my nails dug painfully into my palms.
“How could you?” The words tore from my throat between broken sobs. “How could you do something so cruel?”
My voice cracked completely.
“Raven never hurt anyone. She trusted you.”
Another laugh.
Cold and dismissive.
“It was just a filthy cat, Juliet.” Her tone dripped with contempt. “Listen to yourself. You’re crying as though someone actually died.”
She sighed dramatically. “If it makes you feel any better, go tell Romeo.”
A mocking pause. “He won’t believe a single word you say.”
The smile in her voice widened.
“He loves me. He always will. And between the two of us, you already know whose side he’ll choose.”
She laughed again. “I warned you not to marry him. You should’ve listened.”
The call ended.
For several seconds, I remained frozen, shattered by what I had just heard.
My sister had killed my cat.
The one creature I had loved without conditions.
Something inside me broke.
Then it snapped.
The grief that had hollowed me moments ago burned away, replaced by a rage so violent it made my hands tremble.
She had taken something precious from me simply because she wanted to hurt me.
She had crossed a line she could never uncross.
A cry tore from my throat, barely human, and I hurled my phone across the room.
It struck the wall with a violent crack before crashing onto the floor.
I didn’t care if it was destroyed.
I wiped furiously at my tears, my breathing ragged as anger consumed the last of my fear.
No.
She wasn’t getting away with this.
Not this time.
I would make her regret ever touching something that belonged to me.
Driven by grief more than reason, I stumbled into the bathroom.
I turned the shower on as hot as I could bear.
Steam quickly filled the room, but it couldn’t wash away the ache crushing my chest.
I scrubbed my skin almost violently, trying to erase the helplessness clinging to me.
Trying to silence the image of Raven waiting faithfully at the front door...
Never knowing I’d never come home to her again.
By the time I stepped out, my tears had finally stopped.
Not because I felt better.
Because there were none left.
I dressed quickly.
I snatched the car keys from the table where I’d dropped them after returning from the warehouse only hours earlier.
Then I walked out.
Every step fueled by grief. Every breath fed by anger.
Maybe Yarina had only wanted to hurt me.
Maybe Raven had run away. Maybe she was hiding somewhere.
Maybe...
I clung desperately to every impossible possibility.
Traffic blurred around me as I drove far faster than I should have.
The familiar route to my father’s estate passed almost unnoticed beneath my tires.
Nearly forty minutes later, the wrought-iron gates came into view.
I barely waited for them to finish opening before accelerating through.
The estate looked exactly as it always had.
Perfect. Orderly.
As though nothing terrible had happened.
I parked crookedly near the entrance and climbed out before the engine had fully settled.
My heart pounded so violently it hurt.
I hurried toward the front door.
Then I heard it.
Laughter.
Bright, carefree and triumphant.
I stopped in my tracks.
I’d know that laugh anywhere.
Yarina.
She killed my cat...
And she was sitting here laughing.
A fresh wave of grief crashed through me, feeding the fury already burning inside me until it consumed every last trace of reason.
Without another second of hesitation, I shoved the heavy front door open.
It slammed against the wall with a thunderous crack that echoed throughout the house.
The laughter stopped instantly.
Silence swept over the living room.
Every head turned toward me.
I froze.
I hadn’t expected to see him.
Yarina sat comfortably in one of the armchairs, and several feet away, dressed in an impeccably tailored charcoal suit, was Romeo.
The dark fabric emphasized the breadth of his shoulders and the commanding strength of his frame, making him look every bit the ruthless Irish boss he had become.
For a brief moment, confusion eclipsed my anger.
Last night, he had walked away from me at the warehouse, claiming he had urgent matters to handle.
Yet here he was. At nine o’clock in the morning.
Freshly dressed and maddeningly composed.
Had he spent the night here?
Or had he come straight from whatever bloody business had occupied the rest of his night?
Neither possibility eased the ache inside me.
Yarina looked up first.
The smug smile spreading across her lips made my blood boil.
“Well...”
She tilted her head lazily.
“Look who finally decided to show up.”
Romeo rose immediately.
For the smallest fraction of a second, I thought I saw the faint trace of something softer in his expression.
It disappeared so quickly I wondered if I’d imagined it.
His features settled back into the cold, unreadable mask I’d come to know.
“I came because Yarina said she was sick. Nothing more.”
He adjusted the cuff of his suit jacket with precise, unhurried movements. “I didn’t stay the night. I wouldn’t. I’m leaving.”
Yarina rose abruptly, her expression hardening.
“You’re seriously leaving?”
Her eyes flicked toward me, then back to Romeo.
“Because she’s here?”
A slow, mocking smile curved her lips.