Chapter 12
ROMEO
The heavy oak door of the safe house groaned shut behind me just after eleven at night.
The sound echoed through the empty hallway like a warning.
The air inside smelled of damp concrete and the cold metallic scent that always lingered in places where men came to confess their sins.
I barely noticed.
My mind was somewhere else.
On revenge.
On the years I had spent trapped behind prison walls because of this man.
On the sister I lost.
On the woman I had just condemned.
Keegan walked beside me in silence.
He knew better than to speak when my anger was this close to the surface.
His footsteps matched mine as we descended deeper into the safe house, each step taking us closer to the basement where Sokolov waited.
Where justice waited.
Or at least, that was what I had convinced myself.
The basement door opened.
The bastard sat in the center of the room, tied to a metal chair beneath a single hanging bulb.
The ropes around his wrists and ankles were pulled tight, cutting deep into his skin. Blood had seeped through the torn flesh, running down his hands in thin, dark streams before dripping onto the concrete floor.
He looked smaller than I remembered.
Older. Broken.
But not broken enough.
I stopped in front of him.
For years, I had imagined this moment.
I imagined his fear.
His begging.
His realization that no matter how far he ran, I would eventually find him.
This was the man who had destroyed my family.
The man who had thrown my sister from the top floor of the Flynn mansion as though her life meant nothing.
The man who had framed me for her murder and watched as I was dragged away to prison.
Ten years.
Ten years of surviving a place designed to break men.
Ten years of waking up every morning knowing someone wanted me dead.
I had dreamed of this moment more times than I could count.
Now it was finally here.
“Remove the tape.”
My voice was calm. Almost emotionless.
The guards immediately moved.
One of them stepped forward and ripped the duct tape away from Sokolov’s mouth.
The sound of it tearing filled the room.
Sokolov gasped violently, choking as he dragged air into his lungs. Saliva and blood mixed at the corner of his mouth as he coughed.
His face twisted with pain.
“Do whatever you want with me.”
His voice was barely recognizable.
“But please...” His eyes lifted toward mine. “Don’t touch my family.”
“I won’t touch Yarina.”
His expression shifted slightly.
“She saved my life.”
My voice hardened.
“When my own brother tried to drown me in the lake at the Flynn estate, she jumped in without hesitation and risked her own life to save me. When I had no one, she was the one who stayed by my side. She wrote back to every letter I sent from prison, even when no one else came to see me.”
I stepped closer.
“I repay my debts.”
The relief that briefly appeared on his face disappeared when I continued.
“But your precious Juliet?”
His eyes widened.
“She will bear the weight of every sin you’ve committed.”
My jaw tightened.
“Being my wife does not protect her.”
I watched the fear return.
“She betrayed me.” The words tasted bitter. “And now she will answer for it.”
Sokolov stared at me.
“As we speak, she’s locked away in a dark basement.”
I paused. “Exactly where traitors belong.”
The color drained from his face.
“No.”
The word came out broken.
“No, no, no...” He pulled against the restraints desperately. “Please.”
His breathing became frantic. “Don’t do that to her.”
I frowned.
This wasn’t the reaction I expected.
“She fucking hates the darkness.”
My body went still.
“What?”
His eyes filled with panic.
“When she was sixteen, she got trapped in a storage room during a raid. She was in there for hours, alone in the dark. It nearly broke her.”
He pulled desperately against the ropes.
“Please. I’m begging you.”
His breathing turned ragged.
“I’ll give you whatever you want. Money. Information. Anything. Just get her out of that basement.”
My jaw tightened.
“She’s innocent. I haven’t had any contact with her since I disappeared. She didn’t even know where I was.”
The certainty in his voice caught me off guard.
I turned toward Keegan.
My voice was quieter now, but the suspicion in it was unmistakable.
“You told me he confessed that Juliet planted the tracker on my phone.”
Keegan’s expression shifted.
A small hesitation.
A hesitation I noticed immediately.
“He admitted his daughter was involved in planting the tracker on your phone, boss. But he never identified which daughter. I assumed it was Juliet. Given how much she hates you, it seemed logical. Yarina would never betray you like that.”
My eyes narrowed.
I turned back toward Sokolov.
His head hung low.
His shoulders trembled.
Silent sobs escaped him, tears mixing with the blood and saliva at the corner of his mouth.
“It wasn’t Juliet.” The words came out strangled.
My body went still.
The room suddenly felt smaller.
I moved before I could think.
My hand grabbed his jaw, my fingers tightening around his face as I forced him to look at me.
The movement was brutal enough that I heard the joints in his neck strain.
“Are you saying it was Yarina?”
The name felt wrong coming from my mouth.
Impossible.
My mind rejected it before I even heard the answer.
Not Yarina.
Not the woman who had stood beside me.
Not the woman who had saved me when my own blood turned against me.
Sokolov’s eyes filled with pain.
He shook his head weakly.
“I told Yarina before I disappeared.”
My grip tightened. “Told her what?”
His lips trembled. “That you needed to die. She agreed. Because you killed her man. She believed you deserved it.”
Killed her man?
“After they sent you to prison, she grew close to your brother, Sergei,” Sokolov said, swallowing hard. “They fell in love. By the time you were released, she was carrying his child.”
My entire body went still.
“But when you returned, Sergei was the first man you killed.”
His voice trembled.
“Yarina blamed you. She hated you for taking him from her. She wanted you gone, Romeo. She wanted revenge.”
I released him abruptly, as though his skin had burned my hands, and stepped back.
“You’re lying.” My voice came out low. “You’re trying to manipulate me.”
I shook my head.
“Yarina wrote to me throughout my entire time in prison. Every letter. She never once mentioned Sergei. Never once suggested she loved anyone else.”
My jaw tightened.
“And if she were pregnant, I would know.” I shook my head harder. “That isn’t possible.”
But Sokolov didn’t stop.
“Then don’t believe me. Verify it. But get Juliet out first.”
His desperation was almost unbearable.
“She is innocent. And she is terrified of the dark. You know what you’re doing to her.”
Before I could respond, Keegan stepped forward.
“Boss, that’s exactly why he’s saying this.”
My eyes shifted toward him.
“Sokolov knows you won’t accept the possibility that Yarina betrayed you. That’s why he’s putting the blame on her. He knows you’ll hesitate to punish her, and that hesitation gives Juliet the protection he wants.”
Sokolov’s expression twisted.
“That’s not true.”
“Then why won’t you give us evidence?” Keegan asked. “Why are you suddenly so desperate to save Juliet?”
Silence.
Two versions of reality stood before me.
One was the truth I desperately wanted to believe.
Yarina was loyal.
Yarina had loved me.
Yarina could never betray me.
The other possibility was unbearable.
What if Juliet had been telling the truth?
What if she had been the one writing to me from prison all those years—not Yarina?
What if Yarina really had been pregnant with Sergei’s child? What if she had truly wanted revenge for his death?
My jaw tightened.
What if my hatred for Juliet had made the conclusion too easy to accept?
For the first time, doubt slipped beneath my certainty.
And with it came a thought I didn’t want to entertain.
What if I had punished an innocent woman?
What if I had condemned her without proof...
Then this wasn’t justice.
It was cruelty.
It was the weakness of a man who allowed his emotions to control him.
I looked at Keegan.
“Take me to Juliet.” My voice was final. “Now.”
Keegan nodded immediately.
We left the room.
The deeper we went into the safe house, the colder the air became.
The basement levels seemed to swallow sound.
The concrete stairs were narrow beneath our feet, and Keegan switched on the overhead lights as we descended.
The harsh bulbs flickered above us, casting long shadows across the walls.
But all I could think about was darkness.
And Juliet trapped inside it.
We reached the final door.
A heavy wooden barrier separating me from Juliet.
The woman I had accused. The woman I had punished.
The woman who might have been innocent all along.
I reached for the handle.
Then stopped.
For the first time in years...
Real fear moved through me.
Not anger. Not rage.
Fear.
A cold, sickening realization that settled deep in my bones.
What if she was innocent?
What if I had spent all these months hating and punishing the wrong woman?
What if everything Juliet had confessed was true?
What if she really had been the one who saved me from drowning at the lake—not Yarina?
The thought had been impossible moments ago.
Now it was the only thing I could see.
What if I had taken an innocent woman—my wife—and thrown her into the same hell I reserved for the people who betrayed us?
A place where darkness became a weapon.
A place where even the strongest men eventually lost pieces of themselves.
And worse, she was carrying my child—our child—while trapped alone in that dark, suffocating basement.
If I had done this to her for nothing...
If I had punished her for a betrayal she never committed, there would be no taking it back.
No apology, no amount of groveling could undo what I had put her through.
I closed my eyes briefly.
Then exhaled slowly.
I reached for the door handle, twisted the knob, and pulled the door open.
The heavy wooden door groaned as it opened, the old hinges protesting loudly in the silence.
Then darkness spilled out.
Not ordinary darkness.
Something heavier.