CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
BLOSSOM
––––––––
The plush carpet cushioned my knees, but there was nothing soft about this moment. Nothing gentle. Nothing loving. This was not Romeo and Juliet. This was Rome and Blossom, and one of us held all the power while the other had gunmen waiting outside the homes of the people she loved.
Rome leaned back in his chair, his gaze locked on me.
For a moment, he didn’t look pleased. He didn’t look victorious.
Somehow, that made this worse. If he’d smiled, if he’d looked smug, I could’ve let that fuel my anger.
It would’ve helped erase the love I had for him and replace it with pure hatred.
But instead of looking like the victor, he looked... empty. Like a shell of the man who’d walked into my store, smiling at me. He looked lost. Desperate. Then the moment passed, and determination settled over his features once again.
Without taking his eyes off me, he reached toward his desk and picked up a black folder. The bastard tossed it onto the floor in front of me. It landed against the carpet with a soft thud. My gaze dropped to it before slowly lifting back to him.
“Open it,” he ordered.
I wanted to throw that folder right back at him and tell him to go fuck himself. Better yet, I wanted to shove it down his throat, knock out a few of his perfect teeth, then use the pen on his desk to pierce his jugular.
My gaze drifted to his laptop, a reminder of why I couldn’t act rashly. A reminder of what was at stake here. A pen landed on the floor next to the folder.
“Open the folder,” he told me.
Swallowing down every curse sitting on the tip of my tongue, I reached for the folder and opened it, expecting it to be proof of what my team had done to Marcel. The first page made my stomach drop.
A sarcastic laugh slipped from me before I could stop it. It wasn’t because any of this was funny. Nothing about kneeling on the floor in front of the man I loved while he threatened my people was funny. This was insane. All of it. Especially the shit he had in this folder.
“Is this some sort of contract?” I asked, looking up at him.
“Read it carefully,” he told me before taking another sip of his whiskey.
My fingers tightened around the edge of the folder as my gaze dropped back to the page. I started reading. Carefully. At first, my mind refused to absorb what my eyes were seeing.
I had to go over the first section twice before I could truly believe what I’d read. The more I read, the angrier I became. No fucking way did he expect me to sign some shit like this. Heat crawled up my neck, and my eyes burned, but I refused to let those tears fall.
I would not cry over this. Not in front of him. Not while he sat there drinking whiskey as though the terms of my captivity were just another business deal. This would not break me. But damn, this was too much.
By the time I reached the last page, my hands were shaking with rage. I slammed the folder shut.
“Have you completely lost your damn mind?” I asked. “There’s no way I’m signing this shit.”
Rome didn’t flinch. He didn’t yell at me. Nor did he look surprised at my refusal to sign. That pissed me off even more for some reason. I threw the folder at him, hitting him squarely in his chest.
“I’m not signing that,” I insisted. “If you want my life in exchange for what happened, take it. But I’m not signing that contract.”
For a moment, silence stretched between us. Then he set his glass down and pressed a button on his laptop. My heart stopped.
“Camera Four,” he started.
My eyes widened. The man’s voice came through the speaker.
“Yeah, boss?”
Rome’s gaze never left mine. “Move in.”
“Wait!” The word tore out of me, and it was laced with pure anguish.
“On it, boss,” the man said.
“No! Rome, wait,” I said, panicking. “I’ll sign it. I’ll sign the contract.”
I despised the way my voice trembled, revealing how weak I was. My gaze moved to the screen. There was movement on camera four. One of Rome's men was approaching Dayana's house.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Rome, I’ll sign,” I rushed to say. “Give it back to me. I’ll sign it.”
I chanced a glance at the camera feed. The guy was almost to Dayana’s door. Her motion detector lights should be coming on right now. None of that was happening. She had no idea death was approaching her house.
“I’ll sign, Rome,” I cried, a fucking tear trailing down my cheek. “I want to sign it.”
Another tear crept down my face as Rome pushed a button on the laptop again.
“Camera four,” he said. “Fall back.”
“Yes, boss.”
Relief surged through me as the man started backing away from Dayana’s home. A sob rose in my throat, and it took all my strength to keep from falling apart right here, right now. He was not bluffing.
Yeah, some part of me had wanted to believe he wouldn’t actually do it. I’d wanted to believe in our love, and I’d hoped there was a way forward from this somehow. I’d wanted to believe my Romeo was still in there somewhere.
Looking at the man sitting across from me, I realized Romeo was gone. He knew he’d won. He knew he’d defeated me, broken me. And I hated him for this. I loathed him almost as much as I loved him.
“Give me the damn contract,” I demanded, trying to make myself sound and feel more in control than I was.
Unbothered by my attitude, he picked the folder up from his lap and opened it.
“You read it carefully?” he asked.
“Carefully enough,” I countered.
“Do you understand what I expect from you?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Do you understand why I’m doing this?” he added.
I nodded. He rose from his chair. My breath caught as he approached me. I wanted to retreat. But I was on my knees. Even if I could run, where would I go? He stood before me, towering over me.
I stared past him, refusing to look him in the eyes, my gaze settling on the chair he'd occupied only seconds ago.
“Look at me,” he ordered.
Must he push me to the edge of insanity? Did he have to take it this far?
“Now!”
Damn it!
I raised my gaze to his, glaring up at him, heart racing. Instead of throwing the folder at me, he offered it to me like a sane person this time. I stared at it. Taking it felt like accepting my own sentence.
It felt like surrendering, like giving up. I was a fighter. I never gave up. I would find a way to make this work in my favor, in my team’s favor. I just needed a moment alone to think.
“Take it,” he ordered.
Moving slowly, I lifted my hand and accepted the folder from him. During the exchange, his fingers brushed mine. It was the smallest touch, yet both of us reacted to it, affected by it.
We froze, touching for a moment before jerking away from each other. But that brief moment was a cruel reminder of what could’ve been. He retrieved the pen from the floor and handed it to me.
He was careful not to touch me this time. I opened the folder again and flipped to the final page. There was a line at the bottom of the page, awaiting my signature. I swallowed hard, gripping the pen.
For a moment, I couldn’t move. My hand hovered over the paper as every person I loved passed through my mind.
Kelly. Dayana. Tracy.
Ivy. My mom. My staff.
My stores. The Circuit. The brides waiting on flowers.
Those people were depending on me. If I refused to sign, Rome would continue destroying everything my family had built. And he wouldn’t stop there. He’d hurt innocent people who had nothing to do with this. People I’d sworn to protect. If I signed, only one person had to suffer.
Me.
Another tear slipped down my cheek despite my best efforts to hold it back.
I flinched when he wiped it away. My gaze rose to his, and I found him staring at his tear-stained finger, a look of anguish on his face.
When he caught me looking, he schooled his features into an expression void of emotion.
“You know who else cried while kneeling before their captor?” he asked, grabbing a Kleenex from his desk to wipe his hand. “Marcel, when they tortured him. Don’t think tears will make me pity you. Tears can’t erase what happened to my cousin. Sign the contract, Blossom.”
This bastard.
He tossed the napkin into the trash can by his desk. I quickly wiped my tears away with the back of my hand. I lowered the pen to the page. My hand shook as I signed.
Blossom Brooks.
Every letter felt like a chain locking around my wrists and ankles. When I finished, I stared at my name. There it was. My signature. My surrender. My sacrifice. Rome reached down and took the folder and the pen.
He looked at my signature for a long moment before closing the folder and placing the items on his desk. Then his gaze returned to mine. I remained kneeling in front of him, hating how small I felt.
I hated how angry I was and how badly my heart hurt when I looked at him. Rome squatted in front of me. Then he leaned closer until his face was inches from mine.
“The contract begins now,” he told me. “From this moment on, you belong to me until I’ve decided you’ve suffered enough. Understood?”
I nodded.
“Use your words,” he ordered.
“I understand,” I whispered.
“I don’t think you do.” He gripped my chin, forcing me to look at him. “According to our contract, who do you belong to now, Blossom Brooks?” he asked, a cruel smile in place.
I swallowed, not wanting to answer.
“Who do you belong to, Blossom Brooks?” he demanded.
“I belong to you, Rome,” I admitted, because I’d pretty much just signed my life over to the man who wanted to ruin me.
“Good girl.” He cupped my cheeks and wiped the remnants of tears from my face with his thumbs. “Don’t cry, beautiful. We haven’t even gotten started yet.”
Before his words could fully register, he scooped me up in his arms and carried me from his office. I had no idea where he was taking me now. I had no idea what he had planned for me tonight. All I knew was I’d just signed my life over to Rome Cattaneo.
Now, there was no escaping him or his ruthless contract.