The blood on his hands turned the water red as he washed them. The white porcelain sink blurred with the pink and red ribbons of someone else’s life.
“Rome,” I whispered.
He jumped, the muscles in his back rippling as he tensed. His dark head of hair was dripping wet, and as it shot up, droplets of water sprayed everywhere. Those black eyes solidified into a stone-cold stare when he looked at me in the mirror. “Why are you back here?”
“I had to pee. It’s not like I don’t come back—”
“Get out!” He delivered the command as swiftly as a sword slicing its enemy down.
I stood my ground. We still weren’t friends. We were barely acquaintances at this point. He’d ignored me too many times for that and had acted as though I didn’t exist for the past couple of weeks. And in those weeks, I’d almost slept with another man, one I knew could keep me content. Yet I wanted only Rome.
“Katalina, you need to leave.” His voice rumbled out low in warning.
I should have left like he asked me to. If he didn’t care about me, didn’t want me here, I shouldn’t have cared either.
But I knew him. I knew his touch, the way his breath shook when he was with me, the way his mouth felt against mine. I knew the man under the monster.
More than anything, I knew the emptiness in his eyes. It was the same look that had marred my face over the years, time and time again.
I crossed my arms. “That’s not just someone else’s blood on your hands. Your face is bleeding.”
He sighed and ducked his face down to splash some more water over it. “Get the fuck out of here, Katalina.”
I leaned against the door frame of the bathroom for support as my full name rolled from his pillowy lips. I missed hearing his voice, missed hearing him command me. “Does the other guy look just as bad?”
I got no answer from him. The silence ping-ponged around us, ricocheting off our tension and unanswered questions. Rome wanted me to leave.
Instead, I lightened my tone. “To be honest, I might act out and fuck up one of your customers tonight. They’re out of control. I just had to threaten a guy. So I’m thinking I need a good fight story.” I smiled at my own joke, trying to reduce the tension. “Please tell me you killed the other guy.”
He whipped around to face me. His black eyes pulled me in and tried to swallow me in their hollowness. “I did.”
Those two words—he said them so seriously, goose bumps popped up over my skin. “What?”
“Don’t ask a question if you aren’t prepared for the answer.”
“Rome, seriously? You can’t . . . Bastian didn’t say anything about kills in the past few days. If you’re not following the rules . . . Bastian doesn’t want anyone acting outside of his control.”
“You still staying with him, then?” The first real emotion from him was the pain as his voice cracked with the question. It hurt me just as much as him.
“What does Bastian really have to do with any of this? You know it’s all for—” I stopped. If it were all for show, I wouldn’t have kissed Bastian. But Rome hadn’t called; he hadn’t even asked about me. He’d left me to the mob without a backward glance, even knowing I’d had my head bashed in, even knowing people were out there looking for me.
“It has everything to do with it, Katalina. You know what the family is out there doing?”
“Rome.” I glanced toward the ceiling, my heart wanting to break. “They don’t tell me those things. I’m not at the meetings with you all. I’ve never been invited. So I don’t get to ask those types of questions.”
“You better start. And you better be prepared for the answers.”
I combed a hand through my waves as I took in his words, the way his body vibrated with a rage that was barely contained. “Are you okay?”
He crowded me against the door, looked me up and down. “Bastian’s world isn’t the one you want—”
“And it’s the one you do? You’re in just as deep as me.” I grabbed the gray shirt that had splatters of blood staining it. “How are you ever going to explain this? How are you going to come back from taking lives when Bastian isn’t giving you permission? He’s the head of the family now, Rome. Him! Not you.”
He looked away, and the breath he took in was labored, like a wounded animal struggling for life. I felt him crumbling, felt the world taking him down, felt his pain.
My hand shot out, gripping his bicep where blood lay wet over his tattoos. “Hey,” I whispered and squeezed. The blood rolled down over my fingers. Warm. Still full of life. It was that vibrant red, like roses on the sunniest day after a summer rain. “If you’re hurting, if you’re about to break, break me instead. I can handle it.”
“Are you offering what I think you are?” His gaze ran up and down my body, searing it and branding it as his with just a look.
I swallowed and then licked my lips, knowing deep down I was his at the end of the day, that Bastian—that no man—could tie himself to me like Rome could. He’d been there for me since the beginning, and so I would be there for him until the end. “Yes.”
His hand shot out so fast to wrap around my neck that I jumped and fell back into the brick wall behind me. Little fragments of the aged cement crumbled onto my shoulders as I leaned farther away from him. My body was accustomed to pain and suffering. Still, this once, I was sure this was the most danger I’d ever been in.
He squeezed, and I felt my windpipe start to close. “Kate-Bait, I will break you. And I won’t put you back together.”
“I’m already broken,” I murmured, but it sounded far away. “And I don’t expect a handout from anyone.”
“At least you’ve learned what it’s like to be in the family.” He grabbed my hand and slid it under his shirt. I felt the warm liquid before it registered that he was bleeding, that he was running my hand over his wound. “My blood is your blood. I bleed, you bleed.”
I whispered the family’s oath. “I bleed, you bleed . . .” He squeezed harder so that I couldn’t finish it.
Then he yanked my neck toward him so he could devour my mouth.
. . . Maybe this was where our end began.
Rome
I pulled her down into the black hole. It swallowed us up and ate us whole.
Our light was gone.
