Roman

Inside the warehouse, I walked down a dark corridor, my father and two of his men in front of me, Abel behind me, herding me like an animal. The only sound was the echoing of our footsteps and the thud of my heart in my chest. No one would tell me what we were doing here. I knew better than to ask again.

I ignored the apprehension swirling around me and strode onwards with my chin held high. My father and his men were like dogs. If you showed them fear, they would smell it, sense it, and they would tear you to shreds.

We came to a locked door up ahead. One of the guards pushed in a pin code and a beeping noise sounded. The door ahead clicked open. We gathered into a small security chamber, an iron coffin with yet another door ahead locked by yet another pin code. Abel closed the door behind us, trapping us, the lock clicking into place. I could already feel the oxygen running out in this tiny room, filling instead with the stench of sweat and stale cigarettes. In the top corner of the chamber, the black eye of a camera stared down at us.

The next door beeped, unlocked and opened, a rush of air flooding the cramped space as I moved forward. The room I stepped into was dark around the edges so I couldn't quite make out how large it was. I could sense the watchful eyes like hungry beasts around the edges of firelight. I could make out the shadow of pointed guns. The scent of acrid vomit filled my lungs. I repressed a gag. Underneath it, was the smell of piss and the metallic scent of blood.

A single spotlight cut through the darkness, falling on a man tied to a chair. Jesus Christ. His face had been beaten beyond recognition. All that remained was a swollen mass like a bunch of overripe grapes about to burst. Slits were all that were left of his eyes and mouth. He was covered in blood, drenched in it as if someone had showered him with it, now clumped and coagulating in places.

By his chair was a small silver trolley. Various knives, a large needle and other sharp metal implements were laid out on it, along with vials of liquid, everything smeared with blood.

My stomach curdled. I fought to keep the horror from my face. I spun around to my father, standing by my side, his face impassive, merely studying me. I'd always known that he did these kinds of things. Until now I'd been spared the morbid exhibition. I was no stranger to violence; I had inherited the Tyrell temper and had started more than my share of fights, but this was different. This was joyful pleasure in the prolonged pain of another. I didn't think I'd ever hated my father more in my entire life.

"What the hell is this?" I demanded. Was this a demonstration of what he'd do to me if I disobeyed him? Some fucked up way of warning me to keep in line?

"He's one of Veronesi's men," my father said.

I stiffened. The Veronesis were the rival family blamed for the massacre that had killed Jacob. I turned back to the Veronesi man, my head spinning. I hated whoever killed Jacob. But every slice of me was crying out that this display of torture was wrong. "Did he actually pull the trigger?" I bit out.

I heard a voice inside of me, laughing. Your father's right. You are soft.

"He sides with the Veronesis, which means he as good as pulled the trigger."

That was my father's brand of justice. He was the judge, jury, and executioner.

The accused didn't move. I could see several of his fingers were missing on each hand. I felt sick when I imagined the pain he must be in. I couldn't let myself feel anything. Any show of sympathy could be the end of both of us. I steeled any emotion away, crossed my arms, trying to look bored and unaffected. "Is he dead?" I asked, hearing how cold and hollow my voice had become. For his sake, I hoped so.

"He's told us that the Veronesis were not the ones who organized the hit on your brother," my father said, ignoring my question.

"He's lying," Abel snarled as he snapped on rubber gloves. "All Veronesis are liars."

"He eventually broke," my father continued. "He admitted everything."

Did he? Could any man withstand this kind of torture and not say whatever they wanted him to?

"As always, Abel got him to talk." The pride in my father's voice was clear.

I made the mistake of looking over to Abel. His eyes were fixed on me, glittering with amusement and…pride. The monster was proud of what he did.

"It's an art," Abel said, as he brushed tender gloved fingers across the bloody tools on the trolley. "To be able to inflict the maximum amount of pain on a human being without killing him."

"You're a regular Monet," I spat out.

To my horror, the man moved, his head lolling back. Within the mass of purple, one of his black slits opened slightly. He was looking at me. "Please," he whispered. Even through the unidentifiable mess of flesh and blood, his voice made him human.

Dear God. I swallowed down the bile lurching up from my stomach and bit back the sting at my jaw. This couldn't be happening.

"How the fuck is he still awake?" I blurted out. This man should have passed out from the pain already.

I caught the proud smile on Abel's face. "I always make sure that I have a ready supply of adrenaline. To make sure he won't miss a thing."

The needle and vials on the tray. The sick fucker. I turned away from Abel, unable to look at him anymore.

"What do you think, Roman? What should be his sentence?" my father asked. "For lying to us. For his part in your brother's death."

I knew my father only wanted one answer.

I regretted it the second I looked at the disfigured man in the chair.

"Please," he whispered again.

Something good. I needed to hang on to something good.

From the darkness, Julianna's face rose into my mind. I could see her clearly, the lovely sweet lines of her face, the sadness and love that shone in her eyes when she spoke about her mother. See, there was still love in this world. Still beauty. There was still goodness.

"Roman," my father barked out. "What say you?"

I stood there, cold and uncaring, an actor playing a part on a stage, a part that I had been born and raised to play, Roman Tyrell, son of Giovanni Tyrell. In my mind, I was elsewhere, wrapped around Julianna with my nose in her hair and her laughter in my ears. I spoke my next line as if I had rehearsed it. "He deserves to die."

My father's face split into a real smile, a horrifying smile, thin and cruel. For the first time in my life, my father stared at me with approval, with pride in his eyes. I had finally gotten what I had wanted from him since I was a boy. And it only took giving up my soul. I could feel darkness seeping into my pores.

My father reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun. He held it out to me. "You do the honors."

Fuck. No.

Twenty-six years I'd managed to keep my hands clean. Twenty-six years I had managed to keep some of my goodness intact, some of my mother in me. I had hidden her in the cracks of me. I'd managed to protect her memory. Until now. If I pulled the trigger, if I took a life, the last of her would die. I would be reborn, remade completely in my father's image.

The memory of Julianna thinned into a ghost and disappeared. I stood in this dark warehouse, the stench of shit and clotting blood clogging my lungs. Julianna wasn't real. But the darkness was waiting as it had been all these years, like a hungry beast, to pull me into it.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't pull the trigger. I couldn't let my father turn me into him.

I sneered and pointed to my shirt. "Do you know how expensive this outfit is? I'll get blood on it. Make your dog do it."

I could see Abel smiling from over my father's shoulder. He knew I was stalling, fighting for some way not to do this.

"You know," my father said, "Abel is not convinced that you're the right one to lead this family after I die. As are most of my men." He nodded to the silent figures watching us from around the room. "I know you could be. You have your mother's nature, but you also have my blood running in your veins. You are a Tyrell, son. That means that you bow down to no man. You bend to no one else's rules. You just need some…encouragement to earn your crown." He grabbed my hand and shoved the gun in it, the barrel as cold as death in my palm. "Kill him. Or I have no son. And the first bullet in this chamber will be for you."

I stared back into the face of my father, inches from me, both of us breathing the same acrid breath. In his eyes I saw the twisted, soulless gargoyle he'd become. I saw my future.

The life of a stranger…or mine.

An honorable man would lay down his own life for what was good, for what was right. A good man would take this gun in my hand and press it to his own skull. He would give himself up instead of taking away a life that wasn't his to take. He would choose to keep his soul even if it meant he'd lose his life.

I wasn't honorable. I wasn't good enough. The emptiness of death, the eternal blackness stretched open in front of me, and I lurched away from it. I wanted to live. Him or me. And I wanted to live. My stomach knotted. I was a coward because I wanted to live. Forgive me, Mama.

"Fine. I'll do it." With those words, I signed my soul to the devil.

I turned towards the man in the chair, forcing my eyes to look past him, making his figure into a blur. It was the only way I could do this. He's not real. This isn't real. I'm not really here. I lifted the gun, my barrel pointed towards him.

I didn't even know his name. I was going to take his life and I didn't even know his fucking name.

The man sucked in air audibly into his lungs, startling me. I made the mistake of seeing him, really seeing him. My gaze locked onto his one eye that wasn't quite swollen shut. "Please," he whispered, his voice cracking on every word. "I have a wife…"

My hand shook, even as I tried to hold it steady. Fuck you, I screamed inside me. Don't make this any harder than it has to be. I fought to hang on to any sense of justification, some sense of righteousness. He killed my brother. He deserved to die. I found myself hating this man for begging for his pathetic life as I hated myself for having to take it. Fuck him for begging. Why couldn't he just shut up and die?

I needed something good. Where was something good to hang on to? Where was the beauty? Where was the goodness? Even Julianna had left me now.

"I have children."

Children. He was a father. I was taking the life of a parent. The pain of losing my mother ripped through me. Could I do that to another child?

My gaze landed on his colorful socks peeking out from under the hem of his trousers. Bright blue with a cartoon dog on it. The kind of socks a child buys for his daddy.

I couldn't. My hand holding the gun dropped.

I felt a barrel in the small of my back as my father stepped up behind me.

"Do it," he commanded into my ear. "Do it. Or I swear to fucking God, I'll kill you myself."

I squeezed my eyes shut. My life or his.

You have no choice, Roman. It's self-defense.

"Roman," my father's voice softened, the anger slipping away and the cursed poisonous slither of disappointment slid into my ear. "Don't fail me, son."

My heart crushed in my chest. My finger slid into the trigger. All I had to do was squeeze. One tiny movement, that was all. That was all. I aimed the gun at the man in the chair. No, not a man. Not a human. Not a soul, not a beating heart. It was a thing.

"Please…"

My veins filled with ice. I let the darkness wrap her hands around me, soothing my ragged guilt with her numbness. And I pulled the trigger.