Roman

Myfather. My own damn father had Julianna.

I pushed through the doors to my father's library, where I had been told he was. The library was a medium-sized room, the walls lined with tall bookcases almost to the ceiling. It was carpeted in a warm green, the color of moss. Around a fireplace were several high-backed armchairs.

My father reclined in his large crimson leather armchair, his slippered feet resting on a matching leather pouf, a round crystal-cut glass filled with amber liquid. He was staring off into space. It was past midnight, but he was still awake as I knew he would be. He'd been an insomniac for as long as I could remember.

Even when I was a child, he often sat in here alone except for his volumes and volumes of books—mostly business and politics. He would often make me read them as a teenager. My father might be an immoral man but he wasn't stupid. He was never violent for the sake of being violent. Every one of his decisions was strategic, calculated and had a purpose. Even the bloody ones. He clawed his way to the top of the underground world using his brain and his penchant for getting his hands dirty. A deadly combination.

For a split second, before he noticed me, when he still thought he was alone, he looked…open and vulnerable, lost in his thoughts. How could someone so evil, so ruthless, so monstrous, look so fragile? So human. So lonely.

I imagined that he was replaying the faces of all the men he'd sent to their deaths. Did they whisper to him as they whispered to me when I was alone? Did he regret the things he did? Did he hate who he'd become? He wasn't always this man. My mother wouldn't have loved him if he was. I wondered if he ever thought back to the first decision he made that turned him down this dark road. Whether, knowing what he did now, he would have made the same decision. I noticed the wrinkles around his eyes, the downward pull of the corner of his lips and the great weight that curved his shoulders. I almost felt sorry for him.

Almost. The sight of him sitting comfortably while he kept Julianna somewhere against her will made my blood boil. If he let his men hurt her, if they so much as touched her, I would slaughter every last one of them myself, damn the consequences.

For now, I had to keep pretending I was on his side. I had to keep playing the dutiful son. The deserving heir. At least until I got her back. When I got her back, God help me…I would burn his fucking empire to the ground with him in it.

I tucked away the river of fire in my veins. I promised the monster inside of me that he would get his revenge, and I composed my features. I was a Tyrell. I knew how to keep my emotions in check. I cleared my throat. "Father."

He looked over, his humanness melting into the stern mask that I knew so well. His lip curled up into a snarl, my standard greeting. "So good of you to return, son," he said, his voice thick with sarcasm. "But then again, I knew you would eventually."

He thought I could never survive without him. He was wrong. So wrong. Today would not be the day I proved that to him.

I brushed off his jab. I strode over to the liquor cabinet on one wall, opened the stopper of the crystal bottle that he had left out and took a sniff. Cognac. No doubt the finest that money could buy. "Family first," I said. "Isn't what you always say?"

He let out a scoff behind me. "Since when do you actually listen to me?"

If I didn't know any better, I'd say he sounded bitter.

I poured myself a stiff drink and turned to face him. He eyed my freshly pressed black pants and black button-up shirt. I'd showered and changed out of my wrinkled clothes before coming to him. My wardrobe of Giovanni-approved suits and smart-casual clothes hung in the bedroom that had been kept here for me. My attire, at least, he couldn't disapprove of.

"Where have you been?" he demanded. "I had men looking for you."

I snorted. "They didn't do a very good job of finding me."

"Or you did a very deliberate job of hiding from them."

I shrugged. "I was upset over what happened to…Mercutio." I tripped over his name. But quickly composed myself. "I took a few days out on my own."

My father let out a sneer. "Whoring and drinking, I suppose. You look like shit."

So, he'd noticed the bags under my eyes and where they were red from being rubbed. He always found something to criticize. Somehow this time, it stung less. Maybe because I had finally let go of caring what he thought of me. More likely, the underlying fear over Julianna's safety overruled anything else.

I raised my glass in a mock salute. "You just know me so well, Father."

I walked to the chair beside his on the bearskin rug and sat, crossing my ankle over my leg, taking a large sip of the liquor, letting the burn ease down my throat, soothing me.

When I looked over to my father, he was watching me closely. "I hear we have a…guest," I said as casually as I could. I wanted nothing more than to knock him to the floor and slam my fist into his face until he told me where she was. My father would never give her up if he knew that was the thing I wanted most.

My father tilted his head at me. "And how do you know this?"

I shrugged. "I hear things. I have my own sources, you know?"

"What does that mean?"

I leveled a stare at him, some of my antagonism leaking out. "It means that some of the men in our business understand the way things are going. They wish to future-proof their standing in my empire."

"My empire," he growled.

"For now. I am the heir you are grooming to fill your shoes. After all, nobody lives forever," I said with a lightness that hid the threat underneath.

For a second my father's nostrils flared, a touch of color rising to his cheeks. Then he let out a small laugh. "Spoken like a true Tyrell," he said, his words bitter jabs.

I took a large gulp of my drink so that I didn't lash back out at him, letting the fire going down my throat burn my anger away. At least for now.

"What's the plan for our guest? I'm a little disappointed that I haven't been made privy to them."

"I'm disappointed I haven't been made privy to your whereabouts," my father snapped.

"You're already privy to that, Father. Drinking and whoring. Do you really want the details?"

My father snorted and swallowed the last of his drink in one large gulp.

"So…" I said, steering the conversation back to the burning question. "The girl?"

"She's a negotiation tool."

"With whom?"

"Her father will be missing her in a day or two. I'll have a set of demands for him soon."

"What demands?"

My father tilted his head. "All in good time, son. For now, you are not to leave this compound."

I could push. But I didn't want to make myself seem so desperate to hear the answers. My father wasn't a stupid man. At least I knew that Julianna was alive.

For the moment.

No weapon, no evidence, no witnesses.

Julianna was a witness. My stomach twisted. Whatever he had planned would not end without her dead and taking his secrets with her.

It took everything to stand up and walk away without demanding any more information or that he take me to her, my glass left on the table by the chair.

I had to get her out alive before my father had a chance to execute his plan. I couldn't take any chances. Not with her life.

An idea stirred in my head…

Could I turn against my own father? Leaving him was one thing, but could I betray him? Could I turn my back on my family? Could I destroy my father's legacy, as dark as it was?

I paused at the door to his library, my hand on the cold knob. I turned to face my father again.

"What?" he growled.

"Do you miss Mama?" I asked.

He stiffened. "Why are you asking me such questions?"

"Do you?" I pushed. "Miss her?"

Even from here, I saw the flash of pain in his eyes. He slumped back into his chair, his gaze becoming unfocused. I knew he was thinking of her. "There's not a day goes by that I don't think about your mother."

My gut knotted. In some deep, hidden part of him, my father still loved her. His love for her was like a single pure seed covered by layers of dirt, twisted roots and the thick matted branches of an overgrown forest. "If you could have her back, but you had to give up this…" I waved my arm. "Everything. Your empire. Would you do it?"

Please, Dad, just one small sign of goodness. Show me one. Just one.

He could barely meet my gaze. For the first time in my life, my father dropped his God-like guard and looked like any one of us mere mortals. For a second he looked like a lost boy, grabbing at ghosts.

His face froze over like the fast approach of a winter's frost. "I built this empire with my bare hands. Twenty years it took me to amass this kind of power. This is my legacy. Your mother was determined to ruin that before…" he trailed off. He straightened in his chair, his eyes blazing. "I would not give up our legacy for anything."

That single seed died. Choked to death under that black, hateful forest. There were no more chances left for redemption.

It turned out there was part of my father in me, because when his heart froze over, so did mine. I knew what I had to do. And I would carry no guilt over doing it. I would betray my father, turn my back on my family and burn his cursed legacy to the ground.

* * *

I slippedpast my father's guards and defied his order not to leave the compound. I stood in front of the white painted house in a leafy suburb of Verona. The windows were trimmed in a deep red, matching the door, a weather vane straddling the terracotta-tiled roof. The dawn was just brushing the edges of the horizon, painting the quaint street in a pastel light. The whole scene was so…quaint. So wholesome.

I felt a flicker of envy inside me at the sight of Julianna's childhood. She told me about falling out of the tree on her lawn, a large towering oak, when she was eight, breaking her arm. Here on this footpath was where she used to draw hopscotch boxes with chalk. I imagined her taking her first ride down this driveway without training wheels on her bike. I smiled despite my situation.

I hadn't been followed here. I made sure of that. Still, I glanced around me again before I walked up the driveway. Standing on the porch, I stared for a moment at the door. I knew the chief was up because I could hear footsteps inside and the slight rabble of the early morning news on a radio.

I had to make him listen to me. Surely he would put his prejudice aside if it meant he could save his daughter. Right? My stomach churned. This would either go right or it would go horribly wrong.

I forced down my apprehension and knocked on the door.

I heard footsteps then the door opened. Chief Montgomery Capulet appeared in the doorway. He frowned at me. "Yes?"

I pushed back my hood. The chief's eyes, so much like Julianna's, flared with recognition. He snatched his gun from his hip and pointed it in my face.

I lifted my palms but I stood my ground. "You could shoot me right now, but then you'll never get Julianna back."

"You son of a bitch?—"

"I don't have her. But I know who does. And I know how to get her back."

The chief cursed. "I knew something was wrong when she stopped answering my calls."

"Please, let me in. I'll tell you everything I know."

The chief shuffled his feet, suspicion rolling off him in waves. Still, I could sense his desperation. He wanted to believe me. His eyes narrowed. "Why would you help me?"

"Because…I care about her as much as you do."

"Liar." He stepped forward so the barrel of his gun was inches from my face.

I didn't flinch. I just held his gaze. "Jules told me about how the two of you used to make pancakes for your late wife on her birthday. Blueberry pancakes. She said that you used to take her and her mom camping out on the lake in the Virgin Forest every July. She told me that you and your wife used to put old Louie Armstrong records on low and dance in the living room on Sundays after you thought she'd gone to sleep. She used to watch you both through the stair railings without you knowing and dream of one day finding a love like that." As I spoke, the chief's face softened, his mouth parting wider at each intimate detail I revealed. "Do you want me to go on?"

"She…She told you those things?"

I nodded.

There was a long, terse pause. He lowered the gun but kept it close to his side. He glanced around the street to see if anyone was watching. No one was. I had made sure I wasn't followed. He turned his hard amber eyes, so much like hers, upon me before stepping back to let me in.

Once inside, he patted me down before he directed me into the living room of his family home, his gun still in his hand. I could see touches of a woman here—the faded pastel yellow of the walls trimmed with cream, soft gray and yellow curtains in a large floral pattern, fringed cushions on the couches. But I could see the years of being a single man layered on top of it: old yellowing newspapers in piles on the chairs and carpet, dirty coffee cups left on each flat surface, water stains in rings from glasses without coasters.

The chief walked over to the curtains and snatched them closed, surrounding us in darkness. He switched on a side lamp, the light throwing shadows across his face. "Now," he turned to me, "talk."

I told him what I knew about her attempted abduction, the contract that had fallen to Goldfish, the proof that Goldfish had given me of my father's involvement.

The whole time the chief paced back and forth across the carpet, tugging at his hair as he became more and more agitated.

"Where is she being held?" he demanded when I finished talking.

I knew. I had paid dearly for that information.

I grabbed Benvolio's shirt in my fists as he struggled against the rope around his wrists. It had been so easy to incapacitate him. He'd been so damn trusting. He just let me into his apartment and turned his back to me. "You'll fucking tell me where my father is keeping her."

"What makes you think he told me?" Benvolio's voice was shaking even as he tried to keep it steady.

I lifted my lip in a snarl. "The money for her contract was wired from a subsidiary in your name. Don't even try to deny that you aren't balls-deep in this shit."

"Alright. Alright."

I let go of him and painfully uncurled my knuckles, stiff from the fists I had made in his shirt and his face.

"She's being held on a farm, southwest of Verona. It used to be a slaughterhouse. There's a cold storage room there that's decent for holding…" he stiffened, "people who we need to hold."

"Address. Now."

He rambled it off. I pulled out my phone and looked it up. Sure enough, it used to be an old abattoir. "Thanks, cuz." I slid the phone back into my jacket and curled my fingers around another piece of metal.

"You'll let me go now?"

Over Benvolio's shoulder, I spotted the photo frame he kept with a picture of the two of us. We had been sixteen then, lanky arms slung around each other's necks. "Of course." I smiled. "We're cousins. Family."

Benvolio let out a sigh of relief. "Get this fucking rope off me, man."

My father's voice echoed inside me. No weapon, no evidence, no witnesses.

The smile faded from my face. I slid out my gun, a silencer on the end, aimed and pulled the trigger.

Back in the chief's house, I cracked my neck, shaking off this recent memory. "I know where they're holding her."

The chief stopped pacing. "Where?"

I shook my head and crossed my arms over my chest. "I want to make a deal. I want it in writing."

He stiffened. "What kind of deal?"

I outlined my proposition.

The chief spluttered, his cheeks turning red. "As if I'm going to make deals with a filthy scumbag criminal like?—"

"Careful, chief," I said, "this criminal is your only hope for getting your daughter back.

We glared at each other. A battle of wills. Who would give in first? I could see the chief working through his hatred for me and weighing it up against his daughter's life.

His shoulders slumped first, then his breath came rushing out of his mouth in an audible swoosh. "Fine, I'll make it happen."

Relief filled me. The truth was, I would have given up Julianna's location without cutting a deal for myself if it came down to it. Thankfully, it didn't come down to it. Julianna's father really did love her.

I nodded. "Make it happen. You have until dusk tonight."

I turned to leave but Chief Capulet grabbed my upper arm in a vice, shoving the barrel of the gun in my cheek. "Make no mistake, Tyrell, even if I can get sign-off on this deal, I don't trust you. You breathe wrong and I'll take you down. You fuck me over and I'll make you wish you were never born." He leaned in close. "And if anything happens to her, I'll kill you myself."