"I know." Romeo's thumbs are stroking my cheekbones, and I can feel myself leaning into his touch despite everything. "Luca told me. That's part of why I came back. I was afraid he was going to confront you."
"He threatened my father. He said he'd destroy him if I didn't end things with you. He called me a whore." The words come out small and full of hurt, and I hate how much they sting.
"He's wrong." Romeo pulls me closer, and I let him, let myself lean against his chest and breathe in his scent and try to stop shaking. "He's wrong about everything. You're not a whore. You're not a disappointment. You're—" He stops, and I can feel his heart hammering against my cheek. "You're my whole fucking world, Savannah."
We stand there for a long moment, and I try to process everything that just happened—Thad's threats, Romeo's violence, the bruises on my arm and the blood on the floor and the pregnancy test still waiting on the coffee table.
I slide out of his arms and pick up the test. “I should take this,” I whisper. “I should find out.”
"Not now." Romeo pulls me close again, and I let him, let myself be held and protected. "Not right now. Right now, just let me hold you. Let me make sure you're okay."
So I do. I let him hold me, while the blood on my floor dries and the bruises on my arm darken and the pregnancy test sits waiting. I let him hold me and I hold him back, and I try not to think about Thad's promise of retribution, about my father's reaction when he finds out, about all the ways this could still fall apart.
Because right now, in this moment, I have Romeo. I have his arms around me and his heart beating against mine and the knowledge that he loves me, that he'll protect me, that he'll fight for me no matter what it costs.
And I no longer know if I want to do anything except accept that, even if it means being with a man who doesn’t always know how to love in the right ways.
He said he wants to learn. To try to be better.
And I want him.
19
ROMEO
The blood on my knuckles has dried to a dark rust color by the time we reach my penthouse, and I can feel Savannah's eyes on me as I unlock the door. She hasn't said much since we left—just nodded when I told her she couldn't stay there, that it wasn't safe. Whitmore could come back or send someone else, do something worse than grab her arm and leave bruises in the shape of his fingers on her skin.
She's been quiet in a way that makes my chest tight, makes me want to pull over and check that she's still here with me instead of disappearing into whatever shocked silence has taken hold of her mind.
I see the startled look on her face when I put the keycard for the penthouse into the elevator, and I see her take it all in as I escort her inside. The luxury doesn’t startle her—Savannah comes from money, so I knew it wouldn’t, but I can see that she didn’t expect me to live in a place like this.
“I thought you lived in a dorm,” she whispered, and I can’t help but laugh, until I see the pinched, shocked look that’s still on her face and has nothing to do with my living situation.
I realize with a sick feeling in my stomach that she's in shock, that the violence she witnessed has done something to her that I can't undo, can't fix, can't make better, no matter how much I want to.
"Sit down.” My voice comes out rougher than I intend, rougher than I want it to be when she's looking at me with those wide eyes. "Please. Just—sit down. Let me get you some water."
She sits on the leather couch, perched on the edge of it. Her sweater has slipped off one shoulder, and I can see the edge of the bruises on her arm in dark purple fingerprints. The sight makes rage surge through me so violently that I have to breathe through the urge to find Whitmore and break more than just his nose and his ribs.
I want to kill him.
The thought sits in my mind like a stone. I want to kill Thaddeus Whitmore for putting his hands on Savannah, for threatening her, for making her afraid, for thinking he had any right to touch what's mine. I want to kill him slowly, want to make him understand exactly what he did wrong, want to watch the light leave his eyes while I explain in careful detail why he's dying. I want to kill him, and the only thing stopping me is the knowledge that doing it now, without planning, doing it in a way that brings heat down on my family, that would hurt Savannah more than it would help her.
But God, I want to.
I fill a glass with water from the filter in my refrigerator, and my hands are shaking in a way that they never have after violence before. The adrenaline is finally catching up with me, the reality of what I did settling into my bones.
I broke a man's face in front of Savannah. I broke his ribs. I made him bleed on her floor while she watched, and I didn't stop until Luca got me to. Even then I wanted to keep going, wanted to keep hitting until there was nothing left to hit. She saw that.She saw what I'm capable of, the violence that lives under my skin, saw the monster that my father has been training since I was old enough to throw a punch.
And she didn't run.
That thought makes my chest ache in a way that has nothing to do with the physical exertion of beating Whitmore into submission. She didn't run. She stood there and watched me defend her with my fists, watched me break the man she's supposed to marry. She watched me behave exactly like the kind of dangerous criminal that everyone has warned her about—and she didn't run.
She let me bring her here. She let me lock the door behind us. She's sitting on my couch right now, waiting for me to come back to her, and that has to mean something—has to mean that maybe she understands. Maybe she sees that everything I do is for her, because of her, to protect her from men like Whitmore who think they can own her just because her father said so.
I bring her the water and sit down next to her, close enough that our thighs are touching, close enough that I can feel the heat of her body through the denim of her jeans. She takes the glass with both hands, and I notice that her hands are shaking too. Her fingers tremble against the condensation on the glass, and I want to take those hands in mine and hold them until they're steady again.
"Let me see your arm.” My voice is gentler now, softer. I’m trying not to scare her even though I know I already have. What she saw today has changed something between us that I can't change back.
