I’d caught glimpses of his true nature after I moved in with my father and my new stepmom when Roman was nine years old. Even as a child, Roman had an eerie, quiet rage inside him. Family pets wound up dead, each time blamed on some freakaccident. Other children would go home crying, wounded by Roman’s cutting words or rough play.
By the time he was an adult, and I was nearing the end of my drinking career, Roman made it clear he would be the sole heir by any means necessary. His undermining and sabotage were covert and meticulous. If I hadn’t blown up my own plan by self-destructing, I wasn’t sure what Roman would’ve done to take me out himself.
“Do you want a drink?” Roman asked, contorting his features into false empathy. He snapped at a nearby attendant, ordering me a whiskey, my old drink of choice.
I kept my tone level. “I am not your competition, Roman. Keep all of this,” I waved a hand around. “Inherit the keys to the kingdom. If my absence hadn’t been clear enough to you, let me say it plainly: I have no interest in Wave Platforms Incorporated, except to avoid every drop of its corrosive poison.”
Roman laughed. “Read up on Marx during your time in Brooklyn, did you? Viva la revolución.”
The attendant returned with whiskey. When I didn’t take it, Roman did. His outstretched hand hovered in the space between us. I didn’t even look at the amber liquid. I fought the urge to slap the glass right out of his grasp and watch it shatter on the floor.
Somehow, Roman had discovered all those years ago my plans to buy the deconsecrated church that had been put on the market—the church The Circle now owned—and transform it into a kinky club. The only explanation I could think of was that he’d broken into my Chelsea apartment back when we were vying for our father’s favor.
I’d drafted the plans with Kallie. It wasn’t supposed to be an exclusive space for the wealthy—it was going to be an educational and community center for regular people, the kind of people who had graciously taught me about BDSM andallowed me into their kinky world. It never would’ve happened, not with my drinking and our relationship issues, but it was something we created together, one of the bright spots in our tumultuous dynamic. And clearly, in my drunken stupor, I hadn’t noticed Roman breaking into my apartment and stealing my notebooks and who knew what else. I’d known they’d gone missing at some point, but my memory had been so damaged by alcohol and drug abuse, it had been impossible to find anyone to blame but myself.
Until I learned from an old acquaintance from the scene that the exact concept I’d come up with years ago with my now-deceased ex-girlfriend had been brought to fruition and botched by wealthy assholes.
I knew Roman had to have been involved in some capacity, even if he remained in the shadows, pulling the strings of his puppets—Jayne and Archer. He’d uncovered my interest in kink from his snooping and eavesdropping back when I still lived with my father during college breaks. He’d been quietly, frighteningly obsessed with me since I first arrived on their doorstep, mourning my mother. He’d hated that he now had to share our father’s attention.
I thought the obsession had been broken the day I scrubbed myself from the Internet, cut all ties with my family, and started my life over from scratch. Clearly, I’d been wrong.
Roman lured me back into the two worlds I’d left, and I wasn’t going to stick around any longer to find out why. I’d only stayed this long because ofher.
And that was over too.
“I’m leaving now,” I said. “And I will not be returning. Leave me the fuck alone.”
I almost said to leave Nova alone too, but such threats would only encourage him. I needed to make her look as uninteresting as possible to both of us. IfIstayed away, so would he.
Roman sipped the whiskey I’d refused to take. “She really is almost perfect, isn’t she?” he taunted, halting me before I could turn away. “The mouthiness can be trained out of her. It will just take a strong, capable hand.”
I forced my face not to react the way it wanted.
He wanted a reaction, and I couldn’t give it to him, not if I wanted to keep Nova safe.
“Goodbye, Roman.”
I turned, taking three strides away from Roman and the writhing, shrieking woman with duct tape over her mouth behind him.
“Goodbye, Wesley. Don’t worry about Nova. I takeverygood care of my property. Once I break her in, I’ll be sure to give her?—”
He didn’t even finish the sentence before my fist collided with his mouth, and Roman stumbled backward. The whiskey glass shattered on the floor.
The woman stopped shrieking into her gag, and the men angrily shouted.
“Wes,” Jayne said, exasperated as she burst into the room. She looked from Roman back to me. “It brings me no pleasure to say this, but you have earned a lifetime ban from The Circle.”
“Pity,” I drawled sarcastically.
Roman smiled, spitting up blood on the floor next to him. “You’re going to fucking regret that.”
The sickest part was—Roman didn’t even look angry. He looked utterlydelighted.My guts turned to lead as I walked out of the house of my own accord, security flanking me.
Roman’s bloody grin and excited, soulless eyes haunted me all the way home, serving as the backdrop for Nova’s words as I continued to rewind them over and over again.
She was right. I was exactly what she’d said about me. So I would heed her demands and never contact her again.
Because I couldn’t bear to destroy what I loved.
