Because we’d complicated things from the beginning. I’d never treated her with the indifference due a captive. I was never supposed to feel anything for her, but I had, even before I’d taken her. And she’d never allowed herself to loathe me as she should have. She’d distracted herself from the evil in what I did by digging into who I was. From the beginning, she’d wanted to like me. She wanted to subconsciously believe I was more than a bad guy. That way she could assure herself she wouldn’t get hurt. It probably helped diminish her fear, but in the end, it left her confused.
I cradled her face in my hands and pressed my lips to hers. She squeezed her eyes shut, but didn’t pull away. I tasted her pain in her salty tears, felt her confusion as she dug her fingers into my shirt as she pulled closer, then pushed me away.
She wiped her face with the back of her hand. She crossed the room and pulled the door open. “You should go.”
I nodded. She stared out the door, and I didn’t try to look at her as I walked past.
“Devlin.”
I turned halfway down the hallway and faced her.
“His eyes were brown. I saw them. King had brown eyes.”
I nodded my head with a sadly reminiscent smile on my face. “Contacts. Damien and I never worked a job without changing things that could be used to describe us. I spent most my teenage year morphing into different people. I can’t even remember what I looked like.”
She crossed her arms and nodded.
“You have no idea how damaged and psychotic I am. You were right to run. You probably should keep running.”
She spun around and went back into her room and slammed the door. I let myself out the same way I’d come in, through the fire escape. As I walked down the dark streets, my mind wandered. I lost myself in my head, consumed by the real and the imagined. In the early hours of dawn, I let myself into my apartment but had no idea how I got there and why it took so long to do so.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Juliana
He used to be the only man I ever thought I’d love. In a disturbing way, I’d been stuck as the girl he’d broken for so many years. I thought I’d never be able to connect with anyone else, and I’d been right. The moment he’d decided to come back into my life, my latent need to be with him resurfaced. Even now, I felt it. I was angry with myself for still caring—still feeling. I was angry with him for making our love so tragic.
I wished we’d met in a different way. But there was no other way. He’d been raised by an enforcer who had murdered his own wife.
I’d been sheltered in life. Our paths would’ve never crossed if not for my dad’s greed back then. He’d promised some corrupt guys the land that would grow their empire, at a time when he’d been desperate. Years later, when it was time to pay up, he’d crossed them and made a deal with their competitors, allowing another family to come in on their territory. Dad had thought he could easily rid himself of the Morettis, but he only enraged them, causing them to send Damien to capture me. I was supposed to be dead, so in a way, Devlin had saved me. And it was thoughts like this that caused me to be so conflicted when it came to my feelings for him.
I learned all this after Devlin released me, but it meant nothing to me. The world was foreign to me at that point. I didn’t know who my dad was anymore. He was supposed to be a straight and narrow businessman until I realized he had ties to the mafia.
But that was not what destroyed me the most. What killed me was not fucking knowing who I was anymore. I’d been a normal teenage girl who’d had a fight with her boyfriend and ended up with a life redefined. Maybe not redefined… more undefined. I felt empty. Disgusted with myself for thinking about King. Angry with him for ruining an innocence I didn’t know I possessed and desecrating my sanity.
My phone rang, jerking me out of my thoughts. I reluctantly uncurled myself from the position I’d taken under my sheets, and reached for the phone on my nightstand.
“Hello.”
“Jules?”
“Hey, Evan.”
“Are you okay? You missed rehearsal today.” I never missed a rehearsal, so I could understand Evan’s concern.
“Yeah, I slept in, but I feel better now.”
“Are you sure?”
No.
“I’m fine, Evan.”
He was quiet, as if thinking over my answer. “Meet me downtown for dinner.”
“I’m not really in the mood to—”
“Come on. You don’t sound like yourself. Let me take you out. You have to eat.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten, and my stomach chose that moment to growl at me for my neglect.