Page 1 of Born Wicked

CHAPTERONE

I knew it was bad.I watched the video footage of it myself. But standing here in the wreckage is… stark.

It’s so easy to remember the good times. To recall how we flirted on the couch. How he lifted me up onto the counter and pressed himself between my legs. How we spent days sleeping in that bed, even if we weren’t having sex. We spent so much time in this space making plans for our future.

But as I look around at the ransacked apartment, it is so very, very clear. That future is gone. Shattered, just like the screen of my laptop and the dishes splintered across the floor.

Damn you, Sebastian, I think to myself as I step across a smashed glass dish and cross into the kitchen. I open the cupboard under the sink and pull out the trash bags.

Last year, it was Sebastian whom I called to come help me move into this very apartment. I needed out of Mason’s penthouse. Because just like this space, he and I didn’t have a future. Sebastian had offered, and when I asked, he came. I loaded my things into trash bags, drawing a laugh from him. We’d carried my things in bags to this same space.

Life has a cruel symmetry sometimes. Now, I turn and walk to the bedroom with trash bags yet again. I begin stuffing those same clothes into different trash bags. The hope I once felt when I first walked into this apartment is gone. It evaporated the same day Sebastian tore through every one of my belongings, looking for clues to find me.

Even though I lived here for six months, I still don’t actually own much more than I did before I came here. In a matter of thirty minutes, I have all of my clothes packed up. I have all of my bathroom things bagged. The only other thing in this apartment that was mine is my laptop, and Sebastian hurtled that against a wall.

Just as I’m finishing, I hear the slight creak of the front door. A few moments later, Roman steps into the bedroom, followed by the most unexpected miracle ever: my biological father, Jon Bonny.

There’s a hard look on my father’s face. His eyes cast around the wrecked space. He’s never met Sebastian. Hasn’t ever gotten to have words with him. But it’s how he found me. Mine and Sebastian’s engagement announcement made the news, and Jon saw it in a newspaper.

Jon and I have only known each other for a few weeks. We never got that chance to have a traditional relationship. He didn’t get to raise me. I never got to call him daddy, or run to him in tears when I scraped my knee.

But from the look in Jon’s eyes, I think maybe he’d like to kill Sebastian if he ever got the chance, because of what the man did.

“What do you want me to start with?” Roman asks. He doesn’t dwell on the wreckage. We’ve already gone through the dregs of this ugly reality. I appreciate his directness in the moment.

“Just these here,” I say, indicating the ten tied-off bags sitting on the bed.

Roman simply nods, tucks one bag under his arm, and grabs two more with the other hand. Without any other words, he heads out the door, hauling them down the elevator to his waiting SUV.

“Juliet,” Jon says, a groan laced with anger following my name.

“Don’t,” I say, shaking my head. “I already know. It’s bad. It’s really damn bad. But it’s over. I’m moving on. Please try to do the same.”

I grab two bags from the bed and walk to the door.

Maybe I’m being too hard, too blunt. The man obviously cares. He’s only trying to show that he isn’t okay with what’s happened.

But having grown up without anyone who cared about me has made me hard. It’s made me a bit callous. And it makes me resent anything that looks like pity.

I just can’t.

Roman takes the bags when I get to the ground floor, placing them into the back of his SUV, where I once laid dead for twenty minutes. I turn, passing by Jon, and ride back up the elevator.

I take one last walk through the apartment. I double-check the closet. The bathroom. There’s nothing left in the bedroom. I didn’t have anything in the living area.

So, with one last backward glance, because everything of who I am is learned from the past, I place my only key on the kitchen counter. I lock the door, and pull it closed behind me.

There.

I can’t go back, even if I want to. I’m locked out.

Okay, well, I’m a vampire, and I could definitely break the door down without really even trying, but it’s the principle of the thing.

For the last time, I ride the elevator down to the ground level and walk out into the dim evening light where Roman is waiting in the driver’s seat, Jon in the back. I climb into the passenger seat and close the door.

He doesn’t need directions. Roman knows the way to my new apartment. It’s what we started with earlier in the day. We’d packed up my few possessions at the church where I’ve been hiding out for the past three weeks, and we had taken those things to the apartment. So Roman navigates his way there once more, parking in the temporary spot next to the front doors.

We each grab the bags, taking two trips. I breathe a little sigh of relief as we walk into the lobby of my new apartment building. It’s old. There are cracks if you look hard, and there is evidence of history. But it’s mine. Not Mason’s penthouse, not an apartment owned by Sebastian, not Roman’s secret church. This place was chosen by me. It had nothing to do with anyone else in this city.

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