Page 58 of Romeo

“I’ve messed up a lot in my life,” she says.“For a while, it was just one bad choice after another.At some point, I forgot who I was before—well—everything.”

“Tell me.”

She turns to me.“It’s not a pretty story, Riley.And it’s going to change how you see me.”

“No, it won’t.”I’m sure she believes that I’m just saying it to get her to talk, but it’s the absolute truth.At this point, there’s not a single thing I could see or hear that would make me think this woman is anything but the epitome of strength.

“Even after my dad died, I tried to see the joy in life just like he taught me.I fought for a long time to make Odie happy.To help him through the pain of losing his only remaining parent too.He never quite got over it though.Blamed me pretty hard for the entire thing, actually.”She takes a drink of her tea.“He skipped my sixteenth birthday party, so it was just me, my grandfather—who wasn’t feeling well—and a man named Glen Dodger.”

“Glen Dodger?”

“He was a friend of my grandfather’s.They would golf together.He was a doctor who traveled all over the world.”Her tone is cold.Detached.

Unease climbs up my spine.“What did he do to you?”

She shifts her gaze back to the empty fireplace.“It started out small, a gift here and there.A compliment.He told me that I was mature for my age.That he couldn’t believe I was only sixteen.He’s who gave me my first glass of wine.My sixteenth birthday party was when everything changed.I wanted to go to the mall and get these earrings I’d seen, but like I said, my grandfather was sick, and Odie was at work.Glen offered to drive me.”

Disgust churns in my stomach, and bile sears the inside of my throat as anger takes over every other rational part of my brain.I set my mug aside.She barely notices, clearly lost in her past.

“By the time I knew what was happening, I was too afraid to say no.And afterward, he promised to take me to see the world.I told him I wanted to go home, I just wanted to shower.So badly.”Tears slip from her eyes.“He agreed and offered me a bottle of water.It was the last thing I remembered before waking up on the other side of the world a day later.”

“He kidnapped you,” I snarl.“What did your grandfather do?”

“He called Glen, looking for me, and Glen claimed that he’d brought me back home.I know now that he’d snuck up to my room and left a note claiming I was running away.That I couldn’t live in that house anymore.”A tear slips down her cheek.“He’d thought through every step of the plan.Even to the point of giving me money instead of a present because he’d overheard me telling my grandfather I wanted to go to the mall.”She swallows hard.“I’d begged him to take me home, but he said I’d seduced him and that I was lucky he was so forgiving.That he would give me a good life and all I had to do was obey.”

“Jules.”My chest aches even as a fresh wave of anger washes down on me.

“For two years after that, he kept me out of the country.He’d convinced his coworkers over there that I was mentally ill and suffered from delusions.I was kept drunk or drugged for most of that time.”

I have to dosomething, and since Glen Dodger isn’t here for me to kill with my bare hands, I get up and begin to pace.

“It was a ten-year-old boy named Micah who freed me.He took me out of the room I was being kept in and brought me to his dad, who smuggled me back to the States.They brought me home.”

“Did you tell your grandfather when you got back?”Somehow, I fear I already know the answer.

She shakes her head, tears slipping down her face.“I told Odie, and he told me that I needed to deal with the consequences of my actions.That no one would believe me and it was better if I kept my mouth shut.”

The words that come to mind are nothing a Christian man should say, so I bite my tongue.But I want so desperately to bury both Glen and Odie.Six feet under where they canneverhurt her again.

“So I did.And I turned to alcohol to numb the nightmares and dull the pain during the day.There were times I felt so guilty that I almost went back to Glen.He even came here one day, about a month after I escaped.”

“He didwhat?” I growl the words, but if Jules notices, she’s unaffected by the murderous rage lacing my tone.

“To test the waters, I’m sure.My grandfather greeted him like an old friend, and he spoke to me as though he hadn’t robbed me of every innocence I ever had.That was the night I—” She closes her eyes.“The night I decided I didn’t want to live anymore.”

“Jules.”For a man who always has something to say, I’m struck speechless.What does one say to a person who’s been to hell and back?

“My grandfather put me in rehab the next day.”

I just stare at her for a few moments, completely unsure how to proceed when theonlything I can think about is putting an end to both Glen and Odie.I’ve killed before.In combat.In situations where it was me or them.

Is there a difference to what I’m feeling now?To the desire I have to end her suffering once and for all?

“Then what is it you consider your mistake?”I demand.“None of that is your fault.”

“I feel responsible for some of it.Maybe I did give him the impression that I wanted that kind of relationship.”

“You were sixteen!”I roar.“A child!”

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