Page 135 of Downfall

“I can’t.” She says. “I, just, I need time, I need to clear my head with everything that’s happened.”

“It’s okay.” I say. “Take all the time you need. I’ll be here.”

She nods but I can see she’s still not sure. Not convinced.

I take a deep breath leaning back into the couch beside her. I can take this slow too. I can show her through my actions that I mean it, that I really am here, and I’m waiting for her, just as I always have.

“You broke my heart.” She whispers pulling me out of my own thoughts. “When you left. You broke my heart.”

“I’m so sorry, if I’d known, if I’d realised, I would have done everything I could, I would have fought with everything I had to make sure you were with me, to get you out.”

She shuts her eyes, palming them with her hands. “I was a ghost. I wasn’t even a human being after you left. I just became this shell of a person. And all the while Lara was growing inside me and I wanted to be happy, I wanted to treasure this precious life we’d created, but I knew what would happen, I knew my parents were going to steal her.”

I don’t think then, I just act, wrapping my arms around her, comforting her the only way I know how. “It’s okay.” I murmur.

“It’s not.” She says. “None of it is okay. She deserved better than that. She deserved to grow up knowing who her parents were, knowing that she was loved, that she was wanted.”

“She knows that now.” I reply. “She knows she has a family now who love her.”

She shakes her head, curling further into me. “I didn’t want to marry him. I hated him but after what you did…” She stumbles on her words. “What I thought you did, I didn’t fight it, I’d lost Lara then anyway, so I tried to replace you.”

“You don’t have to justify yourself Rose. You don’t have to explain yourself. You did what you needed to survive.”

She meets my gaze and that fierceness is there, alongside her pain, alongside her grief. “I want him dead. I want them all dead. For what they’ve done, for how they’ve hurt us.”

I can’t help the way my lips curl. “If that’s what you want, then I’ll kill him for you.”

“For you too. And Lara. For all three of us, for our family.”

I smile more. Our family. God, it feels good to hear that from her lips.

I hold her, keep her body pressed to mine, and when she falls asleep I don’t move, I just lay there, with her curled into me and for a moment, for the most incredible moment in time it feels like everything is well in the world. It feels like finally everything is right.

I carry her to her room. She’s still clearly exhausted by everything she’s gone through. I tuck her into bed and for a fleeting moment I think of joining her.

Of sleeping beside her and holding her tight to me until she wakes.

But it feels like a step too far. It feels like even that is too much right now. We have to start right at the beginning, and to do that, to make her trust me, I have to prove that I’m not like every other arsehole in her life.

I kiss her forehead, watch her for a moment more and then walk away, letting the beauty sleep and instead I turn my focus to fulfilling that promise. To continuing planning out exactly how Ignatio and Darius are going to pay.

And soon.

Because now that she’s here, now that my daughter is here too, under this roof, the timeline I had planned is out the window. There’s no need to be subtle. No need to drag this out. I’m going to annihilate them. I don’t need to show the world who they really are, I don’t need to publicly shame them. Not anymore.

I’m going to butcher them.

And I’m going to enjoy It.

Roman

Iplace a rose outside her door.

I know it’s cheesy. I know it will probably bring back certain memories but I want to do it anyway.

And then I walk through the house, down to where I can hear the chef already in the kitchen. It’s early. Most of my nightshift are switching over and I nod to a few of the guards as they take leave.

“Daddy.” Lara cries running up behind me and I laugh as she wraps her arms around my legs.

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