Page 4 of Downfall

“I’m going to destroy her. I’m going to destroy her entire family. Bring them down to their knees.” I snarl.

I’m going to make her pay. I’m going to show her exactly what I’ve become in the last six years. What she made me. She won’t even recognise the man when I stand before her, not that she knew me then, not that she clearly cared. I must have been a joke to her, an amusement to fill her tedious days when she wasn’t shopping, when she wasn’t living the high life.

I stalk over to get another drink. I’m not usually a big drinker but today I want the alcohol to numb the bitter disappointment of my own actions. I want the taste of scotch to override the taste of her that even now, so many years later, I still yearn for.

I sink into the chair, my mind already planning it now. Each minute step I’m going to take. Each piece of the board I’m going to manipulate until eventually there is only us. Me and her. I can’t wait to see it. The look on her face when she realises she’s been outmanoeuvred. When she realises who it was lurking in the shadows, haunting her steps, taking each and every life she holds dear and extinguishing them the way she extinguished our love.

“The funeral is tomorrow.” Ben says glancing at the fresh glass in my hand.

“Sofia will be there.” I state. It will show my hand if I’m there, at the Cathedral, for everyone to see, mourning the death of Horace Montague, showing everyone my face. No, my sister will have to deal with that alone.

“Yes I will.” She says tersely walking in, her eyes already judging us, taking in the smashed glass.

“Sofia.” Ben says. For years he’s held a soft spot for her. I wonder for a moment if she’s noticed. Right now she seems too furious to take note of anything.

“Ben can accompany you.” I state.

“No.” She says. “His presence may give you away.”

I snort. I doubt anyone watching will realise who he is but perhaps she is right. I don’t want to show my hand until I’m ready. Until all the trap has been laid and is ready to spring shut.

“So who will you go with?” Ben asks, leaning against the arm of the couch, his eyes running over her in what could be mistaken for a brotherly gesture.

“No one.” She says folding her arms. “I’m fully capable of going by myself. I don’t need anybody holding my hand thank you very much.”

“There will be a lot of eyes on you.” Ben warns. “You’ll need to be careful.”

“Like I haven’t had that for the last six years.” She snaps and it’s hard not to feel a pang of anger at that. She’s my sister. I should have been here, I should have been able to protect her, to keep her safe and yet instead of that I was forced to run like a coward and hide.

She glances at me and her expression softens just a tad. “Roman.” She says.

I meet her gaze.

“…I’m sorry you can’t be there.”

I shrug it off taking another sip. Letting the whiskey soothe a pain that I can’t quite fathom considering the circumstances.

“He’s your father too.” She states.

Yeah he was. And yet he was stupid enough to be outmanoeuvred. To allow the Capulets to gain the upper hand. To accept that the entire city danced to their whims, while the Montague empire crumbled around our feet.

“I’ll speak with Darius.” She says quietly. “Perhaps now he will grant you a reprieve. You are our father’s heir as much as me.”

I snarl at that. “I don’t need a reprieve.” I snap. “I don’t need empty words from a man balls deep with our enemy. I need retribution and by god will I have it.”

“Roman…” She says walking over to me, crouching down. “You cannot always be carrying this anger.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

She gives me a bitter, pained smile. “You have spent too long focused on your revenge but what will you do once you have it? What then? When every Capulet is dead, when Darius himself admits he was wrong, what will your life be then?”

“What does it matter?”

“It matters Roman.” She says getting back up. “It matters.”

I shake my head, tossing the remainder of the drink down my throat. “Be careful tomorrow Sofia. They may see it as an opportunity to cut us down. To strike when they think we are weak.”

She nods but she looks doubtful. “There will be too many witnesses. The whole thing is being livestreamed.” She states, as though it were a carnival procession and not the marking of a dead man.

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