His Juliet: An Age Gap Hurt Comfort Mafia Romance (Empire of Royals Book 2)

“Our contacts on the ground in Tirana found the location of the wedding.” Sienna’s voice came through the phone’s speaker. “It’s an old castle.”

Sienna and Franco had stayed behind so they would have access to all the equipment they needed while the rest of us—Matteo, Leona, a host of our soldiers, and Aria—got on our jet. The flight across the Atlantic had been torturous and unending, but we were almost in Albania now.

“Are you sure it’s the right one?” I asked. My throat was so tight I could barely form words. This had been fucking hell. I was barely holding myself together.

“We haven’t been able to access cameras inside the castle. Fuck, there might not even be cameras for us to access, but satellite footage shows hundreds of cars driving that way and parked in the lot. It has to be the place,” Franco said.

Leona and Matteo kept strategizing while I paced up and down the aisle, rage flooding my veins like an avalanche. For the first time in my life, I called on my inner monster to come out and play without shame. I would do whatever I could to save Juliet. Then I would vent my wrath on every single person who hurt her.

We pulled up to the large castle in white vans with a large floral company logo. I’d wanted to rent something faster, but speed wouldn’t have served us well on the narrow back roads out to the coast. Besides, the van provided us with the cover we needed to pull into the parking lot without being stopped by the guards.

“Remember, the inside is a labyrinth. Stick with your partner and spread out through the hallways, checking all the rooms. We’ll converge in the great hall where they’re holding the wedding reception.” Leona scrolled through the building blueprints she’d loaded onto her tablet, highlighting the paths we were supposed to take. She’d decided the two of us would be partners on this mission, and I didn’t care enough to argue. As long as she didn’t slow me down.

My skin crawled with electric energy. We had to clear the rooms leading up to the reception hall to avoid any hidden surprises, but all I wanted to do was get to Juliet.

The van came to a stop.

The door slid open.

And we were out.

I was the first inside the castle, bursting into a dingy hallway with Leona hot on my heels. I took the stairs two at a time, each pounding step creating the rhythm Ju-li-et.

Everything faded away until I was the darkness, the last shreds of my humanity stripped away as the monster took full control.

My gun was an extension of my hand as I led the way down the first hallway. Four doors lined the walls. I opened the first one to find a group of men sitting around a table playing cards. I shot them without hesitation and felt nothing as their bloody corpses slid to the ground. The second and third rooms were empty. The fourth was a smoking room with three men surrounded by a cloud of cigar smoke. The monster hummed with satisfaction while it watched the life drain from their eyes.

A crease formed between Leona’s eyebrows as she glanced over at me, a disturbed expression on her face. I ignored it, striding ahead down the next hallway. I didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought of me, what anyone saw in me. Juliet was all that mattered.

The castle was eerily silent. The place carried a sick, twisted feeling.

I cleared the next room.

And the next.

The monster grew restless, thirsting for blood.

An echo of footsteps caused Leona and me to whip around and aim our guns. We were met by the terrified brown eyes of a young woman carrying a tray of shot glasses filled with a cloudy liquid.

I lowered my gun.

We didn’t hurt women, but I would question her.

She froze as I approached her. “Do you know where the bride is?”

She blinked and spoke softly in Albanian, her voice shaking.

I pulled out my phone and typed my question into a translation app. She stared blankly at the screen, and I was about to give up when she nodded.

Take me to her, I typed.

Her eyes flitted to my gun before she took shaky steps down the hallway. Leona arched her eyebrows, but followed.

“You think she actually knows?” she asked.

I rolled my shoulders instead of answering. She was either leading us to Juliet or into a trap. One reunited me with my love, the other gave me the opportunity to murder. Both acceptable outcomes.

We trailed the woman through a series of narrow hallways until we came to a large wooden door. She pointed at it with a shaking hand.

“Watch her,” I muttered, and Leona lifted her chin in assent.

My heart pounded with anticipation as I pushed the door open. It was a large, gaudy bedroom with a huge bed in the middle.

And on the bed lay two unmoving figures.

A large man was slumped at the head of the bed, but my attention was fixed on the woman beside him. She wore a torn dress in shades of red and gold, wisps of brown hair escaping the bun on her head.

Ice seeped through my bloodstream, winding through my veins as the entire world stopped. I closed my eyes and opened them again as if that would change what I was seeing.

But nothing could erase the horror before me.

A strangled, wounded sound escaped my throat and I rushed forward.

“Juliet, my angel, no, no, no.” I cradled her still body to my chest. “Wake up, baby. Wake up. Please, don’t leave me.”

Tears streamed down my face, landing on her bruised cheek. I brushed them away and replaced them with a kiss.

“Come back to me.”

I held my breath as I tried to find her pulse.

There was nothing.

Darkness like I’d never felt before thrummed inside me.

They had taken her from me.

Stolen the life we should have had together.

I looked over at the second body, recognizing it as Spiro Abazi.

White-hot rage engulfed my soul. The monster inside me bellowed with fury.

My Juliet was gone and it was this fucker’s fault.

I unsheathed my knife and let out a roar of rage as I plunged it into his chest, not caring that he was already dead. Blood spurted from him, but it wasn’t enough.

I dragged his body off the bed to get him away from my sweetheart.noveldrama

My fist came down on his chest.

Again.

And again.

Until his chest was a brutalized bloody mass. Still not enough.

Nothing would ever be enough. Nothing could turn back time and bring my Juliet back to me.

A hand touched on my shoulder and I reared back. Leona’s glassy eyes met mine. “Leave him. He’s nothing now.”

I wanted to scream.

I needed to do something, anything, to fix this, but I had failed Juliet. All of this was my fault.

I didn’t deserve to live.

Blood drenched my shaking hands. I wiped them on the bedspread, refusing to sully my love with bloodstained hands. I adjusted her torn dress so she was covered up, swallowing the bile in my mouth at the thought of that bastard touching her. She had died scared and alone.

“I’m so sorry. So fucking sorry.”

I caressed her face and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. Carefully, I removed the bobby pins from her hair, watching it cascade in waves around her shoulders. My Juliet had the prettiest hair in the world.

“No one has ever loved like I love you.” My eyes squeezed shut. “My life was nothing until you came into it, and it’s nothing now without you. Nothing.”

The monster paced restlessly inside me, urging me to exact revenge on everyone who had contributed to Juliet’s suffering. They needed to die at my hands.

But that would mean leaving her.

I brushed my lips over her eyelids. “I’ll be back, stellina. I promise. I need to take care of this, and then I’ll return to you.”

Releasing her from my arms and leaving her on that bed was the hardest thing I’d ever done. But the only thing worse than living in a world where Juliet didn’t exist was one where her tormentors still breathed air.

With one last look at my angel, I strode past Leona out of the room.

“Romeo, wait,” Leona called out, catching up with me. “We have to think this through. How did they die? Neither of them have significant external injuries. We need a plan⁠—”

I cocked my gun. “I only have one plan now.”

I would destroy every Albanian here. Every single one of them were complicit in hurting her. And if I went down in the fight?

Even better.

Two massive doors came into view.

The great hall.

I ignored Leona’s hissed warnings and threw the doors open, guns blazing.

The sight that greeted me stopped me in my tracks.