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

I directed Aidan to turn into our underground parking garage. My leg shook with impatience. The closer I got to Juliet, the stronger and more agonizing the pull was to have her in my arms. The four-hour drive back to the city had been agony, but Leona hadn’t had a jet ready on standby, so driving was our fastest option.

The second we pulled into the garage, I knew something was wrong. The feeling only intensified when Matteo’s name flashed on my phone.

“We’ve been compromised.”

My hand clenched the phone so hard I thought it might shatter. My muscles went rigid with tension.

“We just pulled into the garage. The lights are out,” I said.

“The power to the entire building’s been cut.”

“Where’s Juliet?” I threw the car door open and ran to the stairwell. Leona followed, hot on my heels.

“I just secured Sofiya and Clementine. I’m going down to check on Sienna and Juliet.”

My heart pounded, and it had nothing to do with the speed I was taking the stairs. I needed to get to her.

“Albanians?” I asked.

Matteo’s footsteps echoed in the stairwell a dozen flights above me.noveldrama

“We think so. Franco alerted Sienna that someone had breached our security system.”

Before I could question how Franco still had access to our system after Matteo had put him under house arrest, he cursed. “Dante is down. Proceed with caution.”

I’d never flown up the stairs faster.

Juliet.

Please be okay.

I burst out of the stairwell onto my floor, gun raised. If anyone had touched my girl, had even looked at her, nothing would stop me from ensuring the gates of hell looked welcoming by the time I finished with them.

My apartment door was cracked open.

“I’ve got your back,” Leona murmured. She didn’t even sound winded.

I pushed the door open and tensed at the figure coming towards me before I realized it was Matteo.

“Fuck. Almost shot you.” I lowered my gun.

“She’s gone.”

A bomb went off in my brain, flipping my world upside down.

There were some memories that would haunt me forever:

The night Matteo and Sienna showed up at my parents’ house after their uncle murdered their parents. I could still feel Sienna’s small body shaking against mine as she cried, her brother standing expressionless beside her.

When I burst into that warehouse to find my father dead, my mother half-unconscious from torture.

Finding Juliet covered in blood on the bathroom floor, knowing I had caused her to feel that despair.

But in all those instances, I could do something in response. Now, with Juliet gone, the memories I could never scrub from my brain merged inside me, feeding and fueling my monster.

“Where the fuck is she?!” My roar tore through the empty apartment.

I ran to the bedroom, desperately clinging to the delusion that she was just in the bathroom or hiding under the bed.

“Juliet!”

Silence.

I tore at my hair, scanning the room. The bed was made like she hadn’t slept in it at all, and lying open on top of the covers was a book I didn’t recognize.

A passage was underlined. It took me a moment to focus on the words.

A sick feeling rose in my chest as I flipped the book closed to see the cover.

Romeo and Juliet.