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

I paced the meeting room. The walls were closing in on me.

Twenty-four fucking hours.

That’s how much time had passed since Juliet was taken. My soul withered as if I were a flower deprived of sunlight. Or the moon, deprived of my stellina.

Whoever had taken her had sabotaged our generators before cutting the power to the entire city block. Franco, aided by Sienna—who hadn’t believed he was a traitor—had been monitoring our security and was the first to realize something was wrong. But the Albanians had been too swift, taking Juliet down the fire escape before vanishing into thin air.

I couldn’t take this anymore—this waiting around and doing nothing while our enemies had my girl.

My Juliet, who was terrified of leaving the house.

My Juliet, who had already endured too fucking much in her life.

“We need to go to Albania,” I said for the tenth time.

Franco had identified a private plane leaving Teterboro Airport in New Jersey yesterday, headed to the capital city of Tirana.

“I have the jet on standby,” Matteo said, glancing over at where Sofiya and Clementine were curled up on the couch next to Noodle. “But we can’t go without confirmation. We don’t know if she was even on that plane.”

“I’m waiting to hear from our contacts on the ground,” Sienna repeated patiently. “It doesn’t make sense for them to take her to Albania. If they’re holding her for ransom, we should have heard something by now.”

I threw the copy of Romeo and Juliet against the wall. The underlined words on the page haunted me. My Juliet was not dead.

I couldn’t live in a world without her.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Franco clicked furiously on his keyboard, and I whirled to face him.

“What?” I snapped.

“Someone’s hacked into my system and taken control remotely.” His face was stricken as he gave Sienna a series of hurried instructions.

I looked at the computer over his shoulder. The mouse was moving unprompted, and then the screen went black.

“What the fuck is happening?” I muttered.

Static flashed on the screen before revealing the face of the Butcher. My body heated, skin itching with the desperate desire to leap through the screen and strangle him. When he pointed the camera to reveal Juliet, I couldn’t hold myself back.

“You motherfucker! Bring her back!” The monster roared inside me, vicious and hungry for blood.

Matteo clasped my shoulder, his fingers digging in. “Don’t give him more ammunition,” he murmured in hurried Italian.

I fisted my hands. Too late. My outburst already made clear how important Juliet was to me.

She was tied to a metal chair in a dark room, a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling casting light and shadows onto her. My eyes burned, but I refused to look away. Her arms were tied behind her back and a strip of cloth gagged her mouth. I swallowed hard. It was the same position I’d found my mother in all those years ago. History was repeating itself, and once again, I was fucking useless.

The Butcher stepped closer to her so the screen filled with her bruised face and terrified eyes. “Do you have a message for the man who betrayed you?” he asked in a dark, sneering voice.

What. The. Fuck.

Betrayed her?

Is that what this bastard had told her? That I had something to do with this?

Matteo’s fingers dug into my arm, warning me not to speak. Not to make this worse for her. My unspoken words choked me. I’m coming for you, angel. I’ll never fucking abandon you or betray you.

The gag kept her from speaking. She blinked but couldn’t stop tears from dripping down her cheeks.

“That’s right. You have nothing to say to him because he’s dead to you. I have killed your past life. You will never see Romeo again, and if you fight me or try to run away, I will kill him.”

One of us will die, and it won’t be me, motherfucker.

“You stay right here, Juliet. Romeo and I have important matters to discuss.” He chuckled like he’d told a hilarious joke and stroked her face.

I would cut off each of his fingers with a dull knife, slowly sawing back and forth as I savored his screams.

The Butcher backed out of the room, but before he closed the door, the camera lingered on Juliet. She looked so small and afraid. He turned the light off, drenching her in darkness.

“Now we can talk without the slut listening in.”

My vision turned red and my chest heaved with the effort it took to maintain control. “What do you want?”

“So hostile, Romeo. After I left you a present and everything. Not a fan of Shakespeare?”noveldrama

Matteo’s hold tightened in warning. My eyes flashed to where Sienna was sitting, her focus completely locked on her computer screen.

“What do you want?” Matteo spoke this time.

“Ahh, Don Rossi. It’s nice to finally meet the so-called Angel of Death. What I want is to tell you a story.”

The Butcher moved into another room that looked like an office. He sat back in a large leather chair and launched into a story about his brother, who left the Albanian Mafia decades ago. I didn’t give a single flying fuck about his family history, but the longer he stayed on the call, the more likely it was that Sienna and Franco could trace him.

“No one deserts the clan,” he said, continuing his tedious monologue. “It’s in our blood. It took a while, but I eventually tracked down my brother and his whore in New York City. Killing them was easy. They were weak, and I found satisfaction in pruning my family tree. I returned to Albania, but there was something I missed.”

He paused for dramatic effect. My mind was too consumed by visions of my hands drenched in his blood to understand where the story was going.

“Years later, I returned to the city with a plan to reestablish our dominance after the disastrous failure of our American clan. But I found even more than I’d bargained for when Romeo De Luca led me to the manager of a bookstore.”

My jaw was at risk of cracking from how hard I was clenching it. I hadn’t betrayed Juliet, would rather fucking die than harm her. But the Butcher was right about one thing—this was my fault. I’d led him straight to my woman.

“What was the allure of this girl for Mr. De Luca? At first, I didn’t expect to find anything interesting. She was just a foster care child who ended up in a group home because she wasn’t good enough to be adopted. But there were some strange inconsistencies in her background. Did you know Juliet’s parents were murdered?”

Matteo swore under his breath.

“What I didn’t realize when I killed my dear brother and his wife was that we weren’t alone in the apartment. Locked away in a closet was little Juliet. Juliet Smith is really Juliet Leka—daughter to the former Krye, and Mafia princess.”

My knuckles turned white as I clutched the edge of the table. What? No. It wasn’t possible. I tried to deny his words, but everything he said aligned perfectly with what Juliet had told me about her past.

“Imagine my irritation when I realized my mistake. But life has a way of working things out, doesn’t it? If I had killed two-year-old Juliet, she would have lost all usefulness to me. But now, she can be extremely useful.”

“Useful how?” Matteo asked. At least he could still form words because the ability was far beyond me as I drowned in self-loathing. She had been free from the Butcher’s clutches…until she met me.

“Juliet will marry my new Kryetar, Spiro Abazi. You will give us full access to the New York City trade routes, or every time you see sweet Juliet, she’ll be missing a new body part.”

Black spots appeared in my vision, and I breathed through my nose to keep from throwing up.

“If that’s not a good enough incentive, consider this—it was nothing for me to break into your apartment and take Juliet. Do you think there’s anywhere you could hide Sofiya and Sienna that would keep me from them?”

“And if I agree, what then?” Matteo’s voice was ice cold.

“Next week, after the wedding, we will meet in New York to iron out terms.”

An involuntary growl vibrated my chest. I would burn the entire world to the ground before I stood by while my girl was forced to marry some sick bastard.

Matteo lifted his chin. “Fine.”

I whipped my head to look at him, but he stared straight at the screen, eyes locked with the Butcher.

“But when we meet,” he continued, “Juliet will be there to show that she has not been harmed.”

The Butcher took his time before responding. “As long as Romeo doesn’t cause trouble at the meeting.” He leaned closer to the camera. “I believe these past few months have made clear that you are no match for me. You don’t want to cross me.”

He hung up the call, and silence descended on the room.

“Fuck!” I screamed. I sucked in ragged breath after breath, but nothing could stop my world from spinning out of control.

“Is he really gone? Not listening in?” Matteo asked.

Sienna nodded, and a slow smile spread across her face. “Not only that, there was an error in the call’s encryption.”

My head snapped up. “You got his location?”

“I got it.” She turned her screen so we could see the map she’d opened. “They’re outside Tirana, by the Adriatic Sea.”

Matteo clasped my shoulder. “Lift off in twenty.”

I’m coming for you, baby. And somehow, I’ll make this fucking right. Just hold on a little longer.