These Violent Delights

Tears were falling down his face. “This is why my betrayal was so terrible. Because you believed me incapable of hurting you, and yet I did.”

Back then she had believed just as Roma did, believed that this divided city could be sewn back together. She believed it when they sat under the velvet night and looked out at the haze of lights in the distance, when Roma said he would defy everything, everything, even the stars, to change their fate in this city.

“Astra inclinant,” he would whisper into the wind, so heartachingly sincere even when quoting in Latin, “sed non obligant.”

The stars incline us, they do not bind us.

She was tired of hatred and blood and vengeance. All she wanted was this.

Juliette twined her arms around him and pressed her chin to his shoulder, holding him as close as she dared. It was a reacquaintance, a homecoming. It was her mind whispering, Oh, we are here again—at last.

“I forgive you,” she said softly.

“I was raised in hatred, Roma. I could never be your lover, only your killer.”

Juliette Cai strode forward, directly in front of Marshall. She knelt down callously, pulled his hand away from his wound, inspecting him as if he were nothing more than a piece of trash tossed before her feet.

“An eye for an eye,” Juliette said.

She struck Marshall hard across the face. He was sent skittering, his body colliding with the hard, cold floor, both his arms winding around his head, a hand in front of his face as if to protect himself. Blood. So much blood beneath him.

Juliette put both her hands around her weapon. She made a twisting motion to her pistol, securing her grip. Then:

“A life for a life.”

Bang.

“No!” Benedikt roared. Marshall’s head lolled back. He was motionless.