♫ Venom - Eminem ♫
A month.
An entire excruciating month without Lux had gone by, and I was feeling it now more than ever, especially after she left Noir Coast in flames.
I knew it was her.
The fire department and everyone else working the case may have been baffled, left scratching their heads from lack of evidence or a determinable cause, but I knew.
And it hurt worse than any hell.
The building and everything inside its confines meant shit to me. It’s what the act itself proved.
She was battered.
Raging inside.
Self-destructing.
And there wasn’t anything I could do to help her.
The last thirty-days proved she wouldn’t let me.
I spent the first two weeks after our break-up calling her relentlessly, texting her dozens of times throughout the day. I even went as far as reaching out to her friends, who I’m sure you can imagine, had zero inclination to help me.
But nothing.
Radio silence mocked me every single time, from any and every angle.
All I wanted was to explain myself, to have my day in court. I wasn’t expecting forgiveness or even to win her back. I just wanted her to know why I’d done what I’d done.
The more time passed without the opportunity to do so, though, the more it began grating on my psyche.
Deranged, convoluted ideas of how I could force Lux to hear me out plagued me on the daily—from stalking to breaking and entering, and possibly everything else in between. I was so deep in my desperate state, I actually began considering seeing one through.
But one day, it all just clicked into place for me.
I don’t know how or what triggered it, but I stopped calling her, stopped texting.
I gave up and let her be.
Lux had been forced into too much throughout her life for me to go and the same, for me to be another disgraceful bloke on that list.
The problem with letting her go was that desperation quickly mutated into an enraged insanity, and my demons were all too pleased.
Viciously elated.
They fed off my weaknesses and whispered nefarious solutions, ones to paint the town red.
Ones of bloodshed.
Of death.
They taunted me with Lux’s father, with Vic, producing image after damnable image of such violent delights.
I turned to the drink for help, stupidly hoping to numb myself in entirety, but it only made it worse.
So I started hitting the gym instead.
Worked my anger out in a positive outlet.
I went every single day, harder and longer still after the blaze at the factory.
The regimen seemed to be working, but I suspected that was only because I was exhausting myself to the point I’d go home, shower, refuel, and pass the hell out.
Today, though, I made the sudden decision to stop somewhere on the way home. I hadn’t been to the Panorama since the night Lux and I broke up, but something was calling to me, urging me to visit the roof top.
To deal with my strife head-on.
It was painful to say the least, leaving me no other choice but to relive what took place up here. I stood near the ledge for quite some time, time traveling through them all; the volatile ones while we were enemies, the tense ones during our transition phase, the tender ones after I claimed her as mine…
All of them.
When it was all said done, when there was nothing left to look back on, I felt more hollow than before, yet sobered from the fog I’d been living in for weeks.
Folding in on myself, I sunk to the ground in poignant distress, regretting every decision that had led me to this point in my life.
Except Lux.
I missed her—with every fiber of my goddamn being, and for the first time since she left me up here, I wondered if packing my bags would be the best solution for me.
If yet another move would be what helped me heal.
A fresh start—far away from the memories this city now held.
And that’s when my phone rang, a call that, unbeknownst to me, was fate catching up to me.
On autopilot, I fished it out of my pocket.
I didn’t recognize the number, and yet I answered it anyway. A small part of me—as stupid as it sounds—had me believing it could be Lux. “Hello?”
“Hey, stranger.”
I. Fucking. Froze.
Went more rigid than the concrete settled for years beneath me.
That voice.
“Liza…” I growled, balling my fists in my lap.
“Miss me, baby?” she asked, using her most sultry voice.
A voice I once loved.
Cringing, I shot onto my feet and surveyed everything around me. She could’ve been anywhere. “Quite the opposite, actually,” I snapped, repulsed.
“Ouch—such hostility. Why?”
“Ask yourself that question. You’re the reason why we’re here.”
“You led me here,” she countered viciously.
“And you led me on,” I tossed back. “Guess we’re even.”
“I don’t want to be even. I just want you.”
I cringed again. I’d rather be dead than give my ex another chance. “Might as well give it up, Liza, because I can assure you, that’s never going to happen.”
“Oh, but it is,” she stressed.
“It’s most definitely not. You wanna chase me down for the rest of our days because I killed your precious Leo, then go right ahead—be my fucking guest. You’ll never have me, though.”
“I don’t give a fuck about Leo!” She laughed cynically, manically almost. “I’ve been after you for you. Sure, it may have started out in Leo’s honor, but I had a change of heart recently.”
I rolled my eyes, continuing my sweep of the perimeter. “I’m sure you did.”
“It’s true. Seeing you with Lux made me realize how much I missed you. Seems like you subconsciously missed me, too.”
Disgust etched itself all over my face, my head rearing back. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Lux, Roman. She looks an awful lot like me, don’t you think?”
The satisfaction coloring her stone knocked me stock-still a second time.
Knocked me sick.
“At first, yes, there was a resemblance—but it faded over time. She’s different, better than you,” I sneered with purpose, intending to wound her.
Not that it wasn’t true, though. Lux was better, and after the initial shock of their similarities, the more I got to know her, the more they became uniquely her own.
But Liza wasn’t fazed, a scoffed laughed bursting through the line. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, baby.”
I cringed a third time, the abhorrent feeling now settling deep within my gut, churning it in revolt. “Fucks sake, stop calling me that!” I barked.
“Get used it, baby. We’ll be together real soon. As a matter of fact, your bags are already packed and ready to go. You should probably run home and fetch them. Your flight leaves soon.”
I’d heard every bit of that.
Every single part.
But the severity of what it meant didn’t sink in for several moments.
“What?!” I snarled in disbelief. “You’re bloody-fucking-insane if you think I’m going anywhere with you, much less getting on flight to God knows where.”
Liza hummed in earnest. “I’m afraid you don’t really have a choice, Rome. You see, either you come willingly, or in about sixty seconds, an expert sniper has been instructed to pull the trigger.”
Eyes bulging, my heart-rate skyrocketed.
With my chest heaving, I pivoted around slowly, scanning every roof top at my level. I couldn’t see shit, or rather, anyone. Everything was clear, bathed by warm rays of the Miami sun.
“How do I know you’re not lying?” I questioned, spinning around faster and faster.
“You don’t, and you won’t either. Just get on the plane,” she ordered.
“Goddamit, Liza!” I roared, feeling a sense of hysteria consuming me.
How could I have been so fucking foolish?
She’d caught up to me. She’d made it clear as day.
And when nothing else happened, when all resumed to normalcy, I dismissed all thoughts of her to the recesses of my mind.
I lived my life without borders, like she hadn’t been chasing me for almost two years straight.
“Plane. 2 p.m. Will I be seeing you there?” she pressed, as everything around me spun out rapidly.
“I’m going to kill you!”
“Tick, tock, baby.” She chuckled. “Thirty seconds.”
“I’m going to make sure you—”
“Fifteen.”
She couldn’t be serious. There’s no way. “I regret every single moment we—”
“Five, four, three—”
“Yes, okay, yes!” I interjected, defeated, clamping my eyes shut. “You’ll fucking see me there!”
“Stand down,” she instructed, her voice further away from the phone.
The line scratched out for a split-second before a man’s voice, fuzzy and distant, sounded off.
“Secured?” he asked.
“He’ll be there,” Liza agreed.
Walkie talkies… She wasn’t lying.
Had I not agreed, I’d be…
“You made the right choice, Roman, but I think you already figured that out. Am I right?” Amused, satisfied, her voice was like that of a toxin.
Infecting me.
Debasing me with lunacy.
I loathed her all the more. “I’m done talking, Liza. Just tell me how to get to you.”
“Just get to the airport. I’m not having anyone personally escort you there because I trust you value your life. Don’t think I won’t have eyes on you, though,” she explained surely. “When you get to Miami International, you’ll find a man entrusted with a sign that says Ryzhkov. Go with him.”
That name.
I remembered it instantly from that night at the gala with Vic.
“How the hell do you know Ryzhkov?” I questioned.
Liza giggled wickedly. “I thought you were done talking?”
“Tell me how you know him!” I demanded furiously.
“Goodbye, Roman. I’ll see you soon, my love.”
Click.