SAVAGE POET: A Dark, New Adult and College Romance

by Jax Hart

  She licked her lips, reaching me. I undid my tie and fastened it around her eyes.

  “Oh, kinky.”

  “Just wait.”

  My belt came off next. I walked in a circle around her, finally I let it fly. But I didn’t hit her to get hard. I hit her because I could. Because she deserved it.

  She screamed as I whipped that ass. The guards outside went crazy, thumping against the door.

  I crouched down low, “Tell them your fine.”

  “I’m fine! I like I rough!” She yelled out. “See Roque? Damage me. I’ll take it unlike her…”

  I picked her up and dropped her on the bed, flipping her to her stomach. I tied her arms behind her back with her stockings.

  She grunted in pain and pleasure. This was one kinky, screwed up bitch. I left her and pressed the button opening the secret panel on the wall. The secret door was one of Constantine’s great secrets. But he got careless in his old age and forgot the dog was always watching.

  Johnny sauntered in. I shook my head at the lust in his eyes. He was already hard and had a hand on his crotch. I opened the drawer and threw a box of condoms at him.

  His hand traced her curves like she was the greatest treasure. She sighed and wriggled on the bed as he seduced her the way a man should his bride. She was gonna be pissed as fuck when morning came and she realized who she was in bed with. But I’d be long gone by then and so would she.

  I left him to it. All in all, it was a pretty decent wedding night. I used the secret door to enter a tunnel and into a waiting SUV. I had a plane to Jersey to catch and a girl who deserved punishment more than the one I jilted and just left behind. My knee bounced the entire plane ride. I flew the door to the jet open before it stopped taxiing and leapt onto the pavement. “Roque…” I ripped my man out of the driver’s seat and climbed in. The engine purred as I raced through the streets. I knew she was gone but I still needed to try.

  The Explorer was in the drive.

  I cut the engine and slammed the door. The house was silent. Dark. No lights were on. Déjà vu crashed over me. “Here we go again, Red.”

  My fist crashed through the glass pane next to the door and reached an arm in to unlock the bolt. Sharp pieces of glass drew blood, I didn’t feel it. All I felt was her. She lingered in the air. I felt it: her despair mixed with her determination. She cleaned the place out.

  So, she’d run again. Already had another hole to hide out in. But she couldn’t hide forever especially now that I was on the precipice of being one of the most powerful Don’s to ever live.

  I climbed the stairs to her room; the door was cracked open. My eyes fell to her bed.

  As fucked up as our world was, I grinned. She left a note. Of course, she did. I knew she would.

  Next time you’ll be the one on your knees for me. I’ll watch as I choke the life from your body, steal your breath and let you feel the pain of how much it hurts. The sad thing is you had me. You won. I was utterly drowning in you. Utterly yours. Why Roque? Just why? Your fifteen-year-old self must be so proud. You won this round, but I’ll slay you in the next.

  It was me this whole time. I was always here. Watching. Waiting. I infiltrated your world, so yes that much was true. But then it all changed. The game turned around on me. I’m coming for you—you beautiful fucked-up monster. My hits will be hard.

  Maybe our destiny was always war. I chose love, though. Just know that. What happens next is on you.

  Was she serious? Still trying to play me? She had so many opportunities to tell me and she never did. Her note was fisted in my hand as I sat on her bed. The same bed we rolled the sheets in. The same bed, she’d curl up against me and sigh. She was good I’d give her that. But I’d be better. Next time love wouldn’t be on the table for either of us. We were too fucked up to believe anymore anyway. I was used to being alone. Used to the numbing darkness. But she changed me. She brought the fire and now she’s gone again, leaving me with nothing but the curling smoke the fire always leaves behind.

  I sighed, held my head in my hands. She fucking got to me. She’s already won. But I’ll never give her one more inch. I’ll never admit she made my black heart bleed blue.

  21

  “Where is he?” I gripped my head in my hands. My world was falling apart and I needed him to reassure me.

  He was only supposed to be gone a few days, but his trip to Chicago turned into a trip to Italy.

  He lied to me, though. I only knew he was in Palermo because my PI tailed his ass for me. It cost me most of what was left from Papa’s money. But I needed to know just what in the hell was going down.

  “Miss Palermo?”

  “Yes,” I turned, smiling weakly at the doctor coming toward me. I found Zio slumped over and foaming at the mouth two nights ago. He was rushed into the hospital by ambulance and it’s been a whirlwind of tests ever since. Zio had a massive stroke. He’s in a coma and they don’t know how much damage his brain has. How could I miss this? So many nights the signs were there that he was slowing down and yet I was preoccupied with Roque, too caught up in our love storm to pay much mind and now I might lose Zio.

  “I’m sorry. Your Uncle is brain dead. The machines are breathing for him…,” my world faded to black. Tears from my face fell on the tiled hall. I was truly alone now, the last Fiorelli left.

  I tried texting Roque, but he still refused to answer. Desperate, I called Tati and asked her to get Johnny’s number from Seb.

  “Johnny?” I wiped a hand across my eyes when he picked up. Where were they? It sounded like he was at a party. I heard voices and music and a man on a microphone congratulating someone on their engagement…

  “What in the hell is going on where’s Roque…?!” But no one replied. The call quickly ended.

  I quickly dialed my PI…I was tempted to have her blow her cover just to get him a message to call me.

  “Diana…” I pressed my phone to my ear and held a hand over my other one. I could barely hear her over the deafening applause and music.

  “Where are you?”

  “…Roque’s engagement party in Palermo. He’s marrying Julietta Castellione.”

  “What?” Nothing made any sense.

  I hung up feeling absolutely gutted. It couldn’t be true. He wouldn’t do that to me, would he?

  With a numb heart, and a hung head I gently pushed open the door to Zio’s room. His skin was ashen. The machine breathed for him, but he was gone. I sat next to his bed, picked up his hand and finally let it all out. I sobbed for the girl I was in the woods, for all the years it was just the two of us, and finally I broke down because I let him down. While he was slowly deteriorating, I was burning up with our sworn enemy. One who apparently is betraying me at this very moment.

  “I’m sorry, Zio. I swear to you I’ll finish it. I’ll end Roque Salvatore. I’ll stop at nothing to make this right. I am a stupid girl, just like you said. But no more. Never again will I be seduced by the enemy. He hasn’t changed. Not one bit. I know that now.”

  I held Zio’s hand until the nurse came in and asked me if I was ready to let him go.

  I nodded and watched as my world was ripped away. How could anyone be ready to let someone you love go?

  Sometime near dawn, I exited the hospital. I was a walking Zombie. Everything inside of me was dead. I noticed a dark SUV parked a few cars down. So, he was still having me watched but couldn’t be bothered to answer my calls and texts? Fuck that. I walked past the SUV and inside a coffee shop, blindly ordering something just to have an excuse to walk past the car. I saw him looking at me in his rearview. I dropped the cup when I was close and quickly slashed two tires.

  It was a numb kind of satisfaction when I peeled out and watched the SUV struggle to tail me. It didn’t matter. They knew where I lived but if I was quick enough, Diana Palermo would disappear.

  He wouldn’t find me.

  I’d find him.

  But I needed space and distance to grieve the loss of Zio and deal wit
h the devastated hole Roque’s betrayal left in my heart. The man decimated me. Broke me down just like he warned he would.

  Did he know this whole time? Did Johnny’s crew dig up my past?

  I drove back to our tiny house feeling the crushing weight of so much loss. I couldn’t breathe in that house.

  Quickly, I packed and set plans in motion. Zio did train me very well. It was time to execute our “bug out” plan and disappear for a while. I was eighteen and a legal adult and no one could stop me from leaving.

  I left the Explorer in the drive and used the car we kept in the garage under a tarp. An old Volvo wagon would be my getaway car. It was blue and nondescript. I turned back to the house. It was time to say goodbye.

  I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t crumble. Instead, I drove south to Pennsylvania. Past farms and fields, past rolling hills until I reached a tiny college town called Altoona. Zio bought a log cabin on an acre here years ago. Paid cash. Before he slowed down, we’d summer up here, slowly stocking it bit by bit in case we ever needed a safe haven.

  Well, that time had come for me. I needed a safe haven. A place to shut the world out for a while so I could heal, lick my wounds and never look back. I’d vanquish Roque Salvatore’s name where it was stamped across my heart. I’d burn it out until it’s nothing but jagged scars. The scar would always remain, but the love would be gone.

  I kept busy, unloading the car. My eyes were dried out from all the crying I did on the way there. I opened a toolbox and popped a floorboard, my hands reached under finding the old metal box. Inside was a new identity. New birth certificate and social security number. Zio was smart and shortly after he took me in we made duplicate fake identities in case we ever needed them. Zio even opened up a bank account here and we slowly established ourselves over the years as summer people. We smiled but kept our distance. Me being here wouldn’t raise any eyebrows.

  I grabbed some lighter fluid left over from grilling. Took the cover off the charcoal grill and dumped my license, old passport and papers inside. I dumped a quarter of a bottle on Diana Palermo. Dropped a match and watched her burn.

  It was cathartic. Cleansing.

  I lifted my chin. He wouldn’t wreck me a third time. “Roque Salvatore… we might be ill-fated soulmates, but I won’t break for you ever again. Next time, you will break for me.”

  Just as I was about to add my cell into the roaring blaze, it rang.

  It was him. My thumb hovered over the phone. Should I swipe? I hesitated but answered.

  “Romina.”

  My heart hammered. His voice was low, deadly and rubbed across my bruised heart like sandpaper. When he spoke my true name, it cut through me like a knife.

  “Roque.”

  “I’m coming for you. This time I won’t hesitate to finish what I should’ve…”

  “Try,” I scoffed. “But you’re mistaken, I’m the one coming for you.”

  He laughed low in his throat and I hated what the sound did to me. I loathed and lusted for this monster and he knew it. But I also know how he burned for me. I’d wield that weapon. Turning on facetime I let him see me standing in the yard.

  My hair was still blue but my eyes glittered green. I cried out my contacts and never bothered popping new ones back in.

  He held up his hand, displaying a gold band around his finger. “So, it’s true? You married her?”

  “I did. I’m more powerful than ever.”

  It hurt. I couldn’t breathe, the pain of him being with someone else was too great. He was my enemy, but he was also my lover. It was so hard to separate the two. They were still glued together even though I was trying to tear them apart.

  “I never lied to you.” The wind picked up, blowing strands across my tear-stained face. I let him see the moment of me standing vulnerable in the dark. It would be my last confession to him before I called on my years of training and closed the curtain to the high school girl who hoped he and her could be more.

  “Ah Romina, you’re so breathtaking when your broken just like I knew you would be. It’s oddly satisfying, knowing I was right. Do you remember that day?”

  “How could I ever forget the day I was murdered?”

  “I brought you back, bella. My hands stole your life and my breath gave it back. My hands pumped for your heart.”

  “You’re sick. Getting off during sex by choking women…”

  He shrugged. “It was always you… you made me crazy, wild. You made me high, the scent of hair, your soft skin… taking your life was an aphrodisiac.”

  “You sick fuck. I was a kid.”

  “Almost a woman and so what? You liked what I did to you. Craved more? Am I right? I still feel you coming all over me, Blue. You like the devil in me. Will always want him.”

  “The only thing I want is your head on a pike.”

  “Come for me then. Let’s see who’s right.”

  “Darling? Where are you? Come back to bed…” He grinned but I sneered, confident it was a set up. A farce of a marriage. No one who knew him would ever call Roque darling.

  With a curled lip I challenged, “Kill her. Do it. Show me, my ex-beautiful monster, take from her what you wouldn’t from me.”

  His eyebrow rose. “Ah, Romina we were made for each other it’s too bad our souls got the wrong message. They crossed in the stars somewhere but went into the wrong bodies. If you weren’t a Fiorelli…”

  “It wouldn’t matter. Your family killed mine. Zio’s… gone,” I managed to get out without choking.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Are you? That’s rich coming from the man whose entire family slaughtered mine.”

  “It was never personal.”

  “It is now.”

  “I’ve taken all your firsts, bella. And I’m still not done with you.”

  “Roque?” A sexy woman came into view. She was everything I’m not. Voluptuous. Sophisticated. But we did share a few things. She had darkness in her and I watched helplessly as she circled his neck with talon like nails and kissed him. I watched their tongues duel. I knew what he was about. He was trying to break me further.

  “It won’t work. Your lips might be on hers but it’s mine you want.”

  His eyes slayed me through the screen. The darkness in him was about to break free. Goosebumps broke out all over me. If I was smart, I’d end the call and hide under the covers. He was coming for me. I felt it in my bones. He wasn’t done. We weren’t done. Somehow our dark story was just beginning…

  22

  “Wow. I don’t even know what to say,” Chloe finishes, carefully closing Romina’s diary.

  I swiped a hand across my face, trying to reign in the trembling. Everytime I remember…think of her… it brings everything to the forefront. That girl twists my insides up like a blender and she fucking knew it. “I might know where she is.”

  “What? What are you waiting for?”

  “For her to come to me.”

  “That makes no sense. No wonder you pace night after night. She’s alive and haunting you.”

  “She always did.”

  “I see that now. Roque, this story it’s… epic. Twistedly epic.”

  “And it’s not over yet.”

  “Don’t send me away, please. I need to know how this ends. What happened with Julietta?”

  “Johnny never blew my cover. He just up and left. Julietta followed like a lovesick fool. She showed up in Jersey thinking I was her husband, wedded and bedded… enough about her… that’s another story…”

  “I hate her.”

  “So do I little one. So do I. Go to bed. The sun’s rising and you’ve been up all night.” Chloe yawns and comes over to give me a hug, “You’re totally lovable, Roque. Even when you’re bad. Maybe especially when you’re bad.”

  I shook my head at the slim girl in my arms. Her words ignited hope that just maybe a broken monster like me could still be redeemed.

  REQUIEM

  REQUIEM

  JAX HART

>   Copyright©2020 by Jax Hart

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Jxhart05@gmail.com

  Created with Vellum

  WATERMARK

  FOREWORD

  REQUIEM:

  (especially in the Roman Catholic Church) a Mass for the repose of the souls of the dead.

  a musical composition setting parts of a requiem Mass, or of a similar character.

  an act or token of remembrance.

  Chloe & Roque

  The Present…

  The pen taps between my parted lips. How can I describe what we had? How I feel? Why I can’t let it the fuck go?

  The words fill my head. I need to get them out. Taking the pen from my mouth I put it to the page:

  You.

  I never saw you coming. But your flame-colored locks wrapped around my heart. Choking it. Owning it.

  We both wear crowns of thorns twisted vines of deep-seeded hate slash love.

  I finally understand now. How one is the same as the other.

  I own your life and you own mine.

  How many nights have I dreamed of you little butterfly who morphed into a different animal all together? You’re even more beautiful now. But I damaged you, broke you, just as you broke me.

  Who will win?

  The past?

  The future?

  Or our bloodies and bruised destiny of neve ending circles?

  “More poetry? Pining over your lost beloved?”

  “Shut up, Chloe. I’m shipping you out in the morning.”

  She sighs, pushing her blonde hair off her anxious face. My heart clenches for a split-second; torn in its decision to send her away.