Plain Sight

chapter thirty-four

Tom

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Juliette looks at me in a way she has never before, like I'm a stranger. She tries to say something, but it's like the words can't leave her mouth.

She looks at me, her eyes glistening with the tears just beginning to form in her eyes, She takes a few, harsh steps away from me.

She shuts her eyes tightly, probably trying to decide if this is real.

But it is. This is real and it's really happening.

"You knew?" She says to me. "All along, you've known the entire time?" She almost whispers, and her voice cracks.

"Yes." I say plain and short. I stand tall and straight, not looking away from her eyes.

And it's true. I've known all along, since the very beginning, ever since that first night at Viper Lounge where we first met. I knew she would be there, and I knew all about that plan of Lucian's. How he forced her to do this.

I was going to use Lucian's own plan against him, does she really think I didn't know? I know everything, I was hoping she didn't think I was that naive. Thinking that I didn't know why she was sent here, to spy on me. To assist her dirty father in killing me.

I knew that would never work though, because I am always one step ahead of everything.

She blinks long and slow, then she finally opens her eyes and looks at me, "Was any of it real? Did I mean anything to you? Did we mean nothing to you?" She breaks, her voice cracks and her heart breaks with it. I can see it all in just the way she's looking at me right now.

"I am not a fool, Lancaster. No, nothing was real. It was all a lie." I lie, once the words leave my mouth and I'm stunned by my own words. My heart hurts, seeing the pain I'm causing her at this moment. I don't want to fucking to this, I don't want to hurt her, but I have to. There's no other way.

All of these countless attacks on me and my family, knowing Lucian will not stop until me and the people I love are dead. I will not live in constant angst and anticipation, that's no way to live.

The main reason Lucian sent Juliette here was to find my weakness, and once he found it, he would use it against me. So that's why I used his own daughter against him, I was using her to find Lucian's weakness, so that I could kill him.

But that's the problem. I was never going to be able to find his weakness and use that against him, and he was never going to find mine, because we had the same weakness.

His daughter.

He could kill her to destroy me, and I could kill her to destroy him. But I would never hurt my Juliette, because I love her.

I've never known this kind of love before. This kind of comfort, and this feeling of sanity before I met my precious Juliette.

So this is the way it has to be, Juliette just being involved with me could get her killed. There's just no way I am gonna let her be in that much danger just to have her to myself, that would just be selfish. Because a part of me always knew that this thing between her and I would never work out, and that the only way it would ever end was with pain and suffering.

I know how stubborn she is, and I know how much she hates her father, and that's why I know she would never leave me voluntarily. So that's why I must do this so harshly and cruelly. She that she would leave on her own, so that she could be safe.

Even if she hates me after this, all that matters to me is that she is alive and safe.

It's taking everything in me not to pull her into my arms and just hold her and never let go.