Chapter Six

Lucian's POV

I never expected to run into her on this particular day. I was afraid I'd never see her again, that she would never enter my life. I loathed the night we were separated without saying goodbye, and here she is, still small but bigger than the last time I saw her.

It was never my intention to attend an auction where girls are traded for cash, and I never meant to purchase any girl as a slave or for any other purpose. That wasn't in my tradition; all I had to do was come and watch how guys become obsessed with having a small girl at their fingertips.

But this does not make me any more of a saint; if anything, I am the worst of them all. I couldn't acquire what I wanted with a simple snap of my fingers.

The room was silent enough to hear a pin drop. Silence was not uncommon in this place; it was usually accompanied by screams of pain from various tortures, but this was the exception. That person was watching.

My stomach twisted, not in something called love; I had not believed in it for a long time; it was something I wanted to leave an imprint on, claim.

My eyes flashed as I glanced at Julia Bailey, head to toe. My little mouse, the spirit of another lifetime.

But not the girl I recalled. Her hair was messed up, her face was smaller, and her innocent eyes were tougher.

Those eyes used to light up when they saw me, but now they were a winter color. I'd never felt it from her.

They gazed upon me with an unexpected intensity. Not admiration, but hate. Let her despise me, for that is all I ever wanted.

That's when I noticed the shine in her hand—the gun I had urged her to discharge at that motherfucker, now pointed at me.

That image should have surprised or angered me, but instead, I was impressed; she still had balls.

My chest clenched, not from the weapon, but from the way her hands trembled, as if the weight of the pistol was little in comparison to the weight of me standing here.

God, Jules...

Her lips parted, and a trembling breath came out. "Don't move."

My pulse didn't even register; instead, I stepped forward, my lips twisted up in a playful grin.

"I heard you," I said, my tone low and even. "And yet, here I am."

The metal in her hands trembled; she was afraid of herself, of me, of the memories I could see battling their way to the surface. She still didn't understand half of it.

"She should be..."

"Why, Little Mouse, do you wish to shoot me? Do you think you can point that at me and win?" I let my gaze move deliberately from her face to her finger on the trigger. "You don't even know if you can pull it."

Her jaw tensed, and her voice shook. "Try me."

I grinned, not because it was humorous, but because she was no longer the little Julia who would come to me anytime she needed something, that little girl who used to run to me with bruised knees, and now she wanted to see me bleed, which is impossible.

"You've changed," I mumbled. "But you're still mine, whether you fucking like it or not."

Her expression faltered, and I noticed it. It was the glimmer of recognition she had been attempting to brush away, conceal. Then her breath itched.

"Short for Lucas," I added softly. "The boy who used to steal candies from the fair, the boy who taught you how to skip stones." I hesitated, allowing the recollection to sharpen between us like glass. "The boy who left you without goodbye."

She blinked quickly and shook her head, as if she could throw the words off. "No, you are lying... Stop talking trash."

"I don't lie, Julie," I said, edging closer to her, my voice lowering to a whisper. "I don't have to prove anything to you, but I am Luke."

Her other hand tightened into a fist, and her knuckles whitened from the grip. "Luke is dead; the Luke I know would not do this to me... Luke would not try to hurt me."

I laughed, but it sounded hollow and dry. "Oh, mouse, you don't know what happened to Luke, do you? I expected you to be intelligent enough to understand that people change.

Her body stiffened, and the gun in her palm clenched forward, directed at my chest, giving her the option of whether or not to shoot.

Then I wrapped my hands over the rifle, slow but inexorable, commanding her grasp without force, only irresistibility, not in a single seamless motion, and pressed the barrel against my chest.

"Shoot me, Jules," I muttered, my voice softening and tinged with sarcasm. "I know you won't; you have no bones to kill."

For a split second, her fingers trembled against the trigger, her gaze shifting from the barrel to mine, and I didn't blink or breathe, just let her see all the realities I'd buried, the wrath, the ache, the pull I'd never let go of.

I could tell she was still debating if she should wear a façade smirk.

"I'm giving you a chance, Jules. Pressing the trigger could pull me away from you." My voice came out mocking, and my eyes gleamed with eagerness.

What would she do?

Her stare faltered, and she lowered the rifle from my chest, dropping it as if it had burnt her. I noticed how her throat clenched, how her eyelids quivered, and the fight she was trying to mask.

"Fuck…" she whispered, her breath catching.

I came closer, my shadow swallowing hers. "You broke the rules, Julia," I muttered, picking a piece of her untidy hair I toyed with the strands using the tips of my fingers. Her eyes flared with rage.

"That shit again?"

The way she scowled at me, with her lips twisted in annoyance, amused me.

Then something kicked within me, and I tugged her hair, neither delicately nor hard, her cry piercing like a whistle.

"Stop!"

"You should learn to use your tongue wisely, Jules; I'm never nice." I chuckled, putting my thumb on the scalp that I had pulled. She withdrew from me, her eyes piercing.

If eyes could kill, well, I'd be dead by now.

"Or, what would you do? Kill me? That's all you've ever known. She clenched her hand, a tear running down her rosy cheek.

"Not yet!" I do it slowly, so you feel everything and ask me to speed it up."

Her brow furrowed in perplexity, attempting to calculate what I had just said, and her cheeks flushed bright crimson, avoiding my sight in embarrassment.

"I hate you!" She snarled, her eyes darkening, and the words didn't affect me; I was used to such comments and had even come to accept them as compliments, but coming from her, they sounded strange.

I didn't flinch or smirk; I simply moved my head slightly toward Matteo, my guard. "Per scherzo," I swore under my breath in Italian. " Take her back into the room. Tell the maids she should not be given food or water. I took a step back, moving towards the door, and my eyes clouded for reasons I couldn't explain.

"She has to learn her place."