Chapter 142 Where To Begin The tap was dripping behind us in the kitchen. I must’ve not turned it off properly. The sound filled the silence like a metronome for everything neither of us was saying at the moment. Roman hadn’t spoken again since he told me about the curse, and strangely, I didn’t want him to. I wanted him to take his time—whatever time he needed. No rush. No pressure. Because honestly, I didn’t even know where to begin. A curse? It sounded like something ripped from an old fairy tale or one of those ridiculous documentaries about haunted families. It made no sense. I didn’t believe in curses. I never had. There had to be a reason behind all this—something logical, something explainable. Curses don’t just appear out of nowhere, choosing a single bloodline to torment. And then have a loophole in the long run. If this so-called curse was real, then Emily shouldn’t exist. She’s five. She laughs like a bell, cries like she means it, and lives like she has no idea the world ever held darkness. Her biggest tragedy so far has been falling into the pool unsupervised—and she survived that too. So how could she even exist if a curse was supposed to kill off the Blackwood bloodline before it could continue? It doesn’t add up. None of the bullshit adds up. Something’s wrong with the story. There’s a missing piece. Someone behind it, maybe—someone pulling the strings, making it look like something supernatural when it’s just calculated cruelty. I looked at Roman, sitting at the edge of the chair, his elbows pressed into his knees, his hand gripping mine tightly. He looked hollow. Haunted. Like a man who’d relived too many nightmares and still woke up to find the monsters hadn’t left. His knuckles were white around my hand. So I moved closer—careful, quiet—and wrapped my arms around his head. He didn’t resist. He folded into me, like he’d been waiting for permission to collapse. His head pressed against my chest, his arms circling my waist. I felt the slow, uneven rhythm of his breathing against my body. I slid my fingers into his hair and began to stroke, letting silence stretch between us. The tap kept dripping. Drip. Drip. Drip. And time moved with it. We stayed like that for a long time. Him sitting and holding on to me as though I were the only thing keeping him that mattered in this world. Me standing, grounding him with touch, letting my fingers move gently through his hair. Every small movement calmed him, loosened his grip a little. My mind, though, didn’t rest. It wandered back to the Blackwoods, to all the strange, tragic deaths that haunted their family. A curse didn’t fit in my vocabulary, but coincidence didn’t either. Someone had to be behind it. There had to be a reason why Emily was the only one who made it through. Why she, of all people, slipped through whatever doomed everyone else. “There’s got to be a reason,” I murmured under my breath. “There has to be.” “Savannah?” His voice was quiet—roughened, like it had been dragged over gravel. I blinked and looked down at him. “Yes?” “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about your real father sooner.” For a moment, I stopped moving my fingers. His arms tightened instinctively, as though he thought I might pull away. Then he pressed his forehead against my chest, his breath warm through my robe.I swallowed hard. “Since when have you known?” He hesitated. I felt the tension ripple through him before he spoke. “Since the day I killed Kingston.” My pulse stuttered. For a second, my brain refused to connect the dots. “You—what?” Roman lifted his head, just enough to meet my eyes. “He told me before he died.” My heart twisted painfully. “Kingston knew?” I whispered. “He knew that Julius wasn’t my real father?” Roman’s expression hardened—pain, guilt, fury—all woven into one quiet storm. “He knew,” he said. “He said it like it was a joke. Claimed it was the reason he could do whatever he wanted to you. Because Julius let him. Because you weren’t really his blood.” I felt my stomach turn to ice. “He gave him permission?” I asked, my voice breaking on the last word. Roman nodded slowly. “Yes. Julius knew what Kingston was. He knew what he did. And he still let him.” My throat burned. For a moment, I wanted to scream, hit something—maybe even him. Roman, for keeping it from me. Julius, for what he’d done. Kingston, for everything he’d taken from me. But I didn’t. Because right now, Roman was the one unraveling. And the cruel irony was that he’d become the one who was to be treated like he was made of glass. I took a shaky breath. “You should’ve told me.” “I know,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I thought I was protecting you. I didn’t want you to hurt any more than you already had. But I realize now I had no right to decide that for you.” This infuriating man. Always deciding what’s best for me, always trying to carry the weight alone. God, I wanted to yell at him—to break that wall he hides behind. But I couldn’t. Not when he looked like this. Not when his fingers were trembling against my skin and his head was bowed like someone asking for forgiveness. So I forced the storm back down. “Thank you for telling me,” I said finally, resuming the slow rhythm of my fingers in his hair. “Though you kind of let it slip earlier.” He gave a small, weary chuckle. “I know. I just wanted to prolong the moment a little longer before we went back to strangers.” That made me smile faintly, even though it hurt. Typical Roman. Always waiting for the next disaster, never trusting good things to last. We stayed like that a while longer. The air between us thickened—not uncomfortable anymore, but weighted with everything unsaid. His hand moved slightly, tracing the seam of my robe like he needed to feel something real, something tangible, something alive. Then he spoke again, quieter this time. “There’s something else I need to tell you.” My heart sank. “What now?” “Kingston knew my father.” That caught me off guard. “What?” Roman sat up slowly, still holding my hand. “He insinuated they’d worked together. I thought it was a lie at first—Kingston said a lot of things just to get under my skin. But after he said it, I started to think. I’d never heard my father mention him, not once. But the way Kingston said it…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “What did he say exactly?” I pressed. “That he did what my father asked him to do,” Roman said. “That they both had a deal, and he delivered on their last deal.” A chill ran through me. “What kind of deal?”“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “But I don’t think it was anything good.” I stared at him. “Roman… What would a man of your father’s stature be doing with someone like Kingston? What kind of ‘deal’ could possibly exist between a decorated ex-president and a rapist?” His jaw tightened. “That’s what scares me.” The tap dripped again. Drip. Drip. The sound felt louder now, like it was marking time for a truth we hadn’t yet reached. I tried to breathe, but something in my chest felt heavy. My mind was racing through fragments—Roman’s family tragedies, my own twisted history, the convenient coincidences that linked them all. Roman’s father had built his life on a story—the widower general, the heartbroken man who won the people’s sympathy by losing his wife. A perfect mask. But now… Now I wondered what was behind that mask. Roman reached for my face then, his thumb brushing over my cheek. “I don’t know what’s real anymore, Sav. My father… the curse… even Emily’s existence. It all feels like someone built our lives out of lies.” “Maybe they did,” I whispered. “Maybe that’s exactly what happened.” His hand lingered on my skin, tracing down to my jaw, his eyes searching mine like he was trying to find the truth hidden behind them. “Whatever my father was involved in—it wasn’t innocent. I can feel it. And Kingston knew too much.” I looked past him, to the dripping tap still leaking in the sink. The sound had become unbearable now, echoing inside my head. I pulled away gently, walked to the sink, and turned the handle hard until the drip stopped. The silence that followed was deafening. I leaned against the counter, arms crossed, and looked back at him. “Then maybe the curse isn’t what you think it is. Maybe it’s not supernatural. Maybe it’s the aftermath of something your father did—a lie so big it’s been killing your family ever since.” Roman’s eyes darkened. “You think my father did this?” “I think he started something he couldn’t finish.” He exhaled, long and tired, and ran a hand through his hair. “If that’s true… then the curse isn’t about blood. It’s about consequences.” I nodded slowly. “Exactly.” Roman stood, the chair scraping softly against the tile. He looked older somehow—like he’d aged a decade in minutes. “If that’s true,” he said again, “then we need to find out what he did.” I met his gaze. “And what if you don’t like the answer?” He gave a bitter half-smile. “When have I ever liked the answers I find?” We stood there, staring at each other in the quiet kitchen. The air between us hummed with something unspoken—fear, anger, love, maybe all three. And then Roman said it—softly, almost like a warning. “Whatever they were doing, Sav… whatever bound them together—it wasn’t something upright.” I didn’t say anything back. I didn’t need to. Because deep down, I already knew. Whatever this was… it wasn’t a curse. It was something much worse.