CHAPTER 99
ROMEO POV
Darkness.
So dark I can taste it — smoke, metal, rot.
Air too thick to breathe.
A single bulb swings overhead, its light stuttering across the walls — stone, slick, red.
The chain bites my wrists. Cold steel. Wet skin.
I try to move but I can't.
My hands were bound. Legs too. A chair was under me and it was nailed to the floor.
My unsteady eyes drafted across the room and there at the far end was Mamma with her. round stomach and beside her — Papà.
They're chained too. Same chairs. Same silence. Same position.
We're lined against the walls like broken dolls waiting for our masters to break us.
"Romeo." Mamma's small, cracked voice called to me. She's shaking, her eyes wild, arms trembling against the chains.
Her pregnant belly round and moving with life of my baby sister. "Mamma…"
The bulb flickers again. Shadows crawl up her stressed face. Papà's breathing was shallow, lips split, eyes swollen.
