Updated Oct 1, 2025 • ~9 min read
The celebration lasted exactly three hours.
Back at the safe house, Agent Marlowe brought champagne—cheap, government-issue, but champagne nonetheless. They toasted to justice, to survival, to the future that finally felt within reach.
“Sentencing is in two weeks,” Marlowe said, pouring refills. “Judge indicated she’s looking at life without parole. Nico Vitelli dies in prison. It’s over.”
“Then what?” Juliette asked. “What happens to us?”
“Witness protection processes immediately after sentencing. We’ve already selected your new location, prepared your documentation. New names, new backgrounds, new lives. You’ll be ghosts within a month.”
Roman was quiet, staring into his champagne like it held answers. Juliette reached for his hand, but he pulled away—subtle, but she noticed.
After Marlowe left, the silence between them grew heavy.
“You okay?” Juliette asked.
“Fine.” He stood, started pacing. “Just processing.”
“Roman—”
“I need air. I’m going outside.”
“You can’t. Safe house rules—”
“I know the fucking rules, Juliette!” He snapped, then immediately looked stricken. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I just—I need space.”
He disappeared into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
Juliette sat alone in the living room, champagne going flat in her glass, victory suddenly tasting like ash.
For two days, Roman was a ghost.
He barely spoke. Barely ate. Spent hours staring out windows or lying in bed, shutting Juliette out whenever she tried to reach him.
“Talk to me,” she begged on the third day. “Please. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. We won. Isn’t that what we wanted?”
“Then why do you look like you lost?”
Roman laughed—bitter, hollow. “Because I did. Don’t you see that?”
“See what?”
“Nico was right. His last words. ‘This isn’t over.’ He’s right, Juliette. We’re going into witness protection. New names. No contact with anyone from our past. We disappear. We spend the rest of our lives running.”
“We’re not running. We’re surviving—”
“What’s the difference?” He turned to face her, and his eyes were haunted. “I spent eight years in a cage. Eight years where I couldn’t leave, couldn’t choose, couldn’t be myself. And now? Now I’m walking into another cage. Just a bigger one.”
“That’s not fair. We’ll have freedom. A life. Each other.”
“Will we? Or will I just be trading one prison for another, dragging you down with me?” He ran his hands through his hair. “Your parents, Juliette. Your brother. Your friends. You’re giving up everyone you love. For what? For me?”
“Yes. For you. Because I love you.”
“You shouldn’t.” The words came out flat, dead. “You should have run when you had the chance. Before the trial, before the testimony. You should have taken the money and left me to deal with my own mess.”
Juliette felt like she’d been slapped. “You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t I? Look at what I’ve cost you. Your privacy, your safety, your family. Everything. And for what? A life in hiding with a man who’s too damaged to ever really be free?”
“Stop it.” Her voice shook. “Stop pushing me away.”
“I’m not pushing. I’m being realistic.” He moved to the window, his back to her. “Maybe we should get a divorce. After we’re in protection. Start fresh. You could have a real life, meet someone who isn’t—”
“Isn’t what? Broken? Traumatized? Human?” Anger flooded through her fear. “You think I’m some naive girl who doesn’t know what she’s getting into? I’ve seen you at your worst, Roman. The nightmares, the violence, the darkness. And I’m still here. Doesn’t that mean anything?”
“It means you’re too good for your own good.”
“It means I love you!” She was shouting now. “It means I chose you. Not the money, not the safety, not whatever fantasy version of happily-ever-after I thought I wanted. I chose you—messy and complicated and broken and real. So don’t you dare tell me what I should or shouldn’t do. That’s my choice.”
“Then you’re making the wrong one.” He turned, and his expression was cold. “We should end this while we can. Before we’re legally bound to each other in protection. Before you waste more years on a man who’s never going to be what you deserve.”
“What I deserve?” Juliette laughed, the sound edged with hysteria. “You want to know what I deserve? I deserve a husband who doesn’t give up the second things get hard. Who doesn’t try to sacrifice himself because he thinks he’s saving me. I deserve a partner who fights for us, not against us.”
“I am fighting for us—”
“By pushing me away? By suggesting divorce? That’s not fighting, Roman. That’s running. That’s being a coward.”
His face went white. “Don’t call me that.”
“Then don’t act like one!” She was crying now, angry tears streaming down her face. “You survived eight years in prison. Survived being framed for murder, losing your father, facing Nico. But the thought of being happy with me? That’s what breaks you? That’s what you can’t survive?”
“You don’t understand—”
“Then explain it to me! Make me understand why the man who fought so hard to live suddenly wants to throw away the only good thing to come out of this nightmare!”
“Because I’m terrified!” The words exploded out of him. “Because every time I look at you, I think about Nico’s gun to your head. I think about Kade disappearing. I think about all the ways you could be taken from me, and I—I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t do anything except imagine losing you.”
“So your solution is to lose me first? To push me away before something else does?”
“At least that way you’d be safe.”
“I don’t want safe!” She crossed to him, grabbed his jacket. “I want you. All of you. The scared parts and the broken parts and the parts that think pushing me away is protecting me. I want the man who wrote me a hundred letters. Who came back for me when I told him to leave. Who fights for what he loves.”
“What if I’m not that man anymore? What if prison and Nico and all of this—what if it broke something in me that can’t be fixed?”
“Then we live with it broken. Together.” She pulled him down until their foreheads touched. “I’m not going anywhere, Roman. Not to protect you from yourself. Not because you’re scared. Not for any reason. We’re in this. All the way. And if you try to divorce me, I’ll fight you on it. I’ll contest it. I’ll make it the longest, most expensive divorce in history.”
Despite everything, he laughed. “You’re serious.”
“Completely. You’re stuck with me, Roman Carver. Or whatever new name they give us. You don’t get to decide what’s best for me. I do. And I’ve decided. It’s you. It’s always been you.”
His control finally broke. He grabbed her, kissing her with desperate intensity, pouring eight years of fear and love and need into the press of his mouth against hers. When they broke apart, both breathing hard, his eyes were wet.
“I’m so scared of losing you,” he whispered. “Every second. Every breath. I’m terrified.”
“I know. Me too.” She cupped his face. “But that’s what love is, isn’t it? Being terrified and doing it anyway. Choosing each other even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
“Stop saying that. You’re the man I love. That’s all that matters.” She kissed him softly. “Now tell me—honestly—do you want a divorce? Do you want to end this?”
“No.” The word came out fierce, absolute. “God, no. I want forever. I want fifty years of waking up next to you. I want kids and a boring house and arguments about whose turn it is to do dishes. I want everything.”
“Then that’s what we’ll have. In witness protection. With new names and new lives. But together.” She pressed her forehead to his. “Promise me you won’t push me away again. That when you’re scared, you talk to me instead of trying to save me from yourself.”
“I promise. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Juliette. I just—”
“I know. You’re trying to protect me. But Roman? The only thing that would destroy me is losing you. So stop trying to leave. Stop trying to save me by breaking both our hearts.”
“Never again,” he vowed. “I’m done running. Done pushing. You’re stuck with me now.”
“Good.” She kissed him again. “Because I was serious about that expensive divorce threat.”
He laughed, the sound breaking the tension. “You’re terrifying, you know that?”
“You married me.”
“Best decision I ever made.” He sobered. “Even with everything. Even with the danger and the fear and witness protection. I’d do it all again. Every second. Just to have you.”
“Me too.” She took his hand. “Now come to bed. We have two weeks until sentencing, and I plan to spend every second reminding you why staying together is the only option.”
They made love that night with a desperation that felt like prayer. Like if they held each other tight enough, close enough, nothing could tear them apart. And afterward, lying tangled together in the darkness, Roman finally let himself believe in the future.
“I love you,” he whispered into her hair. “I’ll love you in witness protection. I’ll love you with whatever name they give me. I’ll love you until the day I die and probably after that too.”
“Forever,” Juliette murmured, already half-asleep. “You’re mine forever.”
“Forever,” he agreed.
And for the first time since the trial ended, he felt like maybe they actually had one.
“Maybe love was never part of this,” she threw at him—and watched him flinch like she’d stabbed him.
But she didn’t mean it. Not really. She just needed him to fight for them instead of against them.
And he did.
He chose her.
Again.
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