Page 119 of Uprising

I want to say yes. God, I want to say yes so badly but I can’t. I won’t lie to her. I won’t tell her false truths. Instead I kiss her head, take a deep breath and breath her in. I have my daughter back. I have her back.

“The only thing that matters is that I have you.” I say.

Roman

Iwatched as Lara crept into her room and so much of me wanted to join them, to see them reunited. To hold them both in my arms and never ever let them go again.

But I have to protect Rose. That’s my first priority.

And right now we’ve got the new Police Chief calling for her head. As if she’s a criminal and not a victim in all of this.

I sit beside Koen. Both of us glaring at the man who right now sees himself as some sort of hero. Only he wasn’t here when we needed him. He wasn’t the one on the streets, fighting for Verona’s very freedom.

“It’s very clear…” He begins.

“No, it is not.” I snap back.

“She was his wife. She is complicit in everything he…”

I stand up, flexing my hands, itching to wrap them around his throat. “Have you not heard a word I just said?”

His lips curl just enough to tell me he doesn’t believe a word of it. That he thinks Rose is the gold-digging whore Darius made her to be.

“She was blackmailed.” I state again. “He kidnapped our daughter…”

“That’s as maybe.” Chief Ambrose cuts across me. “But until we establish the facts...”

“She jumped out of damned helicopter to escape him.” I half yell.

The footage of that has been doing loops on social media. The press are having a field day over it. It’s been on repeat so many times I don’t know how they’ve not grown bored of analysing it.

He sits back in his seat. “Mr. Montague, whatever you believe, she is not above the law.”

“Meaning?” I ask.

“We have actual footage of her attacking a man, of murdering him.”

I shake my head as my fury rages. “You mean the man who helped hold her captive? You mean the man who had a gun to her head? I’d say that was the very definition of self-defence wouldn’t you?”

“That’s for a jury to decide not for the likes of us.”

“That’s not actually true is it?” Koen says leaning forward, and for the first time I see the man flinch. “You decide who you prosecute in all of this, after all half the city rose up, you want to arrest them, arrest hundreds of thousands of people and charge them with inciting violence?”

“Not all of them are murderers.” He states.

“And not all of them were held hostage for months on end.” I snap back.

He shakes his head getting to his feet, staring out the window of the sterile hotel room we agreed as a meeting place. “The law is the law.” He says. “We cannot pick and choose what bits we wish to abide by.”

“Tell that to Darius.” Koen growls.

“We would if we knew where he was.” Ambrose says before fixing his gaze back on me. “Maybe Rose can give us that information.”

“She doesn’t know.” I state. I don’t know if that’s actually true but right now I won’t give him anymore reasons to want her in his possession.

“You know that for certain?” He replies.

A knock at the door stops my retort. We turn to look as a man in a suit more expensive than the damned ones Darius used to strut around in, appears.