Chapter Thirty-Five

On the way home from the village, we stop off at Austin's favourite pizza place. I wasn't that hungry as I thought those pastries filled me up, but Austin kept saying that cloud spotting really took it out of him. We were walking up the steps to the apartment, Austin was going on a long tangent of how pizza is actually good for and that's why we should eat it at least once a week. I laugh unlocking the door telling him how insane that sounded. 'The ingredients for pizza may be somewhat healthy, but the amount of salt that they put in it isn't good for you" I laugh walking through the door, it's nice to have it every once and awhile but not constantly. I place my purse on the little shelf by the door before entering the living room, but once I look over, I stop in my tracks. Standing in the middle of the living room, facing the door was Roman. Austin continues to make a joke until he walks into me, he stops what he was doing until his eyes also go to the living room and saw Roman there. I soon snap from my trance as tears prick my eyes, Roman is finally home! 'Roman" I say before I run away from Austin and into Roman's open arms, he holds me so tightly as I held him trying to stop my tears falling. 'I've missed you" I say hiding my face in his shoulder as I went, just his smell was making me feel better than I have these last few days. 'I'm back now, I won't be going away again any time soon" he tells me as we both refused to let go of each other, I didn't care about anything else in this moment only Roman. I hear someone walking into the kitchen placing things on the counter, this is when I remember that Austin was also here. Where my mind soon goes to what he told me last night, I didn't know we'd have to deal with this situation this soon! 'You're back early man" he says from the kitchen as Roman and I fully pull apart, he takes his hand and wipes a tear that was rolling down my cheek away. 'I thought you'd be away for another month" Austin says as I finally look away from Roman and to Austin, he was leaning up against the counter just looking at us standing there. 'I know, but when I found out about this" Roman says placing his finger on one of the biggest cuts on my face, this is when it all becomes clear to me what's just happened. 'I knew I needed to come straight back to sort everything out" he says placing a kiss on that very cut, I didn't know what I was supposed to say so I just stare over at Austin, to see if he did. 'If I find out you have laid a single hand on Payton, I can promise you I will make your life a living hell" Roman says turning his head to look at Austin, wait he thinks Austin is the one that attacked me. I look back at Austin, who for the first few seconds looked majorly taken back. 'Do you really believe that I would hurt Payton in anyway shape or form?" He asks sounding quite hurt in his tone, all he has tried to do since Roman has away has been to make sure that I was safe, sometimes that didn't go as planned, but he didn't want any of this to happen. 'No, that wouldn't have even crossed my mind before, but after learning what I have these last few days, I don't know anymore" he tells him as Austin just shakes his head, I knew I had to step in before Roman fully believes that Austin did this. 'Roman, it wasn't Austin who did this to me" I say pulling at Roman's hand so he would look at me, this does make him turn his head away from Austin to look down at me. 'So, if it wasn't Austin, who attacked you so badly that you had to take a week off of work, who was it?" He asks with a raised eyebrow, my first question was how he knew all of that, but I also knew that wasn't the time to ask him that question. I look away from Roman to look at Austin, I didn't know what he wanted me to say to explain this away. 'Don't look at him, look at me and tell me who did this to you?" Roman says blocking my view of Austin with his body, this meant it was now down to me to try and explain this away. I open my mouth a few times but couldn't find the words to explain this, so much has happened these last few weeks that I don't even know where to start! Roman just stands there watching me, I could tell that by his face he was worried. I knew that I just needed to tell him, I wasn't prepared to lie to him anymore. 'The attack was ordered by Austin's boss Markus" I say the simplest version of what happened, Roman whips his head around to look at Austin who throws his hands in the air. 'We have to tell him Austin" I say over to him, I knew he didn't want me to but what did he expect me to say?! 'Yeah, I agree with Payton, you do have to tell me Austin" Roman says looking over at Austin angrily. 'Why would your boss order an attack on Payton?" He asks still under the impression that Markus was the boss of a car repair shop, but I know much differently. 'Markus isn't what he seems Roman, Austin had no idea of it either into it was too late" I say pulling at Romans arm again, I knew how badly he wanted to run over and get right into Austin's face. 'He is this big time criminal and when he doesn't get what he wants, he does things like this or kills people. He isn't someone you want to mess with" I say while Austin goes over to the window to make sure Markus wasn't outside, I wasn't supposed to know any of this myself. 'He's been forcing Austin to do some of his dirty work by filling cars up with things he needs to ship off to different parts of the country, if Austin says no he'll kill him" I explain just trying to make him see that Austin didn't have any other choice, now I've been around Markus a few times, you just have to do what he says. 'That's to do with Austin and the mess he got himself into, but that doesn't explain why my girlfriend got turned into a human punching bag!" Roman shouts not liking that we were beating around the bush with everything, my eyes once again move to Austin who knew where this next part was going. 'What I'm about to tell you, you can't get angry okay" I say taking Roman by the hands where he does look worried, I knew if I didn't say that, once the next sentence left my lips he would be beyond angry. 'For reasons that are way too complicated for me to explain in one sitting, Austin and I had to pretend to be a couple around Markus. Not that long ago, Austin refused to allow Markus to rope me in the business, so Markus wanted to hit him where it really hurt which was me" I say looking up at Roman, he seems to have a straight face as he attempted to try and wrap his head around what I just told him. 'So, you're telling me, that as soon as my back was turned you swooped in and tried to take my girlfriend away" Roman says turning around to look at Austin, where he begins to take slow steps towards him. Austin doesn't move from the kitchen, while I was taking Roman's hand and trying to pull him back. 'No Roman you need to understand, we didn't want to fake it but we didn't have any other choice" I say pulling at his arm, but he wouldn't stop, Austin just sighs walking out of the kitchen and towards the door. 'I'll leave you two to talk" is all he says before he opens up the front door and leaves, so he's seriously leaving me here alone to explain?! This meant Roman and I were fully alone, I didn't know how he was going to react to all of this. I pull him to take a seat down on the sofa so we could talk, he does allow me to do this where he just sits there deep in thought. 'You have to believe me Roman, I really didn't want to act like a couple but we didn't have any other choice, I wanted to tell you every time we would talk, but Austin would tell me that I couldn't" I say hoping he wasn't too angry with me, he turns his head to look at me for a second before reaching over and taking my hand in his. 'You can't tell Austin or anyone about this, but I'm working with this police officer called Jacob, he and his team are building a case against Markus but it's so dangerous. I'm helping them build evidence to catch him, once they do Austin, will be kept out of it and we'll all be put in witness protection so Markus won't be able to hurt us" I whisper as though someone would be listening, but with Markus you never know. He looks over at me before placing his hand on my cheek. 'You've had to go through that alone?" He asks where I just nod my head with a shrug, it has been a lot but it's something that I had to deal with. 'I'm sorry that I wasn't here to help you" he says that sentence alone bringing the tears to prick my eyes once more, before I knew what was happening, I break down crying. He pulls me in for a hug holding me so tightly, I cry against him all the feelings like fear, worry and sadness I've hidden these last few weeks finally coming to the surface. 'I'm back now, we can sort this out together" he whispers while I just sit there and cry.