by Sienna Blake
Me: If you’re talking about the rose, then yes.
Thank you, I added after a moment’s deliberation and hit send. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. Startled. Happy. Angry. Confused was the only sure thing.
Roman: It’s an apology.
Me: For what, exactly?
Roman: I was rude earlier. I’m sorry. But it’s better this way.
Me: I don’t understand.
Roman: You have to stay away from me. And my family.
I gritted my teeth. He was trying to scare me off the investigation.
Me: Don’t you dare threaten me! I’m not dropping the investigation.
Roman: I’m not threatening you.
Me: Sounded like a threat to me.
Roman: I’m trying to warn you. You don’t want to get involved with us.
I stared at his message. He wanted to warn me? Why would he do that?
Me: Why do you care anyway?
There was a long pause before I received his answer.
Roman: I don’t know.
Me: What the hell is that supposed to mean?
He didn’t reply. I stared at my silent phone for what felt like hours before I gave up willing him to respond. Infuriating man. I threw the cell phone on my bedside table and turned my back on it, gripping the sheets with my fingers. It was a long time before I could fall asleep.
The next day at work I looked up the cell phone number Roman had texted me from. It was unregistered, a prepaid burner phone activated yesterday. The only number he had contacted using the phone was mine. Roman got a burner phone just to message me.
Arrogant girl. Why would he get a burner phone just to message you?
Maybe I’d hear from him again? My stomach fluttered at the mere thought.
Stupid girl. You don’t want to hear from him again. Block the number.
But I couldn’t, for some reason, bring myself to.
* * *
Over the next few days I jumped every time my phone beeped, thinking it might be Roman. I grew more and more frustrated at myself when it wasn’t. I hoped that he’d change his mind about my help. I figured that I just had to be patient.
But just as the rose faded, the blood-red draining from its velvet tips, the petals falling and drying up without any sign from Roman, so did those hopes. Damn him. What game was he playing? Why did he go from appearing to care about me to pushing me away? Why did he send me a beautiful perfect rose only to ignore me?
I’d seen this kind of push-pull behavior before in victims of domestic abuse or children from broken homes, torn between familial loyalty and self-preservation. Roman wanted help—my help—but he didn’t know how to ask for it. He wanted a way out but didn’t know how to make one. I had to be persistent. I had to prove that I wouldn’t back away. I had to make him see that he could trust me.
The next Saturday morning, I found myself standing in front of a faded blue door of a single-story brick cottage in a leafy suburb in eastern Verona. Behind this door lived Roman’s good friend, Mercutio Brevio. Mercutio seemed to really care about Roman. He was the only one of Roman’s friends who wasn’t associated with the Tyrell family. He was the only one who might be able to help.
I chewed my lip. I still wasn’t sure that this was at all a good idea. But I was here.
I raised my fist and knocked before I could change my mind. I glanced around as I waited. The curtains of the neighboring house shifted as my gaze rested upon it. I was being watched.
A thought crept into my head. What if I was wrong? What if I was walking into the lion’s den just like I had when I strode into Roman’s apartment? Espo had no idea I was here. No one did.
Before I could back away the door clicked and opened. A tiny old woman with white hair appeared in the doorway.
I started in surprise. “Oh. Hi.”
This must be Mercutio’s grandmother. Given Mercutio’s age, she must be at least in her sixties, but her warm brown skin was carrying it well, her cheeks still plump and the whites of her eyes still clear. A warmth radiated off her, making me feel instantly calmer.
“Can I help you?” she asked, her melodic voice curious rather than suspicious.
“Um, is Mercutio here?”
She smiled, her brown eyes sparkling as she appraised me again. She must think I was here for Mercutio. “No, he’s just run out to do some things for me. He’s such a good boy. Always helping his Nonna out. Do you want to wait inside for him?” She stepped aside and held open the door for me.
“Sure. Thanks.” I walked inside before I could change my mind.
The cottage was small but cozy. The furniture was well worn yet everything looked comfortable and welcoming. Mercutio admitted in his interview that Roman had spent a lot of his childhood here. I suddenly got an image of a younger Roman Tyrell buried in the soft cushions of the couch on a cold winter’s night. For some reason, it warmed me.
I followed Mercutio’s grandmother into the kitchen smelling of warm apples and cinnamon from a pie in the oven. My stomach twinged. My mother would often bake apple pie for my father and me.
She waved at the rustic wooden table just big enough for four people, indicating that I sit. “Did you want some tea or coffee?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” I chewed my lip. “I’m actually here to ask about Roman.”
Mercutio’s grandmother pulled off her faded red apron and hung it on the hook on the back door before she sat down opposite me at the table. “Are you a girlfriend of Roman’s?”
I felt my cheeks flush.
Before I could say anything, her eyes lit with understanding. “I see,” she said as she nodded at me.
She had the wrong idea. I had to correct her. “Mrs. Brevio—”
She laughed. “So formal. Please, call me Nonna.” She smiled at me and her warm brown eyes suddenly appeared younger than her obvious years. I wanted to blurt out my entire confusing predicament. Somehow, I thought that she’d understand. She’d know what to do.
I held my tongue.
“Nonna,” I tested the term on my tongue as I debated what I was going to say next. “I’m not his girlfriend,” I said truthfully. For some reason, it hurt to say it.
“But you care about him,” Nonna stated as if it were fact.
I swallowed. “I’m confused about him.”
Nonna nodded and folded her wrinkled hands together on the table in front of her, a dusting of flour on the backs of them. Her fingers were tiny and compact, her nails cut short and clean. “Roman has always been misunderstood. Even by himself. Even from a young age I could see there was a war raging inside that boy.” She sighed, then glanced up at me as if expecting me to say something.
“That makes sense, seeing the family he was born into,” I blurted out.
She gave me a sad smile. “He was always different from his other brothers. He was born premature, you know.”
I blinked at Nonna. “No, I didn’t know that.”
“Twenty-six weeks. They weren’t sure if he was going to make it. But he defied the odds. He was still such a tiny thing when they brought him home from the hospital.” She smiled, her eyes going all misty with the memory. “Even as he grew he was always smaller than his brothers. He was his mama’s favorite, perhaps because she nearly lost him.”
“He was close with her,” I guessed.
“Very.” A deep sadness closed over her face and the wrinkles around the corners of her mouth deepened. “Maria was a beautiful woman with the largest heart. She just loved the wrong man.”
I remembered the news articles about Maria’s murder. A knot developed in my throat. I knew what it must have felt like for him to lose his mother at such a young an age.
“I tried to do my best for Roman afterwards, but…he was never the same after that. There was a darkness in him that wasn’t there before.” Nonna sighed, a low and aching sound. “I just don’t know how a young boy recovers from something like that.”
The back door swung open, cutting off our convers
ation. “I’m home, Nonna,” a deep voice called. Mercutio strode in, two grocery bags in his hands.
“Mercutio.” I stood up from my seat, gazing past his shoulder, my heart half terrified, half wanting to see Roman behind him.
But Mercutio was alone.
Mercutio froze when he caught sight of me, his eyes narrowing to slits. “What’s going on?” He glanced over to Nonna sitting beside me, his gaze searching her face. “Nonna? Are you okay?”
Nonna let out a snort. “Mercutio, don’t be so paranoid. This is one of Roman’s friends. She came here to speak to you.”
Mercutio turned his attention to me, his dark eyes now hard. “Perhaps Ms. Capulet and I should speak alone,” he said.
Nonna stood up, patting my hand. “It was nice to meet you, dear. Go easy on our Roman, will you? He needs someone like you to understand him.”
A thread of guilt wound through me. I shouldn’t have made it seem like Roman and I were friends. Mercutio placed his bags down and crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at me over Nonna’s shoulder. He knew I hadn’t been presenting myself truthfully to his grandmother.
“It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Brevio,” I said.
“Nonna, please.” She gave me one last smile before she walked out of the kitchen.
Leaving me alone. With a hostile-looking Mercutio.
“Detective Capulet,” he said, spitting my title like it was a curse. “Why didn’t you show her your badge? Why didn’t you tell her you were a detective investigating Roman?”
Because I wasn’t here in an official capacity. But I couldn’t admit that. He’d kick me out in two seconds flat if he knew I had no real reason to be here. No reason except for my ridiculous unwavering obsession over a certain dark-eyed friend of his.
I stood up so that I was on his level, meeting his stare. I wouldn’t be intimidated by him. “I didn’t want to scare her. Would you have preferred I bring up the corpse we found—”
“No,” Mercutio snapped, his eyes going to kitchen door. “She doesn’t need to hear any of that.”
I nodded. “Then we agree, let’s keep this between us. Please, sit, Mr. Brevio.”
“I told you everything at my interview.”
“I still have more questions.” Just one, actually.
He didn’t reply. I decided to take a chance and play hardball with him. I let out a sigh. “If you’d prefer we can go back to the station and do this there?”
Mercutio stared at me for a second, then looked back to the door before taking the farthest seat from me, keeping the table between us. “You have two minutes.”
I let out a breath as I sat. He had agreed to give me two minutes. Two minutes wasn’t a long time. Better cut straight to the chase. “I think there’s something more going on here. I think that Roman might be mixed up in something he doesn’t want to be mixed up in.”
Mercutio let out a humorless laugh. “Did you figure that one out all by yourself?”
I ignored his comment. I wasn’t here to argue with him. “I want to offer him a way out. A way to escape his family. You and I both know that he isn’t like them.”
Mercutio narrowed his eyes at me. “What game are you playing here, detective?”
“I just want the truth. I want…to help him.”
Mercutio stared at me, the anger that had been so apparent faded into a suspicious mask. Whether he believed me, I didn’t know. “Let me guess, you went to him first with your generous offer and he shut you down. And now you’re coming to me.”
“I know you care about him. Don’t you want to help him get away from his family?”
“All you’re going to do is get him killed,” Mercutio said.
“I can protect him.”
“Not from this.” He stood up, his chair scraping the floor. “Your two minutes are up. Get out of my house.”
I had failed. I stood. “Please, just talk to him about it.”
Mercutio said nothing as he herded me out and slammed the door behind me. I was beginning to think that coming here had been a mistake.
* * *
I should have known when I returned home later that night from grocery shopping that I had been followed. But I hadn’t been paying attention. My head was a whirr, tumbling over and over what Mercutio had said about Roman.
I juggled my grocery bags and purse, struggling with my keys at the lobby before finally letting myself in, part-tumbling, part-shoving my way into the empty foyer, my footsteps echoing against the marble floor. I heard the door behind me catch rather than click shut. I didn’t have time to turn around to see who had come in after me. In an instant, I felt him right behind me.
It all happened so fast I had no time to scream. A gloved hand came over my mouth, a strong arm closed around me like a vice. I dropped my bags and grabbed at the steely arms holding me captive, but it was no use. I might have well have been wrapped in chains.
Just take my purse! I wanted to scream, but I could barely breathe behind his large stifling hand wrapped in leather. My captor kicked open the door to the boiler room next to the stairs and shoved me inside. Dear God, was he planning to rape me in here? Kill me?
I had to calm myself down, figure a way to escape. The door clicked behind us, leaving me alone with him. Inside the old boiler room was hot and suffocating. Something was rattling in one of the ancient machines rusting against the far wall. The walls were thick concrete to muffle the noise from the outside. It would muffle the noise of whatever he was going to do to me.
His hand came off my mouth. I sucked in the hot, steamy air of the tiny room and prepared to elbow him. He spun me, slamming me against the concrete wall, winding me. The single lit fluorescent bulb in the middle of the room flickered, casting a sickly glow across the face of my assailant. My eyes widened. I inhaled sharply. Roman Tyrell was glaring at me with murder in his eyes.
“You.” He stabbed a finger in my face. “You come into Nonna’s house and question her son? You pretend to be my friend to try and get information out of her?” He was beautiful, even drowning in fury.
He slammed the wall beside my head with his palm, the fury and aggression of it making me gasp. A tiny shot of actual fear went through my body. My skin felt sensitized a hundred times. When he leaned in close, his minty breath on my cheeks made me shiver.
His eyes bore into mine like burning coals. “You want to come after me, come after me. Just leave Mercutio and Nonna out of it.”
I found my voice. “I…I don’t want to come after you.”
His eyes narrowed into slits. “Then what do you want?”
I swallowed. Should I tell him the truth?
He slammed his hand against the wall again, making me jump. “Answer me. And don’t you dare lie. I will know if you lie.”
“You confuse me,” I confessed with a whisper.
He flinched as if that was the last thing he expected to hear me say.
I continued before I lost my nerve. “Everyone tells me they know who Roman Tyrell is. ‘Stay away from him. He’s a bad man. Dangerous. Evil. He was born with a gun in his hand and violence in his heart.’ But…the man I spent the night with was not a killer. The man I spent the night with was good.”
For a mere second, his mask of rage fell, dropping like a curtain. I glimpsed the hopeful, vulnerable man underneath. Then his mask was up again so quickly I almost thought I had imagined it.
“You think I’m good?” He began to laugh, a cruel growling sound, his eyes sparkling with amusement.
He was mocking me. My cheeks burned at his reaction. “Mercutio and Nonna wouldn’t love you if you weren’t,” I blurted out.
His laughter cut off. “Nonna and Mercutio don’t see everything.”
“You wouldn’t love them if you weren’t good.”
Suddenly his hand was wrapped around my throat, his movement so quick it was a blur. He held me against the wall like that, his grip firm enough to remind me that he was in complete control and just tight enough that I could b
arely breathe.
He leaned in close. I thought for a second that he might kiss me. I should have been terrified. Instead my body vibrated with awareness at his nearness. “Don’t mistake me for an angel, Jules. I’m the shadow you run screaming from.”
“Yes,” I whispered. “You’re dangerous. But not evil. You’re not evil, Roman.”
His lip curled up in a snarl. “I see. You think you can come in and save me. This isn’t some stupid high school fantasy. You can’t save me. I’m not your prince. I am the monster in this story.”
“What if I don’t want the prince…” I dared to say, my voice coming out so soft I could barely hear it.
He flinched as if I’d slapped him. The air between us began to sear. I’d finally admitted that I still wanted him. I lifted a hand to his face. If I could just touch him…
He caught my wrist easily in his free hand and slammed it against the wall, pressing into me further. I could smell his cologne mixed with his male scent and the hint of sweat.
His lips brushed my ear. “Damn you,” he hissed. “You have no sense of self-preservation, do you?”
“I’m not in danger from you,” I whispered back against his neck. “You’d never hurt me.”
He pulled back and glared at me, but the fury seemed forced. “I am Roman Tyrell, son of Giovanni Tyrell. You’d do well to remember that.”
“You don’t scare me,” I lied.
“I should.” He ran the tip of his nose along my cheek, slowly, to my ear. That single touch sent a wave of fire across my skin. My nipples pressed painfully against my shirt. Then his lips were brushing over my earlobe and his breath was down my neck.
He spoke softly, deep and low, like he was trying to seduce me. His words betrayed his real intent. “You’ll stay away from my family and me, detective. If you know what’s good for you.”
He pushed himself away from me and strode out of the boiler room, leaving me shaking and breathless against the wall.