by Sienna Blake
I didn’t have time to search for it. I cringed as I tugged on my pencil skirt sans panties and tucked in my button-up shirt as best as I could in the dark. I’d have to buy a new pair on my break.
“Roman?” I slipped through the apartment, following the muffled rhythmic sound of slapping. I located the source of noise behind a closed door, a thin stream of light showing the underside. I opened the door and poked my head in.
It was a bedroom converted into a small gym. Roman was bouncing around a boxing bag wearing only low-hanging shorts and a pair of black boxing wraps. His glorious chest and arms were on display, pumped up from exertion and glistening with sweat. Desire warmed my lower belly. I found myself licking my lips at I stared.
Roman caught my eye. He stopped punching and clung to the bag to stop it from swaying. “Sorry, did I wake you?”
I shook my head. “What are you doing up?”
He looked away, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. “I couldn’t sleep.”
I knew him well enough to know that this wasn’t the whole story. Something was bothering him.
“Something on your mind?” I walked into the room towards him, drawn in by his pure masculinity and the intoxicating smell of his sweat mixed with his signature cologne.
He ignored my question, his brows furrowing as he eyed me fully dressed. “Where are you going?” He glanced over to the clock on the wall. “At three in the morning?”
“I got a call from work. They’ve found a body.”
I moved in to kiss him but he avoided my grasp. “I’m sweaty.”
I didn’t care. He obviously did. I frowned at him, my fingers itching to touch him but feeling like for some reason beyond the excuse he’d given me, he didn’t want me to. “Will I see you later?”
He nodded. But he didn’t say when. I turned, a knot building in my stomach, and walked through his apartment towards the front door. Something was wrong. Why wouldn’t he touch me? I had a sudden flash, a premonition, the feeling that a dark star of fate was descending towards us.
“Jules,” I heard as my hand touched the doorknob.
I turned, surprised at how close he was. He’d barely made a sound as he followed me through the apartment. There was something heavy in his eyes. Before I could decipher it, he grabbed my chin with his fingertips and kissed me. His lips were firm, hungry, his kiss swift and heated. If I hadn’t been so surprised I would have moved closer to him, grabbed him, taken the closeness he had deprived me of before.
He pulled away, his fingers lingering on my jaw before they dropped away. “Be careful.”
I studied his face, his dark hooded eyes, his pinched brows, his clenched jaw, trying to uncover the hidden meaning to his words.
I forced a smile. “Always.”
24
____________
Julianna
I slid out of the cab, pulled up along a deserted road on the outskirts of Verona. Response team cars littered the side of the one-lane dirt road, an arthritic fence lining one side, an unkempt field stretching out from the other. The familiar yellow tape fluttered in the early morning breeze.
It was still too dark, sunrise still hours away. Spotlights had been set up, turning pieces of rock into bladed shadows. The forensics team was milling around, their flashlights scanning the ground, taking photos, gathering evidence into bags and plastic containers.
Under a large spotlight, Lacey was crouched over a prone body on the side of the road facing the field. Espo was kneeling by her side, no humor on his face, no flirtation evident. The victim was lying on his stomach, the back of his head a bloody mess of bone and gray matter, the spotlight glistening off the blood like rubies. It was like some twisted gothic stage play. Except this was real, tension strung tight across the dark morning.
Lacey looked up as I approached. The skin around her eyes was stretched and the hollows of her cheekbones seemed more pronounced. She would have been one of the first they called, so she’d have had even less sleep than me. She frowned. “Are you wearing the same clothes from yesterday?”
I flushed. Here we go.
“Oh yeah,” said Espo, amusement in his tone, “someone didn’t go home last night.”
Lacey gave me a surprised look, a flash of hurt underneath it. She and I had gotten close since she started work at the precinct. I should have mentioned a new love interest to her. “Who’s the lucky guy?”
I shrugged, trying very hard to appear nonchalant. All the while my stomach was doing flips. “Just a guy.”
“She won’t give out any details,” Espo said aside to Lacey.
“Really?” she replied.
“Which makes me think there’s something wrong with him.”
Lacey let out a gasp. “Like maybe a hump on his back.”
“Or a peg leg.”
“Or he’s bald.”
I rolled my eyes. “Guys, I’m standing right here.”
“Or,” Espo turned his sharp twinkling eyes towards me, “he’s someone we know and she’s embarrassed.”
I felt the blood drain from my face as Espo’s eyes bored into me; they seemed to tear away every shroud I’d covered my secrets with. For a moment, I wondered if he knew.
I cleared my throat. “I think we should focus on our poor victim rather than my boring love life.” My voice came out tight and higher than I intended.
Lacey and Espo gave each other a conspiratorial look before Lacey turned her attention to the body lying on his stomach. “Hispanic male, mid-thirties, no wallet, no ID, no phone. Found here less than an hour ago by a passing car.” She pointed up the road where two kids, who appeared to be teenagers, were huddled together wrapped in heavy blankets despite the warm summer breeze, staring at the ground. Poor things. Seeing a dead body was not something normal people got used to.
I got a flash of my attacker with the broken neck. I shook it away and kneeled beside the victim. A sharp smell hit my nose. I noticed then the victim appeared to be damp. “Is that...bleach?”
“Ten points to Capi,” Espo said. “Appears our killer tried to clean up after himself.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re so punny.”
“Espo,” Lacey said, “can you help turn him to his side. I just want to check lividity.”
Espo nodded and carefully rolled the victim towards me. My stomach dropped as I stared at his familiar yet bloodied face.
Eddie Sanchez.
One of the men who tried to kidnap me. The one that Roman threatened in that warehouse. The one who gave us the name Goldfish.
“I wanted to kill him.” I remembered Roman’s face as he spoke these words to me, all twisted features etched in black hate.
I swallowed hard and stared at Eddie’s open eyes, the unthinkable rising to the surface of my thoughts no matter how hard I tried to push it away.
Roman Tyrell did not kill Eddie Sanchez. He promised on his mother’s memory that he’d get Eddie to safety.
“Jesus,” Lacey said, “his zipper’s undone. His...thing’s hanging out. Like the poor guy just stopped for a piss.”
“Jules, you okay?” Espo was frowning at me.
“Fine.” I tried to school my features into one of professional distance. No one could know that the victim was one of the men who tried to rape and kidnap me.
“Do you know this guy?”
I shook my head, a little too hard, a little too quickly.
Lacey continued, “COD is a gunshot wound to the back of the head. Execution style. We’ll know more once I get his body back to the morgue. There’s a lot of blood here and lividity is fixed so it’s safe to say that he was shot here.”
“Do you know time of death yet?” I asked. If time of death was last night, then I know Roman couldn’t have done it. He was with me.
“I’m estimating some time two nights ago, but I’ll know more once I get him back to the lab.”
My head spun. That was the night that Roman had supposedly taken Eddie to safety. Roman had come to my apart
ment after he’d dropped Eddie off. But I had no idea what time that had been.
I shoved those thoughts away. No, I told myself firmly. No more of that. Roman Tyrell was not a murderer. He did not kill Eddie Sanchez just like he didn’t kill Vinnie Torrito.
I rode to the station with Espo as the skyline of Verona began to lighten, a great unease sitting like a jumbled ball of live wires in my belly. I pretended like I was taking a quick nap, slumped in the passenger seat, forehead leaning against the window, eyes shut. I could sense that Espo kept glancing over at me.
“So…new boyfriend, huh?”
I sighed internally and opened my eyes. No point in trying to pretend I was asleep.
What would Roman say if he knew someone had called him my “boyfriend”? Was he my boyfriend? It seemed such a juvenile term for what he was to me. “I wouldn’t call him a boyfriend, exactly.”
“Good for you. About time you got a little sumthin’ sumthin’.”
Roman’s fingers sinking into my wet folds…his tongue flicking against my sensitive bud…his thick cock rubbing against the deepest parts of me… I turned my face to look out the window in case Espo could see me flushing.
“Same guy who sent you those roses?”
My flush turned into an ache in my chest. “Yeah.”
“Well, I hope it works out.”
No, you don’t. Not if you knew who it was.
At the station, I excused myself to go to the bathroom. In the privacy of a stall, I dialed Roman’s burner cell he’d kept just for me. With every ring of the dial tone, my unease grew. Come on, pick up.
It rang out.
Dammit, Roman, where are you?
I tried again but there was still no answer.
25
____________
Julianna
Me: Roman, call me when you get this. It’s important.
26
____________
Julianna
Me: Why aren’t you answering my calls? Call me back. It’s urgent.
27
____________
Julianna
Me: Please, Roman. Where are you? Just tell me you’re okay.
28
____________
Julianna
Two days.
It was now two damn days since I’d left Roman that early morning at his secret apartment. I’d had no messages. No missed calls. Not a word from him.
I couldn’t sleep the last two nights. I kept tossing and turning, staring past my open curtains, willing that his familiar figure would darken my window.
He never came.
My stomach was so twisted in knots I couldn’t eat. I just kept thinking that something…something terrible had happened. I could feel it in my twisted gut.
Why wasn’t he answering his phone? Was he hurt? Was he…dead? Wouldn’t I feel it if he’d been ripped away from this earth?
“What’s up, girl?”
I shook myself out of my thoughts. “Huh?”
Lacey stared at me, her thick eyelashes blinking, the fluorescent lights of the morgue causing shadows in the creases of her frown. “Have you even heard a word I said?”
I gave her a sheepish look. “Sorry. Just things on my mind.”
“You don’t say.” She gave me a once-over. “Care to share?”
I shook my head. “It’s nothing. Just tell me what you’ve found out about Eddie.”
Lacey stared at me for a moment longer, lips pressed together. She seemed to be debating whether to push me.
“It’s just personal stuff. Family stuff,” I said quietly.
Lacey nodded, then turned to the body lying on the slab, a large Y-incision stitched up with thick thread making him look like Frankenstein’s monster. I could have hugged her for letting it go so easily.
“See all this bruising?” She pointed to his ribs and cheek. I could almost see Roman’s fists as he made those bruises. “Somebody worked him over pretty good. But the bruising was done hours before death.”
“So it’s possible that whoever beat him up, didn’t kill him,” I said, my heart skipping a little.
Lacey lifted a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Sure. It’s possible.”
My head was already whirring. I bolted out of the morgue calling thanks over my shoulder.
I glanced around me as I sat at my desk. Espo had up and ran off somewhere a few minutes ago after he’d gotten a phone call. No one was paying any attention to me. I opened the phone number tracing software on my computer. It was a risk I was taking. Every search created a history log. But I was desperate.
I typed in Roman’s burner phone number and hit search, my eyes glancing around me as the results triangulated.
The software made a small noise indicating it was done. My eyes slid to the screen. Nothing. The satellite couldn’t locate the phone number. His burner phone was either off or there was no reception wherever he was. Dammit, Roman, where are you? I made a vow to head to his secret apartment tonight after work if I still hadn’t heard from him. If he wasn’t there, I’d go to the Tyrell apartment.
“Capi!” Espo yelled from behind me.
I jolted, closed the trace down on my computer and spun in my seat.
Espo jogged up to me, waving a piece of paper, his face flushed, his eyes bright. He didn’t seem to notice my nervousness nor did he stare at me with suspicion. That was a relief. I pushed away my thoughts over Roman and forced a smile. “You look like you just won the lottery.”
“You know that witness at the gas station?”
I frowned. We’d canvassed the gas stations and convenience stores around the area where Eddie’s body was found. One of the gas stations had turned up a witness who’d claimed he’d seen a car and two men stopping there just before time of death. The security cameras at this gas station were fakes, so no tape. “Yeah?”
“Just got his artist’s sketch.” Espo slammed the paper down on my desk and stabbed at it with a thick finger. “Who does this look like to you?”
My stomach turned over itself, the pencil lines on the artist’s sketch blurring before me. This could not be happening. “Who?” I asked, even though I knew.
Espo leaned in, his eyes glittering with excitement. “Roman Tyrell.”
29
____________
Roman
Two days earlier...
I made the mistake of checking my phone after Julianna had fallen asleep in my bed. I found a message waiting for me.
Giovanni: Tomorrow we have something important to do. Be ready at 6am. Abel will fetch you.
Fetch me. Like I was a stick he liked to throw around. I imagined smashing my phone. I imagined burrowing myself into Julianna so deep that he’d never find me. I imagined disappearing into the far corners of the earth; all I’d need was Julianna by my side.
Only she’d never run with me, she’d made that much clear. Verona was her home. Who the hell was I to her?
Tomorrow we have something important to do.
These words filled me with a cold dread. Whatever it was that my father had planned, it would not be good. Our father-son outings ended in guns drawn or someone dead. Each time a little bit more of me blackened. Each time a little more of me became accustomed to his brand of “justice”. I could sense Darkness lay waiting for me, softly laughing, fingernails clicking.
I couldn’t sleep after that. My mind folded over and over, arguing for me, against me. The cold truth frosted over my heart as the cold dawn crept ever closer. I couldn’t escape who I was.
“Something on your mind?”
I turned away from my boxing bag to find Julianna standing at the door to my gym. Shit. I hadn’t meant to wake her. Then I noticed she was dressed. “Where are you going? At three in the morning?” I couldn’t help the accusation in my voice.
“I got a call from work. They’ve found a body.”
Today she would be solving a crime. Today I would be committing one. The reminder of how different we were slid into my gut, inje
cting me with self-loathing. She tried to hold me but I pushed her hands away. She didn’t deserve my filth on her clean skin. “I’m sweaty,” I grunted, like the creature I was.
A small crease appeared between her brows. “Will I see you later?”
I remembered my hands, the blood under my fingernails after the night I shot Vinnie Torrito. I remember the foul, wretched creature I had morphed into afterwards. Whatever my father was going to have me do today would be worse; I could feel it. I could not let her see me afterwards. Not until I had pulled myself together. Not until I had scraped the remaining gentle, warm pieces of me back into place, patting them down like pieces of clay to cover back up the rotten black core. I said nothing, promised her nothing.
I watched her face fall, her pain evident from my cold dismissal. Didn’t she realize how bound I was to her? She had me. She ruled me. Couldn’t she see that it was all for her? It was so painfully obvious to me.
I couldn’t let her walk away with doubt in her heart.
I went after her. “Jules.”
She turned, her hand on the doorknob. I grabbed her chin, tilting her face up to meet my crushing lips. The growing sense of doom sizzled like a poison in my blood. I kissed her as if her lips held the antidote to death. I kissed her as if it was the last time. I had only borrowed her. One day soon I would lose her.
Julianna froze, perhaps shocked at the desperate turnabout of my attention. I wanted to roar and beat my chest, lock her away here with me and never let her out of my sight. That would be the only way I could protect her.
You can’t protect her. Just like you couldn’t protect Mama.
I let go of her before I scared her any further. Before I scared myself with the violence of my desperation. “Be careful,” I said, trying not to let fear creep into my voice.