by Sienna Blake
“That’s not true.”
“How do you know he didn’t hire those men himself to attack you so that he could swoop in and play the hero?”
His words slapped me hard across my face.
“What did he get you to do for him in return, huh? Did he ask you to throw the case on Vinnie?”
“No,” I said in horror.
“Did you tamper with evidence?”
“How could you even ask me that?” My gut curled with indignation.
“I don’t know. Maybe because my own fucking daughter just told me she was in love with a fucking criminal.”
My hands, reaching so hard for that dream where my two worlds coexisted, faltered then dropped uselessly by my sides, drained of hope. My father would never accept Roman Tyrell, not in a million years. There could never be a world where the two men I loved most walked on either side of me. In turning to one, I rejected the other. In loving one, I hurt the other. I could not have them both; they would not let me.
My father leaned in, thrusting his finger in my face. “You tell me right now, who shot Espinoza?”
I stared over his weighted brows, his lips pressed thin, the glare in his eyes daring me not to answer.
It came out barely a whisper. “I didn’t see.”
His finger dropped. Disappointment rolled off him, weighing down the corners of his mouth. “Hand over your badge.”
“Dad—”
“Badge. And your gun.”
I unclipped the shield and holster from their positions on my belt. I had worked so hard to get them. I had fought sexism and accusations of nepotism. Now I was throwing it all away.
My father snatched them from me. “Now, get out of my sight.”
Somehow, it still felt like the right thing to do.
* * *
I shouldn’t be here. Even as I tried to walk as silently as possible, my heels still made soft clacking noises against the sterile laminate floor. I kept my head down, avoiding eye contact, walking assuredly as if I was supposed to be here.
I entered the morgue, silent and empty of living beings. Espinoza was lying partly under a white sheet on one of the tables. My step faltered when I spotted him. The only way I was able to keep walking was to focus on my shaky breath.
In.
Out.
In.
I clutched at the metal table as I stood near his head. His usually tanned skin was so pale. So damn pale that I could see the veins on his eyelids. Even his smart-ass mouth was starkly white against the stubble on his strong jaw.
“Oh, Espo,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.” Wetness rolled down my cheek.
“What are you doing here?” A voice came from behind me.
I spun, wiping my face. Lacey was standing at the doorway to the morgue, dressed in scrubs. She looked tired, her eyes red-rimmed from crying. Like mine were.
“I just wanted to see him. To see… To say goodbye.”
After a pause, Lacey nodded and walked up to my side. We stood there, two people mourning over a friend, over a good man, who we both cared about.
I’d been hoping that coming here would give me some kind of closure. I was hoping to ask for forgiveness, strange as it was. I knew Espo couldn’t hear me anymore. I knew he was gone. I had to find some kind of way to make peace with what I’d decided to do.
“Did you do the autopsy?” I asked quietly. I hoped not. I hoped they didn’t make her do it.
She shook her head. “Dr. Carmichael.”
I nodded. Dr. Carmichael was a medical examiner who worked the night shift. He and Espo had little contact. Performing Espo’s autopsy would have been easier for him. “Did he find anything?”
“I don’t think that’s something I can discuss with you,” she said, her voice turning frosty. She glared at me out of the corner of her eye.
My blood chilled. A single flare of anger attempted to take off—I thought friends were supposed to take friends’ sides—but it fell to earth like a kite that wouldn’t catch the wind. I couldn’t blame her for acting this way towards me. She and Espo had been close too. I knew she’d even had a small crush on Espo, despite her hesitance at his playboyish ways.
“I should go.” I turned towards the exit.
Lacey grabbed my arm and spun me to face her. Her face was creased with blame, her eyes shiny with anger, her lip trembling. “Why won’t you tell them who did it?”
More apologies jammed up into a knot at my throat. Soon I would choke on them.
“Without your testimony, we have nothing,” she went on, her voice becoming more harried, more agitated. “Espo’s murderer gets away with it.”
“I’m sorry,” I finally managed to say.
Lacey’s face hardened and her gaze went to something over my shoulder. “I’m sorry too.”
A firm hand rested on my shoulder and I turned. Two officers in their shiny blue uniforms had been sent to escort me out. I recognized the officer with his hand on me as Detective Pierce. There was an almost sorry look in his cornflower blue eyes. He was just doing his job, even if he didn’t like it. Beside him was a new male officer whose name I couldn’t remember.
“Ms. Capulet,” Pierce addressed me. His formal tone struck me. He usually called me Capi just like Espo did. Had. Just like Espo had done. He’d never call me Capi again.
I realized Pierce was still talking to me. “You are not allowed to be here under your current suspension. I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to escort you out.”
Oh.
Right.
I didn’t fight them as they led me out, up past the ground floor desks and the reception area. As I passed, the voices hushed around me. Heads turned. I felt the weight of every pair of eyes staring at me. Passing judgment on me, even without knowing the full story. Some of them were openly scowling at me, soft four-letter words uttered deliberately just within earshot. As if I had been the one to pull the trigger.
Now I truly understood how Roman felt.
16
____________
Julianna
“What do I do, Nora?” I begged her. I was lying on my side, curled up on the covers of my bed.
Tell me. What do I do?
Nora sat by my side, brushing my hair from my forehead as if I were a sick child. I had told her everything. Confessed everything. The things I knew were too big, too swollen to keep inside me. I’d burst if I did.
I was so twisted up in my thoughts, like rope around my body, that I could not see a way to untangle myself. I could not cut my way out.
Should I hate Roman for killing my friend? My friend that would have killed him, the man I love. Or should I vilify my partner, who killed Roman’s friend? If I wished that Espinoza were still alive, it would be wishing Roman dead. Roman’s death would mean a death of me, too. How could I give thanks that Roman lived if Espinoza was dead?
Nora took my hand and patted it. “The only question you need to ask yourself is…how much do you love him?”
“What does love have to do with anything?”
“Love has everything to do with everything.”
I pushed myself up to sitting and sniffed. “I don’t understand.”
Nora smiled. “My girl.” She wiped my cheeks. “Love forgives. Love accepts. If you love Roman, truly love him…go to him.”
“But he’s gone.” I sent him away. Why did I send the keeper of my heart away? Why did I banish my only joy?
Nora gripped me with a strength that I didn’t know she had. “Then don’t stop looking until you find him.”
17
____________
Roman
It was late, very late. The cathedral was locked when I arrived. But locked doors had never deterred me.
I had received a lock-picking kit from my father when I had turned fifteen. He told me I had one week to learn how to open any door or I’d be sorry. Exactly one week later my father locked me in the basement without food, water or light and told me the only way I was getting out was by my
own skill. Turns out that fear was a very useful learning incentive.
I was here because I had nowhere else to go. I wouldn’t seek refuge with my father. No doubt he had heard what I’d done and was scouring the city looking for me. Perhaps part of me was waiting to get caught.
I sat in one of the pews. The large wooden Jesus stared down at me from his eternal place of suffering. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but he gazed at me with such pity, or perhaps the few candles I had lit about the empty church caused the deep shadows around his eyes. Fuck your pity.
I turned my head and found a pillar closest to me carved with an image of Satan, his face monstrous and warping as if it were melting wax. Here was a figure I could relate to.
“Roman? Is that you?”
I didn’t have to turn to know that Father Laurence had entered the main section of the cathedral. I must have woken him.
I said nothing. I didn’t have the strength even to hold my own head up under all this crushing guilt. Under all the tormented chants of if only…
Father Laurence slipped into the pew beside me, dressed in striped pajamas and slippers. He placed a warm hand on my shoulder. “Talk to me, my son.”
I confessed everything. I had no strength to hold it all in. My guards were down, my will wrecked upon the rocks of fate. I told him about Julianna, about the duel, then about what had happened to bring me here. Even as I spoke, some of the heaviness lifted, but still the guilt remained.
I’d shot a man out of fury. I’d killed him out of pure revenge. This was worse than any death I’d dealt before, because no one had forced me to pull the trigger that severed a man’s connection to this Earth. Not just any man. Julianna’s friend.
And Mercutio… My heart twisted in agony every time I thought of him. He had been innocent in all of this. He died to save my wretched life. Why couldn’t he have just let me take that stupid bullet? Of the two of us, I deserved it a thousand times more than he did. If he’d just let me take that bullet as punishment, I wouldn’t have had to kill a man to avenge him.
“Oh, Roman,” Father Laurence breathed. “I am so sorry.”
“Pity Mercutio. Pity Espinoza. But do not pity me. I don’t deserve it.” I stared at the sculpted pillar of the ultimate sinner. “I am no better than Satan himself,” I said, quietly.
The Father was silent for a long time. Then he hummed to himself and leaned back in the pew, folding his hands over in his lap. “Do you know what Satan’s only mistake was?” he said.
“Going against God, being an evil bastard, that about sum it up?”
“It was not his rebellion or his wickedness that was his mistake.”
“Really? They seem like pretty big mistakes.”
If my sarcasm affected the Father he didn’t show it. His demeanor remained calm and steady. “His only mistake was to believe that God would not forgive him.”
Father’s words settled on my skin like a fresh layer of snow. It began to melt and seep in slowly, like the end of winter.
I shook my head, not ready to hope that I could be forgiven. “By now I should be a wanted man. I’ll leave before I force you into an uncomfortable situation.” It was the Father’s moral duty to call the police, even if the law protected my confession to him. I couldn’t hate him for turning me in. Just like I couldn’t hate Julianna for eventually speaking the truth about what I did.
Father Laurence patted my hand resting on the back of the pew in front of me. “You will always have a safe place here, Roman. Come, you must be tired.”
I stared at Father Laurence as he stood and slipped out of the pew. He couldn’t possibly mean to help me. He looked back at me and motioned for me to follow him.
“You’d be harboring a criminal,” I said, still stunned at his benevolent intentions.
“Roman Tyrell, all men are sinners. All men are thus equal in the eyes of the Lord.”
I still couldn’t stand.
He walked back to me. “Come,” he repeated softly as he pulled me to my feet. “Things have a habit of looking more hopeful after a good night’s sleep.”
* * *
Father Laurence set me up in a spare room up in the tower of the church. It was simply furnished with a small bed and rug, a tiny toilet in an adjacent room. I lay upon this bed with a thin pillow under my head. The pre-dawn light was still minutes away from lighting up the stained glass windows, so all was dark except for a single candle I’d kept lit by my side. I was already drowning in darkness; I could not stand to be consumed by the night. I was very much alone except for the ghosts of all the men I’d sent to their deaths. I was not a superstitious man, but something about the vaulted ceiling that rose above me—or perhaps it was the ghost of tears and cold finality that clung to the gray stone walls—made me feel as if I were lying at the base of my own tomb.
A knock sounded on the door.
I sat up, thankful for the reprise from my sour self-pity. “Come in, Father.”
The door creaked open. A figure, much too short to be Father Laurence, stepped into the small room and closed the door.
“Jules…” I stood, my heart jamming against the back of my throat and wrapping around my spine. If I weren’t already standing with the backs of my calves against the bed, I would have stumbled back farther, knocked off my feet at the sight of her.
She was an angel in a dark hooded sweater and jeans, the lit candle she was holding brushing a warm radiance about her face, making her whiskey eyes glow like amber. “I came to speak to Father Laurence. He told me you were here.”
The good Father did give me up after all. “Have you come to arrest me? I’ll go peacefully.”
Her mouth sprang open. “I didn’t tell them it was you.”
What? “Why? I am guilty.”
She lifted her chin, her honey hair falling over her shoulders to frame her face. “If you are guilty, then so am I.”
“You? Guilty?” I couldn’t believe her words. Her only guilt was caring too much for me.
“If I’d only told Espinoza about you, about us, he wouldn’t have fired.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I am as much to blame as you.”
I shook my head, disbelief making me lightheaded. “If you’re not here to arrest me, then…why are you here?” She was risking her reputation by being here.
“Could you…?” She stepped farther into the room, then hesitated.
“Could I what?”
“Could you find it in your heart to forgive me?”
Forgive her? My head spun so hard I was nearly forced to my knees. “Forgive you…” I could barely get the words out, they were so absurd, “for what?”
“The way I sent you away… What I said to you…” She chewed on her beautiful bottom lip, sending a curl of warmth through me.
“Leave now,” she hissed. “Leave Verona. Go where you’ll never be found. Because the next time I see you, I will bring you in.”
She was here asking for…of all things…my forgiveness, when I should be begging for hers.
“I’d just shot your partner, your friend.” I took a step towards her, partly testing her reaction to my proximity, partly because it physically hurt to be in a room with her and not get closer. “Your reaction was angelic considering the circumstances.”
“He’d just killed your best friend.” She matched my step. “Your reaction was…understandable considering the circumstances.”
She didn’t hate me. Through my darkness, a ray of light appeared. I could scarcely dare to hope. “Do you think…” Dare I ask? “Do you think…you could ever forgive me?” I kept closing the space between us, desperate to hear the answer and yet terrified of it too.
“That is what love does. Forgives the unforgivable.”
My head spun at her words. Could she still love me? After all I had done? “You still l…” I trailed off. I felt so undeserving even to speak the word.
“Still love you? Yes.” She lifted her chin, her features stained with
sorrow. And yet there, on her face, was everything I’d ever wanted but never deserved. Forgiveness, openness, love. I took it because I could not believe my luck. I took it because I could not do anything else.
I claimed her mouth. I stole her breath into my lungs and let it bring me back to life. I crushed her against me like I could drag her into my body. Her tiny fingers curled into my shirt and she pressed up against the heart that only beat for her. This was my saving grace; that I was good enough to love her.
I promised to God, from that moment on, I would do everything in my power to be the man she deserved. To be the man she saw in me. To be the man who deserved her love. Even if it took a whole lifetime.
18
____________
Julianna
We lay under a blanket, naked, squashed together on the bed that barely fit the two of us. I was sated and warm and happier in this tomb-like room with Roman by my side than anywhere else without him. The dawn began to spill into the room. We would have to face the world soon. But not yet.
“Why did you break up with me?” I traced his hard, muscled chest with my finger.
He stiffened. “Does it matter?”
“It does to me. You’re still engaged to her.”
“Rosaline,” he growled under his breath.
I gave him silence, the space to speak. He inhaled long and loud before he spoke. “Rosaline knew about you. She said she saw me leaving my apartment late one night and followed me. I led her straight to you,” he said through gritted teeth.
I traced his jaw and it softened.
Roman turned his dark eyes towards me with a look so intense that my breath caught in my throat. “First, she threatened to come clean about her lies as my alibi. When that didn’t work, she threatened to expose you if I didn’t marry her. I couldn’t let her ruin you.”
I knew there was a reason. I just thought it had been his father who had forced him into a sham of a marriage. I made a face. “So you broke up with me instead of talking to me about it.”