Hanging in the Stars: A Mafia Romance (Dark Romeo Book 3) Page 4

  “I don’t know if he told you but he…” I hesitated. How much of our relationship did Mercutio know about? I chose to play it safe. “Roman and I don’t exactly talk anymore.”

  “Just call him. Talk to him.”

  “He won’t listen to me.” I said, my voice coming out flustered. I wanted to help, but Mercutio was kidding himself if he thought that a call from me was going to convince Roman not to do such a stupid thing. He always did what he damn well wanted. “We didn’t exactly leave things on good terms.”

  “He still…still cares about you.”

  That was a lie. Why would he break up with me? Why would he say those horrible things to me?

  “Please,” Mercutio said, “he is the only brother I’ve ever known. I know he can be an asshole at times…”

  I snorted.

  Mercutio gave me a wry half-smile. “Ok, he can be an asshole most of the time, but he doesn’t deserve to die alone at the hand of the Veronesis. And he will die if you don’t do something.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Could I put my pride aside?

  My mind sent me an image of Roman on the ground, bleeding out, reaching for me. “Jules…” his voice croaking before his eyes went dead. My heart seized. Mercutio was right. I couldn’t just sit here and do nothing. I had to try. Even if I was the last person he’d ever want to hear from. I couldn’t live with myself if I did nothing.

  I grabbed my bag, rummaging through it for my phone. My phone, where was it?

  Dammit. My phone. I must have left it at work.

  Shit shit shit.

  “Where’s your phone,” I demanded of Mercutio. I grabbed it from him and called Roman. I’d say anything. I’d beg, if that’s what he needed to hear.

  Come on, Roman. Pick up.

  It went to voice mail. My heart clenched when I heard Roman’s voice asking me to leave a message.

  Shit.

  I hung up and turned to Mercutio. His face was drawn, tension pulling his jaw tight. “He won’t pick up.” I handed his phone back to him. “We have to go stop them.”

  Mercutio winced as he glanced at the clock on my wall. “We won’t get there in time.”

  “Where is this duel taking place?”

  “Dead Man’s Alley, Little Italy.”

  Dead Man’s Alley. Shit. That place was dark, the buildings around it abandoned with plenty of places to hide. Dante could have snipers hidden anywhere. Walking into that with just Mercutio and me would be suicide. We needed help. We needed backup. I gritted my teeth. It meant doing something that Roman would hate me for later. Better that he hates me than him being dead.

  “We can stop this duel in time if we call for backup.” I lunged for my cordless phone sitting on my counter.

  “No,” cried Mercutio. He grabbed my hand, stopping me from dialing. “No cops.”

  “I am a cop.”

  “No other cops.”

  “Merc,” I called him by the nickname I’d heard Roman call him, “if you want to save Roman, we need help. It’s too dangerous to do it alone.”

  Mercutio shook his head and swore. “I knew I shouldn’t have come to you.”

  “Merc, we are running out of time. Do you want Roman to live or not?”

  He let out a curse. “He’s going to kill me…”

  Us. He’s going to kill us for getting the cops involved. Better angry than dead. “At least he’ll be alive to kill us.”

  He let go of my hand so I could dial. “You do what you need to do.”

  I chewed my lip as the number rang, hoping to hell I was making the right decision.

  My father picked up on the second ring.

  I didn’t stop to chat. “There’s going to be a duel between the Tyrells and the Veronesis in Little Italy in less than an hour.”

  “Where did you hear this from?”

  “A source. We need to send a team there now to stop it from becoming a bloodbath.”

  “A source?”

  I withheld an exasperated noise. “A reliable source. Dad, we need to move on this now. I need a minimum of four units.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the phone. “I thought there was a truce going on between them.”

  “Obviously it didn’t hold.” Why was he taking so long to agree to send backup?

  “Dead Man’s Alley in Little Italy, you said?”

  “Yes.” Finally.

  “It’s abandoned there. Just a bunch of empty buildings overlooking the alley. No restaurants or commercial spots around the place.”

  “Yeah?” Mercutio was frowning at me with a look on his face like, what’s taking so long. I turned my back on him. “So?”

  “No innocents will be injured in the crossfire.”

  “The Tyrells and the Veronesis will kill each other if we don’t stop them.”

  “Perhaps that’s for the best.”

  “What? What the hell are you talking about, Dad?”

  There was a pause. A long, heavy pause where I held my breath, the hairs on my arm raising as the anticipation built. He sighed as if I was being slow. “Sometimes,” he said laboring over each word, “you have to know when to hold back, Julu. Sometimes you have to let nature take its course.”

  Blood drained from my face. What the actual fuck? “Dad, you’re just going to sit back and send who knows how many men to their deaths?”

  “They are criminals, not men. And I am not sitting back. I am allocating resources.”

  “You have to send backup now.”

  “I do not have the luxury of reallocating uniforms to stop a bloodbath between criminals when I have innocent people who need their attention more.”

  Tears stung my eyes. My father— my own father—was going to let Roman die, a man I knew was good, because of all the bad ones. “One unit. Give me one.”

  “I’ll send a unit there later to pick up the pieces of whoever is left.”

  My stomach coiled into a tight spring of resolve. Screw him. He might not send anyone to help. But I wasn’t going to stand by and let this injustice happen. “Fine. Then I’m going in there by myself.”

  “Julianna, don’t you—”

  I slammed down the phone, a prickly heat underneath my skin like a rash. I couldn’t believe it. My own father.

  I turned to Mercutio, who was staring at me in despair. He wouldn’t have been able to hear what my father said, but he would have gotten the gist of it based on my reaction. “We’re fucked, aren’t we?”

  It wasn’t over until it was over. “I have an idea, but it might get bloody.”

  Something passed between us. I saw the deep love he had for Roman mirrored on his face. And I knew that we were both prepared to die for him.

  Mercutio nodded.

  I grabbed my car keys. “Let’s go.”

  9

  ____________

  Espinoza

  Something rang out in Espinoza’s car, a soft musical tone. He frowned as he accelerated through a green light. That was not his ringtone. It wasn’t his phone ringing.

  It sounded like it was coming from his passenger seat. Espo wondered for the moment whether he should stop the car and find it.

  He could do it when he got to Desiree’s apartment. He didn’t want to keep her waiting. She’d sent a rather racy detailed message of what she wanted to do to him. The ringing had stopped anyway, silence filling up the car.

  Too silent.

  For a second the dull hollowness in his chest had a chance to step out into the fore. Desiree was beautiful, but she wasn’t really someone he could talk to. Not like Lacey. Smart, funny Lacey, who was so easy to make blush. Smart, funny Lacey, who would run if she knew the past he kept buried.

  The phone started ringing again, cutting through his thoughts. He frowned. Whoever dropped their phone in his car must be desperate to get it back. Espo sighed and pulled over to the side of the road. What was the bet this was some girl’s phone she’d deliberately “dropped” in his car to make sure he called her again? It wasn’t
the first time one of them had done something like that.

  You’re such a cynic, Espo.

  He got out of his car and walked around to the passenger’s side. It had begun to ring again when he grasped the slim phone that had fallen down the side of the seat.

  It was Julianna’s phone. There was the small chip along the back where she dropped it that time at a crime scene, almost hitting the corpse on the head. She must have dropped it again tonight when he was taking her home.

  He turned the screen over and was surprised to see the caller was “Dad”.

  The chief.

  Espinoza hit answer.

  “Don’t you dare go after them yourself,” the familiar voice roared from the speaker.

  “Chief?” Espo asked.

  There was a pause. “Espinoza?”

  “Julianna dropped her phone in my car.”

  The chief swore. “Espinoza, you’ve got to stop her. I called her back on her home phone, but she didn’t answer.” The desperation in his voice tugged at Espo. He’d never heard the chief sound like this.

  Espinoza’s blood turned to ice as he listened to what Julianna was about to do. Throwing herself in between the Tyrells and the Veronesis! He knew something had been off with her for the last few months. He should have listened to his gut. He should have gone with her to her apartment for dinner from Ming’s. Now she was acting crazy. Practically suicidal.

  He had promised to look out for Capi when they had first been partnered, but he didn’t count on how much he’d grow to like her. She’d practically become like a little sister to him. It wasn’t about his duty anymore. If anything happened to her…

  “I’m on my way.” Espo sprinted to the driver’s seat and slammed his foot on the accelerator before his door was even closed. “I won’t let anything happen to her, I swear.”

  10

  ____________

  Roman

  The present…

  They say your life flashes before your eyes during those cold, stark moments just before death. Instead of my life, I saw the faces of those who had been cursed to love me. Proof that the money you wasted or hoarded, the women you fucked, the parties that had you drinking and dancing until dawn meant nothing, reduced to ghosts and ashes before life’s ultimate humbler. I had convinced myself I needed no one. How funny that at the end of it, the ones you have are all that matters.

  Bullets chiseled the flimsy crates that I hid behind into splinters. The faces of those who had imprinted onto my soul haunted me like the ghost I would soon become. How clear things were now. I saw every lost chance for me to tell them what they meant to me, shining like fallen gems. I saw how I had pushed them away instead of pulling them closer. Stupid, Roman. If only you hadn’t wasted your time on Earth.

  I shot out wildly over the side of the crates. A barrage of bullets was immediately returned. With my back against the crate, my hope running out, I sent out the last messages I wished I’d been able to deliver in person, hoping that somehow my silent thoughts reached them.

  My mother. I’m sorry I wasn’t a braver son.

  Nonna and Mercutio. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you these last eight years.

  And…Julianna. My perfect Julianna, her honey-hair and angel’s soul shining brightly in my mind. My heart twisted with regret most for her.

  I’m sorry I hurt you.

  I’m sorry I lied.

  I’m sorry I couldn’t deserve you.

  I’d spent my entire lifetime running away from the people that mattered because I had been afraid to lose them. I would lose them anyway. I almost laughed out loud. Hindsight can be cruel in her clarity.

  But no matter. I wouldn’t feel a thing soon. Even my regret would soon be dust and ash.

  I fired another shot and crouched back behind the crates. Shit. I was running out of bullets. Only half a dozen left in my last clip. I wasn’t going to hold them off for much longer.

  “Police,” a loud female voice commanded from behind me. “Nobody move.”

  Bullets start shooting towards this newcomer. I heard a curse from behind me. Then a return fire. For a few terse seconds the lady cop and I fired together at the Veronesis. I almost felt like we were on the same side.

  Now that I had backup, I could get off a few more accurate shots. I heard a cry and knew I had managed to hit one of them.

  Someone must have called the cops. Or more likely, an unlucky beat cop was patrolling the area and heard the gunfire. You should have called for backup, sweetheart. We’re both dead now.

  Headlights suddenly flooded the alleyway from behind Dante. I squinted as my eyes adjusted to the ghostly light. A police siren began to wail, the flicker of red and blue lights reflecting off the glass windows. Someone had called the cops. The police car accelerated straight through the alleyway with a squeal of tires.

  Dante and his men scattered, running like rats from the sudden attack, just a blur of silhouettes to my eyes. They darted into dark hidden doorways in the abandoned buildings around us.

  The car kept gunning forward towards me. Shit! I sprinted aside to the closest doorway in the wall of the alley. The damn thing was locked. Even as I kicked the metal enclosure, it would not yield. I was going to be hit. There wasn’t enough room.

  An awful skidding noise tore through my ears as the car braked to a halt, meters from me. The mist swirled up around the headlights. The sirens cut off, the red and blue lights still flickering. The silence was deafening. The driver did not move to get out.

  “Hands up where I can see them, Roman,” the lady cop yelled from behind me.

  My heart gave out a kick. That voice. The way she spoke my name.

  I turned slowly, my breath held in anticipation, my hands in the air. It couldn’t be Julianna. It was just my mind thinking she sounded like Jules, a byproduct of my desire to see her. You’ll see, idiot. You’ll have been busted by a beat cop who looks nothing like Jules.

  I squinted through the dark at the lithe figure pointing a gun at me. Julianna Capulet. My stomach turned to lead.

  She strode towards me. Despite the figures I knew must be hiding in the darkness, watching from their safe hiding places, I felt like she and I were alone.

  “Jules?”

  “Shut up,” she hissed. She grabbed my arm and spun me, digging her gun into my back. She pulled my gun from my hand and I let her. But she didn’t cuff me. “Move.”

  She steered me towards the car. I squinted as we got closer to the harsh glare of the headlights. That must be Espinoza in the driver’s seat. Why wasn’t he getting out to help her? Where were the other police?

  Julianna nudged me with her gun. “Get in the back.”

  I stared around us. No other cops. No other cars. “Where are the other police?”

  She cursed under her breath.

  “Jesus Christ, Roman,” I heard a male voice mutter from the darkness, “do you ever just do what you’re told?” That voice, I knew that voice.

  The figure stepped out of the driver’s seat. That wasn’t Espinoza. I squinted harder.

  I blinked hard at him. “Merc? What are you doing here?”

  “Saving your ungrateful ass.” Merc glanced around us nervously. “Now hurry up and get in the damn car.”

  When had he started working for the police? Was he…undercover? Had he been hiding this from me all this time? But where are the other cops?

  “What are you—?” I broke off when the realization slammed into me. Merc wasn’t working for the cops. This hadn’t been a police raid. Mercutio must have gone to Julianna, told her about the duel I had stupidly instigated and somehow convinced her to help him. They had concocted a plan to save me. She had stood in the line of fire for me. He had driven a car straight through the middle of the Veronesis for me.

  My head spun. What if she had been hurt? Shot? Or killed because of me? What if the Veronesis had shot at Mercutio driving the car instead of fleeing? I would have never forgiven myself. I’d rather I’d died at Dante’s han
d than have them risk their lives in such a reckless way.

  I spun around towards Julianna, causing her to let go of my arm behind my back. I was so angry I wanted to smash my fist into a wall. She had risked her life saving mine. Why? Why would she come here?

  “I never asked for your help,” I growled.

  Her face fell but any guilt I might have felt was crushed under the tempest of my rage. They shot at her. Dante and his men fucking shot. At. Her.

  They weren’t here for me to vent my murderous rage.

  Mercutio. Mercutio had forced her to come. How? He must have blackmailed her. The idiot would do anything for me. Even taint his precious morals to save my unworthy ass.

  “You,” I spun towards Mercutio, fists curled tightly, ready to take out my anger on him. “You brought her here.”

  “Get in the car,” Julianna grabbed my arm, forcing my attention back to her. Her touch burned me right to my blackened soul. She slid her gun into her holster. “We can argue about this later.”

  Later. Later would be the smart thing to do. But my anger was raging now. It needed a target. Like fast-flowing lava will cut a path down the side of the mountain, my rage would not be denied its path to hell.

  I grabbed her shoulders, shaking her. She could have died. She could have been hurt, drummed through me like a war chant. “Why did you come?”

  Her face cracked. She didn’t think I wanted her here. She didn’t think I was happy to see her. She didn’t know that it had been her face I wanted to see more than anything when I thought I was going to die.

  She recklessly put herself into danger for me. She wasn’t supposed to risk her life for me. I was supposed to do that for her. What use was I otherwise?

  She pushed at my arms, trying to unlock my grasp, but my hands just tightened on her. I was vaguely aware that I was holding on to her just a little too tightly. “Why the fuck did you come here?” I repeated.

  “What the fuck do you think you were doing challenging Dante Veronesi to a duel?” Something between a sob and a cry tore out of her. “You could have been killed. What would that do to Nonna, to Mercutio, to me?”