Hanging in the Stars: A Mafia Romance (Dark Romeo Book 3) Page 8

  “You want proof?”

  Did I? I nodded, slowly.

  “$7,275, Nemo’s Furniture Removals, the thirtieth of August.”

  “What’s that supposed to be?”

  “It’s how much the contract was, who it was paid to and the date it was paid. Find the corresponding payment on your father’s bank statement, you have your proof. Now,” he held out a hand, “may I have my cane back?” I threw the cane to him and he caught it. “I’ll tell you one more thing before I go, shall I?”

  I nodded.

  “The contract is still open.” He saluted me with his cane, then turned to walk away. “Happy fishing.”

  The contract is still open.

  My blood turned to ice. They were still after Julianna.

  We had to get out of here, tonight.

  20

  ____________

  Julianna

  I slipped out of my apartment building as dusk was approaching. I’d spent longer there than I had planned. Nora wouldn’t let me go, squeezing my neck like she was a child, sniffling into my collar. I pushed away a pang of sadness for the life I would be leaving behind.

  The thought of Roman soothed the ache. He was my life now. He was more than I ever expected for myself. I could always sneak back to visit her.

  A few leaves flew past me, whipping my hair up. Now to just find a cab. It was peak hour and an available cab would be hard to find. Perhaps if I walked it would be quicker.

  A taxi turned the corner towards me. That was lucky. I hailed it and jumped inside the warm interior. It seemed fresh out of the box, unmarked leather seats and the plastic divider behind the driver had hardly a scratch on it. From the back seat, I only had a view of the cabbie’s dark hair, a dark blue cap pulled low.

  “Waverley Cathedral, please.”

  The cab driver nodded and pulled away from the curb. I watched the city that I grew up in slide past my window, recognizing the familiar streets and shops with a nostalgic pang. Soon, everything would be new: new city, new streets, new life. I found myself missing my mother. She would have understood. She knew what it was to love deeply. She would have urged me to go, she would have accepted Roman. I know she would have. Not like my father. A seed of bitterness rooted in my stomach. He would never understand. He would never accept Roman and me.

  The taxi took a wrong turn into a deserted alleyway. I frowned. Where was he going? I knocked on the plastic divider. “Excuse me? This isn’t the way to Waverley Cathedral.”

  The mechanical locks on the doors clicked like a gunshot. A voice crackled through the small speakers on the side of the cab. “Afraid we’re not going there, Miss Capulet.”

  My blood froze in my veins.

  A low hiss grew into a loud one as a white smoke filled the back of the cab, stinging my eyes. I held my breath and struggled with the door. This wasn’t working. I spun to my side and kicked at the glass. Break, damn you, break. I could hear the cab driver laughing through the crackle. I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. I gulped in sweet medicinal-smelling air. My head spun. Black spots flickered in front of my eyes. I couldn’t pass out. I wouldn’t. I just had to break this window…

  My legs grew weak. The edges of my vision closed in.

  I just had to—

  Everything went black.

  21

  ____________

  Roman

  Julianna still wasn’t here. I paced the small room at Waverley Cathedral, grabbing my hair. It was almost nine p.m. She still hadn’t arrived back. She was supposed to be here hours ago. I tried calling her several times, my fingers stabbing the keys on my new burner phone, but her cell phone had been turned off. I was about to go insane. My heart tore itself to pieces with helpless worry. Something had gone wrong. Terribly wrong. What was the bet my father had something to do with this.

  I couldn’t wait here any longer.

  Outside Julianna’s apartment, I sat in the black sedan I’d stolen. It was supposed to have been our getaway car, the back packed with a few clothes, enough food and bottled water for our drive out of here.

  Her apartment was dark. Too dark. Not a soul stirred inside. Still, I had to be sure. I slipped out of the car and locked it behind me. In the side alley, I took a run up and leapt for the bottom rung of the fire escape. I caught it, pulling myself up, before making my way up the rickety ladders to her apartment. I peered through her bedroom window into the gloom – she wasn’t home. No one was.

  I slid around the building, jumping from ledge to ledge until I got to the single window at the end of the corridor on Julianna’s floor. I found the window unlocked, thank God. I pushed it open and slid inside. It was getting late but I didn’t care. I knocked on Nora’s door, my fist reverberating through the wood. My anxiousness caused me to hammer on it too hard.

  I heard a call from inside, “Hang on a damn second.”

  Hurry up, Nora. There were no seconds to lose.

  Nora opened her door, her robe tied around her waist. Her features went from surprise into a frown. “Roman, what are you doing here?”

  “Did you see Julianna?”

  “Yes, but she left a few hours ago. To meet you.”

  Shit. The blood drained from my limbs. Cold fear took root in my gut. “She never made it.”

  Shit shit shit.

  Somewhere between here and Waverley Cathedral, Julianna had disappeared.

  22

  ____________

  Roman

  In the silence of my car, I pulled out my phone and rang a number that I had memorized. A contact I only called in emergencies. A number that I always deleted from the phone memory after I used it.

  “I thought I told you never to call me again,” a female’s voice said through the phone, no humor to her tone.

  “It’s an emergency,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “It always is with you.”

  “Goddammit, D, I don’t have time to chit-chat.”

  She tsked. “Alright already. Calm your farm.”

  I shoved down the frustrated curt response about to lash off the tip of my tongue. Control yourself, Roman. Yelling at D was not going to get Jules back. “I need you to check something in the Tyrell accounts.”

  “The Tyrells have a number of accounts.”

  “Check all of them.”

  “All of them?”

  “I have an amount and a date. Check all of them.”

  There was a soft sigh at the end. “I don’t know why I keep doing shit for you.”

  “’Cause you secretly love me.” I couldn’t help but joke despite the situation.

  She snorted.

  I recited the information Goldfish had given to me. There was a pause and tapping.

  Finally, her voice came back online. “Yup, there it is coming out of one of the Tyrell subsidiaries…$7,275, Nemo’s Furniture Removals, thirtieth of August.”

  My blood turned cold.

  Goldfish was telling the truth. My father lied to me. He paid to have Julianna kidnapped.

  The contract’s still open.

  23

  ____________

  Julianna

  I rose to awareness like a drowning woman reaching from under the surface of an icy lake. For what seemed like ages, awakeness seemed removed from me by a thin sheet of ice. I fought against it, kicking and screaming for life. Finally I broke through.

  My eyes opened. I inhaled sharply, drawing sharp, frigid air into my lungs, and sat up. My head spun. I reached down to steady myself, finding a cold, smooth surface.

  Where was I?

  My mind scrambled to piece together the last few minutes of consciousness. I had been in a cab before the doors had been locked. I had been knocked out by some kind of gas. I had been taken. By whom?

  I squinted through the dim, trying to figure out where I was. It was a room perhaps the size of a small bedroom, empty shelves about the place. A single fluorescent light bulb flickered over me, the only one working, casting a greenish sickly spotli
ght over me. There was a distinct smell of something rotting. The air felt wet. I frowned. The walls and floor were white and shiny, like marker board. So was the ceiling. High along one wall there were three air conditioning units on shelves. There were no windows that I could see. A large door like a barn door took up part of one wall, sheets of plastic draped before it.

  I knew what this was. I was in an old cold storage room.

  “I did warn you to be careful, didn’t I, Detective Capulet?”

  My blood froze.

  Protruding from the shadows on one side stood a man whose features looked so similar to those that I treasured.

  Roman’s father.

  He stepped forward so I could see him properly. With a wide frame dressed in a midnight-black suit, leather shoes so polished they shined, Giovanni Tyrell was just as intimidating and imposing as I remembered him to be. His dark hair was slicked back off his stern features, and his sharp dark eyes studied me from under thick brows. It unnerved me that I could see fragments of Roman’s face in his.

  Several rifles cocked, their barrels pointing out of the shadows, letting me know that he and I were not alone. I slid back, keeping my distance, keeping my features schooled, even though inside I was lashing out like an animal cornered. It would do me no good. I had to bide my time. Gather as much information as I could, then figure how to get the hell out of here.

  When I spoke, my voice came out steadier than I felt, thank God. “What do you want with me?”

  “Don’t take it so personally,” he said, his voice rough like the rumble of an engine.

  “It’s a little difficult not to take it personally when I’m the one being held here against my will.”

  “You’re just a means to an end, my dear. With you I get to kill two birds with one stone, excuse the pun.” He grinned, a horrible smile of teeth and stretched lips.

  I tensed. “I don’t understand. I’m just a lowly detective.”

  He let out a curt laugh. “Don’t play coy with me, girl.”

  “I’m not.”

  He pursed his mouth. “You know, you remind me of Maria, my deceased wife, God rest her soul. You both have spunk. A spark. That certain bewitching quality.” His features hardened. “And that annoying habit of sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  The hair on my arms stood on end. Look where Maria Tyrell ended up.

  “No matter,” Giovanni continued. “In the end, I can turn anything to my advantage.”

  “What does that mean?” I demanded. “What plans do you have for me?”

  “You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?” He turned and exited my cell. I could do nothing but stand there as the nameless guards retreated after him, their guns trained on me until the door was slammed shut and locked.

  I had no idea what Giovanni meant. I only knew that his plans could not be good. I had to warn Roman but I had no idea where I was or how the hell I was going to get out.

  24

  ____________

  Roman

  My father. My own damn father had Julianna.

  I pushed through the doors to my father’s library, where I had been told he was. The library was a medium-sized room, the walls lined with tall bookcases almost to the ceiling. It was carpeted in a warm green, the color of moss. Around a fireplace were several high-backed armchairs.

  My father reclined in his large crimson leather armchair, his slippered feet resting on a matching leather pouf, a round crystal-cut glass filled with amber liquid. He was staring off into space. It was past midnight, but he was still awake as I knew he would be. He’d been an insomniac for as long as I could remember.

  Even when I was a child, he often sat in here alone except for his volumes and volumes of books—mostly business and politics. He would often make me read them as a teenager. My father might be an immoral man but he wasn’t stupid. He was never violent for the sake of being violent. Every one of his decisions was strategic, calculated and had a purpose. Even the bloody ones. He clawed his way to the top of the underground world using his brain and his penchant for getting his hands dirty. A deadly combination.

  For a split second, before he noticed me, when he still thought he was alone, he looked…open and vulnerable, lost in his thoughts. How could someone so evil, so ruthless, so monstrous, look so fragile? So human. So lonely.

  I imagined that he was replaying the faces of all the men he’d sent to their deaths. Did they whisper to him as they whispered to me when I was alone? Did he regret the things he did? Did he hate who he’d become? He wasn’t always this man. My mother wouldn’t have loved him if he was. I wondered if he ever thought back to the first decision he made that turned him down this dark road. Whether, knowing what he did now, he would have made the same decision. I noticed the wrinkles around his eyes, the downward pull of the corner of his lips and the great weight that curved his shoulders. I almost felt sorry for him.

  Almost. The sight of him sitting comfortably while he kept Julianna somewhere against her will made my blood boil. If he let his men hurt her, if they so much as touched her, I would slaughter every last one of them myself, damn the consequences.

  For now, I had to keep pretending I was on his side. I had to keep playing the dutiful son. The deserving heir. At least until I got her back. When I got her back, God help me…I would burn his fucking empire to the ground with him in it.

  I tucked away the river of fire in my veins. I promised the monster inside of me that he would get his revenge, and I composed my features. I was a Tyrell. I knew how to keep my emotions in check. I cleared my throat. “Father.”

  He looked over, his humanness melting into the stern mask that I knew so well. His lip curled up into a snarl, my standard greeting. “So good of you to return, son,” he said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “But then again, I knew you would eventually.”

  He thought I could never survive without him. He was wrong. So wrong. Today would not be the day I proved that to him.

  I brushed off his jab. I strode over to the liquor cabinet on one wall, opened the stopper of the crystal bottle that he had left out and took a sniff. Cognac. No doubt the finest that money could buy. “Family first,” I said. “Isn’t what you always say?”

  He let out a scoff behind me. “Since when do you actually listen to me?”

  If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he sounded bitter.

  I poured myself a stiff drink and turned to face him. He eyed my freshly pressed black pants and black button-up shirt. I’d showered and changed out of my wrinkled clothes before coming to him. My wardrobe of Giovanni-approved suits and smart-casual clothes hung in the bedroom that had been kept here for me. My attire, at least, he couldn’t disapprove of.

  “Where have you been?” he demanded. “I had men looking for you.”

  I snorted. “They didn’t do a very good job of finding me.”

  “Or you did a very deliberate job of hiding from them.”

  I shrugged. “I was upset over what happened to…Mercutio.” I tripped over his name. But quickly composed myself. “I took a few days out on my own.”

  My father let out a sneer. “Whoring and drinking, I suppose. You look like shit.”

  So, he’d noticed the bags under my eyes and where they were red from being rubbed. He always found something to criticize. Somehow this time, it stung less. Maybe because I had finally let go of caring what he thought of me. More likely, the underlying fear over Julianna’s safety overruled anything else.

  I raised my glass in a mock salute. “You just know me so well, Father.”

  I walked to the chair beside his on the bearskin rug and sat, crossing my ankle over my leg, taking a large sip of the liquor, letting the burn ease down my throat, soothing me.

  When I looked over to my father, he was watching me closely. “I hear we have a…guest,” I said as casually as I could. I wanted nothing more than to knock him to the floor and slam my fist into his face until he told me where she was. My father would n
ever give her up if he knew that was the thing I wanted most.

  My father tilted his head at me. “And how do you know this?”

  I shrugged. “I hear things. I have my own sources, you know?”

  “What does that mean?”

  I leveled a stare at him, some of my antagonism leaking out. “It means that some of the men in our business understand the way things are going. They wish to future-proof their standing in my empire.”

  “My empire,” he growled.

  “For now. I am the heir you are grooming to fill your shoes. After all, nobody lives forever,” I said with a lightness that hid the threat underneath.

  For a second my father’s nostrils flared, a touch of color rising to his cheeks. Then he let out a small laugh. “Spoken like a true Tyrell,” he said, his words bitter jabs.

  I took a large gulp of my drink so that I didn’t lash back out at him, letting the fire going down my throat burn my anger away. At least for now.

  “What’s the plan for our guest? I’m a little disappointed that I haven’t been made privy to them.”

  “I’m disappointed I haven’t been made privy to your whereabouts,” my father snapped.

  “You’re already privy to that, Father. Drinking and whoring. Do you really want the details?”

  My father snorted and swallowed the last of his drink in one large gulp.

  “So…” I said, steering the conversation back to the burning question. “The girl?”

  “She’s a negotiation tool.”

  “With whom?”

  “Her father will be missing her in a day or two. I’ll have a set of demands for him soon.”

  “What demands?”

  My father tilted his head. “All in good time, son. For now, you are not to leave this compound.”

  I could push. But I didn’t want to make myself seem so desperate to hear the answers. My father wasn’t a stupid man. At least I knew that Julianna was alive.