by Sienna Blake
It was only at night, in the silence, that I was unable to hold back the tide and thoughts of Roman rushed back in. The night breeze blew in the smells of the city through my open window, but they didn’t bring him.
I missed him with an ache that burrowed down to my soul. I missed his touch. The way he smelled. The way my world shrank down to just us when we kissed. Every day that went past was one day closer to the time when another woman would make him her husband.
* * *
Rosa Sanchez looked smaller than she was. Her head hung, staring at the floor as she walked, her shoulders rounded as if she were trying to hug herself, her thin, oversized gray sweater swimming on her slim body. She sat in front of me on the old worn couch in the witness interview room, knees pressed together under her long skirt, a cup of plain black tea untouched before her.
“Thank you for coming in, Mrs. Sanchez. I know it must be hard.”
She didn’t answer. She kept glancing past me, out of the glass window facing the interior of the station, where her three girls were being kept entertained by Espinoza. They were six, eight and twelve. The two youngest were laughing shyly into their collars at the faces that Espo was making and the way he clambered over the chairs. The oldest just stood there, mouth pinched, watching him with wary cynicism.
Espo would make a great father one day, if he ever settled down. What kind of father would Roman make?
I shook that question off, turning back to Rosa. Back to my job. “Your girls are fine,” I said in a soft voice. “See?”
Rosa looked over at me, meeting my stare for the first time since she arrived. I could still see the mistrust in her black eyes, her arms crossed over her body. That was understandable. I was a cop. Her husband had been…a questionable man.
I pressed on. “We just need to ask a few questions about Eduardo.”
“Eddie,” she corrected in a timid voice. “He used to hate it when anyone called him Eduardo. Only his mother called him—” She stopped speaking suddenly, flinching, her eyes going to the door as if she expected he would burst through at any minute.
She tugged at her sleeve, covering up the purple and yellow mottled bruise around her arm. Understanding knotted around my stomach. She had all the signs. The bastard. My insides simmered. If Eddie wasn’t dead already, I’d kill him myself.
I slapped myself internally. You’d kill him, Jules? This was not what good people thought. This was not how good cops reacted.
“When did you last see Eddie?”
Rosa chewed her lip. She didn’t answer.
I leaned in. “You can talk to me,” I said softly. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”
A laugh burst out of Rosa’s mouth, which she tried to stifle with her fingers. She dropped her hand into her lap. “I know he can’t,” she said, her eyes suddenly shining. “The bastard’s dead.”
I was missing something. “Of course.”
“He was home earlier that night. He got a call during dinner. He left without finishing. Around seven thirty, I think. He didn’t tell me where he was going.”
“What did you do?”
She frowned. “We ate dinner, me and the girls. Washed up. Put the girls to bed. Fell asleep around eleven.”
“You didn’t go anywhere?”
Her frown deepened. “No. Where would I go?”
“So you were…at home, asleep, between midnight and two a.m.? Is that what you’re saying?”
Her eyes widened with shock. “Y-You think I shot him? I didn’t do it. I didn’t do nothing.”
I studied her reaction carefully. Most innocent people asked for their lawyers. There was fear in her reaction. Maybe…guilt.
She was hiding something.
Maybe Roman was lying. Maybe he hadn’t pulled the trigger. Maybe she was the classic battered wife. She had put up with his abuse until she couldn’t take it anymore and bang! she snapped.
I didn’t want her to be guilty. What would happen to her kids? Her girls?
I had to follow every lead, that was my job, even if I didn’t like where they led.
“Can anyone corroborate your story? Neighbors? Friends?” I offered. Give me something so I can rule you out. “Did anyone call you at home? Did anyone stop by?”
“No.” Her fingers fidgeted at her hem. “It was just me and the girls at home. I was asleep,” she repeated. “I didn’t kill him. I didn’t do it. I didn’t even know about the money.”
Money?
I straightened. “What money?”
Rosa made a small choking sound. She’d said something she shouldn’t have.
I leaned in. “What money?”
Her lip trembled even as she pressed them shut.
“Rosa, I want to help you. I want to help you keep your kids. I can’t do that if you don’t tell me what’s going on. If you’re not honest with me, then that’s what I have to tell social services.”
Her eyes widened. “You can’t take them. You can’t.” She began to rise out of the chair, her eyes flying to the window again. I placed a hand on her knee, forcing her to remain seated.
I hated using her kids against her, twisting the truth to get answers out of her. But it was for the greater good. “If you tell me the truth, Rosa, nobody will take your kids.”
Her wet eyes snapped towards me. She wanted to believe me.
“Just tell me about the money.”
She sniffed and nodded.
I leaned forward.
“After Eddie died, I got a call from an insurance company. Turns out that Eddie had taken out an insurance policy on his life two years ago. Now that he’s dead, it all came to me.”
“How much?”
“A million dollars,” she whispered.
I nodded. “Okay. There’s nothing wrong with that, Rosa.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“The insurance man came to my house. I needed to sign some papers so I could get the money. I saw the insurance policy, the one that Eddie took out.”
“Yes?”
Her lashes lifted, her eyes locked on mine, confusion swirling around in them. “It wasn’t his signature.”
2
____________
Roman
I pulled over into the gas station, the single sign of life along this lonely stretch of road leading out of Verona. I snatched the cap off Eddie’s head, ignoring his cry of annoyance.
Trust the fucker not to have the gas tank of his getaway car full. Idiot.
“Wait here,” I commanded.
Eddie Sanchez, sitting in the passenger seat of his own car, nodded. His nose was already swelling. His left eye was bulging like the end of a rotten eggplant.
After I untied him at the warehouse, we took my car to his car, still sitting several blocks from where he had attacked Julianna. We swapped cars under the cover of night.
It was a risky move on my part, pulling over for gas, but I couldn’t risk getting stuck out here.
It was past one a.m. We were the only customers at the station. I filled the black late model Ford with gas, keeping my head low. I could see one of the tires was softer than it should have been. I tsked my tongue against my teeth. Eddie didn’t treat anything with respect, this much was clear.
I was in and out in less than five minutes, picking up something I needed from the shelves before I paid cash, pulling the cap on my head down so that the rim covered most of my face from the camera positioned high over the cashier. It must have been my lucky night that the young pimple-faced cashier paid more attention to his tiny TV, blaring some cop show on his counter, than to me.
I got back in the car and pulled back onto the road. The farther we got from Verona, the more Eddie seemed to relax. It didn’t take long for him to start talking like we were buddies.
“Are you banging her? The hot cop, I mean?”
It took all my willpower not to shove my fist in his mouth. “I’m not banging her, as you so eloquently put it,” I said throu
gh gritted teeth.
“She’s so fucking hot. Shit. I can see why you helped her. Like, maybe she’ll suck your dick to say thanks.”
How much longer did I have to listen to this fucking degenerate? I said nothing, hoping he’d get the hint and shut the fuck up.
But Eddie, the dickwad, was obviously not the sharpest tool in the shed. He was just a tool. He kept talking, kept making it easier for me to do what I needed to do.
“The ones who start out saying no, like they’re pretending to be good girls or some shit, they’re the ones who usually want it the most.”
Just keep talking, fuck stain. Keep making it easier for me.
I eyed the passing landscape, dark and soulless. We hadn’t passed another car for miles. The road looming long and straight ahead showed no oncoming traffic. There were no street lights to light up the bleak darkness, no houses around, just a long stretch of farmland on a single lane road. Good enough.
I slammed on the brakes. Eddie went flying forward, smashing himself against the dashboard. Fucker should have listened when I told him to put on his seatbelt.
“Jesus fuck man,” he moaned around a flood of blood coursing out of his already broken nose, “why the hell did you do—”
I held the gun to the side of his head, shutting him up with a gasp. I cocked the gun. It made a lovely cracking sound. “Get out,” I said, my voice a hard, mean growl.
“Aw shit, man. I didn’t mean any of that shit I just said. I just talk—”
“Get. Out. Now.”
“Okay. Okay.” Eddie tumbled out of the car, his hands up in the air. I slid out of my car door, my gun still pointed at him in case he tried to run. Go on, run. Just try, I taunted silently.
The idiot was still rambling as he stood on the side of the gravel road when I strode up to him. “Turn around.”
I saw, in the glow of the internal car light, the second that Eddie realized that I wasn’t just kicking him out of the car.
“Fuck, man. Don’t do it. I won’t say shit, man. I swear.”
“Turn. The fuck. Around.”
Eddie kept whimpering, blubbering as he shuffled around as if his shoelaces were tied together. He was trying to tug on my heartstrings—as if there was something for him to pull on—moaning about being the only support for his wife, for his daughters.
After Merc left the warehouse with Julianna, I’d pulled a favor and got a background check on good ol’ Eddie Sanchez before I’d untied him. There had been several complaints from neighbors about late night rows from their house. His kids and wife all had files at the local ER from their various “accidents”.
Wife beater.
Child abuser.
Even if he hadn’t tried to rape Julianna tonight, the fucker deserved to die.
I’d pulled another favor—I hated to admit it but sometimes having the surname Tyrell helped. I had a million dollar life insurance policy taken out on Eddie Sanchez, backdated to two years ago so it didn’t look fishy. Guess who the sole beneficiary was on the policy? His wife.
So yes, Eddie, you will be a real fucking support to your wife and kids. When you’re good and dead.
“Pull your zipper down,” I said, the barrel of my gun pressed to the back of his skull.
Eddie froze, his shoulders hunched up around his ears. “W-What?”
“You heard me.”
“M-Man, I ain’t gay. I ain’t—”
“Do it before I give you a second asshole.”
His zipper cut over the low hum of the car engine, still on.
“Now pull your dick out.”
He let out a pained whimper over the rustle of his jeans.
I shifted my fingers on the grip and tried to block out his sobbing. I wondered if his daughters would mourn him. Or would they sag with relief when they heard he’d died, knowing that their beatings would stop. Knowing what I did, they would probably do both and it would tear their tiny insides apart. Bastard as Eddie was, he was still their father. I was about to take him away from them.
I forced my finger onto the trigger. To my surprise, a trickle of sweat beaded on my forehead.
Come on, Roman. It’s not like this is your first kill.
But Vinnie had been forced on me, my father’s gun at my back. The second attacker, Tate Jackson, whose neck I’d broken earlier, had been an accident. I hadn’t meant to kill him. I was just so fucking furious when I saw his hands on Julianna, when I heard the tearing of her clothes, when I knew, knew, what he wanted to do to her.
“You promised me you’d get me to safety,” Eddie garbled. “You promised.”
Do it, Roman. Do it to make sure this scumbag never reveals what he saw tonight—the heir of the Tyrell Mafia empire saving the life of a cop.
Do it to protect her.
“I lied.” I pulled the trigger.
The bullet rang out like a bang, echoing out into the night. Eddie dropped forward like a sack, his dick hanging out of his pants like the poor unlucky fucker just stopped for a piss.
For a second I just stood there, my gun still pointed at where Eddie’s head once was, whips of smoke reaching for the heavens from the end of my barrel.
No weapon, no evidence, no witnesses, a voice echoed in my head, spurring me to action.
There were no witnesses to worry about.
I would take the gun with me, throw it into the river on my way as I drove back to Verona.
As for any evidence I might leave behind… I strode to the seat behind the driver’s side where I had stashed the two cans I’d bought in the gas station earlier. Eddie hadn’t even noticed I’d returned with them, to his detriment. I grabbed the one marked “bleach”. Good old household cleaner. Will remove all scum, stains and DNA evidence.
I washed Eddie down before I climbed back into Eddie’s car and gunned it back onto the road.
The other can was marked gasoline. This car was going to make a pretty bonfire.
Sometimes, when I wasn’t thinking of Julianna, I replayed that night over in my head as I lay in bed staring at my ceiling.
I wasn’t going to lie to myself. I was glad Eddie was dead. One less rapist scumbag for the world. Did that make what I did justifiable? Did that make me a hand of justice in a way?
He was still someone’s son. Someone was going to miss him. Someone was going to mourn him.
“You are a good man, Roman.”
Julianna’s words taunted me. Haunted me. How could a bright angel see any light in me?
“Let me tell you what this good man did. I killed Eduardo Sanchez. I pointed the gun at his head and I pulled the trigger.”
Every day since I confessed to her I half-expected, half-hoped I’d be arrested. The knock on my door never came. Even with the way I left things, even after I deliberately caused her pain, she would not turn on me. I didn’t fucking deserve her. She was better off without me. Soon she would see that.
3
____________
Julianna
I didn’t tell anyone that the signature on Eddie Sanchez’s insurance policy was forged, not even Espo. I promised Rosa that I wouldn’t. That woman had been through enough. She had three young girls to look after and that insurance money would go a long way. I didn’t give a shit that it was the wrong thing for me to do, I would not tell. I would not take that money away from those girls.
A forged insurance policy. A million dollars. A dead husband. Was it possible that Eddie’s death had nothing to do with Roman?
Or did Roman have something to do with this mysterious policy?
My father had just left. I sat in an armchair by my living room window, staring out into the night. A fist rammed against the door.
Roman.
My heart rocketed into my throat. I smoothed down my hair as I hurried to the door and flung it open.
It wasn’t Roman. Everything alive in me sagged.
Nora didn’t wait for me to speak before she pushed past me into my apartment.
“Why don’t you come
in then?” I muttered under my breath before shutting the door.
When I turned to face her, she had her arms crossed over her chest. “You’ve been walking around with that mopey look on your face for the last four weeks.”
After Roman left my apartment the night he broke my heart, Nora, like a bloodhound, had come over demanding to know details. I had made up some vague excuse, “our careers don’t match” as to why Roman and I ended our relationship.
She grabbed my cordless house phone and waved it at me. “Call him. Tell him you miss him.”
I wasn’t going to get her off my back unless I told her the truth. Or at least, some sort of semblance of truth. “Nora,” I said slowly, choosing my words carefully. If I revealed too much, the poor thing might have a heart attack. “Roman isn’t who you think he is.”
“I know exactly who Roman Tyrell is.”
I stared at her as my brain skipped like a scratch in a record. Nora couldn’t know know. If she knew she’d be yelling at me for putting myself in danger by associating with such a criminal.
She let out an exasperated sigh. “Roman Tyrell, youngest son of Giovanni Tyrell. Public enemy number one according to your father. Did I miss anything?”
“But…” I shook my head, trying to knock this new piece of information into place. “I don’t understand. You knew who he was all along? Aren’t you mad at me?”
Nora tilted her head. “Did I ever tell you about Pappy?” Pappy had been her husband of almost thirty years. He’d passed away the year before I had moved into this building. Nora and I had connected over our shared experience of deep loss. In the years I’d known her, she rarely spoke about him.
