by Sienna Blake
I sat alone at my dining table drinking a cup of tea, and listening to my mother’s voice fill the room, wrapping myself in her voice.
Abigail: “You don’t have to tell me your name. Let’s call you…Joan. After Joan of Arc. She was a strong woman, just like you.”
Joan: “I’m scared.”
Abigail: “I know. I’d be scared too. Take a deep breath. And remember why you want to do this.”
My chest filled with pride. That was my mother, so patient, so filled with compassion. She always knew what to say. I wished I had inherited that trait from her.
There was a pause on the tape and the sound of someone breathing hard.
Joan: “Are you a mother?”
Abigail: “I am. I have a beautiful little girl. She’s eleven. And I would do anything for her. Anything. Be strong for your children, Joan. Be strong for them.”
Joan: “Okay…”
It had been a phone conversation she’d taped a few weeks before her death. When I made detective six months ago, I had snuck into the records room and copied every piece of evidence from that file. My father would hate it if he knew I had this tape, that I played it over and over again on nights alone, listening to her voice and pretending she was in the same room as me. “I have a beautiful little girl. She’s eleven. And I would do anything for her.”
The recording ran to its end. I sat in the preceding silence. My apartment seemed cold and empty. Quiet. Too quiet.
I used to love the silence of my apartment, the way the things I left remained where they were exactly how I left them, no one else’s invading touch. Everything right where it belonged. Every bit of space mine.
Tonight, I stared around the apartment as if it was my first time in here. The furniture I liked enough but it was all so generic and far from personalized. There were no pictures on my walls. No artwork. Nothing to reflect my tastes. I’d been waiting, it seemed, expecting that one day I would leave. That my real life would then begin.
That chance had come with Roman. That possibility had stretched out its hand to me. I did not have the guts to take it. Why didn’t I have the guts to leave with him? Why didn’t I say yes?
I felt his warmth and his body pouring into me, filling me up. Our cries echoing throughout the room.
I shook my head, closed the box containing my mother’s case file, before dumping my cold tea down the sink drain. I was being silly. I barely knew the guy. I was reeling from the insane amount of orgasms he’d given me. That was all.
Tomorrow, I’d feel better. Tomorrow things would go back to normal.
I lay in bed, staring at my ceiling, the moonlight painting squares of pale light across it, chewing on my lip. My eyes kept drifting over to my phone, the only link I had left with him.
Nora had long since gone home but her words had stayed behind with me. “When you get to my age you realize that life is short. Sometimes you don’t need to know the ‘point’ of it before you jump in.”
I snatched up my phone from the bedside table and opened a new message, the blank screen waiting for me to say all the things I wanted to say.
Is it strange that I miss you?
Is it crazy that I can’t stop thinking about you?
I wish I had said yes to Paris.
I didn’t write any of these things.
Me: I wish we hadn’t left things the way we did. Let me know you’ve arrived in London safely.
I turned over, my back to the phone on the bedside table, and tried to find peace in the darkness. The image of his eyes haunted me, chasing me into a restless sleep.
18
____________
Roman
I killed a man.
Back in my father’s limo, I stared into nothing as this single thought looped over and over in my brain. The repeat of the gun booming throughout the warehouse room, the gun jerking my hand back, the small black hole that appeared on his forehead, the slim river of blood that dribbled from it. And those stupid cartoon socks.
The gun became so heavy that I let it hang at my side. My father’s hand clasped my shoulder and his voice echoed in my skull. “Well done, son.”
I had killed a man and he had been proud of me.
My hearing had gone fuzzy after that.
Someone had pulled the gun out of my hands. I knew it’d be wiped down, the barrel scratched with a wire plunger designed to change the internal grooves so that the next bullet’s striations were different. No one would ever trace the bullet in that man’s brain to me. That was how my family worked. They were professionals at this, too well-oiled and rehearsed to be taken down by the law. Soon I would be adding to them, bringing my knowledge of the criminal law system so we could bend it further to my father’s will. It had been the only reason my father had agreed to let me move to Europe to commence my legal studies.
I would soon help this monstrous empire grow stronger. I would help feed it with my life and my soul. It didn’t matter how hard I fought against it, I could not escape what I was destined to become.
I was alone again in the limo with my father, barely paying attention to what he was saying. “Things have changed in Verona since you left. The political landscape is not so…friendly. We have a new chief of police elected nine months ago. They call him the incorruptible.” My father let out a snort. “So far he seems good to his word. He’s made us public enemy number one. Vowed to clean up the streets.”
I nodded, my body cold.
“I’ll have a dossier sent to you with everything you need to know about who’s who. Read it, memorize it, learn it.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, automatically.
The limo stopped. Moments later someone opened the door for me. The cool night air did little to cut in through the fuzz around my head.
“Go drink,” my father said. “Have fun with your friends. You’ve earned it.”
Go drink, have fun, while a man who you sentenced to death is being dumped somewhere like trash. Go have fun, you’ve earned it. I choked on these thoughts.
I don’t know how I managed to get out of the limo. I stood in a smelly back alleyway, the walls of the buildings around me seeming to cut out all the light of the stars. Someone opened the back door of the bar for me, their body silhouetted in the dim light that misted out of the doorway. The thudding of the music coming from inside sounded like someone’s violent heartbeat. Before I could take a step forward, Abel stepped in front of me, blocking my path.
The sight of him was like a splash of cold water on my face, cutting through my fog. I growled and bared my teeth. “Get out of my way, dog.”
He smirked at me. “Relax, Roman. I just wanted to congratulate you. We’re all surprised at how you…stepped up tonight.”
A feeling of nausea bubbled up again like clotting blood. “Fuck off.”
His grin widened. He shoved something in my hand before I could stop him. “I thought you’d like to keep a souvenir.” He cackled, his laughter echoing off the insides of my skull. He disappeared back into the limo.
I looked down into my hand. He had pushed a single thin gold ring into my palm. The man’s wedding ring, dried blood still clinging to the skinny gold band.
“I have a wife…”
It fell from my fingers into the muck.
I stumbled into the bar through the back entrance, searching, looking for… a drink, I needed a drink. I probably looked like I was already drunk, even though I was sober as fuck, everything blurry, my movements clumsy.
I had to get my shit together. My mother had been a Lettiere before she was married. I was a Lettiere. Lettieres didn’t fall apart.
You’re not a Lettiere. You’re a Tyrell, a voice inside me taunted.
I was in a nondescript bar off the main strip, old wood and creaky leather, dim lighting casting the place in a dull brown light. It was where Mercutio and I used to meet after bad shit happened at home. None of my “family” or other “friends” came here. I was anonymous here.
Mercutio was
already waiting for me inside, his eyes on the back entrance, leaning against the old wooden bar, chipped and lacquer peeling from years of spilled drinks. He’d driven all the way to the airport and rang my cell six times before I was capable of texting him back, asking him to meet me here.
He took one look at my face and his fell.
I almost turned around and left, not sure if I could take his judgment, his piteous look. I had nowhere else to go. I pushed my way through to the bar and leaned against it, just trying to breathe.
“You’re not leaving Verona,” he said.
It didn’t sound like a question. I shook my head anyway. No, I will never be able to leave now. I will die here.
“Jesus, what did he do to you?” he asked quietly. I could hear the hesitation in his voice. He didn’t really want to know.
I shook my head again, words failing me. It’s better you don’t know.
He cursed under his breath. I didn’t have to say anything to Mercutio. He just…knew.
I closed my eyes, the gunshot echoing over and over, the backs of my eyes splattering with crimson. It had been the thing I had feared most since I watched my brother turn into a monster by my father’s hand. I could feel the stains on my body, the darkness leaking into my veins and mixing with my blood.
“Here.” Mercutio pushed a drink into my hand, snapping me partly out of my thoughts. I could feel the pity exuding from him. I could hear it in his voice. I hated him for pitying me. But I understood. Even I pitied me.
I downed the drink without even asking what it was, letting the alcohol burn all the way down in my throat. If only it could burn away my sins.
What I wanted was Julianna. I wanted to bury my face in her hair and lose myself in her body, letting her pure light absolve me of my sins. When I had been with her I’d forgotten about my cross to bear. I had been filled with a lightness I had long forgotten I could feel. Joking and laughing with her, and worshiping her beautiful body, had all felt so natural. I was no longer a Tyrell. She looked at me, really looked at me, and reminded me of the man I was underneath.
My phone beeped with a text.
Jules: I wish we hadn’t left things the way we did. Let me know you’ve arrived in London safely.
It was like she could sense that I was thinking of her. That I needed her. Even though I had been such an asshole to her when I had left, here she was showing me the concern I didn’t deserve.
I could go to her. Tell her I wasn’t leaving Verona. Ask her to be mine. I stabbed my thumb on the screen to reply. I caught the sight of dried blood like a dark crescent moon under my nail. I froze. My hearing went all fuzzy. I thought I had washed off all the evidence from my hands. Here I was, still stained.
How could I touch her with these bloody, poisonous hands?
I had to let her go. I couldn’t drag her into the darkness of my life. Things would only get worse from here.
I deleted her message before shoving my phone back into my pocket. I looked up and my breath stuck in my throat. There she was. Julianna, staring at me from across the bar. My heart slammed against my ribs. I didn’t deserve her, but she’d found me anyway.
I blinked. Julianna faded from her face, revealing a pretty blonde stranger. She smiled at me and her sticky pink lip gloss caught the light, her thick fake eyelashes fluttering like moths.
I had a new mission. Drink. Get wasted. Let this stranger help me forget the shit my life had turned into.
Usually picking up girls was no problem for me. Tonight… everything felt off. I wrapped my hands around my glass and drank, before slamming it on the counter. My head felt like cotton wool and my body was numb. Not numb enough. I waved at the bartender for another one.
I felt a light touch on my arm and an overpowering floral perfume pierced through the smell of spilled beer and sweat. Oh, right. The blonde. Rachel or whatever.
“Is your name, like, actually Roman?” she said with a giggle. Her voice was high-pitched and she spoke like she was scattering her words. I missed Julianna’s husky warm voice.
“Yup.” I stared at my glass as the bartender refilled it with amber liquid, the color of Julianna’s eyes.
“Like the city, right?”
I downed the fresh glass of whiskey and hissed as it burned my throat. “That’s Rome, not Roman.”
“What?”
I turned to her. “I like to fuck rough.”
Her mouth dropped open. “W-what?”
I leaned in, her face blurring through my alcohol-soaked vision. I hated her because she wasn’t Julianna. “I fuck rough and I fuck hard. If you come home with me tonight you’ll probably get hurt, but I can guarantee you’ll like it.”
Her cheeks flushed and she licked her lips, swiping some of her glossy lip shit off. “I don’t usually do this.”
“I don’t give a shit about whether you do or don’t. You have three seconds to make up your mind. Are you in or are you out?”
She inhaled, then let out a breath. “In.” She pressed up to me for a kiss. I turned my head and her sticky mouth landed on my cheek.
I wiped the goop off with the back of my hand and leaned across the bar, swiping a bottle of Jack from behind the counter. “How about we stop talking and get the fuck out of here?”
“Let’s get out of here.” Julianna’s voice rang in my mind, tinkling like silver bells.
The blonde beside me giggled, breaking through my thoughts. I grabbed her hand, bottle of Jack in the other, and led her to the exit, ignoring the yells of the bartender behind me and Mercutio trying to calm him down.
Anger swirled inside me. I hated this girl trailing after me. I hated my father for what he’d done. I hated Julianna for being the one woman I wanted and couldn’t have. Most of all, I hated the monster I’d become.
19
____________
Julianna
I hadn’t slept well last night, tossing and turning, thinking of a certain dark-eyed man, missing his hands on me, wishing I could hear his voice. I still hadn’t heard back from him. He would have landed in London hours ago. He should have seen my text by now.
He was ignoring me. Deliberately. I felt a stab in my gut. Was he really that bitter about how we left things? Did I really deserve the silent treatment?
Or he’d already forgotten about me, I thought bitterly. I was just another notch on his belt. Just something to pass the time…
Don’t be ridiculous, Julianna. You were the one who rejected him. He had every right to ignore my painful reminder. I would have to accept that he didn’t want to speak to me again.
It would be almost three p.m. in London now. Perhaps we’d be walking arm in arm along the Reine, or licking croissant flakes from each other’s fingers or lying on a blanket on the grass at Tuileries Garden. If I had said yes.
When I was little, my mother told me that if I was lucky, one day I’d meet a soulmate. I had asked her what a soulmate was. A soulmate was the truth, she said. A mirror. They reflected yourself back to you, exactly as you were. All of you, even the pieces you hated or the ones you hid well. At first, it would hurt. And it should hurt. No tree broke through the canopy without stretching for it. No flower ever saw the sun without opening up.
The wake of Roman’s presence had left me reeling, viewing my life from a perspective I’d never seen before. He left me turning over each piece in my hands.
Roman had been a soulmate. Undoubtedly.
A soulmate I’d stupidly let walk away.
The saddest part was that he’d never know how much he’d affected me. I’d never be able to tell him thank you. I’d just be a memory he’d sometimes pull out and dust off.
I shook myself. No point in feeling sorry for myself. I would be glad I had a chance to meet him.
Next time, if a soulmate came along again, I would hold on to him and never let him go.
“Rough weekend?” my partner Espinoza asked as I jumped into his dark blue work sedan the next morning.
I thought I’d done a
good enough job of covering up my bags with concealer. Obviously not. I should have known he’d pick up on it. Even though Espinoza had only been my partner for six months, he seemed to notice this stuff.
“You could say that,” I said.
Espinoza’s thick, dark brows furrowed as he studied me. He wore his smooth brown baby face with the rugged air of a confident man, which always meant there were at least a few women hanging around wanting more. He was a confirmed bachelor in his mid-thirties, dating regularly but never with a serious girlfriend, at least not for the time I’d known him.
I avoided his eyes and nodded to the road. “We gonna park here all day or are we going to work? Murders aren’t going to solve themselves.”
Espo let out a snort. “Oh, I see.”
“What do you see?”
“You’re losing sleep over a guy.”
I flinched. Dammit.
“Hah!” He nudged my arm with his elbow. “Come on. Who is he?”
“He’s no one.”
“Ooooo,” he sang, “Capi’s got a boyfriend.”
I rolled my eyes. “Shut up and drive, Espo.”
“Am I gonna get a name?”
“Drive.”
“Not even a name?”
“Espo,” I warned.
“Alright, already. Jeez, I tell you about my women.” Espo pulled out into traffic.
I made a face. “And I’m still in therapy because of it.”
Espo tapped his fingers on his chest. “Here. You hurt me right here.”
I let out a laugh. I caught the flash of his grin out of the corner of my eye. “What’s on the menu this morning?” I asked, changing the subject.
“A body dump off Brunswick Street. Hope you skipped breakfast.”
Finally. I was being assigned a real case. Looks like my father had taken what I’d said to heart. My stomach fluttered with nerves. This was my chance to prove myself. I could not screw up. I grabbed the handle above the door as Espinoza took the corner hard.
