by Sienna Blake
“You?”
“Yes, asshole.” Her voice broke as she beat my chest with her fists. “To me.”
To her.
She cared. Despite the hell I had put her through.
This was my second chance at life. My second chance to grab on to the things that mattered. I had run away from her just like I’d run from everyone else I’d ever loved. I would not make that same mistake again.
“Damn you.” I yanked her towards me, a little too hard. She stumbled and fell against my chest. Everywhere she touched me felt like it was on fire. “You were supposed to stay away from me.”
“I couldn’t just let you die.” Her fists still beat against me, although this time there was no real intent behind her attack except the hunger flaring in her eyes. She still wanted me, even after all I had done…
I dropped my face towards her mouth.
“Stop,” a voice boomed out, cutting through us. “Or I’ll shoot.”
11
____________
Julianna
Stop. Or I’ll shoot.
I would recognize that voice in my sleep. It washed over me like boiling water on icy glass, sending cracks right through me.
Espinoza.
He was standing at the far end of the alleyway where I had come from, legs in a wide stance, gun pointed.
I knew how we looked; Roman gripping me too tightly, leaning in too closely, me beating at his chest. It looked like Roman was hurting me. It looked like I was trying to make him let go of me. Espo didn’t know the truth that lay beneath us. He only saw what was on the surface. He only saw what his prejudice would allow him to see.
Everything slowed down to a sticky crawl, like the world was suddenly drowning underwater. My heartbeat thudded, low and muffled in my ears.
Several things happened at once. Espinoza cocked his gun, the black evil eye of it focused on Roman.
“No, wait!” I screamed as Roman shoved me behind him, trying to shield me with his body. His movements were too fast. You don’t make fast movements in front of a cop with a gun.
Don’t shoot! But before I could get these words out, the boom of Espo’s gun was reverberating through the air in sticky waves, drowning out my scream.
Something collided with Roman’s body from the side. Mercutio. Mercutio had thrown himself at Roman. They were both going down. Down towards the dirty black earth.
12
____________
Roman
Espinoza pointed his gun at me. I could see hate contorting his face, his prejudice twisting my actions into something nefarious. He would never believe that I wasn’t standing here assaulting Julianna. I imagined him pulling the trigger only a split second before he did.
Bang!
I braced myself for pain. I was hit from the side as Mercutio slammed into me. I had almost forgotten he was there. We hit the ground like a fallen tree. For a split second I remained still, my body frozen with shock, waiting for a starburst of pain and the inevitable burning ache.
When I was sixteen, my father had bought me a Glock 19. He made me practice loading a full magazine over and over again until I could do it in under ten seconds without a speed loader. When I succeeded, my father took the Glock from me, a slight smile of pride on his face, and turned it over in his hands. Then he pointed it at me and shot me. The bullet had lodged in my shoulder.
It had been one of his lessons. He had wanted me to feel what it was like to be shot. He wanted me to learn to handle the burning pain, like someone had shoved a red-hot poker through my arm. He made me tie off a tourniquet myself, torn from my own bloody shirt. He glared at me every time water dared to leak from my eye. I’d passed out well before his off-the-books doctor approached me with a scalpel and a pair of tweezers.
In Dead Man’s Alley, I lay on the gritty ground, Mercutio’s weight on me. I felt none of this pain. My relief was shattered by a wet, sticky sensation on my chest and the tang of metal in the air. Blood. Not my blood.
No no no, my mind begged uselessly. I rolled my best friend off me and onto his back, everything else forgotten.
“Merc.” I hovered over him, ignoring the grit cutting into my knees. A sticky mess spread from his chest. This could not be happening. Mercutio refused to even hold a gun. What kind of God would let this happen?
“I think I got shot.” Merc coughed and redness spluttered from his lips. Shit. His lung had been punctured.
“No shit, Sherlock.” I pressed my hands over his chest. If I pressed hard enough, if I spread both my hands, if I fucking willed it hard enough, he would stop bleeding. He had to stop bleeding.
He looked down at his chest, at his lifeblood pouring out of him. “Man, it looks bad.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Don’t lie to me, it’s bad.” He coughed again, more blood bubbling up, and winced.
“Why did you come here, you son of a bitch?”
“Someone had to save…” he coughed again. More blood. He ignored my attempts to keep him quiet, to conserve his strength. “…save your ungrateful…” His eyes matted over as swift as a plague. There was no warning. One second he was here and the next…
“Merc?”
Another set of eyes flashed in my head, the rich, earthy irises now dead and black as burned grass. Mama? A strange cold numbness fell over me as I slapped Mercutio’s cheek, trying to wake him, my bloody hand leaving a smudged print just like a young boy’s finger painting. Wake up. Call me an ass. Yell at me. Tell me off, for fuck’s sake!
“Espo, stop!” Julianna screamed. She had launched herself between me and her partner, standing by me like a guard.
It hit me that the polished steel of Julianna’s gun was the same color as the matching sweaters that Nonna had once knitted for Mercutio and me. It had been the first Christmas I’d spent with them since my mother had died. He always got a new sweater. This was my first. Merc had scowled when Nonna had pushed it down over his head. I had pretended to make a fuss too, but I had worn that sweater every day until it smelled. Mercutio would never know that I still kept that stupid sweater, packed in a box in my mother’s apartment, now too small for me.
Nonna. My stomach twisted. How was I supposed to tell Nonna? How would I ever explain how I got him killed? How could she ever forgive me? All it took was a twitch of one finger. One careless, single movement. The entire futures of three people—Mercutio’s, Nonna’s and mine—were torn out of the pages of time.
My eyes focused past Julianna’s legs to Espinoza, towering like an executioner. “Stand aside, Capi,” he demanded. There was no remorse in his cold, hard voice. None. There was no paling of his skin, no slight quiver in his voice, like there had been in mine. He had been trained to kill. And he did his job. Who was the monster now?
“I won’t,” Jules said, widening her stance.
His face twisted in confusion, his eyes darting between Merc and me on the ground, and Julianna. He couldn’t understand why she was protecting us.
Mercutio was dead by his hand and he was confused.
This was his fault. His. Not mine.
A fury unlike any I’d ever felt before rose through me like a demon taking possession. I was no longer Roman but a demented succubus demanding what was right. Retribution. Justice. An eye for an eye. Mercutio’s soul was still hovering above us, torn from this Earth much too soon. It was only fair that Espinoza would be the one to escort him up to heaven.
Julianna’s gun glinted in her holster like the wink of an eye. Mercutio would never wink at me again. He’d never roll his eyes at me when I was being an ass. I snatched the gun from Julianna’s hip. It weighed nothing in my palm.
I saw Espinoza trying to aim for me, but Julianna was in his way. She would not move no matter how he screamed at her. He did not fire. He would not risk hurting Jules. For that I had to thank him. It was not enough to redeem him.
I had a clear shot of him under Julianna’s arm. I meant to aim for his heart. I meant to tear from him the thi
ng he had torn from me. But my hands were wet with Mercutio’s blood and the nose of the barrel dipped. I pulled the righteous trigger. The second death crack sounded into the black, sticky night.
The hole appeared in Espinoza’s stomach and blood flooded his shirt. An eye for a bloody red eye. Julianna screamed, but it sounded so far away. She screamed as her partner began to fall, like a tree felled, heavy and straight.
The instant he hit the ground, all my brittle fury smashed apart like a vase, scattering into splinters, leaving me in consequences’ cold spotlight, tangled in the web of the blackened fate I’d spun myself.
Julianna let out a broken sob as she dove to Espinoza’s side. She placed her hands over his wound like I had done for Mercutio mere seconds ago. The pain of Mercutio’s death tore through me again, this time joined by the pain I saw on Julianna’s face.
I had shot Julianna’s partner. Her close friend. Her Mercutio. The gun dropped from my hands.
I am a Tyrell.
As if in answer, the night sky broke open with the scream of police sirens. I pushed myself up to my feet. I felt woozy, drunk from how the last minutes had scattered our four connecting lives in different directions.
The sirens were fast approaching. They’d be on us in minutes. Seconds. I stumbled towards Julianna, my empty hands reaching for her. Grasping for her. My life buoy, like a flash of honey hair over an angry black sea. If I could just grab hold of her.
Before I could reach her, Julianna grabbed another gun from her side, my gun that she’d taken off me. She pointed the single black eye towards me. An eye for an eye, until the world is drowning in blood.
Julianna had finally turned on me. We were finally on the two sides we were meant to be on. I had pushed her there. I wanted to fight it, to fight her.
I could not conjure any justification. I was a criminal and deserved to be treated like one. I lifted my bloody palms and tried to convey with just my eyes—my voice had been crushed in the sorrow clogging my throat—that I wasn’t angry. I understood.
“Jules…” I’m sorry.
“Leave.” Her top lip pulled up into a snarl even as her bottom lip wobbled and her hand holding the gun trembled. “Before I change my mind.”
She was letting me go. She wasn’t arresting me.
Even as relief broke over me, it couldn’t wash away the stains of my unworthiness. I didn’t deserve her mercy. Angel as she was, she bestowed it upon me anyway. Perhaps she could forgive me. I couldn’t leave without knowing she could one day forgive me. Perhaps love me again. “Just tell me—”
“Leave now,” she hissed, even as her voice broke. “Leave Verona. Go where you’ll never be found. Because the next time I see you, I will bring you in.”
Her answer was clear. She could never forgive me. Nor did I have any right to expect forgiveness. When I shot Espinoza, I severed the bond between us too.
Useless apologies gathered on my tongue. The fierce wailing of the police sirens blaring down on me silenced me and had me stumbling backwards. I shot one last look at Mercutio and Julianna, sending silent goodbyes to them both, before I slunk deep into the blackened bitter shadows where I belonged.
13
____________
Julianna
Roman slid into the shadows. The instant he disappeared, my anger was jerked out of me as if it were tied to him with a piece of string.
I dropped the gun and turned back to Espo on the ground. Shit. He was losing so much blood. Too much blood.
I pressed my hands to the mess on his stomach. “It’s going to be okay, Espo. Just hang in there.”
“Why didn’t you step aside?” Espo asked, his face screwed up. I was the reason he hadn’t been able to defend himself.
“I just...couldn’t.”
“But…” he winced, “why did you let him go? You had him, Capi.”
“I… He…” How could I explain to Espo? How could I excuse the man who had him lying there on the verge of death?
I shook my head.
“It looked like… You know him.” The accusation was clear in his broken voice.
How could I deny it? How could I keep lying to him when the truth was so clear? I couldn’t.
I nodded. “He’s not who you think he is,” I said, trying to justify myself. My voice sounded weak and limp.
The sirens screamed and tires screeched as help arrived. Relief flooded me. Help was here.
Espo blinked at me, becoming still. “He’s the rose guy…isn’t he?”
I nodded my head. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
Betrayal clouded his eyes. My stomach stabbed with a thousand swords of guilt. I couldn’t explain any further. Strong arms pulled me back from him as Espo was swarmed with paramedics.
14
____________
Roman
I destroyed my phone and tossed the pieces away so I couldn’t be tracked. I drove half out of my mind, somehow finding myself at my mother’s secret apartment. I ricocheted through the rooms with all the lights still off and stumbled into the shower with all my clothes on. I leaned my forehead against the cold tiles, watching Mercutio’s blood swirling down the drain.
It was only then I realized I’d broken all my father’s rules about leaving a crime scene.
No evidence, no weapon, no witnesses.
He’d be so disappointed in me.
It was on the radio when I stepped out of the shower.
“...a gang-related shootout in Little Italy between officers and what was believed to be members of the alleged Tyrell crime family. Mercutio Brevio, son of the infamous Tyrell accountant, Tito Brevio, was shot and killed. Detective Luiz Espinoza was shot at the scene and is in critical condition. No other perpetrators were apprehended at the scene.
Police are combing through the evidence but have no suspects as of this moment…”
I grabbed the closest thing to me, a vase, and threw it. It smashed across the wall in a shower of cream and red. Mercutio was not part of the Tyrell crime family. He was not a criminal. He was the best man I’d ever known. A good man. A nonviolent man who didn’t deserve Tito Brevio as his father and me, the monstrous Roman Tyrell, as his best friend. How easy it was to assume that he was just like the two of us. He wasn’t.
But he’d go down in the eyes of the public as just another criminal.
Nonna.
The blood drained from my limbs, pain ripping through me. Nonna would know by now. Dear God, I hope they were gentle when they told her. I hope they were kind.
I had to go to her, screw hiding. I had to comfort her, to fall apart alongside her, the only other person in this world who felt like I did right now.
Don’t be stupid, Roman. She wouldn’t want to see you again. She’d curse your name. Hate you. It was your fault he’s dead.
It was my fault.
Mercutio died for me.
I began to pace, pace, pace in this cramped apartment. Replaying every second of those fated moments in my head. Trying to bend the bullet’s trajectory. Each time failing. I watched Mercutio die over and over.
Every time it ripped me apart.
15
____________
Julianna
I sat with my elbows on my knees, staring at the orderly squares of linoleum across the hospital floor. The plastic seat creaked underneath me every time I shifted even slightly. I didn't know how long I’d been sitting there. Minutes. Hours. Outside, the dawn had come and gone, but inside this hospital, time didn’t seem to move.
“I’m sorry. He lost too much blood…”
God, the lights here were too harsh. They burned my eyes. I squeezed them shut, red staining the backs of my lids.
Damn you, Espo. Why did you have to show up when you did? Why did you have to shoot? You fired at an innocent man. You killed an innocent man. It was your own fault. Your prejudice killed you. You deserved your bullet. Even as that thought rose to the surface, guilt spread across me like spilled oil. How could I think that? How coul
d I blame Espo? He’d only been protecting me.
I should have told him about Roman. I should have made Roman’s true character known. I’d stayed shrouded in my cowardly silence while a good man like Roman Tyrell was crucified by the world. This was my fault.
My eyes drew to the dark red half-crescents stained under my nails. I had washed Espinoza’s blood off my hands, but the evidence of my guilt was still there. I had stood in his way. I had stopped him from defending himself.
How could I have moved if it meant that it would have been Roman lying in the morgue instead?
In that cursed alleyway, clutching at Espo’s life as it bled away, I had blamed Roman for all of it. I had sent him away with callous words and the accusatory point of my gun. The broken look on his face haunted me. His best friend had just been killed and in that moment, all I could think of was my own wretched grief, blinded to my own part to play in this black tragedy. At the time when he needed me most, I let him down.
My shoulders slumped around my heart, crumpling in on itself from sorrow’s weight. So many pointed fingers. So many moments when it all could have been prevented. Now we had two deaths on our hands. The blame was a heavy chain that fell across all our shoulders. Nobody was innocent.
“Julu!”
My head snapped up. My father, his tie askew, his hair disheveled, strode down the hallway towards me.
“Dad,” slipped out from my lips like a prayer. I launched into his arms and clung to his neck like a nine-year-old who had just woken up from a nightmare. Any minute now I would wake up. Any second now…
He shushed at me, a sound like soft waves. “I’m sorry, Julu. So sorry. Espinoza was a good man.”
I nodded into his neck, letting his soft sweater soak up my tears. “I don’t know what to do, Dad,” I whispered.
