Page 170 of Dark Romeo

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.

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 could 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.”

---