Page 45 of Dark Romeo

Julianna.

Julianna Julianna Julianna. That’s all my fucking body was crying out for. She was a drug that I’d somehow become addicted too. Nothing else would satisfy me. The gorgeous woman with the whiskey-colored eyes had ruined me.

“You should go,” I said to the blonde.

She left in a huff, refusing the wad of cash I handed out to her. “I am not a fucking hooker,” she yelled at me.

“It’s for your cab.”

She slammed the door behind her and it rattled in its frame.

I took my bottle of Jack and sank into the deck chair out on the main balcony and stared up at the stars.

When I was a boy, when my mother was alive, she used to lie out under the stars on a blanket with me, and we’d pick out constellations. She’d pick out one, a real one, then I’d pick out one. I used to make mine up, but she never let on, pretending that she saw them too.

Julianna had shone brighter than the stars to me. A perfect constellation. I had to let her go. Because I didn’t deserve her. She didn’t deserve me.

I shut my eyes, wishing I was somewhere else. I drank until it all went black.

I turned off my shower, forcing myself back to the present.

When the police knocked on my door, I answered it, pressed and polished in a tailored Armani suit. It had been Jacob’s and now it was mine. Apparently, I had grown to fill it out in the eight years I’d been gone.

I greeted the uniforms at my door with cold civility. They seemed surprised to see that I was ready and waiting for them. They should know by now that nothing went on in Verona without the Tyrells knowing about it. My father had friends and little birdies in all sorts of places.

I traveled to the police station with Benvolio driving his Escalade, the police car behind us, with another black SUV following us at a distance with two other hired men. No Tyrell would be caught dead in the back of a police car like a common criminal.

In the car, Benvolio spoke only to tell me, “Your father has already been summoned to the station too.”

“Great. A father and son excursion.”

I ignored Benvolio’s look.

Verona’s main police station was a solid five-level building that took up half of a block, a parking lot located out the back. After I exited the car, I was escorted by two officers to the third floor where, apparently, I would be interrogated. Benvolio and the hired men remained outside.

As I strode down the corridors of the police station to the interrogation room, the other police officers flinched away from me. I could sense their fear; I could almost smell it. Fear because of who my family was. Who they thought I was. The addictive rush of power swirled in my veins before I could stop it. I lifted my chin and glared back at these officers of the law, looking my natural enemies straight in the eyes.

I was a Tyrell. I had learned how to lie to the world. It was lie or die.

I was shown into a tiny interrogation room where I folded my body into a plastic chair at a table, two chairs opposite me. The room smelled musty and slightly of sweat. How many criminals had they broken in this very chair? They would not break me. They would not break a Tyrell.

I faced a large mirror that took up almost the entire wall and wondered how many of them would be watching through the one-way glass. I smirked into the mirror and spent some time rearranging my hair that was still perfectly in place. I noted a small video camera in the top right-hand corner of the room, also trained on me.

They made me wait a whole forty minutes before the door opened and a male Hispanic detective walked in. It was an interrogation technique, making the interviewee sweat. It wasn’t going to work on me. If they had anything on me, I’d have been arrested. I repressed the emotions and questions swirling around inside me.

He sat opposite me and placed a manila file on the table top. I hid my curiosity as to what was contained within. I suspected enough.

“I’m Detective Espinoza,” he said, folding his hands and placing them over the folder. He was a baby-faced guy, olive-skinned, round cheeks softening the hardness to his eyes. I suspected this detective wasn’t one to be fucked with.

I stared at him for a few seconds, refusing to blink or show any emotion. A Tyrell never shows fear.

“You want to tell me what this is about, detective?”

“Just some questions.”

I lifted my ankle onto my other knee and leaned back in the chair, placing my arm along the back of the chair beside me, acting as comfortable as if this place was my own personal living room. Like he was my guest. “By all means. Ask away.”

“We’re waiting for my partner.”

---