Page 60 of Dark Romeo

“I asked if you brought your car into work. Do you need a lift home?”

I blinked. My car. I had my… No. Wait. Espo had picked me up today. My mind had been so much elsewhere that I had walked out of the station thinking I had my car here. Idiot.

“Julu,” my father frowned at me, “are you okay?”

I glanced to the shadows that had swallowed Roman Tyrell. I couldn’t see him anymore, but I could feel him. I could sense him watching us. Watching me. The hairs on my skin stood on end. I wasn’t sure if it was from fear or…something else.

“I’m fine,” I lied.

JULIANNA

____________

“Capi,” Espinoza’s voice made my head snap towards him. I hadn’t realized he was standing at my desk at work, waving at me as I stared into space like a zombie.

I shook myself. Get yourself together, Julianna. I had to get my head back in the game. I had to stop Roman Tyrell from getting under my skin.

Too late.

“Sorry, what?” I asked.

Espo frowned. “Lacey just messaged. She’s finished Vinnie’s autopsy report. You coming?”

I followed Espinoza through the corridor. As we waited for the elevator, I could see him looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “You got something to say, just say it,” I snapped.

His frown deepened. “Are you okay?”

Why was everyone asking me this? “Fine,” I muttered.

“Uh-huh.” The tone of his voice told me he wasn’t at all convinced. “You seem off lately.” We entered the elevator and Espo pressed the button to the basement where the morgue was located. “Like in the interrogation with Roman Tyrell.”

I stiffened and tried not to sound so defensive. “What are you talking about?”

“You went off script with him. You got emotional. I mean, Jesus, at one point I thought you two were going to jump across the table and start hitting each other.”

Or ripping each other’s clothes off. I flushed at the memory and turned my head to hide my face.

“I don’t like him,” I admitted. “Something about him just…gets under my skin.”

I wasn’t lying. He lied to me about his surname. I had been tricked into my feelings for him. I hated the way I couldn’t seem to switch them off, even now that I knew who he really was. I hated that I was lying for him. I hated that I wanted so badly to believe him. He was an infuriating, confusing mess that I didn’t need in my life.

Espo made a noise in his throat. “He is a Tyrell. Your instincts are correct about him. It’s not like you to take these things so personally.”

If only he knew how personally things between Roman and me went. “I’ll do better. I’ll try not to get so worked up about the case.”

Espo clasped a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, Capi. We’re going to nail him.”

That’s what a fucked-up part of me was worried about. “We don’t have the evidence to back up our case.”

“Hopefully Lacey will have something for us,” Espo said as the elevator doors dinged. We stepped out into the cold, eerie light of the basement corridor and walked through the double doors into the morgue. The sharp air of disinfectant and death hit my nose. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to it.

Lacey was standing in her scrubs by a metal slab, Vinnie’s body lying on top of it. The body was naked, cleaned of blood, a Y incision made into his chest, now sewn back using thick Frankenstein-like stitches.

“Have you got something good for me, baby?” Espo grinned at her.

Lacey shot him a coy smile, her long dark eyelashes fluttering. “I always have the goods, Espo.”

Espo made an appreciative noise in his throat as his eyes roamed over her. “Don’t I know it.”

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