Page 83 of Dark Romeo

I stood up so that I was on his level, meeting his stare. I wouldn’t be intimidated by him. “I didn’t want to scare her. Would you have preferred I bring up the corpse we found?—”

“No,” Mercutio snapped, his eyes going to kitchen door. “She doesn’t need to hear any of that.”

I nodded. “Then we agree, let’s keep this between us. Please, sit, Mr. Brevio.”

“I told you everything at my interview.”

“I still have more questions.” Just one, actually.

He didn’t reply. I decided to take a chance and play hardball with him. I let out a sigh. “If you’d prefer we can go back to the station and do this there?”

Mercutio stared at me for a second, then looked back to the door before taking the farthest seat from me, keeping the table between us. “You have two minutes.”

I let out a breath as I sat. He had agreed to give me two minutes. Two minutes wasn’t a long time. Better cut straight to the chase. “I think there’s something more going on here. I think that Roman might be mixed up in something he doesn’t want to be mixed up in.”

Mercutio let out a humorless laugh. “Did you figure that one out all by yourself?”

I ignored his comment. I wasn’t here to argue with him. “I want to offer him a way out. A way to escape his family. You and I both know that he isn’t like them.”

Mercutio narrowed his eyes at me. “What game are you playing here, detective?”

“I just want the truth. I want…to help him.”

Mercutio stared at me, the anger that had been so apparent faded into a suspicious mask. Whether he believed me, I didn’t know. “Let me guess, you went to him first with your generous offer and he shut you down. And now you’re coming to me.”

“I know you care about him. Don’t you want to help him get away from his family?”

“All you’re going to do is get him killed,” Mercutio said.

“I can protect him.”

“Not from this.” He stood up, his chair scraping the floor. “Your two minutes are up. Get out of my house.”

I had failed. I stood. “Please, just talk to him about it.”

Mercutio said nothing as he herded me out and slammed the door behind me. I was beginning to think that coming here had been a mistake.

* * *

I should have known when I returned home later that night from grocery shopping that I had been followed. But I hadn’t been paying attention. My head was a whirr, tumbling over and over what Mercutio had said about Roman.

I juggled my grocery bags and purse, struggling with my keys at the lobby before finally letting myself in, part-tumbling, part-shoving my way into the empty foyer, my footsteps echoing against the marble floor. I heard the door behind me catch rather than click shut. I didn’t have time to turn around to see who had come in after me. In an instant, I felt him right behind me.

It all happened so fast I had no time to scream. A gloved hand came over my mouth, a strong arm closed around me like a vice. I dropped my bags and grabbed at the steely arms holding me captive, but it was no use. I might have well have been wrapped in chains.

Just take my purse! I wanted to scream, but I could barely breathe behind his large stifling hand wrapped in leather. My captor kicked open the door to the boiler room next to the stairs and shoved me inside. Dear God, was he planning to rape me in here? Kill me?

I had to calm myself down, figure a way to escape. The door clicked behind us, leaving me alone with him. Inside the old boiler room was hot and suffocating. Something was rattling in one of the ancient machines rusting against the far wall. The walls were thick concrete to muffle the noise from the outside. It would muffle the noise of whatever he was going to do to me.

His hand came off my mouth. I sucked in the hot, steamy air of the tiny room and prepared to elbow him. He spun me, slamming me against the concrete wall, winding me. The single lit fluorescent bulb in the middle of the room flickered, casting a sickly glow across the face of my assailant. My eyes widened. I inhaled sharply. Roman Tyrell was glaring at me with murder in his eyes.

“You.” He stabbed a finger in my face. “You come into Nonna’s house and question her son? You pretend to be my friend to try and get information out of her?” He was beautiful, even drowning in fury.

He slammed the wall beside my head with his palm, the fury and aggression of it making me gasp. A tiny shot of actual fear went through my body. My skin felt sensitized a hundred times. When he leaned in close, his minty breath on my cheeks made me shiver.

His eyes bore into mine like burning coals. “You want to come after me, come after me. Just leave Mercutio and Nonna out of it.”

I found my voice. “I…I don’t want to come after you.”

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