Page 52 of Cardinal

All my worries about finding Juliet in a bind, beaten and bloodied, or—worse—dead disappeared the moment I saw her unharmed body curled up on the couch. "Amorina," I quickly held my tongue from scolding her about screaming like that because she nearly gave me a heart attack, but seeing how upset she was made me change my mind.

Pushing my annoyance away, I disengaged my gun and set it down on the coffee table when I rounded the couch to kneel down before her. "Sweetheart, what is wrong? What made you scream like that? Are you hurt anywhere?" Visibly, I couldn't see anything wrong, but maybe it was something internal.

Looking around, nearly everything seemed in order. The only odd thing besides my distressed lover was a laptop destroyed a little ways from the couch, probably the crash I heard.

My concern rose at the sight of it because Juliet wasn't one to mistreat her things, especially her electronics—her 'babies' as she liked to call them. Yeah, call me stupid and pathetic for being jealous of inanimate technology, but she gave more attention to those damn screens than me a lot of the time.

"Amorina." I urged in a heavily concerned voice, placing my hands on her shaking shoulders and rubbing them soothingly. "Talk to me, please. You are worrying me."

Juliet opened her mouth to reply, but all that came out were more sobs and hiccups. "Hey, shh," every sob and sharp hiccup felt like a stab to my aching heart as I sat on the couch and pulled her shaking body into my lap to hold her tightly.

I hated how useless I was to her right now. Whatever went on wasn't something I could rid her of, most likely. What was the point of having all this power and resources and being her protector when I couldn't do anything for her in this state?

When it was obvious Juliet wouldn't calm down for a while, I looked over to her bodyguard. "What happened?" I didn't mean to sound accusatory towards the bodyguard, but my anger seeped out.

"I am not sure, sir. She was scrolling on her laptop and pulled something up, and everything about her just changed. She instantly got emotional and distressed and threw her laptop, and that's when you came out here." The guard quickly answered me in a polite tone, making me feel slightly bad about snapping a little at them.

"Did you see what she was looking at?" The only time I really hoped they looked more than they should, but if I knew what set her off, maybe I could be useful.

"It was some kind of case about some rich guy getting exonerated. I can try to find the article—"

"It's fucking bullshit!" Juliet shouted suddenly. "That shouldn't have happened! There was more than enough to get him put away forever! It's fucking bullshit and rigged! The fucking system is broken and rigged!"

"Give us a moment." I nodded at the guard for them to leave, waiting for them to disappear around the corner before giving Juliet my full attention. "Juliet, talk to me, sweetheart." Because I sure as hell didn't have a clue about what was happening.

Going silent, Juliet stewed for a bit, and I let her have her moment. "I am going to get you some water and snacks, and when I am back, we will talk, alright?" I asked her while wiping her tears away and pushing her hair out of her face.

Sniffling, she nodded her head in response before crawling out of my lap and curling up on the couch with her knees to her chest. "Can you get me some jerky?" She asked in a small voice while poking at her toes.

Chuckling softly with a smile, I nodded my head in response and kissed her forehead before leaving her for a moment, hoping the small moment of space would be enough for her to get into a better headspace.

Thankfully, that was the case when I returned and saw her sitting comfortably on the couch. She was still silent and broody, but she wasn't utterly upset, at least.

Sitting beside her, I made her drink and eat a little before pressing her again on the matter.

Juliet sighed deeply before letting me in. "I got the idea of sending evidence to the police about one of the men who raped me to get them prosecuted after I came across his profile when I was digging around into the lives of the people who were at the fight. I sent the whole NYPD everything I found, which was way more than enough to get his rotten ass a few life sentences."

Tightening her jaw, she scowled and seethed silently with balled-up fists by her side. "I thought the next time I saw anything about him would be that he was incarcerated, and I meant to check up on things a while back but forgot." Gritting her teeth, she took a few deep breaths, "Then today, some stupid article came up when I was scrolling through Facebook, and I just… Ugh!"

Her feet stomped angrily against the floor as she cursed under her breath and worked herself up again until she cried. "It's not fair! How fucked up is our system that a man like him can go free after all the evidence against him?!"

It was no secret that our system was fucked up; I knew firsthand because I was involved with pulling the strings to keep things weighted in our favor. I just never cared much about it all until now. Seeing how much it affected Juliet made me wonder just how many victims were fucked over out there in the world.

I thought I rigged the system pretty well to ensure the smallest amount slipped through the cracks. Guess not if Juliet slipped through the cracks.

"Who is the bastard?" I didn't give a shit if it was the damn president themselves who harmed Juliet. I would still beat them to death and make an example and warning out of them to others.

Frowning deeply with disgust, Juliet visibly shook and gagged as she struggled to tell me the name. "Marley Goth."

Now, I felt disgusted with myself.

I knew the man a little too well because I did quite a bit of business with him. He ran many of the warehouses along the coastline that The Syndicate used as storage and drop-off points.

This was going to get fucking messy, but shit needed to be done.

Without a word, I stood up and pulled my phone out to send a text to others in a group chat before looking at Juliet with an expressionless face to hide the darkness brewing within me.

"Luca? What's a matter?" Her scared voice made my walls rise up more.

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