Chapter 25
Wes
Oh shit.
“Juliette, I swear, I’m not cheating on you.” I took a step toward her, but she took one back.
“Then who was that woman? You said you were going to see Detective Olson.”
I hated lying to her, hated that I’d gotten myself into this complete clusterfuck, but what else could I do? “Detective Olson was busy, so he had one of his people show me the photos.”
“At a hotel?” she screamed. “What kind of a police operation meets people at a hotel, Wes?”
Fuck. Fuck. Think. Think. But it was impossible to come up with another lie while she stared at me that way. So I did the only thing I could to buy myself a few seconds. I pressed a hand to my back, covering my wound dressing, and grimaced. “I need to sit down.”
Her expression cracked a little, anger softening into worry. I felt like even more of an asshole.
“Are you okay?” she asked, stepping toward me.
I nodded and sank into the nearest chair, using the time to pull my thoughts together. I needed to untangle this web of lies I’d spun before it strangled me. Once I had my shit somewhat together, I forced my voice steady. “I’m not cheating on you, Juliette, I swear.”
At least that part was the damn truth. Saying it out loud gave me just enough footing to dump all the lies on top.
“Detective Olson called when I got in the car and asked me to meet someone else from his squad. He changed the location at the last minute, so if any of your dad’s guys were following me, they’d think I was meeting a woman and not working with the police.
” I took a deep breath. “And he was right to do that. How do you think Vince would react if he knew I was giving information to the cops and not him?”
Juliette stood there, arms crossed, her eyes scanning my face like she was searching for lies.
After a long, tense moment, her shoulders dropped a little.
She wanted to believe me. I could see it in her eyes, in the way her lips pressed together like she was holding back a thousand questions she might not want answers to.
“Wes…” she whispered.
It was just one word, but it gave away enough uncertainty to expose the crack I needed. I’d done it a thousand times before—talking a suspect into trusting me, convincing a perp that it was safe to believe what I’d said. But now, now I was manipulating the woman I loved.
I didn’t have to fake the pain anymore as I winced. “Juliette.” I stood, moving slowly. When I reached her, I touched her arm, and she didn’t pull away. “I would never cheat on you. You have to know that.”
Her eyes met mine, still guarded, but something flickered there. “Maybe…” she whispered. “I guess I do.”
I slipped my arms around her waist and pulled her to me. Her shoulders relaxed into my hold, and I could feel the rise and fall of her breaths slow.
“I’m sorry I jumped to the wrong conclusion,” she said. “I just heard you on the phone and then…”
“Shhh…” I tightened my hold. “I’m sorry I upset you. I should’ve told you there’d been a change in plans.”
She nodded.
Hours later, things seemed ninety percent back to normal.
Though, honestly, I wasn’t even sure what normal meant anymore.
Was normal sitting in Vince Ginocassi’s daughter’s house and holding her, feeling my chest full of love while I pretended I wasn’t betraying everything I stood for?
Or was normal being a cop? The lines had blurred so much, I could no longer tell where one life ended and the other began.
Juliette came into the bedroom with a basket full of supplies—gauze, peroxide, ointments, tape, pain medications that I wanted to take because I knew they would dull the stress I felt but couldn’t because I needed to stay mentally sharp.
“You ready for me to change your dressing?” she asked.
I nodded and rolled to my good side, giving her access to my wound. My head continued to spin in silence as she peeled off the old gauze, cleaned around the stitches, and prepared a new bandage.
“I hate that you’re doing this,” I said as she finished up.
“Doing what?”
“Taking care of me.”
“All done.” She packed everything back into the basket. “I like taking care of you.”
I rolled onto my back and reached for her. “I should be taking care of you. It’s my job.”
“There are two other men here to take care of me.”
“I didn’t mean job in the employment sense. It’s my job as your man.”
Her eyes went soft. Juliette set her basket of supplies on the floor and laid on the bed, snuggling up next to me.
“Come here,” I said softly. “Put your head on my chest, like you used to.”
“I don’t want to put my weight on you and press your wound into the mattress more than it already is. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You being close to me could only help.”
She hesitated but rested her head on my chest after a moment. I stroked her hair in silence.
After maybe fifteen minutes, her breaths started to slow, and I realized she’d fallen asleep.
Her breath was warm against my skin, and I should’ve felt comfort that my girl was back in my arms. I should’ve felt peace that she thought she was safe enough to drift off.
But instead, my heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my throat.
Because it wasn’t the truth that had calmed her; it was the lies I’d told. And I wasn’t sure what was more unsettling—the ones I’d told her, or the ones I was still telling myself.
***
The next morning, Juliette went to a meeting with her agent to talk about damage control.
Not even her agent had known who Juliette’s father was until the news broke that the woman involved in the shooting was the daughter of a mob boss.
Apparently, the creative community was buzzing about Juliette Grecco being Juliette Ginocassi.
Her agent had already fielded two calls from clients—one who was worried about having the daughter of a mobster adapt his book, and another from someone eager to hire her to adapt his book about mob wives.
They were meeting with a PR firm to figure out what kind of spin they could put on things.
I waited at the window until Juliette’s car disappeared down the street, then dug out my secret phone again. Though this time, I took it with me and went back to keeping one eye on the road so I didn’t get caught sneaking a call twice.
My captain had told me yesterday that she was going to send me some photos of known associates of some of the rival families, people who weren’t part of an inner circle but were suspected of handling some of their dirty work from time to time.
But there was no message from her yet, so I tucked the flip phone back into my bag and shoved it under the bed before grabbing the New York Post from the kitchen table.
Settling on the couch, I was about to flip the paper over like I always did, to read the sports section in the back.
But a small photo in the front bottom corner snagged my attention.
It was Vince, caught midstep, climbing into the back of a car at what looked like JFK Airport. The headline underneath it read:
Bullets and Bloodlines: Mob Boss Returns to New York after Daughter Narrowly Escapes Hit.
Acid rose in my throat. I tried to turn the page and ignore it, but my eyes kept going back to the headline and reading the same part over and over again.
Daughter narrowly escapes hit.
Daughter narrowly escapes hit.
I remembered Vince saying when he’d visited me in the hospital that he’d seen a video online of the shooting.
But everything about those moments was still a blur to me.
Setting the newspaper aside, I grabbed my phone and typed Vince Ginocassi’s daughter shooting into the search bar and took a slow breath before hitting enter.
A flood of results filled the screen. At the top was a YouTube link.
My finger hovered for a long time before I finally got up the courage to press play.
The video opened with shaky footage of a kid carrying a skateboard.
He walked to a table stacked with jars of pickles and talked to the woman behind it.
When another customer came to the table and distracted her, he crouched down, pretending to tie his shoe, but instead he looped a rope around the leg of the table.
A second later, there was a loud pop pop.
Then the camera jerked, catching flashes of chaos—people panicking and ducking for cover.
It steadied long enough to catch Juliette and me, just as I took her to the ground and covered her with my body.
My stomach twisted. Seeing it from the outside, how close the danger had come, was worse than remembering it. There were only inches between my back—where I took the bullet—and Juliette’s head. I’d almost lost her. Inches. Literally inches, and that shot could’ve been in her skull, could’ve…
I swallowed, refusing to finish the thought, and hit the backspace to clear the video from my screen.
But before I could close the app completely, a link to another YouTube video caught my eye.
The still was of a crime scene, yellow tape sealing off the area in front of a bar, and cops standing around a body covered with a white sheet.
I’d never seen the footage before, and I couldn’t resist clicking. The caption below the video read:
The Don with the Short Fuse. Vince Ginocassi Allegedly Teaches His Own a Lesson for Not Following Orders.
The article went on to say that the victim had been one of Vince’s runners, a kid in his twenties. His mistake? He’d fallen for a woman who was the cousin of a rival family.
I stared at the screen. Maybe that kid hadn’t been the only one Vince felt the need to teach a lesson. Maybe Vince had found out that things between me and Juliette were more than just friendly. Maybe…maybe the bullet at the farmer’s market hadn’t been meant for Juliette after all.
Maybe it was meant for me.