Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
ROME
Her outfit change fucked with my head.
Not only because it’s been ten years since I’ve seen her wear it—under completely different circumstances, I might add—but because those leggings make her ass look like a ripe fucking peach. A peach I could easily sink my teeth into.
Every time she steps on a branch or stumbles, her ass shakes, and my dick twitches. I’ve tried looking everywhere and anywhere else over the past ten minutes, but like a moth drawn to a flame, my gaze always swings back to her.
Other than the sight of her alone giving me the biggest case of blue balls I’ve ever had, I’ve abided by her conditions, sticking to the fifteen feet of distance behind her, as she requested.
The sun is peeking through the trees to our left, but there are dark clouds rolling through in the distance.
It looks like it’s going to rain before we have a chance to get back to the house, though Julianna doesn’t seem to care or notice.
She’s been on a mission with this leisurely walk, as she’s calling it.
“Have you figured out who’s trying to kill us yet?”
I stuff my hands into my black slacks. “I thought you didn’t want to talk.”
“I don’t, but it’s too quiet.”
I snort. “Never thought there’d be a day where you preferred hearing my voice over the silence.”
She laughs. The sound does something to my insides, and I find myself grinning wholeheartedly.
“Seriously, though,” she says over her shoulder. “Have you found out anything?”
“Not yet,” I say, eyeing the trees. Julianna wanted to follow the trail my mother had carved through them, but I told her it was too risky.
It’s easier for me to stay aware of our surroundings out in the open.
I compromised and said we could stay along the tree line with the open field to our right.
“Oh,” Julianna mocks, turning to face me and walking backward. “Are you telling me, professional stalker, Rome Sebastian Montgomery, is losing his touch?”
Against my wishes, my heart pounds erratically in my chest. I’m lucky she’s fifteen feet away and can’t tell, too. At least, I don’t think she can.
Considering the anger she had for me this morning, and even when she was eating her sandwich, she seems to have loosened up a bit.
That usually happens once we’ve spent more than a few minutes together.
It’s why we’ve kept our distance over the years, really only keeping in touch during tax season.
Or when we’ve pranked one another in the hopes of getting under the other’s skin.
I narrow my gaze on her as she turns back around to walk forward, grinding my teeth when she pauses and bends down to pick up a small stick.
“I’m not losing my touch.” I clear my throat, tearing my gaze from her round ass.
“So, what do you know?” she asks with her back to me.
I look up at the sky. Despite the distance between us over the past ten years, Julianna knows practically everything: my dad being the head of the Italian mafia, that he was the one who hired the team of men who’d attacked my mother before killing her, that he was in prison after being charged for conspiring and hiring the men who’d done it.
The only fact she doesn’t know is the person who was ultimately responsible for putting him there in the first place.
“I know he’s Italian.” I run my hand down my face before moving it to the back of my neck to massage the tension building at the base of my skull. “And that he’s most likely connected to my family in some way.”
“What makes you say that?”
“He has the same snake tattoo.”
She stops in her tracks, a twig snapping under her foot before she spins around to face me. Pity and sadness fill her soft blue eyes. “If what you’re saying is true, that the people after you are family, then I’m sorry.”
“They feel like I betrayed them,” I offer, shrugging. “I guess I deserve it.”
She tilts her head to the side, the sun catching her gloss-painted lips. It’s the only bit of makeup on her face. “You think they know we’re married?”
I hesitate to give her an answer. She must think I brought up betrayal because they found out I married a Capuleti. Not because I was the one to turn my father over to the feds.
“I’m not sure.” I swallow. “Probably.”
She spins back around and continues her walk, this time turning right halfway down the length of the field.
The cabin is in a distance to my right. I eye it, keeping my attention on the gun tucked into my slacks, just in case.
Marcus isn’t due back until tomorrow. I told him that, considering how long it would take him to gather all the items Julianna requested, he could stay in the city and head back here tomorrow.
“You don’t seem to know a lot, Rome,” Julianna points out.
“Give me a break, Lark.” I groan. “This literally all happened in the past twenty-four hours.”
“I thought you said the attack was two weeks ago.”
“It was.” I blow a frustrated, impatient breath through my nose. “The threatening phone call was yesterday.”
“Huh.” I picture her twisting her mouth in thought. Fuck, why am I thinking about her mouth?
“What?” I ask, knowing she’s clearly thinking something she’s afraid to say out loud.
“I was just going to say I was surprised you haven’t figured out who it was yet, since you’re the son of New York’s largest crime syndicate.”
“I gave that up a long time ago. You know that.”
Her black top is short, revealing a slither of her body to me. The tips of her fingers press into the soft, supple flesh of her waist.
“Was that the truth, then?”
“Was what the truth?”
“When you told me you never wanted a role in the family business?”
This time, I stop walking.
She takes a few steps before turning around, realizing I’m no longer following.
She raises a brow. “What?”
“Did you not believe me when I told you I never wanted a part in it? Before we were married?”
Her shoulders drop with a sigh. Looking down, she drags her foot along the grass.
The storm clouds behind me are rolling closer.
The sun is no longer shining. Even if there wasn’t a storm coming, the sun wouldn’t be as bright.
Evening is setting in, covering the entire plot of land in dark gray.
With the storm cloud creeping closer, every inch of Julianna is now covered in shadows.
“I don’t know when to believe you.” She turns and continues her walk.
Her words sting. I wish they didn’t, but they do.
Among the many problems we’ve faced in the past, one of them is knowing Julianna and I married young.
We were too young to face the complications of living as husband and wife.
We were na?ve to believe we could have somehow made our families listen and give up their generations-long hatred of each other.
My feet are planted to the ground my family passed down to me. It became mine once I turned eighteen, along with the ink tattooed into my skin. While I wish I could erase the meaning behind the snake, I don’t regret the land. It now holds memories. Memories of pain. Of love.
Maybe that’s why I’ve refused to let it go even after I turned my father in.
I look up to find Julianna more than fifteen feet in front of me. She’s farther down the property, heading straight for the pond.
“Lark!” I shout, as a rumble of thunder vibrates across the ground. “Fifteen feet, remember?”
A drop of rain falls onto my cheek as I run to catch up with Julianna.
Her arms are stiff by her sides as she marches toward the pond. Once she reaches the edge, she finally stops.
Another drop of rain lands on my cheek, then my shoulder. “We should head back inside!” I shout, still catching up to her.
I’m only a few feet behind her when she says, “If you think the ones after us are linked to your family, do you really think it was a good idea to bring me here?”
“What do you mean?”
She spins around. “This land belonged to your parents before it was yours.”
“Ours.” I let the word spill out without hesitation. Technically, this land became Julianna’s the moment we said, ‘I do’. It was in the transfer of title my parents signed, that I was to split this land equally with my spouse. Little did they know I was already married.
She rolls her eyes, rain now coating her lashes and cheeks. “Nothing is ours.”
A familiar sensation grows inside me, the bitter resentment and anger from ten years ago boiling to the surface. It emerges from its cave, dusting off the dirt and cobwebs. Everything we once had, the promise of the future, all gone in one night.
“I’m not talking about our marriage,” Julianna dismisses. “I just meant that they might consider coming here to look for me. That it might be a place you would hide me out.”
“There isn’t anywhere safer for you than here with me to watch over you.”
“You never cared before.” She shakes her head. “We’ve lived separate lives, remember? It’s what you wanted.”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about our marriage,” I argue back.
She grinds her jaw, and, considering her silence, I continue.
“And what do you mean by what I wanted?” I press my hand to my chest. “You wanted a divorce. I offered the easier route.”
She laughs bitterly, gesturing toward the cabin. “This is easier?”
“Nothing about a divorce would have been easy. Doing it this way reduced the risk of the news leaking. We agreed we would be free to live separate lives.”
She presses her lips together, huffing a deep breath. “You keep telling yourself that, Rome.”
She leaves me again, sticking to the edge of the pond.
I run my hand down the side of my face. The rain is pelting us now, coming down in sheets, fast and furious. Thunder roars angrily above us. It propels me to not let Julianna have the last word on this.
“Julianna.” I try to call for her again.
“It was your idea to live separate lives!” she shouts back.
Bitterness simmers in my veins. “As if it was so difficult for you.”
Halfway down the length of the pond, she whips around to face me. “What is that supposed to mean?” Her dark hair clings to her face. Water drips from the ends, spilling onto her bare chest and shoulders. Her chest is expanding dramatically with every breath she draws in and lets out.
I step closer to her, bringing the tip of my nose to hers as she raises her chin to stare me directly in the eye.
With a hardened, challenging stare, she repeats, “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Do you know how many times I had to watch you with someone else?” I ask. It feels good to get it out, the bitter thoughts I’ve carried with me for years.
“You have no idea what I’ve done to build a life of my own.
One that is mine and mine alone.” Her bottom lip trembles.
“Part of that included dating. You explicitly said we could see other people. Don’t tell me you haven’t done the same, and don’t pretend as if seeing me with other men has bothered you. ”
I open my mouth to argue back but stop.
Julianna’s perfectly manicured brows pinch before they relax. A water droplet slips from the corner of her eye, but I can’t tell if it’s from the rain or if she’s shedding a tear.
“Exactly. You have nothing to say,” she bites back. “This conversation is clearly going nowhere, and you aren’t worth standing in the rain for it, anyway.”
“At least nothing has changed,” I mutter, stepping back.
“No. You don’t get to do that.” She points an angry finger at my chest, stabbing me with her black-painted nail.
“You’re the one I saw with Macy that night.
You knew how much it would hurt me to see you with her, but you did it anyway.
I needed you, and you weren’t there. I needed you, my husband, after… ”
She can’t get the rest of her sentence out. Her gaze drops to her finger before she pulls it back as though she’s been burned. She turns her back on me and marches along the length of the pond, leaving me to watch her in stunned silence.
I can’t erase the pain I just saw in her eyes at the mention of that night.
I’ve shoved the guilt down for so long. Hated myself for it, even.
Punished myself repeatedly in different ways: drugs, alcohol, all of it.
And here she is, shoving it back in my face.
I’d argue back, but I know I deserve it.
“We should go back inside!” I shout over the rumbling thunder. A bolt of lightning flashes in the distance, the rain picking up.
“You go!” she shouts back. “I’m finishing my walk.”
She reaches the edge of the bridge and steps onto it. The bridge is nearly one hundred years old, having been built before my grandparents acquired the land.
“Lark, come on,” I plead with her.
She doesn’t listen, simply shaking her head as she crosses the bridge. It creaks under her feet, but that doesn’t stop her.
Panic blooms from head to foot when I hear it.
A large crashing sound followed by Julianna’s scream.
My eyes widen as she disappears from behind the railing.
Then I’m racing toward her.