28. Juliet
28
JULIET
M asculine grunts and the repetitive thud thud thud of someone slamming their fist into a swinging punching bag greets my ears the second we step into the gym. Even the stale scent of sweat makes me grin. It’s like coming home.
Cory steps away from the two guys sparring in the ring towards the back of the gym and approaches us with a smile. “Been awhile,” he says, eyeing Gio. “You doing alright, kid?”
G lifts an arm and curls it, tugging the sleeve of his t-shirt back to show off his muscled bicep. “Getting a little weak,” he says. “Thought we’d stop in for a session. I need to bulk back up since Coach is finally putting me back on the field.”
My eyes widen and I swing my gaze in his direction. Though I’ve noticed him spending more practice off the benches lately, I didn’t know that he was going to be back in the game.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I ask. “Don’t you need to heal more?”
Gio drops his arm and slings it over my shoulders. “Aww, are you worried about me, Prep Girl?”
The heavy weight of his body leaning into mine makes me grimace. “Not worried,” I say, poking at his side.
He grins despite my sour tone, but then he looks back at Cory. “The colleges are going to have their scouts come out soon,” he admits. “Do you think if we stop in a couple of times a week, you can shape us up?”
“Us?” I repeat. “I’m not on the team.”
Gio arches an eyebrow at me and even Cory smirks. “Are you saying you don’t want to get back into sparring?” Cory asks.
“No!” I say quickly. “I do, I definitely do!”
The two chuckle and if it weren’t for their vastly different features, I’d say they almost sound like brothers, if not father and son. For a moment, I stare at the two of them with an odd sort of warmth in my chest.
“Come on, you two,” Cory says once their laughter has drifted off. He jerks his thumb over to the sparring ring before nodding to me. “If you need some workout gear, I’ve got some spares in the community locker. Go get changed and meet us out here.”
I nod excitedly before dashing off. Twenty minutes later, I’m dressed in a pair of Cory’s gym sweats and an oversized matching t-shirt, and I’ve never been more grateful to have forgotten to do laundry than I am today because I’m already prepped with a sports bra on in place of my usual ones. Gio must have had his own gear in the car because when I find him and Cory by the ring, he’s changed into a pair of basketball shorts and nothing else.
My eyes move over the rugged muscles of his shoulders and abdomen and the various tattoos there too. One looks a bit fresher than the rest, but has obviously gotten past the red, swollen stage. He waves me into the ring before I can ask about it and soon enough the two of us are suited up with headgear and boxing gloves and circling one another in the ring.
Gio doesn’t waste any time. He dives forward, swinging his fist, and I duck, narrowly missing his knuckles. Bouncing on his feet, Gio doesn’t let up. His attacks are sharp and fast, no sign of his “weakness” as he’d said at all. Motherfucker. I grit my teeth and find myself dodging more than launching any of my own attacks.
“‘e’s got ya on the run, girl,” Cory calls as if I’m not well fucking aware of it.
“I know!” I snap back, ducking my head as Gio’s fist goes sailing over me once again. Seconds tick by as Gio forces me around the ring, and it isn’t until I see him pant and take a step forward that I see it—an opening.
Before he even realizes, I swipe my foot out, knocking both of his together. He goes tumbling to the mat and I dive on top of him. Throwing punch after punch as he puts both of his forearms up to block. I hear Cory’s rich laughter and then comments of encouragement, but all I can focus on is my actions.
Settling my hips more firmly down, I press my body weight into the man beneath me and drive my fist into the side of his head. Then Gio’s arms drop away entirely and I realize too late his alternate plan. He spins the two of us until my back slams into the mat and he rises over me.
Now, I bring my forearms up in the same defensive maneuver, but even as I do—the pressure of him holding me down with his body makes bile rise up in my throat.
Calm down, I order myself. It’s Gio. We’re not alone. We’re in public. Cory is right there. Still, as Gio drives a fist into my forearm, making the bone there ache, all I can feel is his groin moving back and forth against my stomach. I pant, trying to catch my breath.
Arching my legs up from behind Gio’s back, I twist until my ankles lock around his throat and he chokes, going down as I spin out of his hold and away—only releasing him when I’m sure he can’t immediately pin me again.
“Good!” Cory calls out, and we’re back at it.
By the time the session ends, I’m sore and sweaty and more ready to face-plant into bed at the first opportunity, but the smile on my face can’t be dimmed. Cory claps me on the back as I duck out from beneath the ropes.
“Ya did good, girl,” he says. “Really made him work for it.”
“You’re telling me,” Gio mutters good-naturedly as he, too, gets out from beneath the ropes.
I roll my eyes. “I still lost,” I remind him.
“It was a tie,” Cory argues, and I give the older man a baleful look.
“Don’t try to butter me up, Cory,” I say. “I’m woman enough to admit when I didn’t win.”
Cory eyes me for a moment, his lips twitching with the effort it takes him to hold back his grin, and then it smooths out entirely. The hand on my shoulder squeezes gently. “You’ve changed,” he says.
I frown. “What?”
But instead of explaining his words, he merely shakes his head and releases me. “Go on now, get ya some food to replenish what ya worked off today,” he calls over his shoulder as he heads towards the front counter.
My frown doesn’t go away though as I stare after him, confusion making my insides churn. I’ve changed? What the hell?
“He’s got a point,” Gio says with a sigh. “I need another shower, but I’m fucking hungry.” He eyes me. “How ‘bout we stop for burgers on the way back to Nolan’s?”
“Sure.” My answer is quick. I am hungry after all, but still, I eye Cory warily as he waves us goodbye and then shakes his head when I tell him I’ll return the borrowed gym clothes after I wash them. No doubt he expects me to keep them, but I’m not sure if I should.
Gio takes us through a drive-thru where he orders an obscene amount of cheeseburgers and fries. When I try to hand over some cash, he grimaces and shoves me off, paying for it with his own card. Although I bristle at the feeling of charity, he ignores my snappy attitude and shoves a burger in my face before I can go off on him, and half an hour later, I’m in a better mood with a full stomach and an extra cheeseburger and fry combo for whenever Nolan comes home when Gio drops me off and waves me into the house.
I could get used to being a Scorpion Girl, I think as I let myself into the small two-bedroom mill house with the spare key hidden under the front door mat. And that, more than anything else, scares the living fuck out of me.
* * *
NOLAN
I drop the little baggy of weed into the Prep kid’s hands and swipe the money from the hood of his expensive Range Rover before heading back to my bike. My phone buzzes in my pocket as I watch the dipshit freshman speed off, no doubt feeling like a total badass with some green in his pocket. I nearly roll my eyes. Was I ever that young? Even at his age, I’d been a killer.
I dig my phone out of my pocket and grimace at the messages from Savino. Darrio is missing. Well, not so much missing as he is out of touch, and now I’ve got his right hand up my ass, demanding I do something about Juliet working at the Dionysus Lounge. I’m back to doing my regular rounds that I’ve been exempt from since Gio got jumped, but none of that includes monitoring who Ma-Ri can or cannot hire.
My phone buzzes a second time, not with an incoming text, but a call. I answer without hesitation. “Talk to me.”
“I think I’ve got a lead on Donovan’s case,” Lex says.
“You do?” I sit back on my bike’s seat and crack my neck to the side. “Explain.”
“It’s small—barely noticeable, but there were some discrepancies in the numbers across his accounts and the ones he reported to the government at the end of last year,” he says. “Plus, I’ve been looking into Jules’ mom.”
“Denise Donovan?” I frown as I finger the handle of my Indian and contemplate what I know of Juliet’s socialite mother. “Wasn’t she just a trophy wife?”
“Yeah, I thought so too,” Lex agrees. “Sort of. She comes from money out in California, though. Went to a place called Hazelwood—it’s Eastpoint’s sister school. So, it’s not like she was a nobody when she married Donovan.”
“Okay, what does that have to do with the case now?” I ask.
“Her money is gone too.”
My hand drops away from the handlebar. “What do you mean her money is gone?”
Lex takes a breath. “Denise Donovan should have had money of her own—her family had money and she had a trust fund—but either she burned through it all, or whoever embezzled from Donovan-Calloway took that too.”
“Wouldn’t that make her husband the more likely choice?”
“Yeah, you would think.” I hear him typing in the background. “But from what I understand Calloway didn’t just offer to take in Juliet, he offered to take in her mother too. Denise Donovan is a woman used to living in luxury. It makes no sense that she’d leave town, and when I looked into where I suspected she’d be…” His voice drifts off, but he doesn’t need to finish. I’m picking up on his meaning.
“She wasn’t there,” I guess, “and her family has no clue where she is either.”
“Exactly.”
Fuck. I scrub a hand down my face. “You think she is the one who embezzled the money.”
“If she is, she’s probably on an island somewhere sipping margaritas and laughing about her husband taking the fall.”
“Why would she do that, though?” I ask. “If anything, Allen Donovan didn’t have affairs like the rest of those uptight dickwads.”
Lex snorts. “Oh, he had affairs,” he corrects. “It took me a while to confirm because he wouldn’t admit it, but he was discreet about them. I doubt even Juliet knew about them.”
“Okay, so you think she … what? Embezzled from his company and framed him as revenge for cheating on her?” I grind my teeth. “That still doesn’t explain why she’d leave her fucking daughter here afterwards.” Did Juliet have anyone on her side in that old life of hers?
“I’m going to do more digging on that,” Lex informs me. “But I think it’s time I visit old man Donovan to get some more details.”
“Formally or informally?” I ask.
There’s a pause and I can imagine Lex’s evil, maniacal grin. Psycho fucker likely wants to scare the piss out of Allen Donovan simply for causing Juliet any sort of pain. Even if he was a half decent dad, if Lex’s theory is right and Denise Donovan is the real villain here—he led her to it.
“I don’t want him to see me coming,” Lex finally says.
With a sigh, I reach for my helmet. “Alright, fine,” I say, “but make sure you get in and out fast. I don’t want to do a jailbreak.”
Lex laughs. “That won’t be necessary. I’ve already started the setup. One of the guards owes me now. He’ll get me a private meeting with Donovan, and I’ll be back before you know it.”
Putting the phone on speaker, I balance the back of it on the gas tank of my bike as I settle the helmet on my head, flipping up the visor to speak through it. “Don’t miss the game this weekend,” I snap. “Eastpoint’s got a scout coming.”
“No worries, I should be back before then.”
I buckle the helmet into place and lift the phone closer. “Alright, keep me in the loop. I’m heading back to the Southside.”
“Roger that. Talk to you later.”
With that, I hang up and stuff the phone into my pocket and twist the key in the ignition. My Indian roars to life and soon enough, I’m flying back down the highway, spinning around larger vehicles on my way home, on my way back to her.