Chapter 29
Quentin
I pulled up outside Julia's apartment five minutes early and sat in the car for a full minute, hands gripping the steering wheel.
You're about to walk into a potential trap. You know that, right?
Stone's warnings had been playing on repeat in my head all day.
"She confessed, then vanished. Classic manipulation."
"We found spy equipment in her desk."
"She's dangerous. Meet her in public if you have to meet her at all."
He was right. I knew he was right. Every tactical part of my brain screamed that walking up to her door was suicide.
But I couldn't stay away.
Because beneath the lies and the deception and the spy equipment, I'd seen something real in her eyes when she'd confessed. Something that looked an awful lot like love.
Or maybe I was just a fool.
God help me, probably both.
I got out of the car before I could talk myself out of it. Walked to her door on legs that felt steadier than they should have. Knocked at precisely eight o'clock.
My hand rested near the gun holstered at my back. Just in case.
She wouldn't. She had chances before. She wouldn't.
The door opened.
And there she was.
Julia. Alive. Real. Here.
She looked exhausted. Beautiful, but under a lot of stress—her eyes big and vulnerable, hair falling down in messy waves, wearing jeans and a casual sweater like she wasn’t trying to impress anyone.
"You came." Her voice was barely above a whisper. Relief and fear warring in her expression.
"You called." I kept my tone neutral. Controlled.
For a moment, neither of us moved. We just stood there, her in the doorway, me on her threshold, three feet and enough lies to last a lifetime between us.
"Can I—" She stepped back. "Come in. Please."
I walked past her, hyperaware of her proximity. Of how easy it would be for her to—
Stop. Just stop.
The apartment was exactly as I remembered. Clean. Organized. The Julia Russell apartment, not Julia Russo's real home. Another layer of deception.
"Can I get you something? Water? Coffee? I have—" She gestured helplessly toward the kitchen. "I don't know. Something."
"I'm fine."
"Right. Of course." She wrapped her arms around herself. "I'm sorry. I don't know how to do this."
"Do what?"
"This." She gestured between us. "Face you after—after everything."
I leaned against the wall, arms crossed, studying her. Looking for the lie. The con. The angle.
All I saw was a terrified woman who looked like she hadn't slept in days.
"You disappeared," I said quietly. "One minute we're at dinner, you're confessing you were sent to kill me, and the next you're just gone. No explanation. Nothing."
"I know." Tears welled in her eyes. "I'm so sorry, Quentin. I wanted to explain. I tried to call you—"
"I blocked you."
She flinched like I'd slapped her. "I deserved that."
"Yeah. You did."
Silence stretched between us. Heavy. Painful.
"Carlo called me away," she said finally. "Texted me during dinner. Said I had ninety seconds to get in Silvio's car or—" Her voice broke. "Or you were going to have a really bad night. I didn't have time to explain. I just—I ran."
My chest tightened. "To protect me."
"To protect you," she confirmed. "I thought they were going to kill you right there. I thought Silvio was waiting outside to—" She pressed her hands to her face. "I thought I'd never see you again."
"But you're here now."
"I'm here now." She lowered her hands, meeting my eyes. "Silvio’s been watching me. He told Carlo we were… together. That’s why Carlo pulled me out. They don’t know I told you the truth… well… Aunt Filomena knows, but no one else. I told Carlo you were innocent. He gave me one week."
"For what?"
Her voice was steady now, but I could see her hands shaking. "To find concrete proof you didn't kill my father. If I can't prove it—" She swallowed hard. "If I can't prove it, Silvio comes back. And he finishes the job."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence.
"One week," I repeated.
"One week." She took a step toward me, then stopped, like she'd remembered she didn't have the right anymore. "I'm so sorry, Quentin. For lying to you. For deceiving you. For—for all of it. But I need you to know something."
"What?"
"When I told you I loved you—" Her voice cracked. "That wasn't a lie. That was never a lie. Everything else, yes. But not that. Never that."
I wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe her so badly it physically hurt.
But I'd found the thumb drive hidden in her lipstick.
"Stone found your drive," I said quietly.
Her eyes widened. "My—oh. The lipstick."
"The lipstick." I pushed off the wall, closing the distance between us by one careful step. "Professional-grade spy equipment. What was on it, Julia?"
"Nothing that would harm you." She said it so quickly, so desperately. "I was supposed to be gathering intel on you, but instead, the only things I copied were things that would prove your innocence. I didn’t put anything on there that my family could use against you. I couldn't…" She swallowed.
"Couldn't what?"
"Couldn't betray you like that." Tears spilled down her cheeks now. "I was already betraying my family by falling for you. By choosing not to kill you. By believing you were innocent. I couldn't—I wouldn't—give them anything that could hurt you."
I studied her face. The raw honesty there. The fear.
"Forrest checked the drive," I said. “The files you copied didn’t make a lot of sense. Now they do."
Relief crashed over her features. "Thank God."
"But that doesn't mean I can trust you."
"I know." She wiped her face with shaking hands. "I know you can't. I know I destroyed that. But Quentin—" Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. "We have one week. Seven days to find out who really killed my father. If we don't—"
"Silvio kills me."
"Silvio kills both of us," she corrected. "I think he tried to kill me that night on the highway. The bullet through my windshield? That was real. If he's been ordered to eliminate anyone who's compromised, then that includes me."
The pieces clicked together. "So your family thinks you're a liability now."
"Carlo's protecting me. For now. He believes my explanation that you're innocent.
But the rest of the family—" She shook her head.
"Filomena wants you dead. My grandfather wants you dead.
Half my cousins want you dead. And if I can't prove you're innocent in seven days, Carlo won't be able to hold them back anymore. "
I processed this. "So, we either find the real killer—"
"Or we both die."
"That's not much of a choice."
"No." A bitter laugh escaped her. "It's really not."
I looked at her. Really looked at her. At the woman who'd lied to me about everything. Who'd been sent to assassinate me. Who'd chosen to spare me instead.
Who might be the only person who could save me now.
Or who might be playing the longest con I'd ever seen.
"If I agree to work with you," I said slowly, "I need complete honesty. No more lies. No more omissions. Everything."
"Yes. Anything."
"And Stone stays involved. He doesn't trust you, and frankly, I'm not sure I do either. But if we're doing this, he's part of it."
"Okay."
"And if I find out you're lying to me—if I find out this is all some elaborate setup—" I let the threat hang unfinished.
"You'll kill me." She said it matter-of-factly. "I know. I'd expect nothing less."
The casual acceptance of her own potential execution should have chilled me. Instead, it made me believe her a little more.
Because someone running a con wouldn't be that calm about the consequences.
"One week," I said. "Seven days to find your father's real killer."
"Seven days," she agreed.
"Then we'd better get started."
Relief flooded her face. "You'll help me?"
"I'll help us," I corrected. "Because if Silvio's coming for you too, then we're both targets now. This isn't about helping you anymore. It's about survival."
"Right. Yes. Of course." She wiped her face again, pulling herself together. "Where do we start?"
"We start with suspects." I pulled out my phone. "I'm calling Stone. We're doing this at my place, with my security, with my team. If someone's trying to kill us both, I'm not doing it in an apartment that could be compromised."
"Makes sense."
I hit Stone's number. He answered on the first ring.
"Boss?"
"Julia's back. We're working together. Get the team ready—I’m bringing her in."
A pause. "You sure about this?"
"No." I met Julia's gaze. "But we don't have a choice. Someone killed Big Sal Russo, framed me for it, and now they're trying to kill both of us. We have one week to figure out who before the Russo family sends Silvio to finish us off."
"One week?" Stone's voice was incredulous. "That's the timeline?"
"That's the timeline."
"Then we'd better work fast." I could practically hear him shifting into tactical mode. "I'll call Serenity, get Forrest on standby. Meet at your place in twenty?"
"Twenty." I hung up.
Julia was already grabbing her bag, her laptop, moving with purpose now that we had a plan.
"Quentin?"
I turned.
"Thank you." Her voice was quiet. Sincere. "For believing me. Or—or at least for giving me a chance to prove I'm telling the truth."
"Don't thank me yet." I headed for the door. "We might both be dead in a week."
"I know." She followed me. "But at least if we die, we die fighting. Together."
Together.
The word shouldn't have meant as much as it did.
But as we walked out into the night—into whatever waited for us in the next seven days—I couldn't shake the feeling that "together" might be the only thing that saved us.
Or the thing that destroyed us both.
Either way, I was about to find out.