Julianna

The present...

My heart was beating like an executioner's drum as Espo and I strode down the hallway towards Roman's apartment door, his official one, not his secret one.

"I still think we should wait until there's more evidence," I hissed at Espinoza.

"Capi, we have a witness that puts Roman in a car heading out from Verona on the same road that the body was found on."

I rolled my eyes. "He was a druggie and it was dark. Some witness."

"You know," Espo glared at me, "it's almost as if you don't want it to be Roman Tyrell regardless of the evidence."

"You know," I snapped back, "it's almost as if you want it to be Roman regardless of the lack of evidence."

Espo lifted a finger to signal to be quiet as we approached Roman's door. Espo insisted that he and I personally go to his apartment to escort him to the station.

There was nothing I could do. No excuse I could give to avoid it.

I lifted my trembling fist and rapped my knuckles on Roman's door. Dear God, please don't be home.

"He won't hear you if you knock like a mouse." Espo slammed his fist against the door making it reverberate, the sound rattling around in my body like a pile of old bones.

The lock clicked like the cock of a gun. The door opened.

Roman stood in the doorway, wide and imposing as always, fitted black shirt over denim jeans. His eyes found mine, boring into me. For a second my heart squeezed in my chest so hard it hurt to breathe. Thank God, you're alive.

Now that he was alive, I was free to kill him. Why haven't you returned my calls in two damn days? Not even a quick text, you bastard.

There was nothing I could do except keep a calm professional face on.

His unflinching eyes slid across to Espinoza at my side. "Detective Capulet, Detective Espinoza. What brings you to my humble abode?"

"We would like you to come with us down to the station and answer some questions," Espinoza said.

Roman's gaze returned to me. As usual I could decipher nothing in his stoic features. "Care to tell me what this is about, Detective Capulet?" Roman asked, his voice as sharp as a blade.

He thought I was betraying him. If only he had called me back I could have warned him we were coming. I opened my mouth to speak but?—

"Roman?" a female voice called from within the apartment. "Who is it?"

A female's voice?

Roman's face betrayed nothing—no guilt, no apology, nothing—as a honey-haired woman wearing a silky wrap-around minidress appeared beside him.

Rosaline.

When she spotted me, she shot me a smirk and pawed possessively at Roman's side. He put his arm around her.

Heput his fucking arm around her.

Inside I raged, a tempest, a storm smashing our ship to pieces. Outside I was too shocked to move or say anything. Bastard! How could he betray me?

Roman wouldn't do that to you, a voice inside me urged. There must be an explanation.

Are you stupid, Julianna? He doesn't contact you for two damn days and you find him with her in his apartment?

"These fine detectives just want to talk to me for a while," Roman said to Rosaline. "Another misunderstanding, I'm sure." Roman turned back to me, a smirk on his face. "Tell me, detectives, do you actually have any evidence this time of whatever it is I've supposedly done? Or is this just another fishing expedition because of who my family is?"

I cringed at his words.

"Oh, don't worry," Espo said, his words cordial yet barbed. "We have evidence."

Roman didn't flinch. His eyes bored into mine, a thousand unsaid things hanging between us. "Let's get this over with."

* * *

Roman Tyrell satin the back of our patrol wagon, a set of thin bars like a wire cage separating us from him. It hurt my heart to see him sitting there, in the seat reserved for criminals and lowlifes. He had his arm slung casually over the back of the seat as if he was being chauffeured in the back of a limo, but I could see the tightness in his jaw, his inner state beginning to leak out.

Sitting in the passenger seat I could feel his eyes boring right into the back of my head. The tension in the vehicle was so thick you could cut it with a hatchet.

"Look at that," Espo said, just a little too casually as he glanced up in his rearview mirror. "Roman Tyrell sitting where he belongs."

Roman said nothing.

"Tell me, Roman, with your brother Jacob gone you're next in line to rule the Tyrell empire, isn't that right?"

"Believe me," Roman said in an even tone. In the rearview mirror his eyes flashed with anger. "I would rather he had lived."

Espinoza let out a short, sharp laugh, devoid of humor. "But now you don't have to share once your old man dies. Total power for you."

"Espo," I hissed at him out of the corner of my mouth, trying not to let my cheeks flare with embarrassment. I couldn't believe what he was saying to Roman. Each word like a stab in my own gut. "Leave him alone."

Espinoza shot me a look. "Excuse me?"

"You're being unnecessarily rude to a suspect."

"Roman is tough. Aren't you, Roman? You can handle it. I imagine your father has had harsher things to say to you, judging by his reputation."

"You're quite right, Detective Espinoza," Roman said. "My father is an unforgiving and unrelenting teacher. I've developed a skin thicker than steel. Nothing you say to me could possibly have any effect other than to stroke your own prejudices."

I began to protest. "I don't think?—"

"I don't need you, of all people, to fight my battles for me, Detective Capulet."

I was stunned into silence. What the hell was that supposed to mean?

At the station we put Roman in an interrogation room. We placed a very snotty Rosaline, who had followed us in her car, in a spare office to "wait for my Romy away from all the riff-raff".

Usually we made the suspect sweat it out in the interrogation room for some time before we began our questions. Espo and I watched Roman through the live feed of the camera from the tech room. He sat casually in the chair, one ankle crossed over the other. He looked like he hadn't a care in the world, while inside I was in turmoil. I alternated between glaring at Roman on the screen and at Espo beside me. "What the hell was that about in the car?" I blurted out.

"I could ask you the same question."

"Excuse me?"

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were picking sides." Espo narrowed his eyes at me. "And the side you were picking was his."