Page 39

CHAPTER 39

ROMEO CHAPTER 1- JULES

I cover my mouth with a shaking bloodstained hand and do my best to stifle my breathing. Through the sliver between the accordion closet doors in my grandfather’s study, I can see the masked thief working through the safe where my grandfather kept nearly everything of value.

How he even knew the code, I’m not sure. It’s something my grandfather kept close to his chest. Not even I know what it is.

Grandfather. His crimson blood soaks the floor at my feet, saturating the carpet as it moves beneath the closet doors. I have to keep myself from looking at the body lying just in front of the doors. It’s the only reason I haven’t been seen.

The only reason there aren’t two bodies on the floor.

He’s protecting me even in death.

Tears burn in my eyes as grief sears the inside of my throat.

All of this for jewelry. For money.

Gems that are considered more important than the blood of the greatest man I ever knew. A man who never gave up on me. Even when I gave up on myself.

“Stay in and stay down, girl,” he’d told me before shoving me into this closet. “Don’t make a sound. No matter what you see or hear.”

“We need to call the police!”

“And you will. But nothing in this room is more important to me than you are, Jules. Never forget that.”

His smile will haunt me for the rest of my days. The thief didn’t even give him a chance to hand anything over. They’d pulled out a gun and fired. Two shots.

Bang. Bang.

That was the end of my grandfather.

The thief drops something to the ground, and the jarring noise has me jerking within my hideaway. I accidentally bump into an umbrella leaning against the side.

It clatters to the ground, and the sound is deafening.

Oh no.

The thief straightens slowly, his face covered in a black mask as he turns toward the closet. On footsteps so quiet they might as well be silent, he crosses over and peers inside. I try to hide, to tuck myself into a corner, but there’s nowhere else to go.

Even with his eyes shielded, I know the moment his gaze meets mine.

He steps away from view, and my grandfather is drug out of the way.

Panic shaking every inch of my body, I know that if I don’t fight, I won’t survive. Even if I do fight, I may not survive.

But my grandfather raised me to meet death with fists.

So, I grab the very umbrella that gave me away and wait. The doors open, and I explode out of them with a scream, driving the umbrella into the gut of my grandfather’s killer. He grunts and stumbles back, so I dodge to the right and try to make it to the door.

I haven’t even taken a single step before I’m ripped backward and slammed into a hard body. An arm bands around my throat, and breathing becomes a nearly impossible struggle.

“They’ll think you did it,” he growls into my ear. “I know you. I know you’re trouble. And I’ll make it look like you did it,” he says, hatred lacing his tone. “Deranged former alcoholic murders beloved actor. I can see the headlines now. You just handed me a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

“Who are you?”

“Someone owed something,” he snarls.

My gaze lands on my grandfather. He will not have died for nothing. I slam the heel of my shoe down into the top of my attacker’s foot.

He mutters an obscene remark that I can’t even focus on as I turn to make a mad dash to the closest exit—a window my grandfather left open after I’d come in and insisted he air out his office tonight.

The killer tackles me to the floor, and my head hits the corner of a table on my way down. Pain radiates through the side of my head as warmth trickles down. I’m nearly blinded as blood slides down over my eye, but I turn and slam my foot into his face.

He releases me again, and I waste no time as I rush toward the window and climb out onto the ledge. After wiping my hand over my eye, I slide further onto the ledge and take careful half-steps to put myself out of reach of the window. I just need to buy enough time to find a safe place to fall?—

The attacker is leaning out the window, the gun he used on my grandfather in his hand.

Without much choice, I leap from the balcony.

A bullet whizzes past me.

I hit the top of my grandfather’s car with a heavy thud, then roll off.

“I will find you!” the stranger bellows. “You can’t hide from me!”

Adrenaline in my system is my only saving grace as I sprint toward the estate’s sprawling gardens even as every inch of my body aches from the impact.

The security building at the gated entrance. I just need to make it—another bullet whizzes past me.

Tears burning in my eyes, I have to keep wiping them—and the blood—away from my face so I can see. I know these grounds better than anyone. Most of my childhood was spent playing hide-and-seek with my grandfather.

Which means—I veer to the right into a group of trees.

Breathing frantically, I find the space that has been my victory spot since I was seven years old. And if my grandfather couldn’t find me, then maybe—just maybe—it will be my salvation.

Doing what I can to avoid leaving a blood trail, I drop to my knees and slide into a large tunnel that leads up into the trunk of an old tree. Then, just as I did when I was a kid, I reach through and pull a bunch of old leaves toward the hole so it doesn’t look disturbed.

And then, with the horrific image of my dead grandfather on the floor and the echo of heavy boot steps just outside, I stay quiet.

Quiet as the dead.

Otherwise, I’ll be joining them.