“I suggest you back up,” Enrico said.
“I will not stand here and be slandered in my own home. If you don’t want peace with Romeo, that’s your decision. But how it affects your son is on you.”
Then he stormed out and left me holding my breath.
“Julia, are you ok?”
I held my hand out to Enrico and stumbled up against the wall.
“Get out,” I said breathlessly.
“Julia, I’m not—”
“Get the fuck out or you're fired,” I said.
I closed my eyes and listened as Enrico retreated from the kitchen. His act was good. It was really, really good. Stefano put on a good face, but there was something about it I still didn’t trust. He didn’t deny that he was trying to do it. He said “even if I was.” That wasn’t a denial, just like Romeo had side-stepped my question about the men on the docks.
And when he had side-stepped my question, it was because I was right.
I put my coffee cup down on the table and rushed back up to Matteo’s room. I dug the key out of my pocket and whipped his door open. I locked it behind me and snuggled in bed with him, listening as his soft snores fell from his lips. I was scared. Alone. Worried about my uncle’s true motivations. The more I uncovered, the more I found that what Romeo was saying had plausible grounds to be true.
And now, I had nowhere to take my son where we could live without the shadow of my uncle over us.
There was only one person I could trust, one person I could go to that I knew would help me and keep our best interests at heart.
I only hoped he picked up the phone after I’d slapped him in the middle of the park.
CHAPTER 21
ROMEO
“Talk to me, Bradshaw.”
“It doesn’t look good,” he said. “The police precinct is up in arms.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“The detective claims to have found a ring at the docks, and it has the Martine family insignia on it.”
“That’s not possible,” I said. “I don’t even wear my ring, and I told my bodyguards to take them off before they got out of the car.”
“It’s looking bad for you either way,” he said. “The investigators have zeroed in on you, and you’re now their prime suspect because of that ring.”
“Is that all they have?”
“When it comes to your family, it’s all they need. It’s bad, Romeo. If I were you, I’d get your affairs in order,” he said.
“Thanks for the heads up,” I said flatly.
I hung up the phone with my connection in the police department and rushed to my father’s office. I bounded down the stairs and threw open the massive double doors. I pulled everything off the shelves. Books. Paperweights. I picked up his computer and threw open all his drawers. My father kept every personal belonging and every sentimental item he could’ve ever wanted in his office. He had hiding places for his hiding places, and I tore the damn place apart. I opened books I knew he’d cut the pages out in and I looked in the safes behind all the dummy walls. I flipped over his damn chair and turned his desk drawers inside out.
But it was a picture of him and Mom that caught my eye.
I reached for it and plucked it from the window sill. Why did he have a picture on the damn window sill? I flipped it over and saw nothing, but then I looked over to where the picture had been sitting.
And there was the slightest protrusion from the wall.
I reached out for it and pressed it in. A small compartment slid out, and I peered inside. Nothing was in there but a small gray rag.