Yet despite the rage flooding my system, my body still lusted after Romero fucking Montego.
He was occupied now, greeting people and continuing to move towards the podium. I was forgotten, already. What did I expect?
I turned away from the chaos, running towards the exit, tripping over the heels and my dress and my goddamn feelings.
8.
Romero
I was halfway to the stage when I turned around to catch a glimpse of her racing away. She nearly lost her balance once or twice. I was shaking hands and greeting people but whispers to the right drew my attention.
“Did you see who he was dancing with?”
“Poor girl. I’d heard she avoided things like this because of her mother.”
“I still can’t believe she came back to New York.”
“It would be lovely if she could continue Sandra’s work. I knew her, you know. A beautiful soul, even though she made that penniless artist.”
“She’d have been proud that her death wasn’t in vain, that it did some good for the city.”
“Yes, definitely. Though lately the crackdown on crime seems to be waning. And the big scandal over a spike of killings with Montego guns.”
“Shhhh, Mr. Montego is right there.”
“Mr. Montego, you gave us a fright thinking you’d left early!” The head organizer gushed as I approached.
“On the contrary, I was enjoying myself immensely.” I forced a smile, or rather reenergized the forced smile I already wore.
“Yes, you did seem to be enjoying yourself. With the Capuleti girl no less.” The woman’s smile faded a little. She reached out and curled a hand around my upper arm. “She’s had a rough go that one. It would be nice to see her end up in the right social circles. Her mother would want that. Sandra was a dear.”
“Capuleti?” I frowned, looking towards the exit, though the woman I’d danced with was long gone. “As in Sandra Capuleti?”
“Are there any other Capuletis in New York?” She dropped her hand, giving herself a nearly imperceptible shake and smiling so hard crow’s feet dipped to life at the corners of her eyes. “Well, let’s get this show on the road!” She walked a few steps from me and leaned towards the microphone once more. “I want to thank you all once more for coming out tonight! Please remember to place your donations in the black boxes before leaving and put your hands together again for Mr. Montego!”
She walked to the side, freeing the podium. I strode over, taking her place, and beaming out at the bright lights and rich fools.
*
“So, I wasn’t the only one who thought you snuck into the hotel.” Balthasar helped me out of the tuxedo jacket, pulling it down my arms and shaking it free of wrinkles before draping it across the back of a modern butler chair near the bathroom. It didn’t really look like a chair at all, just folds of metal and curves of wood which approximated a chair. It was only one of three pieces of furniture in my room. I liked things simple, uncluttered. Uncomplicated.
“How did you...” I turned around, staring at the old man who always seemed to know more than I wanted him to.
“You removed your earpiece, but you did not switch it off. Do you believe that thin tux material is a match for one of the most advanced comm devices on the market?”
“Well shit,” I sighed, unfastening the tailored underarm holster, and slipping it off my shoulders. Balthasar was already waiting, arms outstretched, for the weapon. “The sooner the aramid suits come in, the better. I bet that will block you from spying on me, old man.”
“I will find other ways.” Balthasar smiled deviously, his face wrinkling on an almost laugh. “Is this all you took tonight?” He eyed the single firearm.
I grinned, reaching down to my ankle, and unstrapping the holster there with the smaller caliber pistol. “Always a backup, Balthasar. You taught me that.”
“I taught you to have a backup for your backup, but youth always think they know better.”
“The world changes, and you old people are too stuck in your ways to see it,” I taunted. Balthasar was the only person on the planet that I felt truly comfortable with. He knew my past, knew my trauma. He knew the black corners of my personality. And he accepted everything.
“No need for cardio tonight I’m guessing.” He commented, changing the subject and taking the second gun. He’d field strip and clean the Maxim and store everything properly. Until next time. I’d been after The Apothecary for so long, I didn’t have a new target yet. “It seemed like that young woman got your heart rate up enough to burn a few calories.”
“No cardio tonight,” I agreed without comment on the young woman.
“Are you in for the night then, Master Montego?” He was out in the hall now, guns in hand.
I nodded, only half hearing his words because I was sinking fast into memory. The sounds of his footsteps leaving added to the sensation. Step. Step. Step. Walking down dark sidewalks, the glow of streetlights carving circles on the ground.
The woman I’d danced with had been Juliette Capuleti. I still found that hard to believe. Daughter to murdered Sandra Capuleti, a chronic do-gooder with a streak of vanity that would put even my mother to shame.
She’d been my first. I could close my eyes and see her face in minute detail.
A little over a decade ago...
I’d bought roses for my mother. White ones. Her favorite.
Twenty-three. Still a goddamn child in all the ways that mattered. Only just understanding who my father was and what he expected from me.
The city was always so alive at night. I’d sent the chauffeur home, knowing it would piss off Balthasar who was more a parent to me than my blood kin. But I wanted to explore New York. Not the brightly lit streets and safe buildings. But the rotting, putrid core of the boroughs.
I hadn’t planned on getting involved in a murder.
You hit these layers of the city, where the artificial beauty peels back and reveals wrinkles in the workings. The windows are a little dingier. The streets are a little dirtier. You walk further, and another layer sloughs off. The trees look a little browner, even in summer. A little further. Another layer gone. Depression seems to cling like low hanging clouds to everything around you.
I didn’t know where I was eventually, as I walked that night.
I only knew that my surroundings were different, and I craved that. I didn’t want to live up to the expectations of my family.
The alley smelled dank, pools of urine dotting the broken concrete. But there was an undercurrent of another scent, metallic and sweet, beneath the mold and piss.
I didn’t hear a scream, because she was already dead.
I’d never seen a dead body before.
I fumbled for my phone, getting ready to call 911, but instead I’d hit speed dial and Balthasar’s voice had greeted me.
“I will make the call. You need to leave, Master Montego.”
“But I found her. It’s my job to do something.”
“You will only drag the family name into a scandal,” he reasoned, voice even, no emotional attachment, as if I hadn’t just found a murdered woman. “Tell me exactly where you are and I will call the authorities.”
So, I did. And I was still ashamed, to this day, that I cared more for the family name than I did my own moral code.
But before leaving, I took one of the white roses and placed it gently in her battered hand. I don’t know why I did that, a corpse can’t accept comfort.
I hadn’t known then that I’d just created my very own signature.
A calling card.
For all of the justice I would serve in the future.
Though Balthasar, who knew me better than I knew myself, saw the signs.
He nurtured the darkness, pushing the shadows into a place where I could save my soul instead of damning it.
I walked to the wall facing my bed and pressed my palm against the glossy black panel there. A section of wall slid upwards to reveal a bank of screens. Most
of our tech was in another part of the house, but often I preferred my bedroom. A change of scenery to think through things.
“Computer, bring up the Capuleti files.” When the Capuleti Case went cold and the NYPD and FBI stopped digging, I started. My obsession with justice grew by the day. But it had been a goddamn decade, and I wasn’t any closer to finding the killer. I had nervous energy, ambitions to make the world better, not just NY.
Seconds later, folder after folder appeared on the middle monitor. I closed a few, moved a few to the side, and clicked on the one I wanted. I scrolled, reading slowly though I knew the words by heart. They were etched into my brain on a private scroll that unraveled at will to fucking taunt me.
There’d been one private detective who’d been more thorough than all the other agencies combined. He’d combed through every minor detail.
I read through his notes, refreshing myself. I’d pushed her case to the side, as had so many others. Seeing her daughter tonight, dancing with her... it was time I found the truth and gave her justice. As I promised.
It was personal.
Because I’d found her body. I’d promised her lifeless corpse that I’d get her justice.
That’s what my training was for; it was what all the blood-soaked money from my father’s twisted businesses were for. To make the world better, instead of making it worse. To erase the sins of the father inherited by the son. Dismantling Montego Arms and getting our guns off the street wasn’t enough.
Sandra Capuleti had been killed elsewhere and dumped in Drug Alley, a neutral hot spot for gang dealers and avid users in Brownsville. It seemed like every inch of her skin had been mutilated. Needle marks and razor slices. Her tongue had been cut out. Raped. Sodomized.
It was played off by the media as a mugging gone horribly wrong. The details were kept under wraps while the investigation was hot. But the way she was killed... it was less like a robbery—which would have more typically ended in a gunshot, knife wound or even a savage beating with a weapon of convenience—and more like a prostitute had pissed off their pimp and paid the price.
It wasn’t a typical play for any of the organized crime families, though they dealt in everything from loan sharking to prostitution. The smaller gangs wouldn’t have crossed that line either. Or even if they did, they sure as hell wouldn’t plant the body on their own fucking turf.
Dropping the body of a prominent New Yorker in that alley... was a power play. It could have easily incited a street war with one organization shooting for dominance, taking certain players off the board from the start.
Or that’s what I’d thought at first.
Lo and behold, Montego Arms saw a jump in profit that was almost supernatural. Dear old Dad got a contract with the city to supply all 77 NYPD precincts with new equipment, subcontracting out for new vests, holsters, you name it. It was a deal worth millions, one multiple companies were bidding on. But Sandra Capuleti’s murder put the pressure on, and Dad made a show of supporting the grieving widower and making speeches outside the alley where her body was found. He was a New York businessman, and he preached that it was only right that a New Yorker helped clean up the city.
And then I’d thought maybe my own goddamn father had a hand in the woman’s death.
When the DA started cracking down on crime, I realized that was the likely outcome all along. If one crime group wanted to take out another, there were easier ways than framing them for a murder that would boil justice to a frenzy.
I had investigated the case in circles, repeatedly, for years.
New York got safer for a while. Dad laughed to the bank. But that wasn’t enough for him. He started supplying untraceable weapons to the bad guys. Violence crept back, bloodshed and chaos. Cops were killed left and right. But Montego Arms did the under-the-table transactions in cash and all product seized on the streets had gone ‘missing’ during shipments. Dad had complete deniability and got insurance payouts to boot. I found the ledger and enough cash to buy a private island in his personal safe about a month after he died of a heart attack. Too much lavish living, though I liked to think he was struck down by God versus killed by a bad diet, high cholesterol, and a blood clot.
He was a greedy son of a bitch.
Clicking a new folder, columns of photo thumbnails came to life. I clicked on one, a still shot pulled from a restaurant’s security footage.
The night of her death, Sandra Capuleti wore a royal purple suit when she’d attended a business dinner in Brooklyn. Expertly tailored, fitted to her curves. The security camera had her arriving at Aska on Fifth a little after seven. She left at eight-thirty. This time without her overcoat. It was a random detail, something no one thought particularly important. Especially considering it was still at the coat check during the investigation. It sat in evidence now, wrapped in plastic and preserved. Unlike the owner’s body which currently decomposed in a surprisingly inexpensive casket.
She’d grabbed a cab. It appeared to be taking her home, until her phone received a call from a burner. Then the cabby changed directions. City security cameras could trace her movements up until she reached a few blocks from Drug Alley. There, the surveillance equipment was under maintenance for some fucking city beautification project and test run in one of the worst parts of the city, because that’s what that area of New York needed—pretty flowers versus a goddamn soul cleanse.
No footage for a nearly half a square mile, which worked out to something like nineteen east-west blocks and six north-south blocks. So somewhere in that geographical radius, Sandra Capuleti exited the cab and went to some unknown location. I’d checked the records of every building nearby that had a security system. Nothing remarkable, nothing stood out.
Though it was strange that a socialite would be in that part of the city. It was suspicious.
But at the core, she seemed by all accounts a decent person. She loved helping people, loved her family.
She’d also loved Jackson Hugo, a real estate guru she’d been having an affair with for about two years preceding her death. He came to the funeral. To my knowledge, I was the only one who knew of their relationship. They were careful. They didn’t meet often, or at the same places. Business lunches followed by looking at real estate for new pursuits. Empty businesses primed for afternoon delight. Unless you were really looking for the clues—mussed lipstick, loosened tie, slightly wrinkled skirt—in the city security footage that covered Sandra’s last few months alive, you’d never have guessed that they were more than buyer’s agent and client when they were seen together.
Even the NYPD hadn’t uncovered their dalliance, though they’d questioned the real estate firm he worked for—The Cochran Group. And the company had enough lawyers to keep their employees out of the fire. Thus, Hugo’s name became just another in an extensive list of agents and brokers jotted down in a cold case file. A footnote. And later, when the roses linked Sandra’s case to a string of others, the Feds didn’t think the real estate firm was a lead worth revisiting. None of the deals they’d helped Sandra broker were controversial, or near Drug Alley. Then it became an even smaller footnote on an even larger case.
Inconsequential footnote or not, Jackson Hugo had turned up clean when I’d dug deeper after discovering the affair. Not even the whisper of stain on his record. And he had a hell of an alibi. Chartered a private jet to the Caymans for deep sea fishing the day before and didn’t get back until three days after her death. The man had email confirmations, a car service pick him and drop him at the airport, social media photos in first class and on the fishing charter holding the biggest damn blue marlin I’d ever smacked eyes on.
So, I’d written Hugo off and moved forward.
Sandra’s charitable pursuits sometimes caused waves. She’d filed an injunction to keep a homeless shelter from being torn down and made enemies out of the developer who wanted the land. But interviews and records had proven that she’d made amends with EverWood Development by finding them a suitable location at a lower
price. They didn’t have reason to kill her. Not after that.
Finally, I turned my attention to the grieving husband.
In nearly forty percent of cases where a woman is murdered, the killer is an intimate partner.
Yet, David Capuleti played the picture of a grieving husband. He went nearly broke paying for her funeral, making donations, and hiring investigators. He sold the family rowhouse after Juliette went to Cali and moved to a modest place in Long Island. A month after moving, he tried to kill himself, slicing his wrists in the tub. Yet then he’d called 911 himself, mumbling to the operator that he couldn’t make his daughter lose her father too. I had the recording of that call. The hackers I worked with really could get anything for a price.
If David had slaughtered his wife, it wasn’t for money. Even the life insurance policy on Sandra Capuleti went to a trust fund for their daughter. He didn’t keep a cent of it.
But maybe he’d found out about Hugo.
Or there was another reason he snapped.
His alibi was weak. He’d been at home watching TV at the time. Private resident security systems on his street couldn’t prove he’d left. But there were blind spots, making it possible to slip out undetected.
It happened all the time.
Love can turn to hate in a heartbeat.
But Christ, if he was the killer, he deserved a fucking Oscar for his performance.
9.
Juliette
Mondays should not exist.
Whatever asshole created the weekly calendar, had to be a sadist.
And the two-day weekend? Don’t fucking get me started.
Like two fleeting days is enough to recover from five days of stress.
Not to mention that those two days end up being when every adult alive has to catch up on life outside of work—laundry, dishes, cleaning, trying to see family and loved ones. Maybe squeeze in a drop or two of real personal pleasure.
Fucking Monday!
“How was the ball, Princess?” Tybalt loomed over me, coffee in hand and mustache dripping.
Her Villain: A Dark Bully Romance (Aqua Vitae Duet Book 1) Page 6