Star-Crossed (10 page)

“Throwing that fight made you valuable,” Nova whispered, his dark eyes looking wild and desperate for Romeo to understand. “Don’t you get it? They don’t kill people who are valuable.”

“I’d rather be dead than valuable to a bunch of bullies.” Nova turned to look at him, and for one brief moment the pain on his face was so palpable it choked the air out of the room. Then he leaned in and asked in a horrified whisper, “You didn’t throw the fight, did you?”

“Nope.”

“Jesus Christ.” Nova took another shuddering breath as if searching for sanity.

“Are you outta your fucking mind? You would’ve put a target on your back for one fight?”

“Yes, I would’ve,” Romeo said without hesitating. “So I wouldn’t be asking me to throw any more title fights, ’cause I’m not losing the next one.”

73

Nova threw up his hands in defeat and then stormed out of the room. He slammed the door in an uncharacteristic show of anger, leaving Tino and Romeo alone in the echoing silence.

Romeo turned to stare at Tino, who was sitting on the bed studying the door. The frame had splintered from the strength of Nova’s fury, and Tino seemed to be wavering between going after him or staying there.

Romeo wanted to tell Tino to follow Nova, because that’s what he always did, but he held his tongue. He couldn’t handle fighting with both of them, and he knew Tino silently agreed with Nova. Romeo got dressed instead. He pulled the clothes out of the backpack and then put them on with sharp, jerky actions that betrayed the rage still rolling under the surface. Then he went into the bathroom to finish putting himself together before he faced walking through the lobby to get to his real hotel room.

“Rome.”

Romeo turned from where he stood in front of the mirror running his hands through his wet hair to push it into place so it would dry right. Tino still sat on the bed, and the anger had simmered enough for Romeo to recognize that Tino had stayed with him rather than follow after Nova.

Romeo forced his shoulders to relax. “Yeah?”

“You really think God gave me talents too?” Tino asked uncertainly. “I mean, besides the obvious. Bully material ’cause of my last name and my collection of black belts.”

“Why the fuck would you ask that?” Romeo threw up his hands in disbelief. “You don’t think you’ve got God-given gifts?”

“Well, I’m not a fucking genius like Nova,” Tino said with a bitter laugh. “I’m just, you know, Tino.”

“And what’s wrong with being Tino?” Romeo asked as he walked out of the bathroom and sat on the bed next to his brother. “Look, you’re never gonna be as smart as Nova. He’s got a photographic memory and an IQ that’s off the charts, so you’re just 74

gonna have to deal with that shit. You still got lots of things to be proud of. The kids at the dojo love you. Their martial arts program would’ve gone under a long time ago if it wasn’t for you.”

Tino snorted. “Great. That’s what I’m good for, entertaining small children.”

“Hey, it’s more than just entertaining them and you know it. You’re teaching those kids how to defend themselves. You’re giving ’em confidence and structure and discipline that’ll help them the rest of their lives. I wish you’d actually use your gifts instead of hanging around worthless assholes like Gino and Carlo.” Tino turned and glared at him. “You don’t understand—”

“You’re twenty-two years old, Tino,” Romeo countered as he got off the bed. “At some point you gotta stop partying and grow up. Now’s as good a time as any. Gimme a brother to be proud of—please.”

“Nova’s just doing what he’s got to do. That’s all he’s ever done,” Tino interjected on Nova’s behalf, which was predictable. “And you don’t listen when he tries to tell you the truth. If you did, you wouldn’t be riding him all the time. You’d be proud of him ’cause he does everything for us, not himself.”

“Whatever,” Romeo said dismissively as he threw the rest of his belongings into the backpack and grabbed his suit still hanging on the door. “Let’s get outta here. We gotta plane to catch.”

75

Chapter Five

“Explain to me again why you decided to take into your own hands what a dozen trained officers could’ve handled.” Wyatt leaned back against the seat and folded his arms over his broad chest before he added, “Without getting shot.” Clay narrowed dark eyes at Wyatt across the small limousine. Despite Melody running a soothing hand over his leg, Clay still growled, “How ’bout I explain to you exactly how to kiss my ass.”

“Y’all need to stop with this ’cause you’re grating on my last nerve.” Jules sighed and then punched Wyatt’s arm for good measure. “Will you shut your damn trap ’bout what happened? He’s still recovering. He shouldn’t even be out of the hospital. Getting him all worked up and aggravated is the last thing he needs.”

“Someone’s touchy,” Wyatt observed and then leaned over to stare at Jules’s phone, obviously deciding to turn his nervous energy loose on her instead. “Who ya texting?”

Jules swatted wildly at his chest with one hand and clipped him behind the ear with her phone in the other. “Leave me alone. You’re in my personal space.” She dropped her phone and pushed at Wyatt’s massive bicep with both hands, trying to shove the mountain of a man God had cursed her with as a twin. “Move, ya overgrown oaf.”

“It’s a car,” Wyatt said incredulously. “What the hell do you want me to do ’bout it?”

“I should’ve rented a bigger limo.”

Jules huffed and picked up her phone once more. Wyatt could scoot over and give her breathing room, but he was still trying to see what she was doing. The lack of sleep 76

was getting to her, and it’d been a stressful morning trying to get everyone’s luggage packed and loaded. To say nothing of the nightmare it was to get Clay discharged.

Hospitals didn’t let gunshot victims walk out the door that easily, even if they had a plane to catch. In the end they had to cancel their earlier flight and book one later in the day to give the doctors time.

“Are you okay, Jules?” Melody considered her from across the limousine. The pretty waitress had a sling that matched Clay’s, and both hands were wrapped and bandaged from the incident the day before that had left her in need of several sets of stitches. Her sandy-blonde hair was in a ponytail, showing the exhaustion of the past twenty-four hours on her face, but still she was worried about Jules. “You look tired. I know you’ve been doing a lot since everything happened, and we sure do appreciate it.”

Jules gave Melody a smile. “I’m fine, darlin’. Keeping busy is what I do best.”

“You do got circles under your eyes.” Wyatt reached over, trying to touch Jules’s face in that annoying brotherly way he’d never grown out of. “Long night?” Jules swatted at him again. When that didn’t deter him, she clasped her smartphone tightly and smacked the screen of it against his forehead hard enough to make a loud
thump
that had both Melody and Clay wincing in sympathy.

Wyatt rubbed at his forehead. “Damn it, Jules!”

“Touch me again and lose a hand.”

Jules sat back, feeling very self-satisfied as she checked her phone to make sure she hadn’t cracked the screen on Wyatt’s thick skull. Seeing that her phone was still intact, she leaned against the door away from Wyatt and deleted her original text, replacing it with:

Brothers are a pain in my ass.

“I guess the business meeting didn’t work off all that womanly aggression you got most of the month.”

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Jules kicked Wyatt’s leg. “Shut up ’bout my business meeting.”

“Didn’t go well?”

“It went fine.”

“And business meeting’s code for?” Clay asked.

Jules felt her cheeks heat and lifted her head to glare at Wyatt before she turned and gave Clay an apologetic look. “It’s nothing. I had a date. It was fun. Now it’s over.”

“It ain’t that over,” Wyatt observed when Jules’s phone vibrated in her lap. “Is that him you been texting all day?”

Jules ignored Wyatt and picked up her phone to read Romeo’s text.

No shit! I bet my brothers are a bigger pain in the ass than yours is.

Jules smiled and reminded him.

My brother is Wyatt “The Deputy” Conner.

It took less than a minute for Romeo to text her back, and Jules laughed out loud when she looked at the screen of her phone.

You win.

“Why dontcha share with the whole car what’s so funny?” Jules looked up from her phone, seeing that everyone was looking at her. She felt her cheeks heat once more and grabbed her purse on the floor to hide her phone in it.

Then she looked out the window as a distraction when she saw both Melody and Clay grinning at her in amusement. Seeing the signs announcing various drop-off and pickup points at the airport had Jules breathing a sigh of relief.

She sprang out of the car when they finally pulled up on the curb, getting her second wind from the knowledge that they were almost home free. The press had been hounding them all day. At the hotel, at the hospital it’d been constant, and Clay hated the attention on a good day. One day after being shot in the soft spot beneath his right shoulder, with no pain management save a couple of ibuprofen, keeping Clay media-friendly was almost impossible. Especially when he was still overprotective of Melody, 78

whose ex-husband was the one who’d shot him. That asshole was still in the hospital with a serious head injury courtesy of Clay. They weren’t entirely certain he was going to recover to stand trial, and all of them were treading lightly trying not to mention it.

Having Clay nearly kill Melody’s ex-husband with his bare hands was a touchy subject.

The last thing they needed was more tactless reporters firing questions at them.

Jules went to grab someone to check their luggage at the curb. She had everyone’s ticketing information, but they needed IDs and once she got herself handled, she headed back to the car.

“I can carry my own bags,” Clay snapped at Wyatt, who flat-out refused to let Clay mess with the luggage.

Wyatt laughed. “Really? ’Cause that sling on your shoulder and the fact that you’re growling at me like an injured grizzly tells me you can’t.”

“Just go give the guys your license and head inside. Take Melody with you. We need to get y’all off this curb as quickly as possible.” Jules took her carry-on out of Wyatt’s hand and tossed it over her shoulder before she turned around and hollered to Tony and Jasper, Clay’s coaches, who were getting their things out of the other limousine that had pulled up behind them. “Y’all need to go give them your IDs.” Jasper left his luggage on the curb and walked up to Jules. “Do we need our tickets?”

“Nope, it’s all electronic.” Jules tossed Melody’s carry-on over her other shoulder while Wyatt helped the limousine driver unload the luggage they were going to check.

She saw them put Clay’s carry-on on the cart and grabbed Wyatt’s arm. “Get that. He’s taking that one on the plane. It’s got his medicine and everything in it.” Wyatt frowned. “He ain’t taking the medicine. What’s the point of carrying it on?

And don’t say just in case ’cause you know his arm could be falling off and he wouldn’t take the darn pills.”

“Just grab the bag.”

79

Wyatt grabbed it and tossed it over his shoulder with his own carry-on bag, leaving the two of them standing there looking like an oddly matching pair of weighted-down travelers.

Jules struggled to search through her purse while pushing Melody’s carry-on higher on her shoulder, knowing she owed the driver a large tip. She was handing the guy a fifty when Wyatt nudged her and said, “Look what the cat dragged in.” She turned to see three large, luxury limousines parked on the curb in front of them. In comparison to these vehicles, the ordinary airport shuttle limos Jules had rented looked old and mediocre. Car doors were still opening, and every man who stepped onto the curb was olive-skinned and undeniably Italian, but there was one who stood head and shoulders above the others. He wore designer sunglasses and one of those flat-topped, military-style black baseball hats that were in fashion now, but it did nothing to hide his identity. Like Clay and Wyatt, something about a heavyweight UFC

fighter just screamed
look at me
. They were larger than life, impossible to miss, and never hidden by caps and sunglasses.

“Those guys pack more than a flock of trophy wives,” Wyatt observed when their driver started to unload. “That’s a lot of luggage.”

“There’s more of them,” Jules said defensively, though she had to admit they
did
have a lot of luggage. “They got twice as many people on their team.”

“He’s got an entourage.” Wyatt grabbed the last bag and handed it to the skycap waiting for them to finish unloading. “How city is that? He thinks he’s a fucking rock star.”

“Leave it alone.” Jules turned to Wyatt rather than stand there gawking at Romeo, who still hadn’t noticed them. “Romeo did save Melody. Please don’t forget that.”

“You’re calling him Romeo now? Like we’re buddies with him or something?

What the hell kinda name is Romeo anyway?”

Jules gaped, feeling vaguely insulted. Romeo wasn’t any more odd a name than Juliet was. “Just try and remember our daddy raised ya with manners.” 80

Her purse buzzed, and she wrestled once more to search through it. She tilted the phone to read the text, using the dimness of her purse to make the screen easier to see.