Page 65 of Written with Love

Did Juliette know what he was working on? What it meant to him to find a love letter from Harry Rothschild to Karnia Bergman?

For the next few hours, as he wrote, immersing himself in the story and the characters, he completely lost track of time and place. Details flew from his fingertips. History. Fiction or real, it didn’t matter at this point. What mattered was getting it down before he lost the thoughts.

“So, this is what you chose over my sister,” a voice sounded from the doorway. He jerked his head up.

There, standing in his doorway, was a figure in all black.

No alarm in the house had sounded.

No noises had caused him to be on guard.

“Who are you?” he said, reaching for his phone.

“Don’t!” the figure warned him, and it was then that he saw the shadow of the gun pointing at him.

His hand froze in mid-air.

“What do you want?” he asked slowly.

“I thought it was for you to suffer.”

He frowned. That voice. That wasn’t a man.

He squinted as the figure took a step further into the room. He managed to hold in a gasp.

“Gabriella?” He shook his head. “But you’re…”

“Not Gabriella.” The woman sneered.

No, he thought after she took another step further into the light. It wasn’t Gabriella. But whoever it was was a spitting image of her, maybe just a few years younger.

“Giovanna DeLuca,” she said, and his heart sank.

Gabriella had mentioned her younger sister while they’d dated. He’d read all about her. How her sister had been locked away at an early age after trying to smuggle a gun into her middle school with a list of students she wanted to end. Then, shortly before their parents’ death, she’d been sent to rehab. Or so the articles claimed.

“You… attacked me and killed your sister?” he asked, feeling his throat go dry.

“She loved you, you know that,” Giovanna said, taking another step closer. “If she was capable of love.”

“Why attack me then?” he asked, his mind racing. How could he get help? And what would it do to Juliette if he couldn’t?

“Because, there’s something… different about you. You’re not like her.” She tilted her head.

“Meaning?” he asked, hoping and praying that it wasn’t too late and that Juliette was not on her way home anytime soon. Whatever was going to happen, he didn’t want her to be a part of it.

He had felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Was that Juliette texting that she was on her way home? God, he hoped not. He wanted to respond, but Giovanna was watching him too closely.

“Gabriella was vicious.” She practically hissed it. “She always had a snide remark at the ready. Always a twist to the story to make her seem like the victim.” She sighed heavily, her eyes still glued to his. She mimicked Gabriella’s voice. “Oh, my poor sister is crazy. How can I spin this to get attention? I know, I’ll claim she went into rehab. Oh, my parents died in a car crash as they headed up to vacation. I know, I’ll have them die in a freak skiing accident. That’s how I can spin this to get attention on me.”

He remembered her telling him about their deaths and, yeah, he had felt sorry for her.

“Did you know, she is the reason they were on that trip in the first place?”

He shook his head. “I… no, I didn’t know that.”

“She paid for their trip after they had me locked up. I didn’t even get to attend their funeral.” She raised her voice slightly, and he tensed.

“I… I’m sorry.”