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“No.”
“Please. Maybe—”
“No. And that’s the end of the matter.”
I knew that I wasn’t going to get any further with Marco tonight.
I still believed that Jess’s worries weren’t just down to wedding nerves, and I couldn’t stop myself from worrying. And I couldn’t help thinking that Jess would talk to me if it was just me and her.
JULIANA
It was Saturday morning and Marco, Alessio and Camillo were out seeing to business matters. Danio was at a friend’s house, while Debi was at home with me.
Palmina, one of the maids, had come in this morning to do some cleaning. Palmina was the daughter of a Fratellanza soldier. Outsiders weren’t trusted in our homes. On my way downstairs I saw her in Debi’s bedroom, cleaning up and talking to Debi at the same time.
When I got down to the kitchen, I saw Debi’s cell phone sitting on the kitchen counter. Knowing no one was home, I quickly picked it up and lit up the screen.
It was pin-protected. Damn it.
I slammed the phone back onto the counter, frustrated beyond belief.
I looked back down at Debi’s phone and then scanned the living area to see if there were any other cell phones lying around that I could try. But I came up empty—Marco must have instructed everyone to keep their phones away from me and to have them pin-protected. Damn him!
What about Palmina’s phone? It would be in her car because the staff wasn’t permitted to bring phones into the mansion. If I could go out to Palmina’s car to get her phone, hopefully it wouldn’t be pin-protected and I could call Jess from it.
I saw Palmina’s car keys on the kitchen counter—together with the red Chicago Bulls hoodie that she always wore to work and her sunglasses.
What if I borrowed Palmina’s car and drove back to L.A. to see Jess?
As the idea hit me, a surge of adrenaline raced through my limbs.
Either I could hope that Marco would eventually permit me to talk to Jess again, or I could take a stand against his cruel games.
His refusal to allow this one small phone call made things crystal clear to me. Marco didn’t see me as a real person with feelings, worries, and needs. This one man had turned my world upside down and endangered those I loved the most. He had directed his men to shoot Jess, he’d hurt Jake, and he’d ordered Cornelio’s death. I had been kidnapped by him and forced to come to Chicago, and since then, I’d been held here against my will.
Marco was a monster in every sense of the word.
I couldn’t betray my family by thinking of him in any other way, and I could never trust this man who had stolen me away from my life.
To him, I was a piece of property, his possession to flaunt in front of the Società as a symbol of his revenge.
I made a plan quickly in my mind. Palmina and Debi were up in Debi’s bedroom. All the bedrooms had locks—as I well knew after my captivity in Marco’s bedroom when I first arrived in Chicago. Without giving myself time to think and change my mind, I went upstairs and casually joined in Palmina and Debi’s conversation.
While we were talking, I snuck the key from the inside of Debi’s bedroom door into my pocket.
I left the bedroom and quickly shut the door and turned the key from the outside.
“Juliana? What are you doing?” asked Debi in a confused voice.
“I’m really sorry but I have to leave. I’m sure someone will be home soon. I’m really sorry.”
And then I turned on my heel and rushed down the stairs. I could hear Debi and Palmina calling from the room upstairs. “Juliana! Juliana!”
I told myself that I had to ignore them, or my guilt would make me have second thoughts.
I put my hair up in a ponytail similar to how Palmina normally had it. We both had dark hair, although hers was slightly curly. I added her sunglasses and zipped up her red Chicago Bulls hoodie around me.
I looked in the mirror at the front door and hoped that the guards wouldn’t look too closely when I tried to drive through the gates.
