Page 91 of Romeo

“You have to get me out of here,” I tell him.“I need to get back to Jules.If he’s trying to clean up all loose ends?—”

“She’s the last one,” he finishes then withdraws his cell.“Let me see what I can do.”

Chapter31

Jules

“You’re seriously going to sit there and tell me you can’t do anything to get a bail set?Come on, Rick, you and I both know you can.”Beckett is pacing in the kitchen while Tucker is nose-deep in his computer, scouring footage from cameras he hacked into outside of Odie’s house and just down the street.

He’s looking for any sign of the killer so he can take it to the cops and prove Riley wasn’t there.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting here, doing absolutelynothingbecause none of my skills are applicable right now.All while the man I’m falling for is trapped in a cell.Because I need to do something, I leave the kitchen and head up the stairs toward the room he’s staying in.As he’s been doing all morning, Romeo follows me, sticking to my side like a shadow.

After pushing open the door, I inhale deeply, letting the scent of his aftershave fill my lungs and ease a bit of my anxiety.He’ll be home soon.He has to be.Right?He didn’t kill Odie, so they can’t hold him for long.

Unless Dodger found a way to pin the evidence on Riley.

My gaze lands on his Bible.It’s resting on his nightstand, his name in gold on the front.I run my fingers over the front of it.“God, why is this happening?”I whisper aloud.“Please help me.Please help him.”Tears blur my vision.

I just want all of this to end.I want Dodger behind bars and Riley freed.

I want to be free from the weight of the past.Desperately.

But how?When all of the cards are stacked against us, how do we move forward?

“You change the rules, girl.”My grandfather’s words hit me out of nowhere, as does the memory accompanying them.I’d been drying out in a facility, and he’d come to visit me.I told him that I didn’t know how to move forward when all I could think about was the alcohol.

“I can’t win this, Grandpa.I can’t beat it.It’s too strong, and I’m too weak.”

“Do you want to know what you do when it feels like you’re playing a losing game?You change the rules, girl.Stop playing by the book, and shift the narrative.You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for, and the demons you’re fighting now?You will defeat them.I know you can.But only if you start looking for your strength elsewhere.”

I look down at the Bible again.He’d been referring to God.He’d wanted me to turn to Him in the moments when everything felt bleakest, but I was always too ashamed.Too afraid that He would also turn away from me.

I think I forgot that He never will.

Just as I did when we were back at the ranch, I turn to a random page in the worn Bible.Then I scan the verses in Mark 4 that Riley has already highlighted.

“When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Silence!Be still!’Suddenly, the wind stopped, and there was a great calm.Then he asked them, ‘Why are you afraid?Do you still have no faith?’”

Faith.I feel like I’ve been fighting my whole life to find it.My grandfather tried so hard to share his with me, but I was too broken.Too lost to see that God has always been there.That Jesus was beside me even when I felt alone.

He alone can calm the storm.

He alone can help us in these moments when everything feels hopeless.

And then it hits me—a plan.An idea that might just work.

Tears stream down my cheeks.Change the rules of the game.

Right now, we’re only playing by the rules Dodger set out for us.

He holds all the cards.

And maybe it’s time I take them away.

I look down at Romeo.“I’m going to bring him home, okay, boy?”

I haven’t beento Glen Dodger’s house since my grandfather brought me here when I was fourteen.I’d swam in his pool then, thinking it was an innocent pool party and not at all noticing that I was being watched the entire time.

---