Finding Gary (The Romanovsky Brothers Book 4) Read online

  Finding Gary

  The Romanovsky Brothers, Book 4

  Trevion Burns

  FINDING GARY

  Copyright 2016 © by Trevion Burns

  Edited by: Bare Naked Words

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  www.trevionburns.com

  All rights reserved. The reproduction, transmission or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without written permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

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  Also by Trevion:

  Stereo Hearts Series:

  Stereo

  Encore

  The Romanovsky Brother’s Series:

  Taming Val

  Claiming Roman

  Loving Leo

  Finding Gary

  The Almeida Brother’s Trilogy:

  Lila's Thunder

  Thunder Rolls

  Lightning Strikes

  Stand Alone Novels:

  Dead or Alive

  To Shaun

  1

  “State your full name for the court, please.”

  “Gary Romanovsky.”

  “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God?”

  “I do.”

  The middle-aged court clerk lifted a red eyebrow at Gary, her frigid blue eyes rolling before she breezed away from the witness stand. Gary watched her go, feeling his stomach turn.

  In the chamber above him, the judge laid down his gavel, called for order, and Gary shivered. Whoever was in charge of the courtroom’s thermostat had been heavy handed that morning, and as his emerald eyes danced along each pew, all four rows packed to the hilt, a second chill went down his spine because he’d locked eyes with him.

  Him—in the first row of the pews, pressing clenched fists against his full lips, his dark brown eyes haunted.

  Everything washed away until the courtroom was reduced to a blur—the burly Asian judge, the svelte court reporter tapping away on her machine, the defense and the prosecution tables. All of it moved into nothingness, and all that existed was him.

  Gary was transfixed; so much so that when a tailored black suit suddenly stepped into his view he drew a sharp breath, sitting taller, lashes fluttering. His green eyes rose to the long, lean man moving toward him, and the world swayed back in focus. Gary’s attorney always moved with an unruffled gait and a cool hand in his pocket. Now was no exception. Their eyes locked as he came to a stop in front of Gary at the witness stand.

  Eyes unsmiling, as always, his attorney spoke. His chiseled jawline sank with each word. “Good morning, Gary.”

  Gary shifted in his seat. “Good morning.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Stressed.”

  His attorney nodded, taking a moment to shoot an easy smile at the jury.

  Gary looked at the jury, too, swallowing when he found that none of them were smiling back.

  “I suppose that’s understandable…” His attorney returned his smile to Gary. “You’ve certainly been through an awful lot—”

  “Objection, Your Honor, Counsel is testifying.”

  Gary’s eyes flew across the room. The blonde woman hell-bent on seeing him go up in flames was motioning to the witness stand with a scowl. The frown barely reached the middle of her eyebrows, betraying her young age. Gary wondered if she’d even been out of law school for a year.

  “Are we conducting a federal trial or having insincere small talk?” she begged.

  The judge leaned forward, his downturned eyes moving to Gary’s attorney. “Mr. Almeida, if you could keep the focus on your witness…”

  Gary looked back to his attorney, Jack Almeida, just as he nodded toward the judge.

  “Of course, Your Honor,” Jack said, pushing away from the stand. He took slow strides away from Gary. “Mr. Romanovsky… Where you behind the wheel of the Cadillac sedan that struck and killed Pansy and Marcus Black on the twenty-first of August, 2004?”

  Gary choked back another heavy swallow as Jack turned to face him. “Yes.”

  “Did you leave the scene of the accident?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Gary’s eyes fell because he could feel them burning. All this time and he’d yet to allow himself to cry.

  “Mr. Romanovsky?” Jack approached the bench on a slow foot, this time, hesitating. “Why did you leave the scene of the accident?”

  Only when the threat of tears was gone did Gary look up and meet Jack’s eyes. “Because I was afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  Gary cringed. “I was a fourteen-year-old kid. It was an accident, and I was afraid.”

  “Fourteen.” Jack scowled. “At fourteen years old, you fatally struck two people, drove away, and were never made to pay the price.”

  Gary’s eyes searched the courtroom, not sure he liked what he saw looking back. He and Jack had gone over this questioning so many times that Gary had started hearing it in his dreams, but now, seeing the horrified faces of all the people in the courtroom, he had to wonder if his attorney was as brilliant as everyone claimed.

  Jack unbuttoned his jacket and pushed it open, returning his hand to his pocket as he threw Gary the same mystified eyes everyone else was. As if, he too, couldn’t fathom how a fourteen-year-old could do something so despicable.

  Gary couldn’t help but think his attorney was a hell of an actor because that was the most emotion he’d ever seen on that man’s face.

  Jack began moving toward the jury stand, proving that his show of emotion was, in fact, especially for them. “You were never made to pay the price. You got away, scot-free. No questions. No charges. No convictions. You could’ve lived your life until your dying day, and nobody would’ve ever known.” Jack waited until he was at the jury stand, clutching the edge, making eye contact with each and every juror, matching their frowns, before turning back to Gary and shooting the frown at him. “Why? Why walk into the central office of the largest tabloid in New York City, ten years after you got away—scot-free—climb on top of a reporter’s desk, and confess?”

  This time, when the tears stung Gary’s eyes, he didn’t fight to hide them.

  When no answer came, leaving the courtroom entrenched in silence, Jack shrugged, his eyes shrinking. “What was it about that night that grabbed you, consumed you, and moved you to confess, ten years after you’d gotten away with it?”

  The first tear escaped Gary’s eyes, soaking the slacks of his business suit, and with uneven breath, he opened his mouth to give the only thing he was capable of giving any more.

  ***

  Three Months Earlier

  “Obstruction of justice. Leaving the scene of an accident. Vehicular homicide. Tampering with evidence. And those are just the ones off the top of my head. You’re headed to prison for a very long time, son.”

  Slouched over in the most uncomfortable chair he’d ever sat in, wrist handcuffed to the leg, Gary Romanovsky’s green eyes rose, gleaming under the bright lights, and met the officer’s.

  “Fair enough,” Gary said.

 
“Do you have any idea what prison is like,” the officer leaned on the table, “for a face like yours?”

  “I guess I’ll find out soon enough.”

  The officer craned his neck, making his head rear back, fingertips sealed to the steel interrogation table as he squinted one dull blue eye, his gaze flying to the mirror in the corner of the room.

  “Why are you looking at them?” Gary asked, following his eyes to the mirror. He leaned forward, shaking his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes. The handcuff locked around his wrist sang out against the metal chair. He smiled as best he could, a slight hitch at the corner of his pink lips. “Allow me to save you the headache. There’s no reason to interrogate me or look to your superior for the right thing to say. I killed two people, and I’m ready to plead guilty. I did it. I confess.”

  “I mean…” The officer sputtered, and then lowered his voice. “You realize you’re entitled to a lawyer?”

  “I don’t want a lawyer. Am I speaking English?” Gary squinted before dismissing the officer entirely, eyes shooting to the mirror. He leaned over and spoke to his reflection. “I’m a murderer. I just confessed to the largest paper in New York City. I did not do that by accident. I’m not asking for a lawyer. I’m not asking for a trial. I just want you to put me in prison, and throw away the key.”

  Silence infiltrated the room, and soon, the only sound bouncing off the walls was the air expelled from Gary’s gasping lungs. The squeak of the officer’s boots joined in as he circled the table. Then the ringing of the handcuffs as Gary was released from the chair.

  “Let’s go, son,” the officer said, his voice now more resigned than accusatory. He took each of Gary’s arms behind his back and cuffed his wrists.

  Gary closed his eyes tight.

  As he was led to the door of the interrogation room, the silence prevailed, and for the first time in his life, it didn’t make him sick to his stomach.

  For the first time in his life, the silence was a relief.

  ***

  Zoey trembled from head to toe, curled over in the hospital wheelchair, hands clawed into her curly black hair. She tangled her fingers in it and nearly pulled it from her scalp. Tears plummeted from her eyes and hit the tile floor. Rhythmic beeping pervaded the quiet room, overpowered only by the occasional whimper that escaped her scowling lips. The scent of latex and hand sanitizer left her unable to escape her thoughts for a moment, the pungent stench serving as a constant reminder of where she was and why.

  The hand on her shoulder repeatedly squeezed, moving in solidarity with the dreary melody of the steady beeping. Zoey’s cries waned into sobs, drowning out the beeps, and the hand on her shoulder squeezed harder.

  “He’s a soldier,” the nurse whispered, her soothing touch ever present. “He’s strong.”

  Zoey’s body shook a little harder, and the tears fell a little faster, bouncing off the dark brown skin of her thigh, which was peeking out of the hospital gown.

  The nurse leaned down next to the chair and tried to catch Zoey’s eyes, but her brown orbs were riveted to the floor. She moved her hand from Zoey’s shoulder to her back, massaging in slow circles. “It’s a mother’s instinct to blame herself, but this isn’t your fault, hun.”

  Zoey sobbed again, sniffling, tightening her fingers in her hair. “I should have been s-s-s…” She stuttered, and almost gave up when the energy of speaking became too much. The soothing hand on her back, however, propelled her. “I should have been stronger for him…”

  The nurse sighed, almost in defeat, having seen this scene in her pediatric ward time and time again. Visitation hours had passed over and hour ago, but she and the other nurses had been secretly watching the news in the other room, and none of them had the heart to send Zoey Black away.

  Three months early, baby Marcus fought from where he was curled up in the blinking incubator before them. His heartbeat was solid, he was breathing, but like most of the early birds in that room, he wasn’t out of the woods.

  So the nurses let Zoey Black stay, and they would let her stay until both she and her son, were strong enough to go home.

  2

  With a shake of her head, fingers pressed to her tightly drawn lips, Jessica Borgia jabbed her thumb into the TV remote, over and over, until the bed of her thumb went numb.

  Every station.

  Every. Single. Station.

  CBS. “Real estate magnate, Val Romanovsky, whose face appears in a mug shot taken the night of the murder—”

  NBC. “… we’ve yet to receive a comment from Novsky’s CEO, Valentin Romanovsky, on the company’s rapidly plummeting shares in the wake of this scandal—”

  Fox. “… just received an update that bail has been set at five hundred thousand doll—”

  CNN. “… unable to reach Val’s fiancé, Zoey Black, for comment—”

  Riveted to the television, Jessica barely noticed the beeping. She’d been sitting in that room for so long; she could hardly hear it anymore. Not until it moved into one long, steady chime.

  She jolted in her chair, knowing the sound. She’d heard it many times before, but never attached to someone whose life she felt responsible for. Never with Angie Colt on the receiving end.

  Her eyes flew to the electrocardiograph machine next to the hospital bed, and the solid red line moving across the screen. The flatline shook her from head to toe, nearly sending the chair she was sitting on toppling to the floor as she flew to her feet. The remote fell from Jessica’s hand and clattered to the floor as she gripped the chair’s handles, taking in Angie Colt’s ghost white face.

  “Help!” Jessica screamed, taking Angie’s thin arms in her hands, careful to avoid the various IVs.

  She drank in Angie’s heavily hooded eyes, her purple lips, and the gray tone on her normally soft brown skin. Instantly, Jessica was rocketed back to her apartment, just an hour earlier, where she’d found Angie laying unconscious on her kitchen floor. After rushing her to the nearest hospital in Hoboken, the doctor’s had managed to resuscitate Angie in the nick of time, but to Jessica’s horror, she’d yet to open her eyes. Jessica never thought she’d miss the sight of that petite powerhouse’s inquisitive green eyes, always skeptical behind the cat-eyed glasses she never left home without. The edges of Angie’s curly brown hair were soaked with sweat, and Jessica pushed it away from her face before turning towards the door of the hospital room and calling for help again.

  The next twenty-four hours were vital, the nurses had told her, and the flatlining electrocardiograph machine next to the bed was not spelling good things. Jessica cupped Angie’s cheeks, and when the pale skin froze her fingers to the bone, Jessica’s eyes filled with tears as they flew to the door of the room. “Fuck. Somebody,” she screamed. “She’s flatlining! Help!”

  Two nurses came barreling into the room, moving so quickly that they had to hold onto the doorframe to maintain their balance.

  Jessica stumbled backward as the nurses raced to Angie’s bedside, and she was quickly shuffled to the foot of the bed as more staff came to assist.

  A young Indian doctor sauntered in as if he were on an afternoon stroll in Central Park and not mere inches away from a flatlining patient.

  “What happened?” the doctor asked, his voice as calm as his gait as he slowed to a stop next to the bed.

  Each nurse recited a different emergency, using language Jessica couldn’t understand, but as her eyes flew to the doctor, who was filling his ears with a stethoscope, she no longer felt the need to knock his egotistical teeth out. He didn’t seem worried about the complicated terminology being blasted at him from every angle, and for the first time since she’d met him, Jessica found his God complex soothing.

  “What’s her BP?” The doctor took Angie’s vitals as a nurse recited her blood pressure.

  “Please help her,” Jessica begged.

  “Why is she here?” The doctor didn’t look up as he took Angie’s vitals, but he still knew Jessica’s voice didn’t belong. Several h
ands flew all around Angie’s body, but his moved with confident ease.

  “Hold on, Angie,” Jessica patted Angie’s ankle.

  “Why is she here?” The doctor demanded, again. This time, he took a moment to look up at Jessica, and when he caught sight of the gold FBI badge on her hip, he rolled his eyes and ignored her, accepting a pair of paddles that a nurse offered to him. “Charge to 350.”

  Jessica’s wide eyes flew to the machine she hadn’t even noticed had been wheeled into the room. As a heart transplant survivor of over twenty years, she knew the defibrillation machine on sight. Feeling like a five-year-old on the operating table all over again, terror squeezed her bones. “Don’t let her die…”

  The doctor ignored Jessica, giving all of his attention to the defibrillation paddles he was pressing on either side of Angie’s chest. “Clear.”

  A gentle arm came around Jessica’s waist just as Angie’s spine left the bed. The shock of the paddles nearly bent her petite body in half before she went crashing back down to the bed. Lips still purple. Eyes still sealed shut. Curls still pasted to her pale forehead. No response.

  “450,” the doctor said.

  “Miss, you have to leave.” A gentle voice floated into Jessica’s ears, but she barely heard it.

  “Please don’t let her die,” she begged.

  The hand on Jessica’s waist grew more insistent, and another one joined just as Angie received her second shock. Before she knew it, vision blinded by tears, Jessica found herself in the hallway with the door slamming closed in her face. Still ignoring the gentle words of the nurse who’d led her out of the room, Jessica went to the window that allotted her a view of Angie’s bed just as she was shocked again.

  Guilt took Jessica’s stomach in a stiff fist. She couldn’t shake the cold truth. Angie Colt was in terrible shape, near death, and if she breathed her last breath that day, it would be on Jessica.

  She swallowed back the tears, but not the pain, as she placed a hand on the window.