With his substantial inheritance, Bruzzo went on to open his own investment firm, specializing in financing high-risk start-up companies. After the death of his fiancée, Bruzzo handed the reigns of the firm over to a board of directors and moved to Los Angeles. Though he continued to bring in clients on a part-time basis, he devoted much of his time to the police search for Mennezzo, who fled soon after the police showed interest in him. When Mennezzo was finally caught and charged with Corinne Jackson’s death, Justin was taken into protective custody in an undisclosed location until the beginning of the trial here in Manhattan.
Nearly everything in the article was new information for me, with only enough details to confirm that JC was indeed the same person as this one. I’d known he’d had money, but not that he’d had a substantial inheritance or his own successful investment firm. I didn’t have a clue that he’d held several degrees from an Ivy League school. The small part of his life that I filled was nowhere on the page. I hadn’t expected to be, of course, but seeing his bio like that, the important events and people in his life referenced and not being included shifted my perspective. I was extraneous. I was unnecessary. I was irrelevant.
I hit the back button and looked at the search results. Over 100,000 web pages had been found. How much more would I find that I didn’t know? How many more articles would display the image of a man I knew intimately, but then proceed to describe a stranger? Did the JC I knew even exist? And if so, where did he end and Justin Caleb Bruzzo begin?
I shut my laptop, not able to read anymore. The information I wanted about JC wasn’t online. The only way to find out whether he and I had a chance, whether any of our relationship had been real at all, was to see him.
***
After a restless two-hour nap, I dressed and headed for the courthouse.
I didn’t care that I’d lose my day’s sleep and that I had to close that night—a Friday night, no less. Or that he might not want me anywhere near the trial. Or that I wasn’t prepared emotionally to face him again. None of that mattered. The only thing I did know for sure was that I had to see him.
And I knew I didn’t want him to see me.
Not yet.
I arrived early enough to make sure I got in, but not too early to have to wait around for that day’s proceedings to begin. It wasn’t my first time watching a trial—I’d been present for much of the one that had sent my father to jail for nearly ten years for beating up my little brother. But it was my first murder trial, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to go in and watch.
After making it through the security screening, I found the board that listed the day’s docket then made my way to the courtroom. Unlike the trial for my father, the People of the State of New York versus Ralphio Mennezzo was open to the public, and the back rows of the center section were roped off for anyone who presented a press card. I chose the closest seat to them I could find, hoping I’d blend into the crowd enough that I wouldn’t be seen, knowing at the same time that JC would see me if he really looked out at the audience.
I considered leaving. I considered staying outside where I’d have less of a chance of being spotted yet still get to see him. But I stayed.
Maybe I wanted him to see me after all.
The bailiff walked to the front of the court almost as soon as I sat down and asked us to silence our mobile devices. I shut off my phone and stuck it in my purse. The trial began a minute later. We were asked to rise. We rose. The judge entered. Some court business occurred, and then the prosecuting lawyer called Justin Caleb Bruzzo back to the stand. The doors in the back opened. I shifted in my seat to look.
And there he was, looking simultaneously younger and older than I’d remembered. Simultaneously sexier and just-as-sexy. Mine and yet not-at-all mine. Never mine, even. Or maybe always mine. For half a second he paused. The world seemed to freeze around me and I thought he sensed me. Thought he’d turn and look me right in the eye as though we had some invisible string between us. Some connection that defied any reason or explanation.
But he never turned and the moment passed.
My eyes stayed pinned on him as he walked confidently down the aisle to the witness box, and with each step he took, I felt my heart expand. He was here, within twenty-five feet of me. Every second that he’d been gone melted away, as if no time had passed at all. He was here and everything was right with the world again. He was here, and I could finally breathe.
The judge greeted JC—Justin—and he returned the greeting with a slight smile that made my belly flutter. There was some conversation between them—something about having already been sworn in the day before with a reminder of his oath, and all I could think about was the oaths he’d given me. Unspoken promises. The touch of his lips on mine. The feel of his hands on my skin. The way that he moved when he was inside of me—all vows that he’d made and then broken when he’d married a stranger in Vegas and then disappeared from my life.