Page 85 of Precious Legacy
Over the past two days, I’ve had time to think about what happened. Considering our fight clubs are on the not-so-subtle side, Haldon’s connections have always ensured that the authorities turned a blind eye. My contingency on having a mole was meant to prevent raids like that from happening, yet I didn’t get one phone call.
Either my mole is not as reliable as Cillian believed him to be, or something else is going on. I need to get to the bottom of it before things get out of hand, which means I need to speak to Varo about his little man crush.
I’m ready to break some faces and cause destruction by the time I finally push through the door to Lani’s apartment. My skull is still pounding from where Officer Shitface smacked me—and lack of sleep— but the prospect of falling into bed with my girl soothes my exhausted state.
I’m mid-thought when I close the door behind me, jumping when Varo shoots up from the couch. Instinct has my gun already out and aimed with my finger on the trigger before I register it’s my best friend. “What the fuck!?” I whisper-shout.
“About fucking time, bro,” he groans, checking his watch, not bothered in the least that I have my weapon aimed at him.
“Sorry. Traffic was bad,” I scoff, putting the safety back on my gun and resting it on the side table. “What’re you doing here?”
“Lani didn’t want to be alone,” he grumbles, sliding his arms into his creased-up shirt.
Fuck.I know it’s bad when she doesn’t want to be left on her own, especially for this long. She’s always so fucking independent that it’s infuriating most of the time. Somehow, knowing Varo stayed is both comforting and worrying.
Even though we were separated outside the warehouse, I knew Varo wouldn’t allow anything to happen to his sister. He watched us get hauled away before barely making it out himself. I’m certain there were cars after him, but I’m assuming they never caught up.
Haldon already updated me on the situation when he collected me this morning; how they locked Lani up in the seventeenth precinct and me in the twentieth to keep us separate. He said Varo ended up calling his mom for help—which was probably the best option—considering we’re all on the NYPD’s radar. Cassidy Caruthers was ruthless in the courtroom, so it stands to reason that she was the best man—or woman—for the job.
“How is she?” I ask hesitantly.
Varo yawns, standing up to stretch out his limbs. “Asleep. Oh, and she’s super pissed with you.”
Before I can head to check up on my girl, Varo is moving towards the kitchen, turning the coffee machine on and gesturing to the stools at the kitchen island.
“Take a seat. We need to talk.”
“Really?” I groan, running a hand over my face. I’m fucking exhausted. Not sleeping and being tormented by police questions for two days definitely takes it out of you. Luckily, Haldon had some attorney on hand to come to my aid, but it’s still tiring. The only thing keeping me sane right now is knowing Alanis is in the next room. “Can’t it wait until I’ve slept a little?”
“No, Roman. It can’t.” He spins around and pins me with a glare, shoving a mug in my face. “Sit down, asshole.”
“Oh…kay,” I reply warily, lifting a brow. Taking the mug silently, I perch on the edge of a stool and watch him lean forward, resting his elbows on the island. “What’s this about?”
“I think you know,” he grunts. “It’s about Greedy.”
I glance down into my mug.
“Why didn’t you tell me what that piece of shit did to my sister?”
My entire body freezes up as I stare back at him.He knows?Yet despite his words, he’s calmer than I’ve ever seen him, which is more than I can say for how I reacted when Lani told me.
“Well?”
Sipping my coffee, I stare back at him. “I don’t know what you want me to say, bro. I handled it.”
“Fuck, Ro! You didn’t say a fucking word and all these years she’s misdirected her hate onto you.”
Misdirected?“Hardly,” I shrug.
Varo tilts his head at me in question. “What do you mean?”
I don’t know exactly what she’s told him, but it doesn’t take a genius to work out that I’m the reason she got hurt. “She hated me because I left,” I answer simply. “If I hadn’t left?—”
“Then she wouldn’t have gotten drunk and wound up there that night? Yeah, yeah. I know the story.” He laughs wryly and shakes his head before taking a heavy gulp from his mug. “But it wasn’t your fault, and deep down, she knows that.”
“Then you understand why I had to kill him,” I state abruptly. “And his fucking pal.” I’m not going to tiptoe around him and pretend I have some moral compass when it comes to his sister. She got hurt because of me, and I dealt the punishment to the fuckers who laid hands on her.
Despite the understanding that flows between us, he still looks betrayed. I wish I could find it in me to care, but this was never about him. This was between me and Alanis. I did it for her, because whatever she thought she could achieve by joining the police force, she was never going to get the kind of justice she was thinking. Especially considering one of her attackers was a cop himself. She was never going to get justice doing it herway, so I did what I had to. What Ineededto do, and I’ll keep doing it until my dying breath.
