Page 66 of Not Your Romeo
The phone vibrated, stirring me from my thoughts and suspicions.
I’ll make it happen, swing through, across the street from Devastation gym. Apartment 12.
My thumbs shook as I paused over the touchscreen keyboard momentarily, before typing out my short response.
Got it.
I glanced up to judge where I was on the bus route and estimated as best I could.
Be there in thirty.
Rain drizzled over me when I stepped off the bus. It was edging on summer, but my clothes were soon damp, and I was shivering as I entered the apartment building and climbed the graffiti-marked stairwell of the Deuces building.
I found the apartment but couldn’t bring myself to immediately knock. I rubbed my arms and rocked ever so subtly, soothing myself as best I could, even if I hadn’t done anything yet. It wasn’t fair. I didn’t want to leave or give up what I’d found.
I wanted to stay in that big house with Ziggy and raise our twins. A pang of guilt hit me.
“Stop being a selfish bitch, Sauce is his kid, too.” I pep-talked myself before pounding on the door. My knees felt weak, and my stomach soured as I heard Lando’s muffled voice. The door opened and I stepped back, causing Lando to do the same.
“What’s up?” He laughed before moving aside.
Ziggy wasn’t laughing. He was sitting on Lando’s couch, his knees spread and his head in his hands. When he lifted it, his eyes locked on me and they turned so hard it scared me a little.
“Hey, come on inside.” Lando encouraged. “Come on in. I was just telling Ziggy that I don’t have Sauce. I ain’t sanctioned no type of action against ya’ll or your son, nothing like that.”
Lando waved his arms making his meaning clear with wide, sweeping motions.
“Now, you mentioned Zander,” He tilted his head and made a regretful sound. “I didn’t realize he was going so renegade on me. My apologies. I’ll have a sit down with him. We’ll get things worked out. I’ll shake your son's location out of him. You see, Saint is Zander’s soldier. They forget, however, I’m fuckin’ jefe.”
“I appreciate that,” Zig grunted, taking me by the arm as soon as he found his feet.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Tired of Losing
Ziggy
I couldn’t believe I’d slept through her getting out of bed, let alone the phone ringing as many times as it had before I picked up. The bed beside me had been empty. The house, too, but I still struggled to wrap my head around her absence.
The king of Deuces said she was on her way, but what if that was a trick? What if he took her from the house? Could I sleep through a thing like that?
I thought back to my many deployments and the way I’d crash once the heavy contact assignments were over. Yeah, I could. I hadn’t slept worth a shit in days.
Even when I was parked in his living room, watching him puff on a striped blunt that made the air we shared more pungent with every cloud that he blew, I was still pretty sure he meant to kill me.
Ro wasn’t coming.
No fucking way was she marching on foot across the city to deliver herself and our unborn twins like sacrificial lambs to my enemy.
Then that knock sounded and I was confronted with the crippling, undeniable reality of things. I couldn’t even barely speak, not until I had her dragged under the safety of the streetlight.
“What the fuck are you thinking?” I lost it, despite my resolve to get us the fuck out of Deuces’ territory before I lit into her. “It’s insulting enough to think my ol’ lady would sacrifice herself to the enemy– You’re fucking carrying our children, Roisin.”
Every word came louder than the next, until I could feel my blood pressure surging with each one I flung at her. My breath was coming ragged by the time I was done. I had to force myself to put a few steps worth of distance between us before I looked back at her.
“Does one child mean more than the other?” she quietly asked.
“Child? You mean Sauce?” I couldn’t keep the disbelief off my face. Lando had told me what she said, but I still hadn’t believed it. “What you carry inside you are helpless, unborn children, Roisin. Sauce is a capable, full-grown man.”
