My baby was frightened. Words couldn’t express how shitty that made me feel. To cause her fear was the last thing I ever wanted.
The departed by my side chuckled darkly. “Don’t worry, Mami. We’ll bring your boy home safe and sound.”
And the inside of my mind turned black. My jaw steeled. A high-pitched whine lit the inside of my ears, and when I turned to the guy with the painted face, I wondered if Roam would miss the cocky fuck when I stuck a blade through his heart.
My hand rose and fisted as I struggled to keep my anger at bay. But I took in a shallow breath and spoke with deathly calm.
“You don’t talk to her.” A warning. His first and last.
The departed’s grin lowered but never left. It was obvious he didn’t give a shit. The guy looked to my woman and repeated himself. “Safe and sound, Mami.”
He spoke like a man protected. But Roam wasn’t here. My eyes wandered his face as I took in his hidden features and assigned him a new title.
Dead man walking.
When the head of the departed made a wide arc with his arm, they began to file out, and I filed out with them with zero reluctance. Out front was a car waiting, and the moment I stepped inside, another man in black handed me a Glock and a ski mask. I took them both without a second thought.
Not an hour later, the job was done.
Surrounded by psychopaths, they egged me on, urged me to pull the trigger, pressed me, yelled and shouted reinforcement that overlapped as I lifted my piece at the old, frightened man sitting in the armchair of his quiet home.
I held my gun with steady hands.
After a moment, the target’s shoulders relaxed as he awaited death.
“Fucking hell, what are you waiting for? Do it already,” came the enraged reaction from the departed who ran this group of feral dogs.
My arm lowered, and the calls ceased.
My decision was final.
I wasn’t doing this.
Without a care for my safety, I turned to look the leader in the eye and pressed my Glock into his hands, my position clear.
With fury in his hard gaze, he didn’t hesitate. He took my gun, lifted it, and shot the elderly man three times in the chest. And when his eyes met mine once more, he shook his head, almost disappointed. “He’s gonna kill you.”
There was no inflection in his tone, no emotion at all. It wasn’t a threat. It was a simple fact.
Roam was going to tear me apart.
An evening wasted. My social standing in disrepair. A madman breathing down my neck.
I didn’t know how much farther I had to fall to reach the bottom of this hole I had dug myself into.
23
Nastasia
Anika sat cross-legged and motionless between my knees. I took the plastic bottle and squeezed more of the chemical-scented cream onto the hair before giving it a light brush and saying, “There.” But one alarming look at the comb had my stomach in knots.
It was clean a moment ago, now full of clumps of her hair. The long copper strands tangled around it defiantly.
Her soft, “Thanks,” sounded almost child-like, and when she brought her knees up and lowered her cheek to them, folding in on herself, my stomach knotted at the way her shoulders stuck out in the sharp, pointy way they were.
My dear friend. Why do you suffer so?
“Thirty minutes and we’ll rinse, okay?”
She blinked at me without seeming to really see me at all, and I smiled tenderly, reaching down to run the backs of my fingers gently down her cheek.
When I left her room, my expression fell, and as I made my way to the kitchen to put the trash away, I found Doroteya in the kitchen.
Nerves bundled in my gut. I hadn’t seen her in a little over a week. Not since I’d royally screwed over Vik in a hugely unintentional way. But the moment the older woman saw me, she came forward and took my hands in her warm, aging ones, wearing a motherly smile.
“Nastasia.” She looked me over in a maternal way. “You will eat with us, no?”
And just like that, just as family did, the bedlam I caused was forgotten.
My heart lightened its load as I returned her sweet smile.
“Of course,” I told her, because I never felt happier than when I was at her dinner table, being taken care of in a way my brothers could never replicate.
The love they gave was wonderful but different. It was a harsher style of love. The kind that hurt as much as it nourished. They were hard men, and soft love from hard people was an anomaly.
Doroteya may not have been my blood, but she was my chosen mother figure, and somehow, I felt that meant more. Stuck in my own thoughts, I almost forgot to listen when she spoke. “You wake him up.” My eyes widened as I sluggishly understood what she meant, and just as I began to protest, she spun me around, surged me forward, and patted my bottom dotingly. “Lunch is soon ready.”