Roma Queen (Roma Royals Duet Book 2)

by Callie Hart

  Down we go in the parking lot, the only people in sight—a dejected, tired looking man with five days’ worth of stubble marking his jaw, and a red-headed woman carrying a bag full of death and hell burning in her eyes.

  Garrett’s never had a car. Not once have I known him to drive anything other than one of the city’s buses. He leads me across the parking lot and stops in front of the shining black Mercedes Sprinter, nodding toward it with his chin.

  I take in the vehicle, a little aghast. “This is it, isn’t it?”

  Garrett stares at me.

  I take the Dictaphone Yuri Petrov gifted to me out of my pocket, and I hit the play button. Sarah’s voice sounds too loud in the low-ceilinged underground lot; as soon as Garrett hears her speak, he visibly flinches.

  “Well, hello! That looks new. Did you borrow it?”

  “That does look new, Garrett. Did you borrow it?” I close my hand around the Dictaphone, forming a fist, and I use it to lash out at Garrett, catching him on the top of his arm. Garrett does nothing to stop me. “It was you, wasn’t it?” I scream. “It was fucking you! She was friendly when she spoke, like she fucking knew the person. And they didn’t speak. They didn’t say a fucking word! I thought it was the recording at first, but no…”

  Again, I hit him. Again, Garrett does nothing to prevent me from hurting him. He stands there, taking it as I pummel him with both fists now. The gun’s still in my pocket. I could reach and grab it, I could fucking shoot him in the face for what he’s done, but I don’t. How long have I known Garrett for? Years. It’s fucking years, and in all that time I have never seen him look this miserable. He hasn’t denied it, and I’m never going to hear him say it, but…I need him to confirm that he was the one who took Sarah. That he hurt her. That he was the one who forced her into the back of the van we’re standing next to, and he was the one who took her to Lazlo.

  I quit hitting him, exhausted, and I lean up against the side of the Sprinter, barely able to breathe. “Admit it. Tell me the truth.”

  Garrett looks like he’s stepped outside of his body and left himself on autopilot. He’s unfocused. Dazed. His eyes are on me, but I don’t think he’s seeing me at all. I’m about to start screaming at him again, when it’s as if he’s shocked out of nowhere, an electric current zapping him, a defibrillator to his soul, and he’s back, right there, his eyes wide and alert. He meets my gaze, and I see the conflict in him. And…and so much pain.

  Slowly, he nods.

  It feels like he just took a knife to my chest, twisted it, and then snapped off the blade. My throat is so closed up, I can barely squeeze out the one word I really have to say. “Why?”

  Garrett winces, hanging his head. A cloud of shame looms over him, but all I really see is the image that’s burned into my memory, of him nodding, telling me that, yes, he did hand our friend over to a murderer.

  I feel like I’m gonna fucking throw up.

  “Garrett, please. Tell me there’s some excuse. Tell me he forced you to do it. Tell me anything to help me understand this, because right now I’m having the hardest time wrapping my head around why you would lay a finger on our friend.” I’m so angry, I can barely see properly. My vision’s blurred and my veins are humming with so much adrenalin, it’s a miracle I haven’t gone into shock, but a part of me is still revolting against this; Garrett is Sarah’s friend. My friend, too. He brings my mail up for me, even though he doesn’t need to. He lugs my huge water canisters up three flights of stairs every single week without fail. All I have to do is ask for help, and Garrett is there with a hand out, silently asking what I need. He’s not a bad person. He is not. I just won’t believe it. I can’t bend the truth of him, the truths I know of him, into the shape of something ugly and sinister enough to hit Sarah and knock her out. That’s just not who he is.

  Garrett’s face is a picture of sorrow as he turns and slides down the side of the Sprinter, opening the driver’s door. He climbs in, and then watches me through the windshield, his posture stiff and completely rigid. It’s obvious—he’s waiting for me to climb into the passenger seat.

  An argument rages within me. The logical, responsible, smart side of me is insisting that I refuse. That getting in that van with Garrett will likely end up getting me killed. The reckless, careless, desperate part of me that wants my friend back no matter the cost? That side of me thinks getting in the van with Garrett is a horrible fucking idea, too, and that under no circumstances should I do it.

  The problem is, I won’t get any answers if I don’t go with him. The cops are unlikely to catch him. He’ll be in the wind, and I’ll never know why a man I’ve considered a good friend would do something so terrible. So, I’m at an impasse. How badly do I want to know? How much will I risk for answers?

  Argh, fuck!

  I am still the woman holding the gun.

  I am still in control still this situation.

  At least that’s what I tell myself as I open the passenger door to the Sprinter, and I get in.

  Twenty-Four

  PASHA

  I’m not sure if Lazlo’s stopped speaking to me or I’ve just fucked up all of the speakers and he can’t speak to me anymore. I’m fucking reeling from the revelation that Lazlo killed my grandfather as I speed down the tunnel, toward what end I don’t know. At the same time, I’m numb.

  My grandmother was mad with fever when she predicted that the Empress would be the ruination of the Rivin Clan. All this time my mother’s thought it was Zara’s arrival that spelled the end of everything for her. It looks like this started well before Zara was even born, though. Calliope was the first redheaded woman to be associated with that card. She died because my family turned their back on her. Could it be that she is the reason all of this has come to pass, so much death, and anguish, and heartbreak, so many decades later?

  I almost don’t see the end of the tunnel looming up in front of me; I narrowly miss running straight into the twelve-foot-high wall of dirt. Skidding to a halt, I slam my fist into the shored-up earth, cursing so loud the word echoes down the tunnel, back the way I came. Where the fuck is he? He has to be here. The cots; Sarah, talking about the stars on the Petrov recording; the video camera. All of it. Lazlo is here. I fucking know he is. Clenching my jaw harder than I should, I screw my eyes closed and I think.

  When Patrin and I were kids, we would come down here and haze the fuck out of each other. With only one flashlight between us, we’d beat the shit out of each other, and the victor would steal light, leaving the other to make their way back to the clan in the absolute dark. Once, I won our bout and bailed, abandoning him to find his own way back, the same way he’d abandoned me many times before. Except Patrin hadn’t returned. Until he’d been gone for so long that I’d eventually told Archie, and he’d gotten Connie, Lazlo and Ross, Patrin’s father, to go help him find the boy.

  The four of them had walked into the tunnel, and only three of them had come back out. Lazlo had remained inside to look for Patrin. A long, long time after I’d left Patrin on his own, shivering in the dark with a busted nose, he’d finally emerged from the tunnel, white as a sheet, face spattered with blood, with Lazlo following behind him. When I asked Patrin where he’d been hiding all that time…

  “Fuuuuck!” I scrub my hands through my hair, pulling hard enough to tear the strands free from the roots. Where did he say he’d been hiding, Pasha? Where the fuck did he hide?

  The information rises slowly. I try to grapple hold of it, to yank it to the surface of my memory quicker than it wants to hand itself over. It hovers on the outskirts of my mind, threatening to disappear altogether…

  …but then I have it.

  A hatch. He’d said there was a hatch in the ground. It had been open, and he’d fallen down…

  He’d told me he’d found himself in some sort of boiler room, filled with huge silver pipes and large vents covered with grates. He’d refused to tell me anything more than that. He’d told me Lazlo had found him, and then he’d c
lammed up. Gotten angry. Refused to breathe another word about it and had hit me hard enough to give me a black eye.

  I…

  Fuck.

  I do not have time to unpack that memory properly, or figure out what any of it might mean for Patrin. I just have to find the hatch. Now that I kind of know what I’m looking for, I come across the large slab of rusting steel pretty quickly. Set into the ground about halfway back to the station platform, I curse softly under my breath when I spy it lying flush with the ground, butted up against the left-hand wall. I know I’ve hit pay dirt when I see the number of footprints that disturb the ground surrounding it.

  There’s no lock. No keypad. Nothing to stop me from taking hold of the large, square handle that protrudes from the top of the hatch and lifting…

  A vertical column of light pierces the tunnel. Music drifts up from the yawning access shaft below me. It’s the same choral music that was playing through the speakers before. The rousing, high-pitched swell of the choir’s voices floats up, sweet and bright, and a wave of dread spikes through me. This feels so wrong. The music itself, the shaft, with the steel ladder bolted to the wall…I’ve always trusted my gut when it’s come to situations like this, and right now my gut is telling me to get the fuck out of here and never come back. There will be a price to pay if I step foot down—

  A voice cuts up from the unknown below. “Let me save you the torturous indecision, Pasha. Yes, I’m down here. Yes, your aunt is also down here. Yes, I am armed. Am I going to kill you the moment you drop down that shaft?” Lazlo pauses. Could be for effect, or he could actually be making up his mind. Finally, he parts with the answer to the question. “No. Not immediately. I can’t promise I’m not going to kill you, boy, but I think it’s about time we had a conversation face-to-face, don’t you?”

  Well, that hardly inspires confidence. A promise not to murder me the moment my boots hit the dirt might give me time to figure out the situation, though. I huff down my nose, turning the wrench over in my hand twice, testing the weight of it as I make my decision.

  A metallic clang pulses down the access shaft as the sole of my boot hits the top rung of the ladder. Another clang rings out as my other foot hits the second rung. There have been times when the promise of an insanely fat paycheck has tempted me to bite off more than I would normally try and chew. Occasionally, there’ll be a bruiser on the cards at the flower markets, and I’ll be approached to see if I want to pick up the fight. The guy is usually a total fucking beast. A heavier weight class than me. An undefeated record. A guy with a taste for blood, who knows how to throw his fists and doesn’t back down.

  The powers-that-be come to me first, to see if I want to take on the bout, because they know something about me: no matter how badly the odds are stacked against me, I will never say no to a fight. Backing down just isn’t an option for me. It never has been.

  My circumstances have changed, though. For the first time in my life, I have someone else to consider, someone I care about more than my own damn pride. And I’m discovering, very quickly, that being in love with someone can both strengthen and weaken you in equal measure.

  As I descend down the shaft, my heart is in my fucking throat. If I don’t survive this, Zara will be unprotected. She’ll be alone in the city, and I won’t be able to protect her. My feet meet solid ground, and I turn, bracing myself for what I might find…

  I see the woman first. She’s awake. Alert. Her thick mane of bleach-blonde hair is mussed, all over the place, snarled, tangled, and stained bright red in places. She sits in a chair, facing me, bound to the arms and legs of the chair at the wrist and the ankle by zip ties. Her eyes are the only part of her face visible beneath the steel mask that has been strapped to her head.

  “A scold’s bridle. Hard to come by in this day and age. People are so…politically correct. You can find pretty much anything on e-Bay, though, right?”

  I twist, tightening my grip on the wrench, and there he is, in the flesh: Lazlo, holding a gun in his hand, aiming the business end directly at my head.

  Three years has done little to the man. Connie always said the bastard was as handsome as the devil himself, and I suppose in a way I can understand why she would have thought that. Tall; still broad and muscular in the shoulders, despite being his age; hair thick, dark as jet but tinged with steel grey at his temples. Square-jawed, straight-backed, and confident in his posture. A lot of other men his age would be jealous of his appearance.

  It’s his eyes that make him ugly, though—the anger and the hatred inside them, pouring outward, unguarded. When a pair of eyes like Lazlo’s are focused on you, you can’t help but feel like a part of you is withering and shriveling up inside you.

  The maintenance room isn’t all that big, but Lazlo’s presence seems to command every square inch of the place. The metal grates beneath his feet creak and groan as he makes his way toward me, gun still trained on me.

  “I’ve never liked a woman that talked too much,” he says, placing a hand on the back of Kezia’s chair. “And this one? Boy…” He laughs. “She knows how to talk. I thought I was going to have to glue her mouth shut. Would have made feeding her a little difficult, though. Where’s Zara?”

  Kezia’s eyes go wide at the mention of Zara. She mumbles something, her words unintelligible, pulling at her restraints, and Lazlo rolls his eyes. “Here we go again.” He stoops down and peers at her through the mask’s eyeholes. Now would be the perfect moment to rush him. Try and snatch the gun. But Lazlo switches tactic, aiming the gun straight into Kezia’s stomach. The purpose for this repositioning is obvious: if I try anything, he’s going to shoot her first, and at such close quarters, there’s no way he’ll miss.

  I’m fucking stunned when he reaches out and strokes his hand over Kezia’s messy hair. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Don’t worry. I’m going to take care of Zara, just like I’m gonna take care of you. Shhhh. Shhh, it’s okay.”

  God, he cannot be allowed anywhere near Zara. No fucking way. There has to be a way to get that gun from him. If I slip around him, making it around the back of him…

  As if she can hear my thoughts, Kezia’s eyes meet mine over Lazlo’s shoulder and she shakes her head. Just one, frightened shake, followed by a whimper. Lazlo slowly turns around. “I wouldn’t, Superhero. I’m in a terrible fucking mood. You do anything rash, and I might be tempted to put an end to our conversation a little earlier than planned.”

  “What makes you think you’d be able to stop me, old man? You’re alone down here. You wouldn’t stand a fucking chance against me in a fair fight.”

  Lazlo laughs, turning to face me as he stands. Holding out his hands, gun waving in the air, he gestures to the maintenance room and the woman beside him tied to the chair. “What about any of this screams fair to you?”

  “Fine. Fight dirty, you fuck. Makes no difference to me. Don’t you remember the last time we went toe-to-toe?”

  Lazlo smirks—such an infuriating motherfucker. I really am looking forward to caving his fucking face in. He crosses his arms. “Distinctly. That really wasn’t fun. The idea of being disemboweled never appealed to me before that day. Definitely doesn’t appeal to me now. Stomach wounds are so messy. Painful, too. I would have preferred if you’d stabbed me in the shoulder, or even in the—”

  “I wasn’t taking requests, asshole. I was trying to stop you from raping a teenaged boy.” That stops him dead in his tracks. The smirk slowly slides off his face, leaving a sour expression behind.

  “Rape is such an ugly word. I don’t like to use it.”

  “No one likes using it, you fucking psycho. It’s an ugly term, that describes an ugly act.”

  Lazlo casually shrugs one shoulder. “I prefer to call it…penance. It wasn’t about me. It never is, Pasha. It’s always about them. If they behave, they don’t get punished. If they act up…” A flicker of a frown draws his eyebrows together. For a second, the man looks like he’s in an enormous amount of pain. “…you get punish
ed.”

  It doesn’t escape me that Lazlo started his sentence with ‘If they don’t,’ but finished it with, ‘you get punished.’ Wherever his mind went when he paused just now, it wasn’t a nice place. And it was he who was being punished. “It’s the only way to make sure boys become real men. If they don’t respect you, if they don’t obey you…then you make them do it. Children are mollycoddled today. Too much pandering. They think everything’s just supposed to go their way, no matter what. Sometimes…they need a rude awakening. I appear to be the only person willing to teach them a lesson.”

  Holy fucking shit. He…he believes this. It’s there, plain as day, on his face. He’s not making excuses for himself. He truly believes that assaulting kids is his duty, and only he is strong enough to carry it out. “Jesus Christ, Lazlo. You’re sick in the fucking head if you think hurting a child like that is the best way to teach them about respect. You’re fucking evil.”

  A furious fire has kindled in his eyes. He stabs his index finger at me, spitting as he speaks. “Don’t! Don’t you dare say that!”

  “What? You don’t want me to call you evil? If you can think of a be—”

  “No. Jesus. Ju—just don’t fucking—don’t fucking use his name like that.”

  “Jesus?”

  Lazlo closes his eyes, face going blank, like he’s trying to talk himself down from a ledge. When he opens his eyes again, jabbing the gun at me, he seems to have regained his composure. “There’s no need to say Jesus Christ like it…like it means nothing. It does. It means something.”