Roman: Book 1

by Dawn, Kimber S.

  She looks so much like Roman, it’s almost more than I can handle.

  She’s beautiful. Her hair is thick and as black as a raven’s wing, her lips are pouty red, but it’s her eyes that captivate, holding me still and silent while I watch her sapphire eyes sparkle with flecks of silver.

  Seb’s voice pulls me from my should-have-beens and could-have-beens, “I knew you two would kick ass like a phoenix rising from the ashes. Damn, darlin’, you’re Joan of arc in my book. I’ve never been more proud of anyone or anything else than I am right now.”

  I smile without taking my eyes from Winter’s.

  To anyone else in the room who cared to look, even they would miss the slight tremor wracking its way through me. From the pain slicing through my heart crashing with the euphoria and oxytocin flooding my veins as my daughter latches onto my breast.

  “I wish Roman were here.” I whisper.

  “I know you do, darlin’. I know.”

  I sent Seb home disregarding his pleas to stay with us in the hospital overnight. If I can’t have Roman here with me, I don’t want a substitute. I’d rather spend this time alone with my daughter.

  Sebastian’s one-sided affections are growing against my insistence for them to cease. He continues to insert himself into my life routine and while it does make some things easier, I would rather do this the hard way, alone. I just can’t find it in my heart to tell him because I don’t know if I could handle watching the light in his eyes fade when I do.

  He cares about me and Winter, and I appreciate the things he does to show he cares. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to play this charade though. With Roman gone I don’t have to bite my tongue and keep my thoughts and emotions in check and unspoken.

  It doesn’t take me long to convert into the Mac I was before Roman seized all control and transformed her into Heather.

  I revel in my old self. I bask in the newfound power Roman left me behind with. But still, something prevents me from shunning Seb’s presence and generosity. Call it my unwillingness to be alone in that enormous house, or maybe it’s the need to have some form of companionship, even if it isn’t with my husband and the father of my child. Sometimes a woman simply needs a male presence, it helps the nights go to bed.

  This will never be love and no, he will never be my Roman… but he does help ease the pain. He does keep the loneliness at bay in the still of the worse nights by holding me when my unpredictable sobs begin…when he lays with me, it erases the hurt.

  Sometimes, when a woman is left to live her life and raise her child without her soul mate, she must continue on. No matter how much she detests the thought of doing so, for the sake of her child and her own sanity, she must find a way, any fucking way to persevere, even if her heart breaks day in and day out. Even if the marrow of her bones, the soul she has locked and hidden away screams constantly how wrong it is on every visceral level.

  Winter is six weeks old today. We’ve, her, Seb, and me have fallen into a routine which I must say, I adapted to easier than I thought I would.

  After Winter fell asleep nursing, I stand from the rocking chair, carry her to her crib and lay her down before looking around at the nursery Seb meticulously painted.

  My fingers brush the lamp base twice and the room goes dark. And like every night before I grab the baby monitor and head down stairs for a glass of milk.

  After rinsing my glass and setting it in the dishwasher I head through the house quietly making my way to my room. When I walk into the living room the fire flickering off the dark walls catches me off guard and my steps falter at the sight of Roman’s silhouette outlined by the light of the fire standing at his full stature…glaring straight at me. His usual crisp white shirt is untucked, the sleeves unbuttoned and rolled up to his elbows.

  It’s only when I am close enough to him that I see the blood splattered across the front of his rumpled shirt, unbuttoned to his chest. His hair is spiked from his fingers running through it like they are this moment, his face unshaven with dark lines bracketing his mouth and circles around his eyes. “Sit.” He growls and out of self-preservation and in an effort to keep Winter from waking, I silently do as I’m told.

  He circles where I sit for several silent minutes before opening a folder that went unnoticed until now and begins slamming down pictures of his twelve.

  “This why you came into my life, little mouse? These women, are they why you decided to seek me out? Show me love? Save me? Huh? You wanted to save me from myself, Heather? Is that it?”

  I shake my head and keep my eyes on the pictures of the twelve women who would still be alive today, if not for Roman.

  “You knew what kind of man owned the hands you were putting your life into, yet still, you chose to do so. Was it one girl in particular I killed that made you choose to, or the whole dozen? I know, it was your need to become the thirteenth, wasn’t it?”

  I flinch letting a yelp escape when he slams down a horrified picture of a naked woman covered in cuts and gashes bleeding out on a bed with cable ties tied so tightly around her neck her eyes bulge and her blue lips contrast starkly against the white sheets.

  “Number thirteen. Does THAT make you love me?!”

  I’m left starring at the picture grappling for words as he towers over me, snatches the photo up and smashes it into my face before screaming and slamming it back onto the table, “DOES IT?!” He roars.

  “NO!” My eyes clench closed as the word is torn from my throat.

  “Fucking LIAR!” Boom. His hand hits the table again.

  When my eyes look down to where his hand is he reveals another picture. This one of a brunette woman strung up from a ceiling fan by her neck with cable ties. Knife carvings in the shape of crescent moons run from her thighs to where the binds are cutting into the skin around her neck. “How about her? Do you love me because of my handy work on number fourteen?!”

  Bile rises in my throat and I choke out, “NO!”

  “LIAR!” Boom. His hand hits the table again but my eyes remain clenched.

  “What about number fifteen? She wasn’t as in to it at as the first two girls, she put up a little bit of a fight. LOOK at them, mouse! LOOK!”

  Every picture of every girl is worse than the last.

  My heart breaks for them. Every single one of them. My heart breaks for their lives lost, for their families’ loss. My heart breaks because I could have done something to stop this. Instead I did nothing but turn a blind eye and foolishly hope I would be woman enough to keep him from doing this. That at thirteen, I would be able to show him enough love, give him enough happiness, be enough.

  I never was.

  Boom. “Number nineteen, now she begged for it, the entire time. Pleaded with me to end it. I almost didn’t grant her the death she wanted so, but in the end, she was a loose end. And we all need to make sure those are tied up, don’t you think?”

  I cannot even see facial landmarks or determine the poor girl’s race, she is nothing but a matted mess of hair and blood.

  “Does this make you love me?!” He roars, spittle flying from his lips inches from my face, heaving breaths in between his clenched teeth.

  “NO!” My sobs have become overwhelming, as I shriek in pain and agony of what my life has become.

  In desperation to make it all go away when his hand slams into the table the twentieth time with the twentieth picture in his fist I lie when he demands, “Is it number twenty? Honestly all I remember is waking up soaked in her blood with the taste of scotch choking me. Is she the reason you love me, mouse?! Is she fucking why?!”

  “YES!” I sob. Yes, goddammit!”

  “You’re a fucking LIAR!”

  And then…my world went dark.

  I died the day Heather did.

  The downward spiral my life has consisted of is chaos and carnage. The copious amounts of alcohol I consume on a daily basis is as much a catalyst to desecrating havoc I leave in my wake as it is a cure, a balm to ease the ache I refuse to
acknowledge exists with in me.

  I will admit that I never truly meant to let you down, but what do you expect from a man who has always been hell bound?

  None of that matters anymore though. Not with my Heather now gone. The thought alone spins me into a pitch black hole so dark it suffocates, a place much darker than I’ve ever been for.

  I’ve become careless and reckless in my self-deprecating destruction, I’m at the point where I want them to apprehend me. Andrew has stopped me from leaving the house soaked to the skin and covered from head to toe in my latest victims blood countless occasions.

  I want the world to see me for what I truly am.

  Sadist.

  Motherfucker.

  Murderer.

  Monster.

  Lucifer’s Belial himself relishing in his self made hell on Earth.

  When will you realize some men cannot be reached…

  You think you hated the man I was before?

  I am bête noire, the Black Beast.

  I do not pray to any God, I pray to myself… For myself.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Amanda Harrison, Trina Taylor, and Kylie Sharp thank you, thank you, thank you for taking care of me! Lord knows I can’t take care of myself.

  To Robin, Dolores, and Jennifer, thank you so much for being there for me when I was at my lowest. You didn’t have to be there, but you were and I’ll always remember that.

  Kimber’s Bitches, THANK YOU! There is no damn way in hell I could have made it through Wesley’s story without each and every one of you badass bitches! XOXO

  Lauryn, Meg, and B, y’all are my reason for living, my reason for breathing, and if weren’t for you three, I would have lived my life like a woman gone mad. You are each sweet blessings that I could never live without, and I love each of you so very much in your own specialness.

  Momma and Daddy, I know I am the least conventional kid to have and also the hardest daughter to love, However, ONE DAY, I WILL make you both proud. Thank you so much for giving Bobby and me the wonderful and loving family we grew up in. Momma, thank you for raising me to be strong and to never back down. But most of all, thank you, Momma, for being my greatest friend. Daddy, thank you so much for being the best daddy in the whole wide world. I’ll always be Daddy’s girl first, even when I’m a hundred years old. I love you both so much and pray that I can make y’all proud. *Psst... Momma, don’t let Daddy read any of my books—the acknowledgments ONLY!!!!*

  Author Bio

  I was born and raised in Louisiana… and No, I do NOT live in a bayou, I actually see the beaches on the gulf coast more than I see a bayou, lol. I started writing poems and short stories very early in my life. You know, for the Michael’s and Leo’s and Nick’s in my life. I've been a book hoarder since I was eleven years old, but then a couple years ago something wonderful happened! The 50 Shades of Grey craze brought to life my inner smut whore and I commenced to read anything and everything smut affiliated. When reading wasn't enough anymore and I noticed that so many of the authors of my favorite indie authors and their books weren't getting the exposure their work deserved, I turned it into a mission, starting my own blog, buying their books and reading them one by one. I then wrote my reviews for my blog and didn't hold back in writing them (Hell yeah those motherfuckers are profanity laden). I've never done a single thing in my life halfway. I always go all in. After the success of my Blog, and the insistence of one of my bestest friends, my sister from another mister, Trina Taylor of Bad & Dirty Books, I was ready to finally take the plunge and see if I could write a book that was worth a damn. I'm a Southern girl to my core, a self-proclaimed smut whore, and I keep hearing that I’m an author, but honestly… I don’t believe the rumors, lol. I don’t feel like a kickass bitch spittin’ out lyrics, or stories, like a motherfuckin’ rockstar.

  Tattooed across my ribs are the words I have always lived by: 'Aut viam inveniam aut faciam tibi.' Latin for: If I cannot find a way, I will make my own.