She couldn’t even look his way when he climbed back in and yanked the door closed behind him. She pushed the dozens of stacks he’d hurled at her off her lap, letting them thud to the floor. All she could do was hold her breath, fighting back the lump trying to climb up her throat. The engine growled back to life, and he blazed onto the road once more, his strangled breathing the only sound in the car for the rest of the drive back to Cascade Hills.
A little less than an hour later, Rocco pulled her truck to a stop in the driveway of her house. Stella had long since gotten all the stacks of bills situated on the floor at her feet and now sat silently with her arms and legs crossed, staring straight ahead as every bone in her body shook out of control.
He put the car in park.
Clenching her teeth, realizing that she couldn’t see through her blurred vision, she wanted nothing more than to melt into that seat and disappear forever. Instead, she tugged down the passenger’s mirror, horrified at the sight of what looked to be a mix of dirt, mascara, and grease on her face. She’d pulled down the mirror to at least attempt clean her face before Rocco laid into her some more, but the tragic reflection looking back at her told her it was no use.
“Real powerful, huh?”
Her eyes shot to Rocco and caught fire at his words.
His chest swelled, raising his eyebrows at her as he popped open his door and stepped one foot out. “I never wanna see you again.”
“You promise?”
“Don’t call me for shit.”
“Don’t worry—”
He slammed the door closed before she could finish.
Stella jetted out of the car too, vision still blurry from tears and eyes burning from the mascara that they were causing it to melt into her eyes sockets. Still, she was able to make out his silhouette through her fractured vision as he moved swiftly toward the driver’s side of his red Chevy truck, which was parked right in front of hers.
She shouted after him, stumbling over her Mary Jane’s. “You have a lot of damn nerve to judge me, Rocco, as many women as you have coming in and out of your life on a daily basis whose names you can’t even remember the next day! Do you know that there were women in that parlor who talked about you—every day? How you shared your bed with them and then ghosted them like they were trash! How many women like me have you brought home over the years and used for your own enjoyment? Yet, you have the gall to turn your nose up at me like you’re better? You’re not!”
Rocco pointed at her over the hood of the truck as he moved. “Blue deserves better than you.”
She froze in her tracks. Not because of his harsh words, but instead because a wave of dizziness had overtaken her as she locked eyes with Justin—Rocco’s best friend and Troy’s younger brother—who she hadn’t even noticed was leaning against the back of Rocco’s red Chevy truck until that very moment, still wearing the SWAT uniform he’d donned earlier that night, arms crossed.
“Justin,” Stella gasped, clenching her fists.
Justin’s knowing blue eyes shrunk as he took her in. Her outfit. The dirt and debris that still clung to her clothes and her skin. Her smudged lipstick and the mascara running a race down both her cheeks. His eyes traveled her body only once before he reclaimed her gaze and winced, shoulders drooping.
She quickly gathered that Justin was there to pick Rocco up after Rocco had been forced to abandon his own car to move her Range Rover. Her eyes shifted to Rocco just as he climbed into the driver’s side of the truck and plowed it shut behind him. Through the rearview mirror, she saw his eyes were tightly closed as he sat in the driver’s seat, squeezing the bridge of his nose with one hand, unaware of her gaze.
“Let’s go!” Rocco’s eyes popped open wide as he roared out of the window to Justin, the bass in his voice topped only by the growl of the truck’s engine roaring to life as he started it.
Stella squinted against the taillights when they popped on, illuminating her like a pop star center stage.
The vision of her under those bright lights only seemed to make Justin’s grimace sink deeper.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Justin shook his head, his crossed arms obstructing the bold SWAT letters screaming from his bulletproof vest. “If you were in trouble, Stella, you should’ve told me. You should’ve said something.”
“You’re already scraping just to make ends meet, Justin. Paying that insane tuition at Colombia. I—” Her voice came clipped, broken. “I didn’t want to... to burden you.”
“Burden? If you believed for one second that you could ever be a burden… that I wouldn’t give you my last dollar… my last bite of food even if I was starving…”
“I… I just…” Moisture jetted down her cheeks. “I was….” Her eyes dropped before she could finish, voice shattered, tears spilling onto the driveway.
Justin ran a hand down his face.
“Hey, I’m out in five seconds, bro, with or without you,” Rocco spat from the car once more. “Four… three…”
Justin shot Rocco a look over his shoulder, then Stella. He faltered. As if both his hands were tied and being pulled in two different directions.
“You gonna be okay by yourself?” Justin asked her.
“She’s a hustler, J. She’s. Good.” Rocco clapped his hands on the ‘she’s good’, the sound ringing into the air. “Let’s get the fuck outta here. Now.”
“I’m speaking to her, not you.” Justin narrowed his blue orbs to the corners of their sockets after Rocco’s tight voice rose into the air again, his tone daring him to say another word.
“I’ll be okay.” Stella played her fingers together.
Justin looked back at her and held her gaze for a long moment, his fingers tangling together as well. Then his eyes fell to the ground, he pushed off the truck and began toward the passenger’s side.
“Justin!” She stumbled forward.
He froze, dropped his head, and then looked over his shoulder.
“Thank you,” she said. “For not…. I mean, for…”
He took a deep breath. “We’re family, Stella.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
With that, he turned and began back toward Rocco’s truck. Stella crossed her arms and lowered her eyes as he climbed inside. She tried to keep her gaze lowered as they pulled out of her driveway, but something hauled her gaze up. Just in time to lock with Rocco’s, watching her from the driver’s side as he reversed his truck.
Her head followed the truck to hold his gaze, feeling the disgust in his eyes permeating the window, crossing the rapidly expanding space between them, and entering her body like a virus.
It was the last time she’d ever see Rocco Wolfe, and his face was exactly as she’d always imagined it’d be. Awash with contempt. But most of all, relief. That relief only grew stronger the farther the car rolled away as if the expanding space between them was reminding him once more that there was a brand new life awaiting him that didn’t have her in it. A life that no longer kept him tethered to her by their one and only common thread.
Troy.
That common thread had died, and as Rocco finally looked away to guide the truck to the main road and zoom out of sight, it was a common thread he clearly had every intention of keeping dead forever.
8
Every cardboard moving box had been taped and labeled in black sharpie. The delicate furniture encased in bubble wrap. Anything that could be broken down had been, ready to be reassembled upon arrival to its new destination. Every square foot of that empty house was cleaner than the day he’d signed the closing papers, years ago. The moving truck outside was already open and ready to be loaded.
It was the day Rocco Wolfe had been waiting for since he was five years old and he, Troy, and Justin would play cops and robbers in the run-down city just a few miles west. It was a day he’d secretly believed would never come.
Now, it was here.
Quantico. The FBI Academy. His biggest dream.
His only dream.
He stood motionless amongst the controlled chaos surrounding him—the un-assembled leather bed-frame leaning up against the very wall that it had banged against every night. The cardboard boxes holding twenty-eight years worth of memories. The king-sized mattress—holding ten times more memories than that. He was surrounded by his old life, preparing to face the new, and all he could do was stare at the only thing in the house that hadn’t been broken down or sealed up in a cardboard box. All he could do was stare down at the small piece of paper creased under the grip of his stiffened fingers, making the words scribbled across it almost indecipherable.
But he didn’t need to read the words. He already knew them by heart. Words he heard every night in his dreams and even louder in his nightmares. Words that the secretary of the army had confirmed, six months earlier, had been written for him.
And only him.
‘Please take care of Stella and Blue’
——
Stella sniffled as she scrolled through Rocco’s tagged photos on Instagram that sleepy Sunday morning. A morning that marked two weeks exactly since she’d last seen or heard from him. Justin had reached out once—the day after Rocco had thrown her in a trashcan wearing a schoolgirl outfit—to check up on her. She hadn’t had the heart to give him more than a few words in response, assuring him she was okay and just needed some time to herself. DJ hadn’t mentioned it, so all Stella could do was pray that word hadn’t gotten around about what she’d been up to over the last few months. She’d been ignoring every text message that dinged into her phone from every member of Troy’s side of the family; terrified of who might now be privy to the secret she’d managed to keep for nearly six months. If word was out, how could she ever show her face at her in-law’s house again?
Sitting cross-legged on her white bedding, she bounced Blue in her arms. As usual, her daughter was screaming. Even with a fresh diaper, a full belly, and momma’s arms wrapped all around her. The binky Stella had tried a million times to put into Blue’s mouth hung on the edge of her downturned, wailing lips, her tongue one dart away from spitting it out completely. Her tiny legs kicked furiously in her yellow onesie, jumbo tears spilling out of her gray eyes one by one. Stella leaned her head back against her white velvet headboard, her eyes dashing across the mirrored silver furniture that flanked the master bedroom all around it.
Then, her eyes returned to the phone she still held in her free hand, hardening. “How is it possible that a man with one grim-faced picture of himself on his page gets tagged so many times a day, by so many beautiful women? Where does he even meet them all? Honestly. It’s not like he has anything interesting to say—ever! Food, guns, tits, FBI—repeat. That’s it. That’s literally all he has ever had to talk about since kindergarten. He’s not even that good looking. He’s really not!”
Stella ranted to Blue as she scrolled through Rocco’s tag on the app, where he seemed to be wrapped up in the arms of a different woman in every photo. Age, race, and creed were clearly of no concern to him, as evidenced by the plethora of multi-colored female faces smiling into the camera from the screen of her phone. It didn’t matter what the woman was doing—hugging him close at an upscale restaurant, kissing his cheek on the sand at the beach, hand-in-hand with him at an ice skating rink, or straddling his shoulders during a concert in Central Park—Rocco wasn’t smiling in a single one of the photos. Opting instead to give the camera his signature, squinted leer. As if he had better things to do and way better places to be than enjoying the attention of a caliber of woman most men could only dream of. The women never repeated themselves either. All one-and-done’s. A new smiling face every day, sure they’d be the one to tame the beast. To win his heart. To make him see the error of his ways with their magical, gold-plated vaginas. Did they not care that they were being so blatantly two-timed? Was he that good in bed? So good that they’d allow themselves to be broadcasted so publicly as the millionth notch on his bedpost?
Stella would sooner die.
“Your uncle is an equal-opportunity hoe bag, Blue, but he loves to judge the rest of the world like he’s some kind of saint. Like we can’t all stalk his Instagram page and see in two seconds what he’s really about.”
Stella bounced Blue when her cries intensified, looking down at her daughter with eyes almost as swollen as hers. Her nose was just as red as Blue’s too.
“I’m tired of crying, baby. Aren’t you tired?”
Blue answered with a shriek that nearly cracked the mounted plasma TV playing Family Feud across the room.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Stella laughed. Her smile fell just as quickly as it came, cuddling Stella closer. “I know you’re sad that you haven’t heard from your Uncle Rocco in two weeks. I know you’re sad he’s leaving. That he didn’t even bother to come over to say goodbye, even though his flight is set to leave in less than an hour. Not even a phone call to tell your mom where she can shove it on his way outta town. I guess that’s my fault. Everything’s my fault.” She swallowed thickly, cuddling Blue closer. “Baby, I don’t know. Money’s gonna be real tight. I don’t know what we’re going to do, or how we’re going to do it, but God as my witness, we’re going to figure it out. I’m going to figure it out. I’m gonna figure out a way to give you the life I never had. The life your daddy and I dreamed of for you, if it’s the last thing I—”
A knock on the door tore her away from her vow to Blue, and she climbed out of bed wearing only her red silk robe, tied at the waist. She adjusted Blue onto her hip—causing the pacifier that had been hanging on by a prayer to finally fall from her crying lips and hit the white-carpeted floor. Stella hurried out of the room when the knocks evolved to bangs, moving down the expansive hallway as quickly as she could with Blue in her arms.
“Just a minute!” she called when the banging intensified, pattering down the white-carpeted winding staircase and toward the foyer that greeted the stairs below. “Probably your aunt DJ—why is she so dang impatient?”
Stella made it to the door a moment later and threw it open, squinting as the sunlight outside blared in and made her tear-swollen eyes burn even more.
Her mouth fell at the sight of Rocco.
He scowled at her from where his black Nike sneakers were planted wide on the welcome mat. His chest rose high under his black t-shirt. She swore she saw every muscle in his body ebb and shift the moment their eyes met, even his bulky thighs from where they were hidden under a pair of black sweatpants that were taped at his ankles. His bright green eyes, mostly hidden under the bill of his black Yankees cap, looked nearly black since he’d pulled it so low.
At the sight of Rocco, Blue’s cries slowed, then stopped. Through her peripheral, Stella saw Blue reach for Rocco, cooing with her tiny fingers splayed. Fingers that gleamed with saliva since they’d been planted deep in her screaming mouth just moments earlier.
Rocco didn’t reach for Blue’s hand the way he normally would, his grim eyes on Stella.
Her heartbeat sped up. “Thought you’d be at the airport by now. Today’s the big day, right? The FBI awaits.”
His taut mouth curled down, face darkening.
“Did you actually come here to say goodbye to us?” She sniffled. “Or to ream me a little more about what a filthy whore I am?”
His gaze remained stoic.
“Rocco, if you’re not gonna say anything then why are you… here…” Her words trailed away when her eyes shifted to his left shoulder, where a long strap hung, leading down to the red duffle bag hanging at his hip. Her heartbeat tripled as her gaze zoomed to his right hand as well, where he clutched the handle of a black rolling suitcase.
Her eyes widened and shot back up to his.
He stepped into the house and passed her without a word, shouldering her on his way by, making her stumble back.
It wasn’t the hit from that boulder he called a shoulder that made her world feel like it was shifting on its axis. Now that his huge body had cleared the door, the moving truck parked i
n her driveway came into full view, making the floor feel like it had cracked open below her, leaving a black hole so big it threatened to swallow her up. The back door of the moving truck was already pushed open, filled to the gills with stacks of cardboard boxes scribbled with black sharpie and the leather furnishings she recognized as the cold, manly decor that had once been littered throughout the house he’d sold across town.
“Wait—wait—wait!” She turned raced after him, Blue bouncing on her hip, as he pulled his roller-bag behind him on the marble floors in the living room.
Stella shook her head when he parked both bags next to the couch and began back toward the foyer. He didn’t even look at her. She watched him pass, stuttering.
“But what about the FBI?” When he froze in mid-step with his back turned to her, she saw the exact moment he stopped breathing, making his shoulder’s go rigid, mid-rise. “You pulled out,” she breathed, answering her own question, hardly able to believe the words coming out of her mouth. “Oh, Rocco…” Her heart hit her feet. “Oh no.”
A long moment passed before he was able to draw in a breath. So heavy and shaky she heard it from across the room. He looked over his shoulder at her, his green eyes shrunken into slits.
Her knees nearly went to jello under the ferocity of his glare. Gasping, she shifted Blue to her other hip, reached down to the side table with her free hand, and snatched the cordless phone off the cradle.
She held the phone out to him. It shook in her hold, almost as much as her shattered voice. “Reverse it.”
His clenched his fists, making the backs of his arms flex.
“Reverse it.” Her lungs gasped for air as if she’d just spent several minutes submerged underwater. “You have to call them and tell them you made a mistake—right now. It’s your biggest… your biggest dream, Rocco. You waited years for them just to open the application. Who knows how many more years until…”
Forbidden (War Book 1) Page 8