Roman

by K. J. Dahlen

  Luca nodded. “I heard about that. You tell Benny and Stevie that if they want to come back here, they’ll be welcome.”

  Nikoli smiled. “I don’t think they’ll be back. Stevie has been claimed by one of my men and I don’t think he’ll allow her to live anywhere other than with him. He understands that they come as a package and is prepared to accept the boy with her.”

  Luca nodded, looking happy to hear this.

  “What’s going to happen with Mrs. Harris and this man Rosco?” Nikoli asked.

  Jackal looked fierce for a moment. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about those two. We have plans for them.”

  “You have to capture them first,” Nikoli pointed out.

  “We already have Mrs. Harris is custody,” Jackal told them. “Later tonight, we’ll have Rosco as well.”

  “He isn’t one that will go easy. He’s an Ublyudok…a bastard.” Nikoli looked disgusted. “I did some research on the man after I heard his name. He is from Russia and he has several men protecting him. He has to have them. He’s a wanted man in not only this country, but ours as well.”

  Pappy nodded. “We know all about this dirt bag. Trudy got a lot of information on him when you told us who he was. I never knew one man could be that cruel.”

  “Ah, yes, I forgot about your Trudy.” Nikoli smiled. “May I ask that you don’t kill him just yet? I think someone from his past needs closure. He can be here in the morning.”

  Pappy shrugged and turned to Jackal.

  When he nodded his agreement, Nikoli clasped his hands together. “I’ll let him know.” Nikoli turned and watched as the roof fell into the rest of the building. The screams had already died down and they no longer had to watch. He turned to Cordell. “I am sorry to meet again, under these circumstances but it was good to see you again.”

  Cordell nodded. “And you my friend. Although it is never a fun time to find a viper in the nest, it is satisfying to bring justice.”

  Nikoli watched the dying fire. “Yes, it is. As horrible as this was, it needed to be done. These men needed to be taught this lesson. It may seem harsh to most people but in our line of work, it is necessary.”

  “Thank god, it is not necessary too often,” Cordell stated. “This did not need to happen. Men just get greedy and then…their world just goes up in smoke.” He turned and watched as the embers of the burning building died down.

  Roman saw his brothers gathering in his living room. It was getting late and he wished they were anywhere but here. He wasn’t sure he knew how to tell them but he also felt they needed to know.

  He’d asked Stevie and Benny to stay in their rooms. They hadn’t known him as a kid, didn’t know what made him the man he was today, but these four men did. This was something that could have happened to any of them.

  The fact it happened to him wasn’t something he ever wanted to admit but now, he felt he must. If he was going to outright kill a man, his brothers needed to know why.

  He walked over to the bar area and poured them all a drink.

  Each of them came around to collect it and each one gave him a look of concern.

  He could tell they all were worried about him but they had no idea what he was about to reveal.

  “What is this all about Roman?” Yuri asked softly as he sipped on his vodka.

  They were standing by the window and Roman could see the reflection of the two of them in the glass.

  Without turning, he murmured, “I have something to tell you all and I’m not sure how to say it.”

  “The best way is just to say it,” Yuri urged. “We all have our secrets and we all have some things from our past we regret.”

  Roman nodded. “That’s true but this is something I’ve kept hidden for most of my life.”

  “Then why bring it up now?” Barshan joined them.

  “I tried for the longest time to just forget this part of my life but recent events have made that impossible,” Roman finally admitted.

  “What is going on Roman?” Sazon asked.

  Roman turned and face the four men that meant the world to him. Taking a deep breath, he began his tale, “Do you remember back when we were kids? Before we all met? How hard it was at times just to survive?”

  “I remember we did what we had to do just to get through another day,” Mikial stated. Sipping his drink, he looked down at the liquor in his glass. “Some days, it went ok and then somedays it didn’t.”

  “It was a tough time to be a kid and all alone.” Barshan shrugged. “I don’t think any of us would have made it if we hadn’t found each other. We came together for a reason. Maybe we didn’t know it then and maybe we don’t even know now, but fate stepped in and brought us together for a reason.”

  No one said anything for a long time.

  Roman couldn’t look at the men that meant the world to him but they needed to hear his confession. “I remember the winter I was ten. This was before I met you guys. It was a brutal winter. I’d been on my own for three years by then and I was still in St. Petersburg. Running the streets just trying to survive. One day, I noticed I was being followed. I kept in the shadows but this young man still followed me everywhere I went. I saw signs that he was there. Then one night, I confronted him. I wanted to know why he was following me.” He paused and swallowed hard. This would be the part of his confession that was hard for him to admit. “He told me his name was Rosco. He offered to buy me breakfast and he told me he only wanted to talk. I was hungry, so I let him. Over breakfast, he began asking questions, you know, where did I stay, did I have family or friends, was I going to school, that sort of thing. Normally, I would have lied and told him that I had people looking out for me but for some reasons I told him the truth. I told him I was alone and had no one. He drove me around the city for hours and we just talked. He was in his late twenties, maybe even as old as thirty, but he seemed to know what I was going through, almost like he had led the same kind of life I was leading at some point. He remembered things from his past that was so similar to what I was going through at the time. For a moment, I felt comfortable with him until something woke up inside me and I began to doubt this strange man again.”

  The men in the room remained silent as they listened.

  “I think it was something in his eyes, something he hid very well but every once in a while, it would peek out. He had a cold empty look. You know how they say the eyes are mirrors of the soul? Well, this man must not have had a soul because he had nothing where his heart should have been.”

  “What happened?” Yuri asked quietly while looking troubled.

  “He offered me a cup of hot chocolate before I got out of his car that day. I didn’t know it then but he slipped something into the cocoa. The next thing I knew I was waking up in a bedroom somewhere. I had no idea where I was or how I got there, but for the first time in forever, I was warm and had clean dry clothes on. A short time later, a woman came into the room and brought me a meal. She never said a word to me but she looked troubled. I tried to ask her some questions but she wouldn’t speak at all. Then just before she left, she looked at me with tears in her eyes. I didn’t know what was going on but suddenly, I knew I wasn’t in a good place and my survival instincts kicked in. When I tried to leave, I found the door locked and the windows had bars on them. I knew I had to get out of there. It was then I knew what I’d seen in Rosco’s eyes earlier that day. It had been a dark kind of lust, a kind of lust not often talked about, instead it was whispered about in backrooms and dives in the worst parts of town. I knew I wasn’t going to allow Rosco to do what he wanted to do with me. I had only one chance to fight back and I was going to take it. I looked around the room and armed myself with whatever I could find. I didn’t eat the food he provided. I didn’t trust him to give me untainted food or drink. I knew by then that he’d slipped something in the hot chocolate he gave me and I wasn’t going to go through that again.”

  His brothers all stood stone still and some were clenching their fists.
/>   “The wait that night was the worst thing I ever had to go through but finally, I heard the door open again. When Rosco came into my room, I watched him come close to my bed. He was wearing only a robe and had just showered, as his hair was wet. He didn’t notice it but my eyes were wide open. I saw him put the key to the room on the table and when he turned his back, I struck. I bashed him on the head from behind and when he crumpled to the floor, I ran. The only problem was I didn’t hit the bastard hard enough to knock him out. He grabbed my ankle before I could completely get away. When he got up from the floor, he was covered in blood and he was in a fine rage. He began hitting me but I fought back. Granted, I was a lot smaller and weaker than he was but I held my own until he threw me into the wall. Then he grabbed a knife from the table and stabbed me in the left side. I remember looking down at the handle of the blade in his hand and I watched as he turned it and drew it out. I didn’t feel the pain but I could still see the blood pouring out of my body. Just before I blacked out, I thought I saw a face staring at us from the hall. When I came to again, Rosco had tied me to the bed and was whipping my back with his belt. He was hitting me so hard, he’d laid my skin open, but I never gave him the satisfaction of crying out. There was blood all over the place. When he stopped, I didn’t know why. I turned my head and found Rosco on the floor. I didn’t know it then but the woman from earlier sneaked back into the room and laid him out with a heavy frying pan. I don’t know what happened next but I can imagine. I passed out again.”

  His brothers all seemed to release a sigh at this part.

  “Anyway, the next time I woke up I was naked and freezing. I was out in the woods. I didn’t know the area but it didn’t matter. My whole body hurt from the beating I’d taken but I was still alive. When I looked around, I found another body close to mine. It was the old lady. She was dead. The bastard had stabbed her in the throat. She must have tried to help me and he killed her for it. She had saved my life but it had cost her, her own. I couldn’t just leave her there, so I wrapped myself up the best I could and I tried to give her some kind of burial but I knew I had to get out of there before Rosco found me again. As far as I knew, he thought I was dead, so I escaped and went to Moscow. Within a few months, I met you guys and I tried my best to forget that period in my life.”

  “What brought back these particular memories?” Mikial asked looking troubled.

  Roman grunted. “I found out that Mrs. Harris sold Benny to a man named Rosco and I just knew it was the same man.”

  “The hell you say!” growled Barshan.

  “Why did you tell us this? Why not just leave it in your memories where it belongs?” Yuri questioned as he also looked upset.

  “Rosco is here in the States, more importantly, I think he is in or near Baton Rouge,” Roman told them. “I’m going there to kill him. This has nothing to do with the Bratva and he isn’t a threat to us, so it will be murder, plain and simple. I know that our group will never condone that but I felt you all needed to know what I was going to do. You can all disassociate from me if that’s your wish but this is something I have to do. That monster needs killing and this time, he won’t get away, not from me.”

  Stevie entered the room and walked over to stand in front of Roman. Ignoring the others, she placed both her hands on either side of his face. Looking him in the eye she told him, “You’re right about one thing, that man does need to die.”

  “You heard?” Roman swallowed hard. “Did you hear all of it?”

  Stevie nodded. Leaning forward, she brushed her lips against his own.

  Roman pushed her away and glared at her. “How can you kiss me? How can you stand to be anywhere near me? Didn’t you understand what I just said? What that man did to me?”

  Stevie reached out to him again, but this time Roman caught her wrists in his hands and held her at bay.

  “Yes, I understood what you said. Every single word.”

  “Then you know that I’m tainted.” Roman growled.

  Stevie shook her head. “No you’re not. You’re not tainted, not even close. What you are is a man of honor. Even at the age of ten, you had something most boys don’t learn for a very long time, if they ever do. You fought back against a full grown man who wanted nothing more than to hurt you in the worst possible way. He wanted to break you but you fought back. You fought back for the right to live your own life the way you wanted, not the way he did. You didn’t give in to his desires just to be warm and to have food in your belly. You held on to your integrity and your honor against some pretty incredible odds.”

  Roman stared at her for a moment then looked around the room at the faces of the men he called his brothers. There was no sign of revulsion in their eyes, no sign of any condemnation. Looking at Yuri he asked, “Did you know about this before?”

  Yuri shook his head. “No not really.” He too, looked at the others then turned back to Roman. “We had our suspicions though. One time when you were sick, you called out in your fever. We never heard his name but we knew sort of what happened.”

  “You never said anything,” Roman commented.

  Sazon shrugged. “It wasn’t our place. We thought maybe if you trusted us one day, you would talk about it but until that day, it really wasn’t our business. “ Looking over at the others he said, “We all have secrets from our past, just as we all had to do things we didn’t want to, just to survive. Maybe our secrets aren’t the same as yours, but we all have them.”

  Roman ran his fingers through his hair. He looked at Stevie and shook his head. “You said I was a man of honor, of integrity, but you don’t know the things I’ve done. You don’t know the things we’ve all done.”

  Stevie shook her head. “That is true I don’t, but I can see what kind of men you guys are now. I may not know what being Bratva means to you but I do know the five of you all share one very important quality. Your lives may not be Rockwell but then neither was mine. When you grow up without love or anyone to give a shit about you, you have to make your own way in this life. It’s hard to know the right way to turn. It’s hard to know who and what to trust. But you learn from your mistakes. Sometimes those lessons hurt you or someone else you care about.” She shrugged. “When you live on the streets, you learn to tell at a glance who you can trust and who you can’t. When I left the Harris house, I found Silas. He took care of me until I could take care of myself. He showed me everything I needed to know about living on the streets.” She reached out to touch his chest. “Then I met you and I knew right from the moment we met that I could trust you. Then you and your brothers helped me and Benny.” She dropped her gaze and stared at the floor. “You took a chance on us when you didn’t have to. You gave us trust when you didn’t even know us. You opened your home to us. You gave us a safe place to recover in and that tells me you are a good man.”

  Roman closed his eyes briefly. “But I was talking about killing a man. What in that statement makes you think of me as a good man?”

  “The part where you admitted he needed killing. The world will never miss a man like Rosco. In fact, it will be a better place once he’s gone. Then kids like my brother won’t have to watch their backs every minute of every day for the rest of their lives.”

  “And no one else will have to live with memories like the ones you have,” Sazon added.

  Roman wrapped his arm around Stevie’s neck and pulled her in close. She wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him tightly.

  Yuri cleared his throat and he and the others gathered their things and made their way to the front door. He looked over at Roman and said, “You let us know before you go to Baton Rouge. Nikoli is there now, taking care of some business. He’s supposed to call me later. I’ll let you know what he says.”

  Roman heard the unsaid message in his brother’s words and nodded. He watched as they left and then he turned to Stevie. For a moment, he just stared at her then he leaned close and attacked her mouth with his own. His lips nipped and sucked on hers. When his t
ongue invaded her mouth, she fit in closer and he reached around her grabbing her ass in his big hands.

  Lifting her slightly off the ground, he rubbed her into his pelvis. His cock grew hard as he fit himself into her cradle. Even through his clothes, he could feel her heat. When one kiss ended, another began and he lost his mind when her scent reached him. Warm chocolate and a hint of cinnamon blended with the citrus of his body wash washed over him in waves. “I need you,” he whispered.

  “What?” she murmured as she broke away. “Did you say something?”

  It suddenly hit Roman like a freight train. She couldn’t hear his words if she couldn’t see him speak. For a moment, he felt weird.

  Then something happened and she saw the look in his eyes. She took a step back and had the most hurtful look in her own eyes. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she raised her hand to cover her mouth. With a soundless cry, she turned, ran back to her bedroom and slammed the door behind her.

  Roman sagged against the wall and buried his head in his hands. “Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered. He rammed his head into the wall a few times before he dragged himself to his feet and made his way past her door. He paused for a moment then continued to his own room. He didn’t bother turning on the light, he didn’t know if he could face himself in the mirror.

  Flopping down on his bed, he stared at the ceiling. Rubbing his hands down his face, he thought about what happened. The look of pain on her face and in her eyes just about gutted him. Especially, after how supportive she’d been earlier. He got up and slowly undressed. When he slipped naked between his sheets, he kept remembering the look on her face. Staring at the ceiling, he tried to blank his mind and for a while, then his mind began working again and his thoughts were soon racing with memoires.

  He kept remembering the moments with her, her smile, her groan when he entered her hot wet core. The feeling of sheathing himself deep inside her. Her scent, the feel of her skin, the beating of her heart against his lips when he nibbled on her throat.