The Cousins Series Boxed Set

by Lisa Lang Blakeney

  "So you're saying the reason I have no clients is because I'm messy?"

  "All I'm saying is that I am not purposely stopping you from getting any clients. I don't have to, nor do I have any interest in doing so. I was just hoping you wouldn't want that life any longer. I hoped that you'd take my gift of the club and Mendez and go live your life. A peaceful one. I can see I may have miscalculated your need for a crisis."

  I made Elizabeth a promise and I've kept it by being here, but I've humbled myself as much as I possibly can today.

  That's it.

  I'm done.

  I can see that this meeting has been a complete waste of my time just like I knew it would be. This is some sort of pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, son teaching moment for him. As if I'm some sort of spoiled trust fund baby. He fails to recognize the major part I played in the success of his, no scratch that, our business. Without me there'd be nothing getting the fuck fixed. There'd be no business.

  He has no stomach for the dirty work anymore, and he hasn't for a long ass time. He thinks you can just throw money at any problem and get it taken care of, but you can't. Some people don't respond to money, regardless of the amount, especially when they think they can get more. Some people just need an old fashioned boot up their ass.

  "All right then. Please thank Juliette again for the lunch." I take a final bite of my sandwich. "It's been illuminating speaking with you as usual, Joseph."

  "I assure you that I'm doing nothing to prevent you from acquiring clients, Roman. They're just not ready to hire you. You'll have to figure that out on your own. If I do it for you, no one will respect you. Plus, it's not totally dried up for you out there. I've heard you've been getting a couple of clients."

  "Not good ones."

  "Do they pay?"

  "That's not the only factor to consider and you know that. I have to be particular about what types of jobs I take. What work they want me to do. I've achieved a certain level of cache. I have standards."

  "Oh so barn burners are too beneath you?" The old man asks.

  Barn burners is what we call an arson job. Arson jobs can be a huge headache if you don't get it right, and they can get you serious time if you get caught. Those are not jobs that men at my level should even be entertaining. They're way too risky, and there's not enough profit.

  "See that's the difference between you and me. I started out in this business here." Joseph holds his hand palm down at his hip.

  "I took on shitty ass clients and built my business to here." He raises his palm up next to his waist.

  "Important men started hearing about the work I was putting in on the streets, and I started getting hired for bigger jobs. Better clients. Ones that paid with a check, and not with cash washed through a strip club. I was quiet, I was efficient, and at the time I was cheap. And then ... I rose my business to here." He raises his palm to the side of his forehead.

  "And I fought like hell to keep it at this level. But the problem with you is that you think that you're already here, when you're really here." He moves his hand back down to his hip.

  "You've been living off of my reputation and my success, but you still have dues that must be paid if you want to rise to the level that I'm at. I didn't want that for you, but if that's the life you're seeking, you need to recognize where you fall in the food chain."

  I've heard enough, so I stand up and put on my jacket. He's never respected me, the Kings, or what we've done to help make him the success that he thinks he is. I'm ready to get out of here. I'm going to fuck Elizabeth good and hard for making me agree to this waste of an hour.

  "Wait," he says in a tone of voice that sounds almost regretful.

  I finish putting on my jacket. "What?"

  "The thing you said about bringing brother and sister together."

  "What about it?"

  "Do you think you can do it?"

  "I don't know. Why don't you tell me what happened between you and her family that made them hate you so much?"

  "Nothing in particular. Loving Juliette."

  "Well they're seriously taking out that shit on me. Elizabeth's father made it quite clear. Their bigger issue with me isn't necessarily that I'm related to their daughter by marriage, but that I'm your son. They dislike me, but they despise you."

  "You may be right about that."

  "Plus I don't really give a rats ass if brother and sister never talk again. It doesn't affect me either way."

  "See that's another area where we differ. It makes me question the depth and sincerity of your so-called feelings for your cousin. All I see are advantages to making sure brother and sister reunite. The main one being that it will make my wife happy, and I would move heaven and earth to make Juliette happy. You obviously wouldn't do the same for Elizabeth. You need to ask yourself if she's what you really want, or more importantly if you've even earned the right to have her."

  I hate the old man sometimes. He's an asshole. Especially because he has the unique ability to make me second-guess myself and call me on my shit like no other. All this lunch has managed to do is piss me the fuck off. Elizabeth is definitely going to have to give me a repeat performance tonight to help me heal myself of all of the fucking passive aggressive jabs he's taken at me today.

  I start walking towards the front door. I want to get the hell out of here in the worst way. He didn't really have to bother telling me again how my existence wasn't planned or wanted. That has always been crystal clear. Yet there's something about hearing it from his own lips, though, that makes me resent him just a tad bit more than I already did before I walked in this house.

  We were never ultra close, but there were times when Joseph gave me glimpses of what a good father should look like. He took me to buy my first car. He introduced me to boating. He actually attended a couple of parent-teacher nights. He brought me into the family business. It's the knowledge of him doing these things, things he didn't have to do, that have always been at war with the man who left me without a second glance in the care of my crazy ass mother. The man who took years to get it sort of right. The man who basically just told me to my face that I don't deserve Elizabeth. That I'm not worthy.

  Am I?

  CHAPTER THREE

  ROMAN

  This is the second best feeling in the world.

  My knuckles connecting with the jaw of a complete prick.

  His face twisting and contorting from the impact.

  Blood splattering across the sleeves of my hoodie and the concrete.

  My heartbeat steady.

  My breathing calculated.

  Damn, I missed this. This kind of control. This absolute power. It's as close to an orgasmic experience as I can feel. Not to mention that I'm doing the world a public service by kicking this dirtbag's ass. Everyone out here has been talking about him under their breath but not doing one single thing about it. Somebody out here had to step up to the plate.

  Today it's me.

  I'm not sure how many days it's been since I've been on a run. I've lost track, which isn't a good thing, so today was hard. Real hard. My run didn't feel good like it usually does. The endorphins never kicked in. The shit felt like work.

  That was until I spotted this dirty looking skateboarding kid in the middle of the park, who was tearing into his girl's ass about something. Probably something trivial. Something that didn't warrant the venom he was spewing. Annoying the fuck out of me and everyone within earshot, by getting louder and louder by the minute, and making the girl tear up in public.

  The girl's a plump little thing with mousy brown hair and sad eyes. Wearing a dingy plaid shirt and ill-fitting jeans, the girl wasn't much to look at, but fuck if that mattered. She was somebody's daughter or perhaps someone's future mother. Hopefully never the mother of this devil's spawn. I literally watched this poor girl shrink by at least a foot from sheer humiliation today.

  So while it is completely none of my business, I just couldn't let it stand. Like I said my run has been
shitty, and so I'm already annoyed. I had to make it my business.

  As their confrontation escalated, I casually finished stretching my hams and calves out, cracked my neck, and started to walk over to where the two of them were standing. Him yelling. Her shrinking. They were by the park's tallest white oak arguing, or should I say the prick was yelling while the girl cowered and took small steps back, farther and farther away from him. I can tell that he's done this before, and I'm guessing he's holding back because they're in public, because she's frightened but not surprised.

  They both noticed me as I silently began to walk over towards them. The girl diverted her eyes quickly away as if she was embarrassed that I'd noticed the scene that he's making. The asshole tried to hide the fact that he's cracking the knuckles of his right fist behind his thigh. He knows everyone is watching, and he knows he's being out of line; so I guess he calls himself getting ready for a confrontation with me, but I'm ten steps ahead of his ignorant ass.

  "What the hell do you–"

  Before he can finish biting my head off, I make sure that my fist connects with the bottom of his chin with one quick but powerful upper cut, ensuring that he will bite down completely through his tongue when his jaw snaps shut. I hope the embarrassment and more importantly the pain will help him remember this day for a long ass time, because it hurts like a motherfucker.

  I used to pull this move all the time when I played touch football as a kid with some of the older guys in the old neighborhood. It was a survival technique back then. Those assholes didn't care if I was younger or smaller. If you had the balls to play with them, then you had better had the balls to take body shots, elbows to your head, and a fist to your mouth. They didn't care.

  My signature upper cut move got me respect back then. I took several of them out of a game with it, but today I'm simply doing it for shits and giggles. Well that and the fact that I want to take this bully down a peg or two. I despise guys that beat up on women physically or verbally. It's one of the telltale signs of a weak man, and I don't have patience for pussies.

  "Wha da fluck did ya do that for asthole?!" he protests unintelligibly as blood oozes from his tongue.

  Huh.

  I crack my neck once to the side, because I'm thinking I'm losing my touch. He shouldn't have been able to say anything after that hit. I'm glad Cam and Cutter aren't here to see this shit. First my run, and now this. They'd be laughing their asses off.

  As I step closer to jab him a second time, he throws his hand up in defense. "Wathe! Dunna hit me again."

  "I thought you called me an asshole just now?"

  "No, sssir." He shakes his head and a little more blood oozes from his mouth.

  Okay, so I'm feeling a little better now. Especially because his girl hasn't screamed out of concern or kneeled down to tend to the jerk like I thought she might. She just silently watches him, then looks at me, and I swear I see a flicker of gratitude pass through her soft, quiet eyes.

  "You're lucky," I say to the kid. "I have a lot on my mind today."

  Which was why I was out for a run.

  To quiet my head.

  To figure out my fucking life.

  "But then you disturbed it with all of your bullshit. I really wanted to put you in the emergency room. That's how much you irritated the fuck out of me, and everyone else in this park. So here's my gift to you, asshole.

  "I'm not going put you in the hospital today for ruining my run. I'm just going to give you a piece of advice that I suggest you take. Next time you think about talking to her like a piece of shit, remember this day. Remember the hole in your tongue. Remember the coppery taste of the blood rolling down your throat. Remember exactly how I knocked your ass down, and how you begged me not to do it again like the pussy you are. And I want you to definitely remember that your girl saw it, and she'll sure as hell remember it too. She'll always know from this moment on that you're a total front. A fraud. A worthless piece of shit."

  "And you–" I turn my attention to the young girl, who's still looking a bit shell shocked from what I've just done and said to her boyfriend. "Maybe you don't have a mom or any big sisters to tell you any better, so I will. You're better than this. Next time this guy calls, don't answer. Next time he comes by, tell your parents or whoever you live with to call the cops. This guy is trash, and there isn't much hope for him, unless he has some sort of come to Jesus moment in the near future. Otherwise this is your chance to get out before it gets a lot worse. You feel me?"

  "Yes, sir," was her only response.

  I just hope I got through to her. I wasn't lying. This thing between them would get a lot worse if she let it go on. I'd seen it a dozen times in the old neighborhood. In fact, I'd had first hand experience. My mother didn't like to be without a man and more than not, they were bums who talked to her like a piece of shit. It turned my stomach, but I was too young to really do anything about it at the time. I'd seen fourteen-year-old girls from the block who held their own better than my mother.

  Nowadays I normally turn a blind eye to this type of shit. I'm not some vigilante out here fighting for the rights of young girls, before they destroy the little bit of self-esteem they may have left. But today I'm restless.

  I haven't seen or really spoken to Elizabeth in forty-eight hours, because she's been in School Bucks mode. It sounds a little crazy. What's two days right? I never even used to go back to any woman for seconds, but now that I'm with her, I don't know how to act. I'm greedy. I want seconds, thirds and fourths. I want her all the fucking time.

  Finally a text.

  Elizabeth: Whatcha doing?

  Me: Wiping blood off of my hands.

  Elizabeth: Ha. Ha.

  She thinks I'm kidding. This girl's too good for me.

  Me: Finished working?

  Elizabeth: Yep, I'm all yours.

  Me: Will be there in 30.

  Elizabeth: ♥♥♥

  Thirty minutes. Who am I kidding?

  I make it to her house in under twenty.

  Brick fucking hard.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ROMAN

  I smell a set up.

  As soon as Elizabeth opens the door for me, the pungent and delectable aromas of Old Bay Seasoning, fresh garlic, butter, and seafood hit me in the gut. I'm hungry. Plus, I've been out to enough overpriced meals to know that I'm about to sit down to at least fifty bucks worth of ingredients. Now the interesting part of this scenario is that Elizabeth can't cook for shit.

  That means something's up.

  And it ain't just lunch.

  "Still not using your key I see." Elizabeth says in a tone of voice I can't quite put a finger on. "Come in and sit down. Are you hungry?"

  I'm here a lot. I helped Elizabeth pick out a flat screen TV for the living room. I keep a toothbrush and several changes of clothes here. I work a lot from the second office in here as well. But even considering all of that, Elizabeth knows that I never use my key to her place, because giving her room to decide on whether or not she wants to let me in her house or not is about the only space that I admittedly manage to give her in this relationship of ours. So I don't want to infringe on that. No woman is ever going to have the distinct pleasure of ever being able to call me smothering. No matter how badly I want to be up under her sweet ass everyday.

  I'm pretty sure I know what's going on and I don't like it. The meeting between Joseph and I that she basically blackmailed me into attending didn't go well and now she feels badly. But it's been two damn days since I've been inside her or even laid eyes on her and she's cooking to make it up to me? She should have answered the door butt ass naked. That would have been the starting point for a proper apology.

  "Is that a problem?"

  "What?"

  "Me not using my key."

  "Just making an observation."

  "Just trying to respect your space like we agreed. It's your place, not ours."

  Elizabeth notices the cuts on my hand and lifts it up.

  "
I thought you were kidding. Were you really bleeding today?"

  "He deserved it," I say matter of factly.

  "He?"

  Elizabeth grabs a first-aid kid from one of the kitchen drawers and begins to quietly work on my right hand. It's nothing serious, just a few cuts from the douchebag's jacked up front teeth. Obviously his mother didn't give two shits about him when he was a kid, because he's definitely never seen the inside of an orthodontist's office in his life.

  I watch closely as Elizabeth pours the peroxide on my hand, then gently dabs it dry with a clean piece of gauze. Her meticulous care of my hand seems almost like a metaphor for how careful she has been with me and my heart. I'm so fucking lucky. So lucky that sometimes I don't trust it. Like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  Her brunette curls are all swept up in a messy bun on the top of her head with a pencil going through it, but a few wisps have fallen out of the bun and are stuck to the side of her neck. All of this showcases that beautiful neck of hers, which is adorned with a very delicate gold necklace that she never takes off. A gift from her mother on her sixteenth birthday. A sweet story if it hadn't been given to her by a woman who probably thinks (or hopes) that I'm going to break her daughter's heart and disappear.

  I shake that negative thought away and continue my perusal of Elizabeth's body. She's wearing a soft gray cotton tank top, gray leggings, and her feet are bare with red painted toenails. She looks fucking stunning and sexy as hell without even trying. So I can't help myself. I grab her like I've been wanting to do for days and wrap my arms tightly around her. At this moment I don't give a damn what she's up to or why she's cooking shit that she doesn't know how to cook. I just want my girl close.

  "I'm all sweaty, Roman." She half-heartedly objects while trying to swat my arm away. "And I'm not finished with your hand."

  "I don't give a shit," I growl.

  And I don't. I grab her around the waist and pull her even closer into me.

  "You smell so good." She giggles while burrowing her face into the side of my neck. After her text, I practically flew home in the Rover, showered, threw Tibbs in the backseat and headed to her place.