Falling For Rome 2

by Edwina Fort

“This not over, you little bastard,” he whispered before he hurried into the kitchen to find Journey and undo the damage Rome had done. Man, we laughed about that for weeks.

  Rome spun around in his chair to face us… “Do I say anything about y’all having to go to church before each mission?” He snapped responding to Jo’s comment about him being extra.

  Jo opened his mouth to retort, but Judah signaled for Rome to get on with it.

  “Thank you, fierce leader. Now…for your information, Jo, this is Beanie Sigel's The Truth. I put this song on because this grimy a** beat encompasses your brother. The man is a goon. He is the very definition of a Back-Yard Bully. If you all will be so kind as to look at the screen above, I’ve put together a little compilation for you.”

  The footage opened up with Jo…No…not Jo. He was dressed too street. It was Jo's look-alike chasing a man down the street. It looked like the footage came from someone's cellphone. Whoever it was provided some pretty vivid commentation.

  “Yo, look at the big mutha f***a move. He finna catch Plank crackhead a**.”

  Yes…Naphtali was moving fast. There is no way a guy as big as he should be able to move like that. The guy he chased was crackhead fast and everybody knows you’re not catching a crackhead. However, there was no doubt in my mind that one was as good as caught.

  Without slowing down, Jo's look-alike snatched up a metal garbage can, held it over his head and hauled it at the man he chased with all his might. When the can came in contact with the man’s back, we all flinched. Yeah…it hit him that hard. The impact caused him to fly off his feet.

  The footage got really jumpy because the cameraman was going crazy at this point.

  “Hey! Yo! Did y’all see that sh*t?!” He was surrounded by several men and they were all crazily excited by Naphtali’s brutish behavior.

  “That dude is a goon!” One of them yelled.

  “Damn that! That nigga is a beast!” Another supplied.

  “F*** that! The mutha f***a is a bully!” The cameraman cut in.

  Naphtali went to the man and snatched him off the ground as if he weighed nothing and then slammed him into the brick wall knocking him out cold. However, that did little to assuage his anger because he picked the garbage can up and slammed it down on the unconscious man again.

  Before he could repeat his actions, several more men with DEA written on the back of their shirts finally caught up to him grabbed him, stopping him. When they turned him around it was then I saw that he had a badge around his neck.

  “He’s a DEA officer? Are you kidding me?!” The words burst from my surprised lips. With the way that he was dressed and the way he acted, I thought he was a drug dealer.

  Rome chuckled as he rocked back in his chair. “Special Forces…Keep watching.”

  The footage changed to Officer Bully sitting in an integration room looking bored.

  “Goddammit, Tucker! You’re killing me here! You’re the only officer under my command that gets complaints from hardcore f***ing drug dealers. He’s trying to sue!”

  Tucker chuckled as he shook his head. “I don’t know why. I didn’t touch that guy.”

  Nossa! He even sounded like Jo. This was so strange…I felt like I was looking at the thug version of the Sarge. Everything about them except for their style of dress was the exact same. Same haircut, they wore their beards and mustaches the same…Same build. Even the way he chuckled was like the Sarge.

  I turned my head to see how Jo was taking this and although his outward expression didn’t show any signs of him being affected…the way he balled his hands up in his lap let me know he was bugging out at seeing this man who looked so much like him. If you changed him out of the jeans and t-shirt and into a suit, it could be him.

  The man typed something on the computer before he turned it around so that Tucker could see the screen. It was a YouTube video of him beating the hell out of the crackhead with the garbage can. Tucker rubbed his hands down his handsome face trying to hide his laughter, but this only made his boss angrier.

  The man’s face got beet red and it looked as if he was going to burst a blood vessel in his head. He narrowed his gaze at Officer Tucker.

  “Are you high on that sh*t?”

  Tucker sat up a little straighter in his chair. “What sh*t, sir?”

  His boss slammed his hand down on his desk in front of him. “You know what sh*t I’m talking about! Dope!”

  Chuckling Tucker shook his head. Although his boss was good and worked up, he was as relaxed as a person getting a massage. Goodness, he reminded me of Rob.

  “No sir, I don’t do dope.”

  “So, you haven’t been smoking weed?”

  Tucker held up his finger. “You didn’t say anything about weed…You said dope.”

  The man exploded from his chair. “That’s it, you bastard! I’m enrolling you into a drug program…” That got to Tucker.

  The smile left his face and he held up his hands. “For weed, captain?!” He frowned…

  Wow! It was Jo’s frown.

  “Don’t nobody go to rehab for weed!”

  His captain exhaled. “I didn’t say anything about rehab. I’m sending you to counseling.”

  “Say what?!”

  “You heard me; you’re taking a year off and you’re going to see a shrink. It will be to your shrink’s discretion whether you come back at the end of the year….” He paused for just a moment and it looked like it pained him to say his next words.

  “Or not…”

  Tucker sat up in his chair, he was not happy with this news…

  “Why you doing this, Cap?”

  The man shook his head and for a moment, sorrow came into his eyes. “I should have never let you talk me into bringing you back on so soon after coming out of deep cover like that. You were in too deep…You should have taken that year off then.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m fine…”

  “Well, why haven’t you stopped smoking the dope?”

  “Cap…You keep saying dope. It’s not dope, it’s herb, there is a difference. Everybody smokes a little herb from time to time.”

  “You didn’t…not before you went under.”

  Tucker sat back in his chair and exhaled.

  “You see what I mean, kid? You need this time off. Go home, get your head straight. I set up something with a shrink in Michigan City, she was the only one the department will pay for. You know how cheap those bastards upstairs are. Anyway, she helps with people who have drug addictions.”

  “Cap…it’s not—”

  "Yeah…yeah, yeah. I know, it's herb. I don't give a f*** what it is! I want it out of your system. Meet with the doctor, do what she tells you…she gives me a good report and I get you reinstated. Easy peasy…”

  “Easy peasy?!” I asked. “How does this guy still have a job.”

  “Ahhh!” Rome said sitting up in his chair going to work on his keyboard. When he was done, he sat back and pointed at the screen.

  Picture after picture of Naphtali receiving medals of honor flashed across the monitor and one news article after another about how his team singlehandedly took down one drug ring after another.

  “And this is the big one, the one where he picked up his little ganja habit.”

  A confidential report appeared on the screen that described how Officer Naphtali had gone undercover for nearly two years to bring down the New York branch of the Cartel. When it happened, he was labeled invaluable to the force.

  "And this is why we believe the Cartel grabbed Free," Judah grumbled. “Suit up, Nak…You and Rome are going to Argentina to retrieve her. I, Jo and the Old Man are going to find Naphtali…We'll meet back here in two weeks. I will not accept failure.” And then he turned and exited the room.

  Jo exhaled. “Journey is going to be pissed when she finds out I’ve got to postpone our honeymoon for two weeks.”

  The Oldman shook his head. “Who you tel
ling?

  The End…For Now

  And so, our saga continues. This will not be the last time you hear from Rome and Nak, so don’t pout. However, I’d like to present a question to you guys. What happens when the tormented becomes the tormenter? When the shoe ends up on the other foot and the opportunity to exact a little revenge is presented? Find out in…

  Mean Tucker

  The Bully

  BONUS CHAPTERS!

  Take a sneak peek into upcoming novel by Edwina Fort!

  Coming July 15, 2019

  Chapter 1

  They Met…

  I Knew from The First Moment We Met. It Was… Not Love at First Sight Exactly, but more…Familiarity. Like: Oh, Hello, Hey It’s You…It’s Going to Be You.

  --Mhairi McFarlane (via 5000Letters)

  Angel

  For as long as I can remember, I’ve had nightmares. Not your average nightmares with monsters and such. No…

  I dreamed about a world depleted of all life. A world on fire…

  A world ravished…

  These dreams I kept to myself. Coming up in the foster system you learn to keep a lot of things to yourself. I don’t think I’ve ever had a good night’s sleep. I am the only one with a case of sleep apnea that my teas cannot fix.

  People came to my shop from all over the city to get teas that will help cure what ailment they suffer from naturally, and so far, I was the only one my teas did nothing for. I don’t know if I’d become immune to the herbs because I’ve consumed so many of them, or if…and this is what I suspect it to really be, I’m meant to have these dreams.

  For some reason, I think God wants me to see the world the way that I see it in my sleep. It does help me come up with tea recipes. LOL! I know that sounds strange, but it does…

  However, I didn’t start off my tale by telling you guys about my nightmares for no reason. I did it because although my nightmare’s scare the heck out of me, it’s nothing compared to the fear my foster brother’s boss causes me to feel.

  Westly, who is my foster brother, does maintenance work at the neighborhood gym, a job he’s had for the past six months. It really is bittersweet. Sweet because for Westly having a job for six months is a huge improvement to his record. Over the last ten years, I doubt if he’d held a job for longer than two weeks, let alone six months.

  Westly has two major habits that keep him from being a reliable employee. One, he’s a heroin addict and two, he often steals to support his heroin habit.

  So the fact that he’s held this job for six months is amazing. He’s even for the most part been able to pay his half of the rent. Well…until recently, but I’ll come back to that.

  The bitter part about him having this job is that he works for a goon. There is no other word that can describe him.

  Okay, maybe…Heathen, Thug, Savage, Animal, Bear, Lion…Brute!

  Yes…Brute is a better word.

  The man is a complete brute. When he walks down the street, people scramble to get out of his path. He’s a bad man and his bad vibes go out ahead of him to clear the way.

  I bet he kills people. He looks like the type. He’s probably beat somebody to death with those huge, scarred monster paws he calls hands.

  Anyway, the man is completely uncivilized.

  But what makes things so much worse is the fact that he’s attracted to me for some strange reason. I was nothing like the kind of woman that he should be attracted to. I wasn’t a fancy dresser or a partier…I wasn’t bold or even brave.

  I am a boring tea maker. A boring tea maker that blends so well into the background that folks barely notice me. When people come to my shop, their eyes are drawn to the many jars of herbs and my tea displays that I have worked so hard on.

  Although I’m standing there taking their order, very seldom do they stop and really take me in. My beautiful teas are truly the stars of the show.

  This doesn’t make me feel bad. It has always been that way for me. In fact, I love it that way. I didn’t like drawing attention to myself, which is why I dressed in boring, loose-fitting clothes that took away from my looks rather than add to them.

  It’s an old trick I learned early from growing up in foster homes, you didn’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention to yourself, things could get really nasty. So many times, I’d almost fallen prey…But thank God for Westly, who protected me in those days.

  Anyway, I’ll tell you more about that later as well… First, let me finish telling y’all about my amazing ability to go unnoticed.

  Well…to everyone but Hitta.

  The first time I came to the gym to pick up rent money from Westly, Hitta was standing at the front counter where the cash register was talking to the person that I assumed was his cashier.

  When I came in, they both looked up, the cashier with a warm greeting smile and Hitta with a fierce scowl that almost made me turn around and run back out the door, but I didn’t because our rent money was very late and the landlord was once again threatening to put us out.

  So…I pressed on, but my eyes as if they had a mind of their own took in the monster of a man in front of me. His muscles were very hard and defined. I don’t think he had an ounce of fat on him…anywhere.

  This I was able to see because he wore a white wife beater that fell on him in a way that can be distracting to a weaker woman than I. He had several tattoos, but what really stood out were the two words that were angrily slashed up each of his forearms.

  The right arm had the word Hard slashed up it, describing that forearm perfectly. And the left arm had the word Hitta slashed up it…not doubt describing those monster fists perfectly. There was another tattoo on his right bicep, but I wasn’t close enough to see what it was. And it looked like another that began somewhere under his tank top and went all the way up to the left side of his thick neck.

  Gracious!

  In his ear, he wore a diamond earring that wasn’t really big, but big enough to let the onlooker know it wasn't cheap. Around his neck, he wore a gold necklace that had a pair of diamond-encrusted boxing gloves hanging from it.

  My gaze continued down his body. He wore a pair of brand name black sweat pants on his muscled legs that fell on his tampered hips as if he was modeling them and a pair of black Jordan’s on his feet.

  The fact that it looked as if he was fresh from the barber with the low-cut hair and full beard that was lined perfectly, did little to take away from his fierceness. In fact, if you could get past the frown that looked as if it may be a permanent fixer on his face, he was a really handsome man in a very rugged kind of way.

  The closer I got to the giant the more I had to strain my neck to look up at him. And the closer I got to him, the more it felt as if he could just pick me up with one hand and snap me in half.

  Gracious! The violence that was pouring off him was suffocating. You ever met someone and thought…this person is very dangerous? You look in their eyes and can tell they won’t hesitate to hurt or kill…In Hitta’s case… Smash!

  I had to change my thoughts or else I was going to lose my nerve and go scurrying back out that door making a complete fool of myself. So I decided to do my best to ignore the big frowning giant to the right of me with the cold deadly eyes.

  It wasn’t easy though. First of all, he didn’t move to the side like a normal, civilized human being would have done so that I could speak with the receptionist privately.

  No… he just rudely stood there, forcing me to stand closer to him than I was comfortable with. He smelt like power. Instead of cologne, he smelt like whatever soap he’d used to wash his clothes and rage.

  And I know you're saying, what the hell does rage smell like…?

  And I’m telling y’all, it smells like Hitta.

  Anyway, so I’m standing there trying to ask the receptionist if he’d get Westly for me and Hitta is staring at me as if I’m an ice cube and he’s a man that had been lost in the desert for thirty days. I
give him a look that says it’s rude to stare…

  And would y’all believe the heathen found that amusing? He even cracked those intimidating lips of his into a smile. I shivered because I didn’t know what was more frightening, his smile or his scowl.

  However, that wasn’t the worst part. The receptionist then left to go and find Westly, leaving me alone with the brute.

  Y’all, the gym was huge. Who knows where Westly was? So I take a few steps back and pretend to read the postings on the cork board that was there. The whole time he was watching me. He hadn’t moved his big body from where he leaned on the counter.

  And then he opened his mouth and spoke, the sound of his deep voice nearly caused me to jump out my shoes. I kid you not, a squeak of fear left my throat.

  Don’t shake y’all's heads at me, I told y’all I’m not that brave. I had a tragic childhood. I hate that I’m this way, but I am very squeamish.

  Anyway, so he spoke.

  “Why you dress that way?”

  My mouth dropped open at his rudeness. “Excuse me?!”

  “I don’t like to repeat myself.”

  At that moment I was thanking God for my brown skin because if I had been a few shades lighter, I would be beet red right now.

  Not only was he a rude brute…he was bossy and mean.

  I held my head up as if he was nothing. “Dress what way?” I wanted to say heathen but changed my mind.

  “Like a homeless person.”

  My mouth dropped open again.

  Oh, my God! Did the man just tell me I dressed like a homeless person? I was so insulted that at that point, my fear of him faded for just a bit. I put my hand on my hip.

  "For your information, this style is called Boho.”

  He lifted an eyebrow and I could tell by the little evil smirk on his face he was enjoying himself at my expense. “Hobo?”

  “No! Boho…It’s a difference.” I nearly yelled. I started to begin that sentence with, are you deaf! But then thought better of it. This guy felt dangerous, like make you disappear dangerous.