ROMA KING: Book 1 in the Roma Royals Duet

by Hart, Callie

  “Don’t I get to pick a design from the display?” Patrin asks, voice laden with mockery.

  “I’ll freehand something special for you. On your front.” I slap the back of the chair as I lower the back, making it flat so he can lie down. Patrin eyes me like he knows this is a horrible idea, but then he does as I’ve told him and lies down on his front, his bare back exposed to me. I snap a pair of black nitrile gloves on and swipe a load of Vaseline onto the back of my hand, then I pick up the gun I’ve already prepped for this afternoon’s session.

  “Hope your pain threshold’s improved,” I murmur, beginning my work of art. Patrin winces at the first touch of the gun, but then his body relaxes.

  “They’re going ahead with the ceremony,” he says.

  I stop what I’m doing, my eyes boring into the back of his head. “What?”

  “I told her what you said. I told her you weren’t coming back, and…let’s just say she didn’t take it too well. She had everyone vote on a proxy ceremony, and they all agreed.”

  I try not to laugh, but then I actually force myself to do it. If I don’t laugh, I’m going to start smashing things. “What the fuck are you talking about? I can’t be proxy crowned.”

  “Shelta says you can. And what Shelta says, goes. You know that.”

  “Who? Who are they gonna get to stand in for me?”

  Patrin doesn’t say anything, which pretty much answers my question. “Awesome. I bet you’re fucking thrilled, huh? The crown and the title might not be yours, but at least you get to prance around with that lump of metal on your head for a day. I’m sure you’ll love having everyone fawn over you.”

  “I don’t give a shit about the crown, brother. I just want what’s best for the vitsa. And us having no true leader right now? When we’re supposed to have one, and we’ve come all the way back to this shitty state just to collect him? That’s not good for the vitsa. Not good at all.”

  I lean against the gun, the needles driving way deeper into Patrin’s skin than they should go. I don’t give a shit, though. “You’ll survive,” I grind out.

  “Will we? You don’t know how things have been, man.”

  “You’re right. I don’t. And I don’t want to, either.”

  “Sammy and Jamus are in some serious shit, Pasha. Like, serious shit.”

  “I told you. I don’t wanna know.” But something tightens in my gut. I can hear the worry in Patrin’s voice. Sammy, his kid brother, has always been reckless and none too careful when it comes to his interactions with people outside of the clan. And Jamus is mostly a good kid, but always so easily fucking lead. I don’t want to ask. I’m not going to. None of this is my fucking problem. If Shelta can’t resolve whatever shit they’ve gotten themselves into, then it must be pretty fucking ba—

  “They’re in jail. Locked up for armed robbery.”

  I almost drop the gun. “What the fuck are you talking about? Armed robbery? What’d they do to get that pinned to them?”

  Patrin growls under his breath. “Well. They took a gun into a bank, and they…”

  “They what?”

  “What do you think they did, Pasha? Fuck’s sake! They robbed the place. Got away with forty grand and change. They buried the money somewhere, and they ain’t saying where.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ.” The stool I’m sitting on has no back, otherwise I’d be collapsed against it right now, trying not to have a fucking heart attack as I struggle to wrap my head around this.

  “Cops are throwing the book at them. It’s not looking good.”

  “What evidence do they have?”

  “Everything. CCTV footage. The car they used to get away. The gun.”

  “They can’t tie the gun to the scene unless someone was shot with it.” My mind’s fucking spinning like a merry-go-round.

  “Uhhh. Well…”

  “They fucking shot someone?”

  “No! God, Pasha. This is Sammy we’re talking about. He just fired the thing in the air. To scare the tellers. But the cops found the bullet, and the ballistics—”

  “Just stop. Just stop fucking talking. I need to fucking think.”

  Mercifully, he holds his tongue. I lean over him, and I continue with the tattoo, barely paying attention as I finish the linework and start in on the shading. Patrin fidgets, hissing when I go over his spine, and I thump him in the side. “Want a black smudge across your back, asshole? Keep it up and that’s exactly what you’ll get.”

  The next twenty minutes crawl by, and every time Patrin tries to speak, I punch the shit out of him. By the time I’m done, his ribs must be aching like crazy and my head is fucking pounding.

  I throw his shirt at him, and Patrin grouses under his breath as he puts it on. “I’m not asking you to be a hero. I’m just asking you to do what’s fucking right. Come and talk to Shelta. Try and fix the rift between the two of you, and maybe while you’re at it you can brainstorm some kind of a solution to Sam’s problem.”

  He offers out the bundle of money to me again, but I shake my head. “Keep it. I don’t want it.”

  “Pasha.”

  “Use it to hire a fucking lawyer. It sounds like the boys are gonna need one.”

  He glowers at me, like he’s imagining wrapping his hands around my throat and tightening his grip. I say bring it on. My mood is fouler than the weather outside now, and I’ll welcome a fight if it means he’ll get the fuck out of here. Patrin’s one of the most stubborn bastards I’ve ever met, though. Even more stubborn than me, believe it or not.

  “A gadje lawyer isn’t going to care about them, Pash,” he says. “None of them give a shit about us. You know that.”

  I do know that. “Doesn’t matter,” I tell him. “They’re still gonna need legal counsel. You were right. They have landed themselves in serious shit, and a clan representative isn’t going to do them any fucking good in a gadje court of law. And that’s all I can do about this—be their representative. It doesn’t matter what my standing within the clan might be. I’m a nobody to them. I have no idea how to get them out of this. Any attorney is going to be more useful to Sam and Jamus than I would be.”

  Patrin stands firm. Doesn’t look like he’s going to back down. “Just meet her, Pasha. I’m begging you. For the sake of our friendship. For all the favors I’ve done you in the past.”

  “Ha! Have you been hitting the bowl too hard? Looks like your long-term and your short-term memory’s fucked.” I have him there and he knows it. Patrin and I grew up together, but we were rivals for the most part. Everything’s always been a competition between us. He shrugs, a wry smile on his face, but he doesn’t leave. He picks up his jacket and just stands there, waiting for me to change my mind.

  I should kick the fucker out for wasting my goddamn time. I could have stayed in bed and gone back to sleep. I would much rather have spent some more time with my dream girl than sitting here in the studio, staring at this motherfucker’s lower back. We lock eyes, and I recognize the resolve in his gaze, though. This really will result in an altercation if I don’t give him what he wants.

  “I can tell by your scowl that you’re thinking about it,” Patrin says. “Just say you’ll come to the fair tonight. Then I can leave, and both of us can go about the rest of our day without knocking the shit out of each other.”

  I rub the back of my neck, fighting the urge to roll my eyes. “All right. Fuck. Fine. I’ll come to the fair. But that’s all I’m promising. Don’t expect any mended bridges. And don’t expect any fucking miracles. This situation’s way beyond fixing.”

  Patrin’s victorious smile makes me want to retract my words, but it’s too late now. He’s already making his way out of the door. “This is all just a hiccup,” he says, grinning. “The tattoo parlor. The fighting. The apartment. You’re gonna change your mind about all of it the moment you come home. Just you wait and see.” His grin is the most arrogant, annoying fucking thing I have ever fucking seen. “Trust me,” he says, as he walks out of the sho
p. “I’m feeling really good about all of this.”

  I just smile and nod as I watch him go.

  He won’t be feeling so fucking good about this when he finally takes a look in a mirror and sees the massive dick I’ve just tattooed onto his back.

  7

  ZARA

  HARROLD FOREVER

  The morning doesn’t so much break as emerge in a lazy, thick fog over the rooftops of Spokane. I didn’t go back to sleep. I stood in front of the payphone and waited for it to start ringing again—it always started ringing again—but the night sky turned from a deep, bruised royal blue to purple, to an angry red, and the phone had remained utterly silent. Apparently, whoever called calling, waiting for me to pick up, had delivered their message and they weren’t planning on repeating it.

  At eight a.m., when Detective Holmes finally shows up for work, I’m already on hold, waiting for him to sit down at his desk. He sounds like he hasn’t slept either, or he hasn’t yet fulfilled his morning coffee quota. “Yeah?” His greeting is shitty to say the least.

  “This is Zara Llewelyn. We spoke yesterday at the dispatch center. I…I was the one who took Corey Petrov’s 911.”

  The line buzzes. Holmes is quiet, then he clears his throat. “Right. Yeah. Zara. I’ve already logged the additional information you called in with about the door. I spoke with the officers who attended the property. They said they found a boot print on the door frame. Could be useful. Have you remembered something else?”

  “No. Well. I haven’t remembered anything, but last night…” How do I tell him about the constantly ringing payphone and the message I received last night without sounding completely crazy? It’s all too interconnected to be plausible, I know that. I have no option, though. I have to tell him what happened. If there’s any chance Corey is still alive and he’s somewhere near Rochester Park, then the police have to investigate.

  Quickly, I rush through the events of last night, explaining about the non-stop calls and my frustration at Cyscom, and Holmes listens silently. When I get to the part about hearing Corey’s voice on the other end of the line, he starts asking questions.

  “When was the call? Exactly? It’s critical that we can pinpoint the exact time, so we can trace its source.”

  I’ve already written down a number of details that I figured he was going to ask; I’ve had plenty of time to replay everything that took place at least a hundred times in my head. “I don’t know to the precise minute, but it was around four fifteen. I’d only been in bed an hour and a half or so after my shift ended. I looked at the clock when I got up to get a glass of water, but not before I ran out of the apartment. I’d say that time is pretty accurate, though.”

  “And the person on the phone. What else did he say? What were his demands?”

  “Like I said, I couldn’t tell if the voice was a man’s. And it only said those two things before the line went dead. There were no demands. Nothing. Just, ‘Rochester Park. The end of the line.’”

  “That makes no sense. Rochester Park isn’t even on a train line. The subway that used to connect with Rochester shut down in the nineties years ago. And even if this mystery caller of yours was referring to that subway station, there were eight stops after Rochester. It wasn’t the end of the line. Not even close.”

  I shrug uselessly. “I’m sorry. I’m just telling you what I heard.”

  “There must be something else. Something you’re forgetting.” He sounds a little accusatory, as if I’m playing some sort of weird cat and mouse game with him. I didn’t intentionally withhold the information about the door being kicked in at the Petrov’s place; I called him and told him what I’d pieced together seconds after he left the dispatch center. The hard, irritated edge to his voice now gives the impression that he thinks I’m purposefully screwing with him.

  “I swear, that’s everything. If there were any other details, I’d give them to you, believe me. I have no reason to conceal information. That little boy is out there somewhere, and—”

  “I’m well aware.” Clipped. Cold. Final. “Thank you for calling, Ms. Llewelyn. We’ll contact Cyscom and see if they can locate the caller. I think this unfortunately might end up being a dead end, though.”

  “Dead end? How so?”

  “You’ve barely given us anything to go off. A place name, and a cryptic statement that doesn’t make any sense. Sounds like someone from work or one of your friends is messing with you, Zara. You told someone about the missing boy. You let slip about how worried you are, how weird this whole thing is, and someone thought it’d be funny to play a prank on you. You must have considered that.”

  “My friends and work colleagues don’t joke around about kidnapped children, and anyway, I haven’t spoken to anyone about Corey. His disappearance hasn’t even made the news yet. I didn’t even know he’d been taken until yesterday afternoon. The phone was ringing for days before that. You’re right. I’ve given you two pieces of information. A place and a turn of phrase. It might not be much, but it’s something. More than you had twenty minutes ago. I’d make sure I looked into the new information before dismissing it out of hand, Detective. You’re smart. You’re a problem solver, and these are clues to help solve the problem you’re dealing with right now. Please don’t treat me like an attention seeker who has nothing better to do than waste your valuable time.”

  If I could slam the phone down, I would. It’s far less satisfying stabbing the ‘end call’ button on my cell phone. Yesterday, Detective Holmes had seemed concerned over Corey’s disappearance. He’d appeared anxious, kind even, and I’d believed him when he’d told me to call him anytime, but now the man has had a change of heart; the information I gave him hadn’t seemed to interest him one bit. It was vague, yes, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t important. That didn’t mean that it might not be vital in tracking down whoever broke into the Petrov house and took Corey.

  You could call me angry at the detective’s lackluster attitude, but it would be more appropriate to call me livid. At ten a.m., after pacing up and down the length of my living room a countless number of times, I throw on an oversized NYU sweatshirt that once belonged to my father, stuff my feet into a pair of Ugg boots, and stomp up the two flights of stairs to Sarah’s apartment. I knock twice, two loud, abrasive, authoritative thumps that have the woman looking a little flustered when she answers the door. Half her bright blonde hair is still up in rollers, the other half a wild mass of corkscrew curls. Her robe is sheer—leopard print, of course—and her negligee beneath barely covers her ridiculous cleavage. By the looks of her you’d have thought she was expecting company of a romantic nature, but that’s not the case; Sarah dresses sexily, does her hair up every night, wears a full face of makeup no matter what, and insists on heels that would cripple most women, but there’s no man in her life, and she isn’t trying to attract one either. She’s had her heart broken enough times that little more than shreds of it now remain, and she guards those shreds very fiercely.

  “Have you lost your goddamn mind?” she asks, blinking at me through eyelashes clumped together with too much mascara. “Sounded like the fucking police were here to raid me.”

  I shoot her a tight-lipped smile as I sidle my way past her and into her apartment. Empty wine bottles and vases filled with desiccated, faded bouquets of flowers dot the counter tops and the mantlepiece. On the small white table in the middle of her living room, a stack of magazines and newspapers lie in disarray, and a pile of coupons have been neatly gathered to one side; today must be Sarah’s couponing day. Once a week, she likes to crack open a bottle of Chardonnay first thing and hunt down the next week’s deals while she listens to NPR on the radio.

  “I might have,” I tell her.

  “You might have what?”

  “Lost my goddamn mind.”

  “Oh. Here, sit down. I’ll get you a glass.”

  “I don’t need a drink, thanks.” I sit down on the small sofa, groaning.

  “Sounds to me like you
do.”

  There’s nothing really maternal about the relationship Sarah shares with me; she’s more like a disreputable aunt—the kind that gives you questionable advice, offers you smokes, and takes you to bars before you’re legally old enough to get in. If she had been my aunt back in Connecticut, my mother would naturally have forbidden me from ever seeing or spending time with the woman.

  She lowers herself into her couponing chair and takes a healthy swig from her wine glass. “Well?” is all she says.

  I sit up straight and take a deep breath. “I think I’ve been involved in a crime.”

  “What kind of crime? Passion? Larceny? Murder?” She sounds bored by the prospect of all three.

  “I don’t know yet. That little boy I told you about. The one whose brother died? He’s gone missing, and somehow I’ve ended up involved.”

  Sarah’s robe slides down, revealing a faded, blurry tattoo that says, “Harrold Forever” on her freckled shoulder. She hikes her robe back up, holding it in place as she picks up a pair of rusting fabric scissors; she points the ends of the blades at me, arching an eyebrow. “Did you take him?”

  “No! Why the hell would I…” I slump back into the seat, covering my face with my hands. How is it that I don’t have a girlfriend to call right now? Someone level-headed and sensible, who won’t ask stupid questions? Sarah nonchalantly cut her coupons out of her magazines and newspapers, listening blankly while I tell her about the phone call. When I’m done, my blood still fizzing in my veins over Holmes’ cavalier attitude, she shrugs a shoulder, flashing ‘Harrold Forever,’ at me again as she speaks.

  “You know, it doesn’t sound like much of a clue to me either.”