ROMA KING: Book 1 in the Roma Royals Duet

by Hart, Callie

  The red hair. The pale freckles. The annoyance on her beautiful face. Not to mention the swell of her perfect tits underneath her shirt. She’d taken me by surprise. I wasn’t prepared to come face to face with a beautiful woman as I came hurtling out of Shelta’s tent. That surprise had rooted me to the spot for a second, but after that…it was the earth-shattering realization that I knew her that had me pausing, studying her face a little closer, trying to figure out where I knew her from.

  I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, but it had dawned on me almost immediately. It was her. The girl. The girl, and she was standing right in front of me, wearing an expression of shock, her cheeks turning a bright shade of red. Had Shelta not just warned me to stay the fuck away from her, literally only five seconds before I ran into her, then I might have tried to talk to her. I might have…fuck, I don’t know what I might have done, but I probably wouldn’t have warned her off entering the tent, and then just fucking walked away. By the time I’d hurried out of the fair, head ducked down, focus on the ground, determined not to make eye contact with anyone, and gone up the stairs, out on the street, I’d already decided I was going to wait for her. To talk to her, to figure out who the fuck she is, after all this time, but then she came racing up the stairs, shouting and ranting, and she fucking hit me.

  The girl was barely five foot five, and she definitely hadn’t been lifting weights recently. The punch she landed on my arm didn’t even sting. But the sheer stones on her, though. Most grown men don’t talk to me the way she did. They certainly don’t fucking yell at me. I hadn’t been able to cage the laughter that had forced its way up my throat as she’d run off down the street, fuming, with that tall, skinny guy chasing behind her like a little lost dog.

  When I’d gotten home, I couldn’t sleep, so I’d paced up and down the loft, thinking so fucking hard I gave myself a headache. At around six in the morning, just as the sky was beginning to lighten over the horizon in the distance, I began to remember things. It was as if meeting her in person, seeing her face, unlocked something deep inside of me, and my dreams began to resurface. Her body beneath my body. Her soft, pliable lips on mine. All of that beautiful, savagely red hair, with the hints of copper and gold.

  Dreams aren’t real, of course. I fucking know that. I’ve never slept with her before. Not in real life. I’ve never kissed her. Never held her. Never even fucking spoken to her properly, but…the dreams have always felt like a message. A hint at what could be. And now, it turns out she’s fucking real, and life somehow orchestrated the unlikeliest of ways for us to meet. She came to the fair, obviously to get her fortune told by my mother, but there should have been no real way I would have been there last night. I’d decided I would never go back. I fucking swore it to myself three years ago. But a bank got robbed, and a giant dick was tattooed onto an asshole’s back, and I inevitably ended up breaking the promise I’d made to myself.

  Life.

  Life was a confusing, complicated, tricky little bitch.

  “Mr. Rivin? Dr. Choi is ready for you now.” The young woman behind the front desk calls into the waiting room. “Do you need me to show you to his office?” She sounds kind of hopeful that I might take her up on the offer.

  “I’m good, thanks. I’ve been here before,” I tell her as I push open the door into the long hallway that leads to Choi’s exam room at the end, on the left. I don’t bother to knock when I reach his office. Inside, Seo-Jun is sitting behind his desk, a video game paused on his monitor, as he’s stuffing a footlong sub into his mouth.

  “How the fuck can you eat in here?” I grab a rolling stool and sit my ass down. “Smells like chemicals and bleach.”

  “Bleach is a chemical,” Seo-Jun answers, his words muffled by the amount of sandwich he’s trying to chew. He swallows. “You get used to it. A guy’s gotta eat, right?”

  I met Seo-Jun at one of my first fights. He’d bet a huge amount of money that I’d win a match when the odds were definitely not in my favor, and then he’d come to find me afterwards. Fucker gave me a bottle of scotch as a thank you for kicking my opponent’s ass, and told me if I ever needed any hacking or cracking done, I could come and see him whenever I liked. I’d been surprised when I first came to him with some work and found myself sitting in a dental office.

  Pretty fucking amused with himself, Seo-Jun had explained that his old man was a bit of a tight ass, a traditional Korean father, and had demanded he get himself a reliable, lucrative trade, then packed him off to dental school.

  Seo-Jun did as his father demanded, studied, passed his exams with flying colors, graduated and set up his own business, but he’s never actually used his dentistry skills once since then. It’s a cover. A front. A pretty fucking smart way to earn money doing what he really loves: digital fraud, black hat hacking, and identity theft. It’s quite ingenious, really. Dental work costs a fucking shitload, after all. When Seo-Jun’s patients leave at the end of their ‘treatment,’ they hit the front desk, pay their bill, and everything is neat and tidy as you like. Seo-Jun has a profitable business with legitimate books and a legitimate bank account. The bastard even pays his fucking taxes.

  He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, then reaches into a backpack that’s hanging off an I.V. stand, and takes out a cell phone. The cell phone I brought to him earlier this morning.

  “These newer models are getting harder,” he says, as he hands the device over to me. “Took twice as long as the old Samsung model. Motherfuckers.”

  I take the phone from him, slipping it straight into my pocket. “None of the data was lost? The passcode hasn’t been changed?”

  Seo-Jun shakes his head. “I’m not a fucking amateur, Rivin. Everything’s exactly where it’s supposed to be. The passcode’s 2988. Want me to write it down?”

  “I got it.”

  “Quite the looker,” he says, winking at me. “I accidentally caught an eyeful of some of the photos. I’ve always liked blondes best, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe I’m a red-head guy now.”

  I bare my teeth at him—it happens instinctively. “Don’t even think about it,” I snarl.

  “Woah. Sorry, man.” He pats at his mouth with a paper napkin, picking up the can of Coke that’s sitting on his desk and cracking it open. “Didn’t mean to offend. You know me. I’m a sucker for a pretty face is all.”

  He truly is, too. I’ve witnessed the man snorting blow off of a hooker’s tits in this office. Come to think of it, I’ve seen him do far, far worse in here…

  “What’s the deal with this one, anyway?” he asks. “She looks pretty wholesome. Not that I’ve ever seen you with a woman, but I’ve always pictured you with someone a little more, how should I put this? Slutty?”

  “None of your business, fucker,” I grind out, but I can feel the beginnings of a smile forming on my face.

  Seo-Jun slaps his hand to his chest. “Holy shit! What is this? Pasha Rivin is smiling? In my office? Alert the media.”

  “Fuck you, man.” I get to my feet, ready to get the hell out of here. The cellphone feels like it’s burning a hole in my pocket.

  “Don’t worry about paying. This one’s on the house,” Seo-Jun says, still grinning at me like a fucking moron. “Just let me know when you’re fighting next so I can make some serious bank. I’ve been burning through my trust fund like a lunatic.”

  “Sounds fair.” I lean over his desk and pick up his Coke, taking a deep drink from the can as I head for the door.

  “Asshole,” Seo-Jun yells after me. “That was my last one!”

  Pausing in the doorway, I raise the can like I’m toasting to his health. “I’m doing you a favor.You’re a dentist. You do know how much sugar’s in this stuff, right?”

  Back in the Mustang, I sit in the driver’s seat, and I cave. I was planning on waiting until I got back to the loft to look through the phone, but my own impatience is eating me alive.

  I need to see her face. I need to hear her voice.

  Most im
portantly of all, I need to know her name.

  I key in the security passcode Seo-Jun just told me, and the phone unlocks, waking up in my hands. I’ve never cared about technology before. People spend way too much fucking time on their phones. But right now, I’m so thankful for all of the apps, the emails, the photos, the social media…

  The idiot’s guide to my firefly’s life is sitting right here in my hands, and I can access it all. I don’t need to fumble blindly in the dark. The answer to every single question that’s ever plagued me about her is now right here in some form or another. I hit the home button, and the icons are all there: Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. Tumblr. Gmail. Her calendar. The works.

  I raise my finger, about to hit the Facebook button, but then something weird happens.

  I can’t.

  I can’t fucking do it.

  I’ve never bothered to rifle through someone else’s personal information before, but I didn’t think I would have a problem with it. Especially not under these circumstances. But now that I’m here, and every single personal, private detail of my firefly’s life is before me, ripe for the picking, my conscience won’t allow me to fucking do it. I can’t breach her trust before I’ve even fucking earned it.

  And besides…

  This is not how I’ve imagined it. I want to know everything there is about her. I want to know her better than any other person on the face of the planet. But I want her to give me her secrets and her stories. The idea of taking them now feels so fucking wrong that I dump her phone into the passenger seat and I smash my fist into the dashboard, cursing under my breath.

  Fuck.

  I at least need to know her name. I have to know that. I pick up her phone again, but before I can even get the chance to look for it, I’m saved from having to go searching. A text message chimes, and it’s right there on the screen.

  Andrew: Sorry for the late text. I can’t sleep, and I just realized you were probably just getting out of work. See you at Hitchin’s tomorrow night, Zara? Waylon won’t be there until late, but the rest of us are meeting at eleven thirty.

  So there it is. Zara.

  I don’t known who Andrew is, or Waylon, or who ‘the rest of us’ might be, but none of that fucking matters. Now, all I need to do is figure out where Hitchin’s is.

  14

  ZARA

  GADJE

  I drive home, shaking like a goddamn leaf. I don’t think about Yuri’s mention of a gift until I let myself into my apartment, my heart hammering, and I see the box there, waiting for me on the mail stand in the breezeway. And it’s not a small box; it’s huge, at least two cubic feet, and covered in pink and white striped wrapping paper.

  Inside my apartment.

  Not by my front door, waiting for me in the hallway.

  Inside my fucking apartment.

  I yank the front door open again, scanning the lock, looking for any signs of tampering. Scratches. Marks that would indicate someone had picked the lock. There’s nothing, though. Not a single scuff or scrape out of place. Whoever dropped this package off either had a key to my place, or they were very skilled at breaking and entering. Neither possibility is very comforting as I slam the door closed and lean my back against it, my heart hammering like a piston beneath my ribs.

  The gift, whatever it is, is a warning, plain and simple. Do not fuck with us. Do not disappoint us. Look what we can do.

  I could have been asleep in here when they let themselves in. I wouldn’t have known, wouldn’t have sensed the intrusion. They are showing me how easy it would be to murder me in my sleep.

  Shit.

  I grab the baseball bat I always keep by the front door, and I complete a sweep of the apartment, praying to the universe and any god that happens to be listening that Yuri’s messenger hasn’t decided to kick his feet up in front of the television and make himself at home. Once I’ve established that there’s no one hiding in my closets or behind my shower curtain, I head back to the breezeway and pick up the gift-wrapped package. It’s heavy, but not too heavy. I shouldn’t open it. I shouldn’t fucking open it. I place the box on my coffee table and sink onto the couch, gnawing on my thumb nail as I sit and stare at it.

  What if…

  What if it’s a bomb? That would be a sure-fire way of keeping me quiet.

  What if it’s anthrax? An anthrax coated KitchenAid. It’s common knowledge that the KGB likes to poison people.

  Thirty minutes pass, and I begin to think I might be overreacting a little. Yuri was careful about what he said, what he admitted to me, but for all of that he was pretty damn candid. He made it clear that he had ties to the mafia. Didn’t deny it for a second. He asked me for a favor and thanked me for the concern I’d shown for his son. I swore I wouldn’t tell anyone about Corey’s kidnapping, so why the fuck would he be trying to kill me? I take a deep breath as I lean forward and lift the box into my lap. It isn’t a bomb. It isn’t poison. It’s a warning, yes, but nothing more serious than that. At least that’s what I tell myself as I tear through the paper and discard it on the floor. A plain cardboard box sits in my lap. Innocuous. Harmless.

  “Here goes nothing,” I mutter under my breath. The box opens easily, and inside…

  Fur.

  Wait, fur?

  I slip my hand inside, tugging the contents out of the box, frowning as the piece of fabric unfolds. It’s a fur coat. A perfect, stunning, luxurious, expensive fur coat—it must have cost thousands—and I know that because it’s real. No faux fur here. The silken, soft light grey fur, shot through with darker grey, almost black markings, looks like chinchilla or maybe mink.

  I drop the coat, horrified. The garment’s a bribe from a dangerous mafia boss, but more than that, it’s a collection of dead animals, all stitched together to create a grotesque status symbol that frankly makes me want to throw up into my mouth.

  I can’t accept this. I don’t even want it in my apartment. It’s not as if I can just take it back to the Petrovs, though. Walk into one of their laundromats and drop it off with a polite note, explaining that I don’t like to wear the carcasses of dead animals. I’m sure to Yuri this is a fine gift. A real show of gratitude. Russia’s cold as fuck, and the women there are probably grateful for a plush fur coat in the winter. It’s cold here in Spokane, too, but I’m going to get paint thrown at me if I wear this outside. And rightly so.

  I can’t return it to Yuri. I don’t want it here in the apartment. It would be criminal to just throw it away since animals died to make the damn thing. It takes a moment for a solution to dawn on me. A perfect solution.

  * * *

  Sarah stares at the fur coat out of the corner of her eye, like she’s afraid to look too interested in case I decide to rescind my offer. Outside on the street, loud metallic clangs disturb the early morning quiet as keg after keg of beer is heaved out of the back of a delivery truck and wheeled into Hitchin’s. Sarah slowly unfastens the rollers in her hair and removes them one at a time, placing the plastic tubes into her kitchen sink.

  “You’re sure you don’t want it?”

  I thrust the coat at her for the third time, grumbling under my breath. “I already told you I don’t. It’s a bribe.”

  She arches an eyebrow at me. “From the Russian mafia.”

  “Yes. From the Russian mafia.”

  “There’s something very romantic about that, Zara. Something very…nineteen sixties. I loved the sixties, y’know. You must be relieved. The father said the kid was okay, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah, he did.”

  “And you believe him?”

  I think about this for a beat. “Yeah. I do, actually. The video he showed me was current. Corey looked like he hadn’t slept much, but other than that he seemed fine. I mean, it would be nice to see him in the flesh, to witness that he’s okay with my own two eyes, but honestly…I don’t really want any further contact with his father. Yuri Petrov is one frightening motherfucker.”

  “Tssshhh.” Sarah slaps my arm. “I
’ve never heard a young lady curse as much as you.”

  I wave the coat at her again, ignoring the reprimand. “You want this or not? My arm’s getting tired.”

  Sarah tries to suppress the excited grin on her face as she takes the coat and folds it over her arm, stroking her fingers through the fur; she looks like a kid on Christmas morning. Her eyes shine brightly as she leaves the kitchen, beckoning for me to follow after her. Down the hallway we go, past rows of Sarah’s shoes all lined up on the floor, stiletto heels against the walls—she ran out of room for them in her closets a long time ago—and into her bedroom. The crimson satin sheets on her bed are rumpled, and the air is thick with the heavy scent of the perfume she must have spritzed herself with just before I arrived.

  Reverently, Sarah places the coat down on her bed and makes a beeline for her closet, tapping her index finger against her chin as she surveys its contents, no doubt wondering how the hell she’s going to fit the coat inside.

  “So, tell me,” she says absently. “What happened at the Midnight Fair?” Her tone is light and careless. The tone of someone only asking a question out of politeness, but I know Sarah’s quirks. She’s very interested indeed. After the way she reacted the night of the fair, it was surprising that she didn’t come down and question me about it yesterday before I went to work. Seating myself on the edge of her bed, I tell her in minute detail what happened, not forgetting the part where I verbally accosted the green-eyed guy, and then made the grave error of leaving my cell phone in Patrin’s plastic tub.

  So fucking dumb. I still need to find the time to go buy a new one.

  At the beginning of my story, Sarah makes a show of buzzing around her bedroom, tidying things away and folding silky scraps of clothes, tucking them into her chest of drawers, but she abandons all pretense of indifference once I mention Madame Shelta. Her back straightens, and her eyes alight with nervous energy. I almost stop speaking when I see the look she’s wearing, but she waves her hand at me, urging me on. When I’m done, she collapses into the chair at her vanity, elbow on the table, head propped up on her fingertips. “Shelta.” She says the fortune teller’s name like it’s a curse word.