The firemen had advised against re-visiting the site.
It was unstable.
It was dangerous.
Even breathing the air had the potential to cause damage. The kind of damage one couldn’t even see, not at first. The kind that snuck up quietly, years down the line.
Angie didn’t care.
It was the only place she could think.
Even with debris all over the black walls and along the floor, this would always be her home.
She made her way to the middle of the small space, her body wobbling as she attempted to step through wreckage, remains of paper, fragments of rock, and endless rubble on the journey to the middle.
Once there, she plopped down in the rubble without hesitation.
And, just like that, her mind was clear.
This was home.
Slamming the red folder down in front of her, she threw it open and proceeded to shuffle through the hundreds of files she’d collected over the years, hundreds of clues that had all led nowhere. It all came down to one photo.
One tattoo.
She searched patiently for the one photo that would ease her broken heart, or solidify its destruction.
Her knees bobbed up and down anxiously as she continued to tear the file apart, undoing all the organization she’d spent ten years building. It was now clear to her that there were only two things in that file that mattered anymore.
The streetlight footage, and the photo of that tattoo.
The tattoo that she was almost positive she’d seen on the back of Roman’s neck.
Like the sun parting through dark clouds, the photo emerged, showing itself as she moved a piece of paper out of the way.
The tattoo screamed up at her.
And she could no longer deny the truth.
It was the same tattoo she’d seen on Roman’s neck.
There was no doubt about it.
She felt sick.
That sickness intensified when her new cell phone buzzed to life from where she’d tossed it in the wreckage, and Roman’s face came blaring across the notification screen.
Her stomach dropped.
It was his fifth call. Her phone buzzed as he left another voicemail, and this time she couldn’t help listening to it.
“Angelica…”
Her eyes jammed shut. His voice was stiff with the kind of control that implied no control at all. And she hated that her heart squeezed with love the moment she heard it. Could she truly be this stupid? She now had undeniable, unjustifiable, unadulterated proof that Roman had been behind the wheel of that car, and she still couldn’t make sense of the feelings that rushed through her just hearing his voice. She should have felt nothing but anger, maybe with a little fear mixed in, and nothing else. But there was something else. Something that was still churning away inside of her, fighting back the terror that she knew should have taken hold by now.
It was love.
It was at that moment she knew she was truly a woman gone.
“Angelica. Answer the phone. I just want to know that you’re okay...”
Angie jammed her eyes shut when he took a long pause.
“The sun is coming up. If you were here, this would be about the time you’d be sneaking out of my place while I was still asleep. A few months ago, I thought waking up with you gone was the worst thing you could ever do to me, but I was wrong…”
She covered her eyes with her hand and told herself to hang up the phone.
“The only thing worse than you sneaking out on me in the middle of the night is the thought of you never coming back. Please come back, Mama.”
Angie ended the message before she could hear any more.
She couldn’t let herself hear any more.
Her eyes went back to the photo, and she tried to think of her next step. She almost laughed at herself when the first thought that hit her was confronting Roman. What was it going to take for her mind and her heart to get in sync? Roman was a killer. The truth was clear as day.
It was staring her right in the face.
But it wasn’t enough.
She loved him, and it wasn’t enough.
Running her fingers over the photo, she waited for acceptance. She’d already knocked denial, anger, and bargaining clear out of the park, the depression was slowly setting in, and she knew the acceptance wasn’t far off.
She knew she couldn’t do anything about this discovery until she’d truly accepted it.
Months of sleeping together, and she’d never noticed the tattoo on the back of Roman’s neck. Then again, she’d never been looking for it. It was small enough to miss unless one was paying close attention, and low enough on his back that it was easily covered by a jacket or t-shirt.
She clawed her nails into the photo when it hit her that the truth was, literally, at her fingertips, and she didn’t even want it.
She didn’t want to be right.
She’d never been so desperate to be wrong in her life.
***
Zoey stepped into an Irish Pub on Fulton Street days later, and immediately caught eyes with Roman sitting at the end of the bar.
“Oh hey, Prince Charming.”
Roman stood from the bar stool as Zoey approached, accepting her tight hug, not missing the way her belly pressed against his in a way it never had before.
A surge of protection washed over him, and he placed his hand on the small of her back, helping her into the stool next to him while simultaneously chiding her.
“For the love of god, please stop calling me that.”
“You know what?” She placed her bag on the bar once she was settled into the stool, unable to wipe the goofy smile off her face. “Since it’s been so long since I’ve seen you, and I’m so excited that you actually invited me out, I’m going to honor your request, and never call you Prince Charming again.”
“Thank you so much.” He re-took his seat. “It only took us thirty years.”
Zoey chuckled, ordering a soda water when the bartender approached a moment later.
“By the way…” She turned her attention back to Roman. “Just so you know, it’s very bad form to invite a pregnant girl out to a bar.”
“I keep forgetting you’re pregnant.”
“Not just pregnant, Sir. Pregnant with your little brown niece, and or nephew.”
“Jesus,” he grumbled, feeling his cheeks heat up.
“You’re blushing!”
“You’re pregnant with Val’s baby, Zoey. I may never stop blushing.”
She giggled. “Well, you know what a drunkard I am at heart, so in the future if you could invite me someplace more mommy-like? The urge not to drink is going to be too strong to bear.”
Roman smiled into his own drink.
Zoey nodded at him. “What the hell is on your mind? You’re being insanely quiet, even for you.”
He took a deep breath, wondering how to answer that before deciding to just go with the truth. “It’s Angie.”
The amusement on Zoey’s face fell. The son of a bitch was going to leave Angie. He was going to break her heart. She’d known this was going to happen from the moment they’d started sleeping together. Zoey reared back, fixing to send a fist into his arm.
“She’s completely avoiding me.”
Zoey’s fist froze in mid air, shocked at his words. “She’s avoiding you?” Her face grew stupefied, having not been prepared for him to say those words.
Roman took what felt like his first breath in minutes. “One minute we were together, and the next she was acting…” He didn’t finish.
“What?” Zoey pressed.
“I swear to god, it almost felt like she was afraid of me,” he said, meeting her eyes. “I’ve never given her a reason to be. I’ve never laid a hand on her.”
“Of course not.” Zoey knew that Roman could be scary, she’d seen first-hand the kind of damage he was capable of when someone had pissed him off, but she also knew that he would never direct that kind of anger
at a woman. Not even if he wanted to, and especially not toward a woman who had the power to put the kind of sadness in his eyes that she saw in them right then. “You’re a giant, cuddly teddy bear.”
“She was afraid,” Roman concluded. “She wouldn’t even let me touch her. I’ve been blowing up her phone. She won’t pick up. I have no idea what the fuck is going on.”
Zoey’s lip slowly curled. “That’s so weird.”
“She’s been weird like this for days. Since the fire. I feel like I hardly recognize her. Have you ever experienced anything like this with her?”
Zoey thought long and hard before answering honestly. “Never, Roman. Did you do anything that might have upset her?”
Roman thought back to the last night he’d spent with Angie, on the carpet in his living room. He’d taken her several times that night, insatiable, and apparently with such passion that it had left her limping the next morning. Looking back, he knew that was the night something had changed for him, so much so that he’d been very close to telling her that he didn’t want to keep things casual anymore, that he wanted exclusivity with her, that he wanted to be her boyfriend.
He hadn’t been able to tell her any of those things, however, because, ironically, the moment he’d had that epiphany, she’d been having a few epiphanies of her own. None of which involved getting exclusive with him, even though it was the one thing she’d ever asked of him. Yes, something had definitely changed in her, as well, that day. For the worse. It was when the bizarre behavior had started occurring. Behavior that he still couldn’t wrap his head around.
With a chuckle, it occurred to him he’d set out to teach Angie the ways of the sexual world, to educate her, seduce her, and apparently had succeeded only in seducing himself.
“It was the morning after her office caught fire. That’s when she started acting strangely.”
“Her office was pretty much everything to her, Rome. It wasn’t just her livelihood, it was her whole heart. Her home. She’s had it since before we graduated high school. Every inch of work she’s ever done was in it. And now, in the snap of a finger, it’s just gone? How does a person deal with that? How do you wrap your head around it? I think it would be more weird if she wasn’t acting weird.”
“I understand that,” he insisted. “What I’m saying is, even after the fire, that night, she was fine. She was dealing with it. We even made love.” He looked to her shyly. “It wasn’t until the next morning that things went all the way left.”
“Maybe she was in denial until the next morning. Sometimes, with traumatic events, it can take a while for it to sink in. When my folks died, I didn’t cry for a week. But when it finally hit… it hit hard, hard as hell, Rome. And then I cried for months and months, every day, for almost an entire year. Everyone deals with grief differently.”
“And that’s fine. I just want to be there for her. I’m trying so hard to be there for her, but she won’t let me. I can’t even touch her. I, literally, can’t touch her, Zoey.”
Zoey was stunned to see tears wetting his eyes when he looked across the bar at her. “I mean. I didn’t even know you wanted to touch her like that.” She rolled her eyes at herself. “I mean, obviously you want to touch her, you’re having casual sex, but I thought that was as far as it went? Just casual.”
“Yeah, I thought so, too,” Roman mumbled.
“You really care about her, don’t you?” Zoey asked.
He didn’t answer, but she didn’t need him to. She looked into his eyes, and realized she was wrong. He didn’t care about Angie.
He loved Angie.
Zoey bit her bottom lip, fought a smile, and wondered if he even knew it.
“Have you spoken to her?” he asked.
“Not in a few days.” Zoey’s eyes flew frantically back and forth.
“Will you try her now?” he asked, motioning to the cell phone that she’d placed on the bar.
Zoey looked at the phone, and felt suddenly torn in two. If Angie was ignoring Roman, Zoey was sure it must have been for a very good reason. Perhaps calling Angie now, and in extension, confirming that she was purposely ignoring Roman, would be seen as a huge deception to her best friend. On the other hand, here was her brother, who had a heart of gold, looking at her with tears in his eyes, tears and desperation. Holding his eyes, Zoey snatched up her phone and dialed Angie’s number.
Angie answered on the second ring with a deep sigh. “Hey.”
“Hey girl,” Zoey said, watching both relief and fury splash across Roman’s face. “Just calling to say hey.”
“Hey.” Angie sounded distracted.
“Everything okay?” Zoey asked, still holding Roman’s eyes.
“Everything’s fine,” Angie answered.
“She says everything is fine,” Zoey said to Roman, covering the receiver with her hand. When he made a swipe for her phone, Zoey leaned away. “Well, I spoke to Roman, and he sounded pretty worried, babe. He’s concerned.”
“I’m fine.”
“Well, you know what? You don’t sound fine. Not at all. And now I’m getting a little worried.”
“Zoey, I swear to you that I’m okay. I’ve just been very tied up with work. I’m actually in the middle of something right now. Can’t talk. Call you later?”
Zoey opened her mouth to say hell no, but Angie had already hung up the phone before she could.
Zoey stared at the phone in complete shock for several moments before finally allowing her eyes to travel over to Roman.
“Something’s wrong,” she said.
Roman was already nodding his head. “I know.”
***
Several days later, Angie’s Van’s crunched against the grass in Central Park. Winter was finally transitioning to Spring, and it was the first day in months that wasn’t miserably cold. It was still cold, by Angie’s standards, but not unbearably so.
She made her way across the grass, seeing several picnic blankets and families scattered about. Apparently, Zoey wasn’t the only person in New York City who was anxious for Spring to come. A picnic in 65 degree weather had been deemed a great idea by more people than Angie would’ve guessed.
After a few more minutes of walking, watching the happy families and breathing in the crisp air, Angie finally caught sight of Zoey. She was sitting in the middle of a red-checkered blanket on the grass, waving her over.
But that wasn’t what stopped Angie in her tracks.
From where she was curled up in the middle of the blanket, Zoey was showing. It was the first hint of a real belly, and the life that was growing inside of it, and Angie almost turned around and walked off.
Zoey thought this was just a friendly lunch in the park. She had no inkling of the terrible news that Angie carried on her shoulders, and had brought with her to the park that day. It was occurring to Angie, for the first time, that Zoey wasn’t in any condition to hear the news that had taken she herself nearly a week to finally accept.
Roman had murdered her parents.
She didn’t know if Zoey could handle it, but at the same time, Angie didn’t know how she could keep the information to herself.
Growing frustrated with Angie’s frozen stature, Zoey widened her eyes, and waved her over a little more furiously, looking about two seconds from making her way across the grass and dragging Angie to the blanket.
With a deep breath, Angie made her way over, coming to a stop at the edge of the blanket.
“Dude,” Zoey breathed, smiling up at Angie, hair lapping along with the soft breeze. “You’re a tough bitch to nail down these days. You’ve got my brother beside himself, by the way, completely beside himself, worrying about you. And currently? You’re reminding me of something that lives at the bottom of my shower drain. It’s official. It’s time.” Zoey patted the blanket. “Let’s talk, my friend. Sit.”
Angie accepted the invitation, plopping down onto the blanket.
“Do you want a sandwich?” Zoey was already reaching into the cooler next to
her. “Val makes the best pastrami sandwiches, Babe, you haven’t lived.”
“No thank you.” Angie couldn’t eat. “Zoey, before you say anything else, I have something to tell you. And it’s not going to be easy.” Pulling up the photo of the tattoo she’d saved to her phone, her eyes fell to Zoey’s protruding belly, and she hesitated.
“What is it?” Zoey asked, sensing the dark cloud lingering above her friend’s shoulders. “Seriously, you’ve been like this for weeks. I know you get into your work, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you quite this consistently intense.”
Angie’s eyes fluttered closed. “Sometimes the truth is hard to swallow.” Her eyes opened and met Zoey’s. “This time it’s so hard that I almost wish I was wrong. I want to be wrong so bad.”
Zoey smiled adoringly. “But you’re never wrong.”
Angie’s eyes searched hers, ripe with pain. A few moments passed, each one eliciting a more confused look from Zoey. Unable to stand it another second, Angie finally placed the phone between them on the blanket. The sight of the tattoo still made her chest heave, her eyes water, and her mind search for any truth besides the one that was glowing up at them. Pointing a shaky finger at the screen of the phone, her eyes met Zoey’s. “Roman has this tattoo on the back of his neck…”
Zoey immediately grinned.
Angie hated the sight, knowing that, in just a few moments, that smile would be gone, and possibly, stay gone, for a very long time. She didn’t want to be the person to deliver such awful news, but she knew she had to be.
“Isn’t it hideous?” Zoey rolled her eyes in conjunction with her smile. “They’re such idiots sometimes, I swear.”
Angie’s eyes rose slowly to Zoey’s, wondering if she’d misheard her. “They?”
Zoey nodded as she took a hearty bite of the sandwich in her hand. “Yeah… they. All four of them have that hideous tattoo. Found some shady parlor during a family vacation in Puerto Rico. Roman was only sixteen, but he had a fake ID so… he vouched for all of them, pretended to be the guardian. Bada-bing, bada-boom—matching tattoos for all four idiots, no questions asked. It’s a Chinese character. It means--”
Claiming Roman Page 28