Rome: A Marked Men Novel

by Jay Crownover

  “What? Stop looking at me like that.”

  “Like what, Cora?”

  “All judgy. I was your biggest cheerleader when you were acting like a dipshit over Shaw, so knock it off.”

  “He loves you, Cora. That isn’t a joke. He’s never laid himself on the line for anyone like that before that wasn’t family.”

  “I know, I know. I’m working my way there, all right. I don’t want to be without him.”

  “Do you love my brother, Tink? Because if you don’t, even if it kills him, you need to walk away now. You can’t do that to him.”

  “Rule.” I sighed and started to pace back and forth in front of him. “I wanted someone perfect, thought it would keep me safe, save me from another broken heart, and all it did was insulate me and make me too scared to tell a wonderful man that I love him back. I thought I could show him, that he would just know, just feel it pouring out of me the way I felt it from him. I screwed this up royally and I don’t know if he’s going to let me fix it.”

  I started crying and he swore and pulled me into a hug that crushed my ribs.

  “Everything is fixable. He had the same reaction when Shaw let us know about Remy, only then he had all my idiotic outrage on top of his own to keep it going. He works his way out of it and I know how much he needs you, Cora. It’ll be fine. Love is a goddamn scary thing. Facing it takes brass balls, and we all know you have a pair.”

  I didn’t want to laugh, but I had to. I pulled away and wiped a hand over my face. “I used to think I was pretty tough, but your brother has turned me into a big pile of goo.”

  “He makes all of us look like marshmallows.”

  I straightened my top and tried to make sure I looked presentable before going back on the floor.

  “I want you to design a new tattoo for me. That is the real reason I asked you to come back here, not to sob all over you like a big girl.”

  He lifted the eyebrow that had the rings in it and looked me over. “More flowers?”

  I told him no and explained what I wanted. I was gratified to see his eyes grow big and to see some of the frost that was always in there melt a little in appreciation.

  “I’d be honored to do it. Just let me know when you’re ready.”

  I tilted my head to the side and winked at him. “Gotta get big brother to forgive me first.”

  “He will.”

  “You guys keep saying that. I just hope you’re right.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Rome

  Everyone at the bar was giving me a pretty wide berth. I came in breathing fire and lit up. I knew my anger was disproportionate to the situation, kind of like it had been when Shaw broke the news to us about Remy, but I couldn’t seem to stop it. I felt like I was losing my grip on things, like whatever I had been building with Cora was crumbling to dust right in front of my eyes. I was so wound up in my own bruised ego, and my own sense of loss, that I knew I was on the brink of spiraling out of control with no way to stop it.

  I told myself over and over that we couldn’t agree on a house because we were just two very different people. When it crept up on me that she couldn’t tell me that she loved me, I convinced myself it was because she was still working around the fear Jimmy had left with her. I tried to reason that she was scared to see forever with me because I was still rocky at the whole family and stability thing, but I tried to show her in everything I did, with every dark memory or tortured dream I let her touch, that I was getting there. Watching her face her ex, dismiss him out of hand as insignificant, unimportant, and irrelevant, didn’t give her a wall of excuses to hide behind anymore. I couldn’t get my head around a real reason she might have for not feeling about me the way I did about her until she told him that he’d made her unable to love anyone. I knew she was holding parts of herself back and I understood fear, but I felt hopeless and furious at the idea that she had forced me to open all my hidden places, to bleed all the worst parts of me out in the open for her to see, while she still got to play it safe. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t a way for us to move forward together.

  As tempting as it was to just grab a bottle of vodka and disappear into the back room and drown my sorrows, I knew it wouldn’t get me anywhere, so I just made sure I kept busy and tried to avoid snapping anyone’s head off needlessly. Asa was watching me closely and running pretty good interference for me. I didn’t know why everyone else thought he was such a shady character; so far he had done nothing but have my back. I would even consider him a friend at this point, so when I got a text from Cora at ten telling me she was in the parking lot and wanted to talk, I just nodded to him even though the bar was packed. The crowd on a Friday night was something to be proud of now, but I was so twisted up about a certain wild-card blonde I didn’t even stop to acknowledge it.

  I knew she didn’t want to come in the bar in case I was going to make a scene or because she was worried that I would be unbending and unreasonable. I had given her good cause to believe that, which made me feel like a major jerk. There was no need for her to be cowering in the parking lot like she did something wrong. If she didn’t feel about me the way I felt about her, I was just going to have to accept it and move on. The one thing she had been so instrumental in teaching me was that there was nothing wrong with holding out for what you ultimately decided you deserved. I wanted her, wanted a life with her and the baby, but she needed to want me on the same level or it wasn’t enough.

  I saw the bright green car parked next to my truck. When she caught sight of me making my way toward her, she climbed out of the driver’s side and started to make her way toward me. I was going to tell her to just follow me inside, that I would have Darcy make her something to snack on while we talked. I never got the chance because I heard the roar of Harley pipes at the same time all my oh, shit instincts fired up. I saw her head whip around, felt time slow down the way it did when danger and doom were breaking on the horizon, so I did what I had been trained to do. I knew what gunshots sounded like. Knew not to panic, but never had I been so scared. I had been shot at plenty of times. I had never had to worry about someone I loved getting shot, though. It made me move faster than I ever had in my life.

  I sprinted across the asphalt like it was made of lava. I got to her right before the first bullet made contact. My head jerked back and blood started immediately rushing down the column of my neck and soaking into the collar of my T-shirt. I saw her wild eyes go huge in her face but didn’t have time to say anything to her. I was lucky she made such a tiny target because the next gunshot didn’t miss either, nor did the next as I took her to the ground under me. I’d been hit with bullets before, but had always had body armor to dull the impact. Bullets tearing through unprotected flesh felt like Satan flicking his tail across bare skin. My flesh burned and the calm night air instantly filled with the coppery scent of my blood. Man, there was a lot of it. I could see it flowing out of me and onto her and the pavement below her. How could have I forgotten there was a pissed-off biker all set to get vengeance on me? Cora shouldn’t have been in that parking lot alone.

  I had her whole body under me. Could feel her shaking and whispering my name against my throat. I hoped I hadn’t hit the ground with her too hard, but I couldn’t move to check on her. In fact I knew I needed to get off of her so I wasn’t crushing her into the hard ground, but none of my limbs were obeying my commands. In fact her lovely and beloved face was blurring in and out as breath wheezed in and out of lungs that felt like they were suddenly full of cement. I was suffocating. I was bleeding. I was hurting all over, but she was looking up at me in shock and fear but alive. So full of life and color, and that was all that mattered.

  “Cora …” I wanted to tell her I was sorry. That I would never be done with her, not ever, but there wasn’t a way to do that. I was going under. I could feel blood pooling under us. Could feel fire blazing in more than one place from my prone body. I think Cora screamed my name over and over again. I think I heard Asa tell her he was call
ing for help. I was pretty sure my little pixie had a death grip on me where I covered her, but I couldn’t feel anything. I was also fairly certain my girl was about to watch me die, and the last thing I heard before it all just went absolutely black was her tell me that she loved me over and over again.

  “Always have to be the hero, don’t you?”

  His tone was kidding, but it had been so long since I had seen him that all I could do was gape at him in shock.

  “Rem?”

  “Who else? Got yourself in a bit of a pickle, didn’t ya?”

  I tried to shake my head, tried to reach out and put my hands on him, but all I could do was just stare at him while he paced back and forth in front of me, hands shoved into the pockets of impeccably pressed, pin-striped pants. He looked good, way better than a guy who had been dead going on five years should.

  “You look good, bro.”

  He smiled at me. A smile so different from Rule’s, and I felt my heart flip over. I missed him so much.

  “I always looked good, Rome. We need to have a serious heart-to-heart, big brother.”

  “About what?”

  “You.”

  “What about me, Remy?”

  “You seriously have any doubts over whether I knew, absolutely, without any kind of shadow of a doubt that you loved me, Rome? That you were proud of me?”

  I felt something happen in my chest, like lightning burning where my heart should be.

  “I should have told you. I shouldn’t have asked you to keep an eye on them. That was selfish.”

  “Oh, Rome.” It sounded like a sigh, but I wasn’t sure what was going on or where I was at, so maybe it was just the last of my breath escaping my no longer working lungs. “I was always so proud when you asked me to keep an eye on Rule or on Shaw. It meant you trusted me, you believed that I could do as good a job as you always did keeping everyone safe. Those words meant more to me than you can know.”

  I took a minute to let that process and heard him laugh. It sounded happy and there was no regret in it.

  “The girl, the one you just took three bullets for, she’s the one for you.” It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t feel obligated to answer him. “You don’t think she loves you? You don’t think her heart is breaking right now? Because I can assure you that it is and it has nothing to do with being afraid of having to raise that baby alone. She’s scared for you. Her heart is shattering for you.”

  I tried to scowl but I didn’t have any control of my facial muscles.

  “She’s never said anything to me.”

  “But don’t you just know, Rome? Just like I knew you loved me without question. Love doesn’t always have to be spoken out loud. Shaw loved Rule from the beginning of time and never said one word about it, but if he had ever bothered to look at her, he would have seen it shining out of her like a beacon. The same thing can be said about your little spitfire. It’s stamped all over her, Rome, you just have to look past the fear, hers and your own, to see it.”

  That point was burning and hot in the center of where I thought my chest was. I knew all about fear. The fear of the unknown, the fear of not being good enough, the fear of not having anything to offer. I hoped I hid it well, but I hadn’t taken one second to think that maybe Cora was hiding behind a cloud of terror as well. Our experience made us; what we did with that knowledge is what defined who we were going to be, and somewhere along the line I got caught up in all the noise of “what if” and forgot that.

  “I should have just known.”

  “You have time to make it right.”

  “I do?”

  He laughed again and I felt warmth embrace me, something like rightness settle around my shoulders.

  “Someone had to set you right. I knew I could do it. Love is never perfect, big brother. It’s what you make of the imperfections in it that makes the ride worthwhile.”

  “I met Lando.”

  That sound that could have been a sigh or something else whirled around me.

  “He is how I know all about unconditional love, Rome. He deserved better than my secrets. Frankly everyone did. Who we are is always shifting, turning, and changing. Soon you’ll be a father, a husband, then an uncle, and then later on down the line, you’ll be a grandfather. Who you are never stays the same. It’s called living life.”

  I felt like if I could control any part of my body, I would wrap my arms around my brother and never let him go, but as it was, things inside me were starting to burn and those pale, winter-tinted eyes were getting hazier and farther and farther away and I was flared up on the inside like an inferno.

  “Oh, and Rome.” I tried to focus on him but it was getting harder and harder to hold on to where I was at. Pain was starting to pull me apart at the seams and I wanted to scream. “Remy is an awesome name for either a little boy or a little girl. Just saying.”

  I felt rather than saw him disappear, the warmth, the joy that was my brother, poofed away and I went crashing back to a body that was on fire with pain and flooding with blood in places there shouldn’t be blood.

  CHAPTER 17

  Cora

  I didn’t remember much of anything after I hit the ground, all of Rome’s weight and bulk pressing me into the hard asphalt. One second I had been sitting in the car trying to figure out how to talk my way out of this mess and try to fix everything, and the next I was wide-awake in the middle of one of Rome’s nightmares.

  I had sent the text letting him know I was outside the bar, and then I waited while I held my breath for him to answer me back. My big mouth had hurt the one person I never wanted to cause pain, and I needed to fix it. It didn’t matter if he ignored me. I would march right in that bar and make him talk to me. As it turned out, I was getting all worked up for no reason because it only took a minute until his unmistakable silhouette came out the door and he was making his way toward where I had parked. I was nervous, but more than that, I was filled with regret. I never should have held on to what Jimmy had done to me and used it as an excuse to keep my heart insulated from all the wonderful things Rome was trying to fill it up with.

  I only made it past the hood of the Cooper when there was a sudden roar that sounded like it was right behind me. I went to turn my head to see what it was because it was so loud, but before I got my neck cranked all the way around, I was bulldozed to the ground and deafened by the repeated pop-pop that sounded like extra-loud fireworks. I hit the ground with a grunt and clung to Rome, because those blue eyes were huge in his face and a typhoon of panic and fear was working its way across the shimmering surface.

  “Rome?” I said his name because he wasn’t moving and something warm and wet was seeping into his T-shirt where I was gripping it in my hands.

  His mouth moved. He said my name on a gasp but no sound came out. Something coppery-smelling and hot landed on my cheek as it leaked out of his neck and splatted on my face. His eyes flickered like a flame going out, and the next thing I knew I was trapped completely under him as all his strength fled. His blood was covering both of us and starting to pool on the ground beneath us. I couldn’t get to my phone, couldn’t move, because even when he was unconscious, even when he was furious at me and hurt by my selfish and thoughtless words, he was still trying to keep me and our baby safe.

  “Rome!” This time I screamed it and clutched at him. “You have to open your eyes. Come on, big guy.”

  I was screaming his name over and over but he wouldn’t move, wouldn’t react. I’m sure we were only there for a minute, but it felt like an eternity until Asa’s blond head appeared over Rome’s prone form and he told me he had called the police and an ambulance was on the way. It took three of the regulars to move him off of me, in part because I refused to let him go. I was crying and had so much of his blood on my hands it made it hard for me to hold on to him as the regulars from the bar worked to separate us and put pressure on the gaping wounds that were spilling his life out onto the ground.

  I think Asa put an arm around my
quaking shoulders and tried to tell me everything would be all right, but I knew that was a lie. Through the tears and Rome’s blood smeared all across my face, I could see that his eyes were still closed and that his massive chest wasn’t moving up and down. He was going to die right in front of my eyes, and I was never going to get the chance to tell him that I loved him. I absolutely couldn’t let that happen.

  I broke free of Asa’s grasp and ran to where people were trying desperately to stop him from bleeding. The entire side of his neck looked like raw hamburger, flayed open and gushing vital red onto the ground. I fell on my knees, not caring that the asphalt ripped my skin open, and put my hands on his cheeks.

  “Rome, please open your eyes, please. I love you so much. I need you. Please, big guy.” I was sobbing and I doubted the words made any sense. Somewhere in the distance I finally heard the sounds of sirens screaming toward us. The ambulance was too far away to do him any good.

  “I love you, I love you, I love you.” I just told him over and over again, trying to will him to breathe. Because it was true. Being scared of handing over my heart to him because I wasn’t sure what he would do with it had nothing on the choking fear that I would never get to tell him how I felt because he wasn’t going to make it. He had always been a hero, and right now I almost hated him as much as I loved him. If he hadn’t been so perfect, so honorable, so devoted to me and his child, he wouldn’t be lying in a puddle of blood. It was just wrong on so many different levels.

  “Please don’t break my heart, Rome. I can’t do this without you.” Somewhere along the line, police and the ambulance crew arrived, and again I had hands trying to pull me away from him. I bent down and put my mouth to his. I cried even harder when I felt how cold his lips were.

  I kissed him, tasting the salt of my tears and the iron burn of his blood, and whispered that I loved him again and again. I had to succumb to the impatient hands of the female paramedic that pulled me away from him. I couldn’t take my eyes off his deathly-still face and his unmoving chest.