Page 21 of Roman

“I’m glad I killed him.” Roman turns his back to me then reaches down to grab a shirt.

“Yeah. Me too.” The odd choice of words gives me pause.

“Wh-”

“Breakfast is ready!” someone from the other side of the door calls out.

“Bout fucking time, I’m starving,” Roman says as he turns around to face me. I want to ask him more. He must sense it because he keeps talking. “There are some clothes in that bag.” He points to a plastic bag sitting on a short dresser. “Shower through there.” His chin tips to the door to the right of the bed. “When you leave the room take a left and follow the smell of bacon.” With that, he steps out of the room and closes the door behind him. He is keeping something from me that is for sure but when my stomach growls, I decide to leave it be for now.

When I get up out of bed, I notice that I’m only wearing a thin sweatshirt that goes down mid-thigh. It smells of Roman and for a split second, I don’t want to take it off. When I go to grab the bag of clothes, I catch the sight of blood still on the back of my hand. A small shudder rolls across me. I take off to the shower, scrubbing off the man’s blood over and over as if it is caked on me and not just tiny lingering dried drops.

When I’m all done, I start pulling out the clothes from the bag. It’s from a store called Rider’s Wear I notice. There is a tee shirt and a pair of jeans along with a bra and panties and some socks. The tee shirt has a flaming rider on the front of it, similar to the rider on the back of the men’s leather vests. I have seen some of the women wear clothes like this and wondered to myself what it would be like to be one of them. I may have even fantasized about it a time or two back when Roman and I…

Shaking my head, I douse away those thoughts and try to pull my hair back from my face with a comb I find in the sink vanity drawers. There are no hair ties of any kind, so I just leave it down and damp. I need food now more than I need to style my hair anyway.

I do as Roman says and make my way downstairs, listening as the talking and laughter grow louder the closer I get. When I reach the door, I almost don’t go inside. There are so many people in there I just about turn around but my daughter sees me first. “Mom!” Rhylee comes running up to me, throwing her arms around me so tightly that it pulls the tears right out of me. “I’m so glad you’re awake.”

“Me too sweetie.” I can’t help but notice that we are causing eyes to linger for far too long.

“Come on. I will introduce you to some people.” Rhylee pulls back and takes my hand like she is in kindergarten again and showing me the new best friend she made that week. “This is Kataya and Jazlyn.” The two girls smile and say hello to me. They all look to be around Rhylee’s age.

“Hi there. I’m Ari.” A beautiful tall blonde woman with short hair comes to my side.

“Oh. Hi and thank you for everything. Roman said that you looked in on me while I was… out of it.” Ari smiles and nods.

“No problem at all. I see the clothes fit. I thought I guessed your size pretty close.”

“They are from you? Thank you.”

“Not from me per say. Kimi, the Vice President’s wife, owns the shop. I am just a frequent customer.” She waves her hand.

“Sorry to interrupt the girl talk but she needs to eat,” Roman says as he comes to my side with a plate of food. “You have been out for days. I can hear your stomach growling over the noise of all these people.” He hands me the plate.

“Just be sure to not overdo it with the food,” Ari says. “Eating too fast on an empty stomach isn’t good. It was nice to meet you. I hope we can hang out a little before you guys go. I know the other wives would like to meet you.” With that Ari leaves and I wince at another hunger pain in my stomach.

“Sit down Pria,” Roman tells me pulling out a chair for me to sit on.

“Why are you being so bossy?” I hiss and take the offered seat, doing my best not to let Rhylee hear my annoyance. She has started talking to the other girls at the table so at least she isn’t listening.

“Since I almost lost you. Again,” Roman says causing the hand holding my fork to pause midair.

“What?”

He shakes his head. “Just eat. We can talk later. Because babe, shit is about to change.”

22

Roman

I let Pria be and set out to find Rock, the president of the Cental chapter. He is, as usual, hold up in his office with his old lady Bugs. “Got a minute?” I ask before stepping through the doorway. Bugs stands up from her chair and grabs both her and Rock’s plates from breakfast.

“Yeah Roman, come in.” I nod at Bugs as she walks by and says hello before disappearing down the hall.

“How’s your woman doing?”

“Better. She is awake and with everyone now. Thanks for having us. We needed to get off the road.”

“No problem. Hasn’t been much excitement here in a while. Suppose we were due for some.” He reaches across his desk and tosses me a folder. Something Reek or Wiz put together, I’m sure. “That fucker was in deep with the wrong people. Tried to use your daughter as payment for his debts. Best scenario we could come up with,” Rock tells me as I thumb through the file on Mike. I hadn’t left Pria’s side since we got here but my brothers have been hard at work trying to find out as much as they could about the fucker who tried to sell my daughter.

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