Page 5 of Roman

Snatching the phone off the table I hold it up to see the picture of Pria’s daughter. “What about it? It’s her kid. Why-” I glance at the screen for a second longer and suddenly feel a thunder in my chest. The woosh, woosh, of my heart pounding in my ears takes up the silence of the room the longer I stare at the phone. Pria’s phone. The picture of her daughter. A little girl that has me feeling as though I'm looking at a ghost.

“Roman?” Brood pulls me from my torment and I look up at him, completely at a loss for words. “This going to be a problem for you?”

“She looks just like my sister,” I finally say.

“Fuck.” Brood takes the phone from me and for a split second, I want to fight him to take it back. “I'm going to send it out to everyone so we can get on this right away.” I watch as he thumbs through her phone and then his. I sit there for a while longer, just frozen in place, wondering about so many things at once. “Did you have any idea brother?” Brood asks me after a while.

I scoff and say, “Not a fucking clue.”

“Christ. Well, I'm not going to tell you how to handle your business but-”

“Only you are,” I argue and stand up from the table. “Send that picture to me too.” I point at him and the phone he has in his pocket. “Give me hers. I will go and return it.” I start to reach for her phone but he picks it up and pockets it as well.

“You going and doing this right now is not going to change a damn thing about the past or the situation. I realize a secret this big is something that needs to be hashed out and there will be a time for that but, brother, right now is not that time. Priority is finding that little girl and bringing her home safe. Till then, shut it down.”

I suck in a deep breath through my nose and try my best to listen to my president. “Not making any promises,” I tell him and get the fuck out of the room, pushing my way past everyone who is on the other side of the door.

“What’s going on Roman?” someone asks as I brush by.

“Fucking ask him. I'm going for a ride.”

I take off out of the clubhouse and head straight to my bike. The weather is starting to show its wintery side as fall comes to an end but there is no damn snow yet, so I straddle my bike and bring it to life with a deafening rumble. Then I gun it out of town. I have no place in mind when I ride away from Rhino, I just go.

5

Pria

I wake to the thumping of a bass drum kicking through the speakers. It takes me a moment to catch my bearings when my eyes flutter open and the first thing I see is the picture I fell asleep to. My father smiles so proudly in the picture as I show off my high school diploma. I went to school in Sumner and graduated at the top of my class. Even had myself a full ride to the University of Montana. I was halfway through the first semester when I got the call my dad died of a brain aneurism. The night before I had talked to him and there was absolutely nothing wrong. He was in good spirits, telling me all about the renovations he was going to be working on at the bar and how the biker club in town was funding it. Then the next day someone called to inform me that he was found on the floor of the bar, broom still in his hand as he cleaned up from the night before. He had been laying there all night long and no one was around to help him. Or even be there with him in his last hours.

After that I thought about staying in school, every word dad spoke about staying focused seems so stupid though. I knew how much the bar meant to him so when I started failing my classes because I never got out of bed, I quit school and came home. I borrowed money from the bank and renovated the upstairs for an apartment. I never once thought it would have cost me in the end.

The sound of glass breaking pulls my attention to the bar downstairs. The guys are no doubt having a party and by the sounds of it they are all here. I try not to let it bother me that Roman is most likely right underneath me, probably getting dry humped by some woman. Not anything I haven’t seen before. I swear he would do it just to try and annoy me. And I would try to not let it. But it did. Oh, how it did. That man could break my heart in two with just one look. I thought that maybe I had gotten past it. Gotten over him after all these years but coming back here and seeing him again only doubled those feelings I believed to be dormant. When another crashing sound comes from downstairs, I pull myself from the bed out of instinct, ready to go down there to tell them they had better not be making a mess or they will be cleaning it up themselves. It’s when I reach the steps that I stop. This is no longer my place. It belongs to the club now. “Stupid bikers,” I mumble to myself and pad over to the bathroom. Being in my car for the past forty-eight hours I know I probably look and smell horrid. My thoughts are confirmed when I step in front of the cracked mirror. I can’t help but stare at that crack.

“Open the fucking door Pria!” Roman calls out from the bar. I locked the door leading up to the apartment right after I stormed past him. He was the last one here tonight, last one except the woman trying her best to give him a hand job over the top of his jeans.

“Just go home Roman. It’s late and I want to get some sleep.” I try to hold back the sob that wants to break free.

“Jesus. Please. Open the door.”

“Whatever happened between us Roman is over. I know that, just let me be.”

A louder pound comes from the other side of the door then a curse, “Fuck!” I jolt back slightly then go up a couple of steps to sit down, not trusting myself to not open the door. “I’m a piece of shit Pria. I told you that from the beginning. Fuck, you see it every night when I’m in here. There is no good that comes from me.” I shake my head at his words wanting to tell him that he is wrong. So darn wrong. Only I don’t. “Open the door.”

A single tear breaks free and rolls down my cheek. “Leave me alone.”

I sat on those stairs for hours after that until I heard his boots thud away and leave the bar. He didn’t speak another word. Not until the next day when he was back to harassing and teasing me whenever he got the chance. I didn’t care about that Roman though, it was the one that let his true feelings shine through that I couldn’t handle. The one I was falling hard for and the one that ultimately broke me into so many pieces that I could never be put back together again.

Quickly I strip down and flick on the shower taps. Just like the rest of the place my things are still in here too. The shampoo bottle sitting next to my old one is Roman’s though. I can’t help but grab it down from the rack. It smells just like him. I remember his long hair and how he always had it tied up in a knot on the back of his head. Today when I saw him all of his hair was gone. Buzzed completely off. I almost didn’t recognize him. In fact, if it weren’t for the vice president patch he so proudly wears on his cut I wouldn’t have. The night he got that patch is yet another memory I try to suppress, even though it did end with me decking him.

I find my clothes right in the same place I left them. Most of them don’t fit me. I have changed over the years and having a child isn’t forgiving when it comes to hips. I settle on a pair of stretchy yoga pants and a loose tee shirt, then pull my damp hair up into a bun. Securing it on the top of my head with a band I find in the sink vanity. Going downstairs is probably the last thing I should do but I’m hungry and a couple shots of tequila sound very appealing right about now. A trip down memory lane always needs a companion, mine just so happens to be alcohol.

My prediction was right when I step out of the door and into the bar. The place is packed and I nearly bump into someone when I close the door behind me. “Damn sugar tits, I haven’t seen your fine ass around here before.” A clean-shaven man with a patch reading Smoke smiles at me as I try my best to keep a good distance between the both of us.

“Been a while since I have been here.” I take note of his patches. He belongs to the Cental chapter. As do a few other guys I notice. “Is this a patch in party or something?”

“Sure is sweetness. Our boy Heart over there just got hair on his nut sack today.” To think I almost forgot how these men spoke.

“Mmm. Good for him. Is Brood here tonight?” I glance around the place once more trying to find the president.

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