Page 46 of More Than a Hero
Robert scoffed. “Called ’em pussies.”
Pete’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know that I’d call them pussies. I think smart might be the word I’m going for.”
Robert's gaze dropped. His fingers curled into a fist on the table, but he didn’t say anything at first. “I ain’t dumb,” he muttered after a moment. “It’s not like Ciao walked up and said, ‘Hey, I’m gonna have a car full of shit, wanna come for a ride?’”
“Okay,” Pete said evenly. “So what did he say?”
Robert licked his lips, eyes darting toward the mirrored window before settling back on Pete. “Just said he was gonna grab somethin’ to eat. Asked if I wanted to roll with him.”
Pete tilted his head. “Was your mom home?”
Robert shook his head. “Nah.”
“So who was gonna get your brother and sister off the bus?”
Robert flinched, his fingers tightening in his lap. “Look, I ain’t there every day. If I’m not waitin’ on them, they go to one of the neighbors. They let ’em hang out till Mom gets home.”
Pete gave a slow nod, then continued. “Alright. So you get in the car with him. He decides to go for a little ride. You ever get something to eat? Did you ever stop?”
Robert scoffed, shaking his head. “Didn’t get the damn chance. He was goin’ too fuckin’ fast, and then the deputy got on his ass.”
Jeremy folded his arms. “What were you doing during all this?”
Robert dropped his gaze, his hands clenched together, knuckles white. His voice was quieter now, stripped of the falsebravado. “I told him to slow down.” He exhaled, shaking his head. “Then when they started chasin’ us, I told him to stop.”
Pete waited a beat. “And he didn’t.”
Robert let out a bitter laugh, but there was no humor in it. His jaw tightened as he lifted his gaze, eyes filled with something sharp and exhausted. “I think you already know the answer to that,” he bit out.
Pete leaned in slightly, his voice even but unrelenting. “Right. So he didn’t slow down, didn’t stop. What was going through your mind then?”
Robert sucked in his bottom lip, biting down hard, like he was trying to keep something painful from spilling out. His knee bounced under the table again, but this time, it wasn’t cockiness—it was something raw. “I was scared, okay?” he finally burst out, voice sharp with frustration. “Is that what you wanna hear?”
Jeremy tilted his head, his expression unreadable. “Well, hearing that you were scared tells me you still got a brain cell left,” he said. “If you hadn’t been scared, I’d be thinking you were a lost cause.”
Robert’s shoulders slumped. Some of the fight drained out of him, and for a second, he just stared at the table, jaw tight, hands clenched into fists.
Pete pressed on. “When all hell broke loose with sirens, cops everywhere… and then Lashawn lost control of the car, I wanna know what went through your head when he climbed out and took off.”
Robert’s gaze snapped up to Pete’s, his chest rising and falling with a deep breath. He let it out slowly, but his eyes didn’t waver.
“He got his door open,” he said quietly. “Stepped on the damn steering wheel while I was still trying to get the airbag out of my face. Since we were up on our side, he climbed out first.”Robert swallowed hard, like the words physically hurt to say. “I was still stuck in my seat belt. I called for him to help me.”
His throat bobbed, and his voice cracked slightly as he said, “He left. He fucking ran away.”
Neither Pete nor Jeremy said a word. They let the silence settle over the room, let Robert sit with the weight of his own words.
Pete gave a slow nod, like he was acknowledging the truth of it without needing to say I told you so. After a long beat, he finally spoke. “And when we found the drugs hidden in the car?”
Robert flinched. His face twisted for a second, like he wanted to deny everything, but then his shoulders slumped again. “I was… surprised,” he admitted, voice quieter now. “And then I wasn’t sure why I was surprised. And then I just thought… I was fucked.”
He exhaled sharply. “I don’t even know why he needed me to come with him. I don’t know if he really was gonna get food or if that was just—” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I still don’t know.”
Pete didn’t glance at Jeremy. He didn’t need to. They were in sync, reading the situation the same way. Robert was cracking, piece by piece.
“We can’t tell you what Lashawn was really planning,” Pete said evenly. “We’ll talk to him later. But if I had to guess?” He leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “He probably was gonna get food. That’d be an easy way to keep talking to you without anyone else around. Keep working on you. Keep making you feel like he was your boy, like you belonged.”
Robert was staring at the table, but Pete could tell he was listening.
