19. Roman
NINETEEN
Roman
My shoulders hunch as I walk down the hallway. I would feel so much better if I could lock Lucas in that room.
I would feel better if I could stay in there myself. This house is too big. There are too many doorways and too many sounds. I can’t identify them all, and it’s putting me on edge.
I avoid the main staircase because it’s too bright and open. Instead, I take the smaller staircase that leads into Vitali’s favored wing. He was always more settled here than me. After the car wreck that killed our parents, cousin, and aunt, I never spent much time in this house.
The staircase lets out onto another hallway. I head toward Vitali’s office.
A woman steps out into the hallway.
I halt, growling at the sight of black clothes and a gun at the hip. My hands curl into fists. Hers don’t, nor does she reach for the gun. But I can see from her body language that she’s ready to act if necessary. She thinks it might be.
“Vitali’s inside,” she says in a measured tone, tilting her head toward the office.
On a certain level, I perceive the context clues. She’s a woman and therefore not one of my handlers. I’m in my family’s house and therefore not in Crowley’s warehouse or in the prison.
But none of that is able to really sink in.
All I can think is that, gun or no, I could kill her so easily. There’s no collar on me now. I should do it while I have the chance.
“Roman,” she says.
The use of my name startles me enough that my violent impulse fades. I don’t have any reason to hurt her. I don’t actually want to.
I start moving.
My body language must be acceptable because she steps to the side of the doorway and puts her back to the wall. I guess she’s going to stand guard, just in case.
I walk into Vitali’s office and find him standing in the middle of it, waiting for me. I take my first good look at my brother. I haven’t thought much about him in years. I had closed the past away inside myself. It didn’t exist for me. It couldn’t. I had to let one reality die so that I could survive the other. Facing Vitali now has those two realities colliding.
Looking at him, I almost feel like I’ve stepped into the past. I think that’s why, at first, I see what I remember instead of the changes. His sharply handsome face is straight out of my former life. The elegant style of his gray tailored pants and waistcoat almost gives me déjà vu. Most of all, the fierceness in his dark eyes reminds me how violent he is under all that refinement. He killed his man when he was sixteen. Our father required it of him.
But the longer I look, the more differences I notice. Where the sleeves of his black shirt are rolled up, I see more tattoos than I remember. I see one hooking up his neck from the collar of his shirt too. His wavy dark hair is a little longer. But it’s his eyes that are the most changed. Though the fierceness is familiar, the nature of the intensity is a little different. It’s darker. More dangerous.
All these changes are subtle, however. I can’t imagine how different I look to him. Seeing him looking at me with such shock is the very reason I’ve been avoiding looking in a mirror.
Vitali’s eyes settle briefly on my scarred wrists. His jaw tightens. Then he lifts his gaze to my face and says, “I thought you were dead.”
I was.
I am.
I’m not the person he knew.
“I never got real answers,” he tells me. “From the DiMaggios, I mean. It was them, wasn’t it?”
I hear the words. I know what he’s asking me. The DiMaggio family is our primary rival. He thinks they captured and sold me. Maybe they did, but I don’t remember. I’m still mostly cut off from the past.
Vitali’s eyebrows tug together. “Lucas said you don’t talk much.”
A low growl escapes me.
“Roman, I didn’t know he was with you. How could I have known? I hadn’t seen you in four fucking years and you showed up out of nowhere looking like you’ve been—” He cuts himself off and looks away. A muscle feathers in his jaw. He looks at me again. “I was only talking to him.”
When I still don’t reply, Vitali huffs out a breath and walks to his desk, where he snatches up a tumbler with about an inch of amber liquor in it. He tosses it back and grabs the crystal bottle, pouring.
“Are you angry with me?” he asks.
His back is to me. It helps. Looking at his face, everything got locked up again. Now the words loosen.
“Yes. About Lucas.”
He sets the bottle down. “And the rest?”
It surprises me. It never occurred to me that Vitali would feel in any way responsible for my capture.
“No,” I tell him.
His back is still to me, so I have no idea how my answer affects him. I don’t think he wants me to know. He’s always kept a lot to himself.
He asks, “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
My mind goes blank, like there’s nothing there, like nothing happened at all.
Vitali turns to face me again. For a second, there’s a whole mess of emotions in his eyes, but then he blinks it all away.
He says, “Then I’ll tell you what I know. Liam Crowley is a mid-level Irish mobster. We have him on the run, but we’ll get him. Oscar Crowley, his cousin, was heading their family’s New York branch. Gambling mostly. Prostitution too. They have no apparent connection to the DiMaggios.
“With Crowley on the run, he hasn’t been able to clean up the shitshow at the stadium. It’s swarming with cops and feds. It’s a fucking circus. All the cameras were off, obviously, and the place is gonna be a mess of blood and fingerprints. If anything crops up on you or Lucas, we’ll deal with it, but all they have at the moment is a description of you. You haven’t been identified, and we’ll keep it that way.”
I feel completely disconnected from everything he’s saying. These sorts of concerns don’t feel real to me.
Vitali studies me some more. Then he says, “Isaac, the doctor who saw you last night—he was the one in your room—wants to see you, run some tests—”
I turn to leave.
“Wait! I’ll tell him no. Jesus, Roman— wait .”
I stop.
“Look,” Vitali says. “This is obviously going to take some figuring out. I just … Roman … I’m really fucking glad to see you.”
My throat tightens. My chest hurts. I don’t know how to respond, so I don’t.
“Fuck,” I hear Vitali mutter roughly. He clears his throat. “Are you hungry?”
I’m not actually sure. I feel more sick than hungry, but it could be from lack of food. Fuck, Lucas must be starving. I have to get food for him. I should have done it last night. I have to find clothes for him too.
I turn to face Vitali. “I need food and clothes for Lucas.”
“I had Quinn—he’s my other full-time guard, in addition to Sasha—pick up some clothes. I had to guess at Lucas’s size. You can get other stuff for him later, but there are some clothes in the kitchen. Quinn also sometimes cooks because—fuck, you wouldn’t know. Jesus.” Vitali scrubs at his jaw. “Nonna Maria. She’s gone. Last year.”
An image flashes through my mind. Nonna Maria, our mother’s mother, wearing a flowery housedress and rolling out pasta dough on the kitchen table. I paint black over the image.
“Good,” I say.
Fury flashes through Vitali’s eyes. Abruptly, he wants to attack me. In the past, he would have. With words. With fists. He would have been in my face. Now he holds himself back and lets his anger seep back inside. He realizes, maybe for the first time, that I’m not the person he knew.
And that’s why I’m glad Nonna Maria is gone. I wouldn’t have wanted her to see me now.
Vitali takes a deep breath, forcing himself to let it go. “You want to go get Lucas and we can eat?”
“I’ll take food to him.”
Vitali’s eyes narrow with suspicion. “Why?”
“He’s not to leave my room.”
“Roman, he’s completely safe in the house.” Vitali’s voice is sharp.
I don’t say anything.
Vitali’s jaw tightens. “Fine. If that’s what you want.”
It is what I want but not just because of safety. Lucas is mine, and I need him to stay in my exclusive space.
As we head to the kitchen, I can tell Vitali is watching me from the corner of his eye. I don’t pay much attention to him, however, because the female guard—Sasha, Vitali called her—is walking behind us, which I don’t like, and I have a lot of environmental information to catalog right now. I had forgotten how big this house is.
The kitchen is huge and way too bright. There’s a man at the stove stirring a pot. He’s big, tough-looking in spite of the apron over his flannel shirt and jeans. He’s the one who was standing outside my room last night. Quinn.
He looks up when we enter the kitchen. He nods in greeting, but his expression is guarded. When he taps the wooden spoon on the side of the pot, I see a burn scar on the inside of his arm below his rolled-up sleeve. He sets the spoon down.
I like that he doesn’t say anything.
I also like the smell of that sauce. My mouth waters. Maybe I am hungry.
Vitali motions me to follow him to the large dining table, where a few plastic bags are waiting. “These are the clothes,” he says.
It’s not just clothes. There are toiletries too, even lube.
“I had no way to guess his shoe size,” Quinn says in a deep, gruff voice from beside the stove.
I give him a sharp look. I needed these things for Lucas, but I don’t really like the idea of anyone thinking that much about him.
Quinn turns away and lifts the lid of another pot. I hear boiling water.
Vitali tells Quinn, “Roman and Lucas are going to eat in their room.”
Quinn nods without looking back. “Okay. I’ll bring up a tray and leave it outside the door.”
I relax slightly, relieved that he understands. I grab the bags and leave.
My path back to the bedroom takes me by the library. I halt outside its closed double doors. I haven’t been inside since my parents died. My mother loved this room.
Nonna Maria, who had legal guardianship of me and Vitali, insisted on the doors being open, but I guess Vitali closed them after she died. Maybe he hates this house a little bit too.
I open the doors and go inside. Setting down the bags, I turn on a lamp with a colorful glass shade. As light blooms over the leather furniture, fireplace, and crowded shelves, I get a twisted feeling inside. I ignore it and go to look at the shelves.
A lot of the books are old and fancy looking, but I recall a section of paperbacks. I crouch in front of it. I find a copy of Starship Troopers , then I retrieve the bags, turn off the lamp, and escape.
When I get back to the bedroom, I find Lucas on the couch. He’s wearing an old maroon sweatshirt of mine. His knees are drawn up inside it, his bare feet planted on the couch. He looks relieved to see me.
I frown. I don’t understand why he was worried. Did he think I wasn’t coming back?
I set the bags on the floor by the couch. I reach down for him. He reaches up instantly, springing up from the couch and wrapping his arms around my neck. He buries his face against me and hooks his legs around my torso. He’s shaking.
I turn and lower myself onto the couch, keeping him in my arms. He snuggles harder against me. I rub his back. I pet his hair.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
He shakes his head. He doesn’t want to tell me. Or maybe he doesn’t know the answer. I just hold him until he relaxes. I feel myself relax too. I didn’t realize how tense I was until it fades.
Lucas starts kissing my neck. I would never allow anyone but him at my throat, but I love that I can trust him like this because it feels really good. As my cock thickens, he starts rocking against me. He kisses his way up my throat. I tilt my head for him, letting him nibble at my jaw.
When footsteps sound in the hallway, we both freeze. I lift Lucas from my lap and set him aside on the couch. I get up and stalk to the door. I know it’s probably Quinn with our food, but that doesn’t mean I’m okay with someone being outside the room, especially given that I was so distracted by Lucas when I returned that I forgot to lock the door.
I wait behind it, ready in case someone tries to come in. The footsteps stop. There’s a little clatter of dishes outside the door. Quinn doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even knock. He just leaves.
When his footsteps have retreated, I open the door to find a large silver tray cluttered with dishes. I take it into the bedroom, pushing the door shut with my foot. There’s a table near the sliding glass doors, but I set the tray on the floor instead in the middle of the huge rug. While I backtrack to lock the door, Lucas kneels on the floor by the tray and starts uncovering the dishes.
“Ooh,” he exclaims. “This smells really good.”
As I walk back to him, his eyes lift from the food to me. They focus on my crotch, where my cock is tenting my sweats. I shake my head. We’ll eat first.
I sit on the floor beside Lucas and watch him inspect the dishes, enjoying his excitement. There’s Bolognese with thick-cut pasta, roasted mixed vegetables, and crusty bread.
Lucas loads up one of the waiting plates. I frown when he hands it to me. That’s not how this works. He ignores my disapproval, so I just hold the plate while he dishes up his own food.
I eat with one hand because I have to keep my other on Lucas. I can tell he likes it because he edges closer to me. I let my hand glide up his thigh to his hip. I follow his hip inward to his groin and let my fingers rest against his balls.
“Keep eating,” I tell him when he pauses.
“That’s very distracting,” he replies.
I make a sound of acknowledgement. I’m sure it is, but I’m not going to stop. I need to feel our closeness. I need to feel his body responding. I leave his cock alone for now, but I know it’s stiffening because his balls are swelling against my fingers. My own cock is hard and aching, but I don’t touch it.
I eat some more of the bread. The Bolognese is delicious but very rich. I don’t want to be sick.
Lucas stops eating and sits there holding his plate while his body rocks. His eyes are closed. He’s breathing hard.
I take the plate from him and set it down. As I get up, I touch his head so he knows I’m coming back. I go to rummage through one of the bags until I find the lube. I strip off my clothes. As I return to him naked, he stares at my bare cock which bobs as I walk. His lips part. He makes a needy sound.
He’s on his feet before I reach him. He’s reaching for me again. I don’t think anything in my life, ever, has given me the kind of happiness that I feel when he does that. I gather him up, lift him against me. He hooks his legs around my waist as he did before.
Gravity is pulling my heavy cock down, so I grab it and wedge it against his ass, letting the friction and pressure stimulate us both as I carry him to the bed. He mews softly against me, clutching. I love how he needs me. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have him here right now, needing me like this.
As I sit on the bed, my cockhead is forced away from his hole. He sits atop it, rocking slightly.
I start tugging at the sweatshirt. I need to see him. I need to feel more than the ridge of his cock through the cloth. I need his skin. He helps me strip off the sweatshirt and toss it away. He throws his head back when I start sucking at his throat. His bare cock pulses against my abdomen.
I grab the lube from where I dropped it on the bed and squirt some into my hand. I reach under him to slick my cock and his hole. He opens for me so easily now. He lifts up so I can stroke inside him. His forehead falls to my shoulder. When I lift my cock under him, he sinks down onto it.
I watch, captivated, as he takes me inside. His eyes are dark with arousal. He’s breathing hard. He’s relaxing to let me in. Watching his pleasure intensifies my own.
When I’m fully inside him, he shudders and grabs onto me, making needy, hungry sounds. I wrap my arms around him and let the waves of pleasure roll through me.
I decide to do something I’ve never done before. I scoot further up the bed and lie back. Lucas pitches forward with a cry as my cock shifts inside him. His hands plant on my chest as he catches himself.
I grab his hips and tug him into a better position. He looks at me, a little unsure.
“Ride me,” I tell him gruffly.
He moans and starts to rock. As I start to thrust into him from underneath and guide his hips with my hands, he gets more confident. He starts to fuck himself on me, rocking hard, lifting and plunging.
I watch his cock leak and twitch. His balls are full and firm, bouncing against my abdomen. He gets louder and faster.
I can’t come like this, but it still feels really good, and I love the view. I get to see his whole body, every flexing muscle, every nuance of his movement. I get to watch how he bites his lip, then I get to watch his mouth open on a scream as he comes. Creamy strands leap from his stiff cock, spurting high before landing on my flexed abdomen.
It almost makes me come, but the position is too submissive for me to let go all the way. I let him ride it out though, and I hungrily watch every pulse of his balls and cock as he releases.
He falls forward abruptly. I catch him and let him lie against me. My hard cock aches in the clenching heat of his ass. But I can wait. I let him shudder and relax.
With my cock still hard inside him, it doesn’t take long for him to harden again. Fuck, I love how responsive his body is. He’s so damn sexual.
I pull free of him and slide out from underneath, leaving him on his stomach. He’s moaning softly, aroused but languid, so I lie over top of him. I slide one arm under him and reach up to grab his throat as I guide my cock back into his greedy, fluttering hole. He groans as I slide in. But that’s the last soft moment he gets.
I squeeze his throat, bite his shoulder, and start to fuck him. His cries are loud and needy as I piston inside his ass. He’s pinned to the bed, his cock rubbing the sheets. He comes hard, thrashing under me. His ass seizes my cock, but I don’t come.
I didn’t realize I was upset, but I feel it now as my aggression surges up. I fuck him harder and faster. It’s too much for him. He’s moaning into the mattress, clawing at it as I keep pounding into him.
Then he screams again, bucking so hard against me that my aggression snaps and I shout as my hips punch forward, burying my cock deep inside him as it spurts hotly. My hips jerk again and again as the waves of my orgasm tear through me.
I almost pass out, barely catching myself as I collapse, shuddering. Lucas is gasping and shaking under me. I pull out of him and roll him onto his side. I tug him against me. He crawls close, clinging to me through the aftershocks of his orgasm.
I pet his hair and rock him until he quiets. Until we both do.