Chapter 37 Roman
Roman
Ophelia bursts through the door like a gust of wind. She’s all flushed, and I can tell from one glance that she’s stressed. I’ve just returned from a walk, and I realize I haven’t even checked my cell to see if she’s tried to contact me.
“Ophelia, what’s wrong?” I rush over and take hold of her hands. “Are you okay?”
“Where are the others?” she asks, craning her neck.
“Mal is upstairs, writing some songs. Cain is out for a run. Why?”
“Roman.” She hitches a breath. “Oh, God, I don’t know how to tell you this.”
She doesn’t have to tell me. The minute she says those words, I know. The fucking bastards at the institute, whoever the fuck is behind it, aren’t going to drop things and are going to come for us. For me.
“It’s okay.” I lead her to the couch and we sit. “I know.”
“What? You heard? How? My father just called, and the dean told me. Well, my dad did, in the dean’s office. Oh, Roman, what will we do? So, who told you?”
She’s talking fast, a sign she’s upset and stressed.
“No one told me.” I answer that question first. “As soon as you said you didn’t know how to tell me, I guessed.
I fucking killed a man, Ophelia, and I did so in a pretty deranged way.
” I sigh and then give her my truth. “I don’t care if I get hurt in this.
I don’t want you taken down with me, or the others.
I think I should go alone and face the music. It’s been hanging over me.”
Standing, and, pulling her hands from mine, she takes a step back. She plants her fists on her hips and stares me down.
“What did you just say?”
I blink at her no-nonsense attitude. “I said that—”
Holding one hand up, she silences me. “I know what you said. I’m not stupid.
It was rhetorical. Don’t you dare, Roman.
Don’t you damn well dare. You made us do that ceremony with the binding and all the other things to bring us closer together, and protect us, and now you’re just going to go and sacrifice yourself. It makes a mockery of it.”
Doesn’t she understand? I did the ceremony to save her, Cain, and Mal. They can survive without me. If Cain had left us, this would have fallen apart, and I do believe the same with Mal. But me? I’m not as important to the whole that is us.
Ophelia is watching me, and her face darkens like a storm cloud passing over a patch of blue sky.
The atmosphere between us grows heavy.
“You don’t think you matter,” she whispers. “You don’t fucking think you matter?” This time it’s a shout, not a whisper.
She turns and storms to the stairs, taking out her phone.
“What are you doing? I ask.
“Calling Cain and telling him to haul ass back here, then fetching Mal. We’re having a house meeting. First to address your frankly ludicrous levels of self-sacrificing, and second because I think I might have a solution.”
She stomps up the stairs while holding her phone to her ear, leaving me reeling.
I think I just got called out on my shit, and what did she mean by there’s a solution?
Leaning back on the couch, I run my hands through my hair and blow out a breath. I don’t know if she’s right, about me being self-sacrificing. Maybe. I just know I need to face the music, and I’m tired of running.
Ever since I killed that guard, it’s felt as if a monster is breathing down my neck. One I can’t tame and can’t escape.
A part of me is tempted to follow her, but I also know she needs to talk to Mal first, and they deserve some privacy. So instead, I wait.
Sure enough, it isn’t long before they both reappear, then Cain bursts through the door in much the same way Ophelia did. He’s shirtless and sweating and stops to stare around as though he expected to find the water tower on fire.
“What the fuck’s going on?” he demands, raking a hand through his damp hair. He locks eyes on Ophelia. “You said it was urgent.”
Her expression is grim. “It is.”
She fills him in on everything.
“Fuck,” he curses when she’s done.
I get to my feet. “I think I should be the one who deals with this. None of the rest of you need to be involved.”
“No,” Ophelia snaps. “You’re not going, and definitely not alone.”
Cain nods. “She’s right. You definitely can’t go, Rome. It would be fucking stupid to put yourself in the line of fire.”
Mal folds his arms across his chest. “If you’re all going, I’m coming with you.”
“None of us are going,” Ophelia states. “Enough is enough. I won’t have it. Vani’s dad—Jack-the-blood McGrath—is in town with some of his men, and it looks like he’s staying for a while. Vani thinks that if we offer them a decent sum, they’ll take care of this for us.”
I exchange a glance with Cain and Mal. Ophelia doesn’t sound as though she’s screwing around.
Cain pinches his lips. “I’m not sure I like the idea of sending other men off to do our dirty work for us.”
“Why not?” Ophelia throws at him. “Isn’t it what the heads of families always do? They’re not the ones who get their hands dirty—they send other men to get the job done. You’re all the heads of our family now, and you need to start thinking that way.”
She has a point.
“Besides,” she continues, “if you’re all going, I’m coming, too.”
“No way,” Mal says, shaking his head.
I agree with him. “Definitely not.”
She sets her shoulders. “Then if I’m not going, neither are any of you.
We’re bound now, the four of us. We did the ritual, and that’s what we agreed.
I won’t have any of you going back on this.
I mean it. We put a proposition to the MC, tell them everything we know, and pay them for a job, hopefully, well done. ”
“Do you think it’s something they’d do?” Cain asks.
I narrow my eyes at him. He’s actually considering this.
She shrugs. “Vani seems to think it’s something they do on the regular, as long as the money is right. They’re outlaws—part of the one-percenters. I guess it’s their job.”
“Can we trust them?” Malachi tilts his head, looking at Ophelia from behind a lock of dark hair.
“I think so. Vani certainly thinks we can, and I don’t think she’d set her own father up for failure.
” She gives a wry smile. “She actually has a decent relationship with her dad, unlike the rest of us. I’ve met him, though only briefly, but he seems like the right man for the job, plus he’s got half his club with him.
The question is, can we find the money to pay them? ”
Cain sucks on his teeth and nods slowly. “Yeah, I have money saved from my time at the fight club, and I can get my brother to release some funds.”
“You don’t need to,” I jump in. “I have money. This is my problem. I should at least be the one to pay.” I have amassed a healthy amount from the markets and other investments.
I realize that thinking about where we’re going to get the money means I’m onboard with Ophelia’s plan.
I wouldn’t admit it out loud, but a knot of tension releases inside me.
I’m barely healed from the last beating I took, and I’m not sure how much more my body can handle.
And the main thing is that I won’t put Ophelia in harm’s way again.
If the bikers go, she’s not going to be either left here without us, or coming with us on another dangerous mission.
“My money is your money,” Cain says.
I smile at him. “Thanks, bro.”
Malachi nods. “Yeah, same. We’re a family now, right, like Ophelia says. What belongs to one of us belongs to us all. We’re in this together.”
I look between my family. “Guess we’d better go and talk to some bikers.”