Epilogue
Rocko
“Baby, you need to sleep off that alcohol while I take Rocki down to the pool. We’re going to give you a minute to get it together.” My wife laughed as she wobbled over to me and put her hand on her hip.
I leaned down and kissed her lips and put my hand on her belly, rubbing it. She was only seven months pregnant but looked like she was ready to bust any minute now.
I knelt to get eye level with my daughter. “Rocki, be good for mommy, okay?” I asked. She let go of her mother to sandwich my cheeks between her hands.
“K.” She smiled.
“Listen to what she says, okay?”
She squeezed my cheeks tighter. “K.”
I kissed her forehead, then got up, knowing she wasn’t going to be good or listen to her mother, but whatever.
“Be careful with my son, woman,” I said as I tapped her butt on her way out the door.
I know that I had my doubts about when I expected a family to happen, but it took me by surprise.
But just as my father told me, it was my biggest accomplishment beyond any of the things that could be put on paper.
Despite being named a three-time MVP, an entrepreneur, whatever else they could attach to my name, nothing felt better than being called “husband” and “daddy.”
I met my wife Eris when I changed agencies, and her father became my Sports Agent. We dated for eight months before I proposed. We’ve been married for a little over two years, and our daughter is about to be two in a few weeks. It was the best time of my life.
I was only months away from finishing my four-year contract in the league.
My youth sports complex was finished late last year, and we were planning the grand opening soon.
I was ready to have more freedom to be home with my wife.
Especially as my daughter gets older, I hate missing those milestones.
Eris was just months away from delivering our second child and said she wanted to go on a “baby moon.” She chose a four-day cruise to the Bahamas. Today was our first day of the four, but with the week I had, I had a couple of drinks that had me on my ass.
I lay down and tried to fight the Jack Daniel's, but it fought back harder, and eventually I fell asleep.
When I woke up, I looked around the room, and they still weren’t back. I picked up my phone. It had been two hours since I laid down, and I knew that Rocki was probably tiring Eris out.
I headed to the deck to find them at the splash pad.
I scanned the sea of people. There were more people on this cruise than I expected for a random Thursday in March.
With so many people on deck, it was hard to see them.
I went to the children’s area, about to lose my cool because I didn’t see Eris, but I saw Rocki sitting at the edge of the splash pad playing alone.
“Rocki,” I said, gently grabbing her arm.
I spun her around, but the child was too old to be my daughter. However, she looked just like her. Same two ponytails, same yellow bathing suit with pink flowers.
I stood there in shock, let her go, and was about to apologize for clearly scaring her.
“Excuse you.” The voice behind me said, and it made me turn around quick as fuck. The woman I prayed to God I would never see in the flesh again was standing behind me still looking as good and as dangerous as the day that I first laid eyes on her.
“Cardi…come here.” She smiled as the child ran around my leg and stood beside her.
I looked down at the girl, and back at her.
“Look alive, Rocko, you look like you saw a ghost. Cardi, go back and play. I’m watching you.” She said, smoothing the baby’s hair, then watched her as she went back to the edge of the splash pad and sat down again.
I closed the space between us and spoke through clenched teeth.
“Leah, what the fuck are you doing? You had a baby?”
“Yes. I did. Why does it matter?” She feigned ignorance.
“You know why the fuck it matters,” I said, glancing back at the child who looked old enough to be conceived around the time of that dinner.
“Cardi is not your child, Rocko. I may be a lot of things, but there are two things you can bet I’m not. That’s a quitter-ass bitch and single mother material. I would have never let you get a second of peace, Rock, and you know that.”
“Her name?” I asked. I knew she was probably right about never giving me a moment of peace, but the name being similar to mine didn’t sit right with me.
“Baby, you good? Oh, Rocko, what’s up?” Cardell asked from behind Leah, carrying two plates of food.
The scowl on my face never left as I dapped up the guy who had just been traded to our team.
She looked from me to him with an evil grin.
“Oh baby, I didn’t know you knew him. You remember the woman I saw earlier? The pregnant woman who said that she wanted me to decorate her baby shower? That’s her husband. Rocko Sanders.”
“Yeah, that’s my teammate.” He said, handing her the plate of food and letting his hand fall onto her waist.
“Small world.” She turned back to me. “I was just telling your wife that I’m new to Santa Clara, and we found out that we live in the same community.
Maybe the two of you can hang out and set up playdates for the kids.
Congratulations on the baby boy,” she said as she left me feeling sick to my fucking stomach.
I all but ran through the boat, looking for my wife and daughter. With Leah on board, all I could think was the worst. But I found them on the upper level.
“Hey baby, what’s wrong?” Eris asked as I approached her.
“Nothing, I couldn’t find you,” I said as I exhaled.
“The lower level was so crowded. Rocki is too small to play with all those kids; she’s having a blast up here.” She said, but kept her eyes on our daughter.
I sat down with my legs spread behind her, and she leaned her head into my chest while I rubbed her belly.
I hadn’t discussed Leah with Eris because at one point she just disappeared into thin air. She stopped calling, stopped texting, and that was months before Eris and I met. If she'd reappeared, then it would have been a conversation; instead, it’s been silence from Leah.
Now I know why. She’s been planning. I don’t think for a second that any of this is by chance. Especially knowing that she was capable of getting into my security system.
The fact that we were on the same cruise, her daughter matching mine down to the hairstyle, the kid that looks like mine, and the man that she was with who coincidentally plays for the same team as me and looks like he could be my cousin. Leah was back, and she was trying to replicate my life.
I don’t know how I was going to explain to Eris that she had been either hacked or followed. But I knew the games that Leah played. This time I wouldn’t be so easy on her ass.
As I rubbed Eris’ belly with one hand, I texted my attorney with the other.
Me: I need a favor. Can you find me everything you know on Leah Janae Blanco, date of birth May 25, 1998? It’s important; I need the information by the end of the day.
Jim: I thought you were on vacation, but you’re in luck. You caught me right before I left the office.
I blew out a breath, and Eris turned to me with a frown.
“Ricardo. What is wrong with you? You’re stiff as a board, and you keep sighing. Are you still drunk?” She fussed.
“It’s just work, baby.” I lied.
My wife was pregnant, and my biggest concern was making sure that I didn’t stress her out or worry her, especially not on vacation. I would handle all this shit with Leah on the backend. But I definitely wasn’t about to take my eye off them for another second while we were on this boat with her.
Rocki came up to me and tapped my shoulder.
“Yes, ma ma?” I asked, waiting to see what she wanted.
She pointed toward the pool.
“Get up, baby, let me take her in the pool,” I said to Eris as I took our daughter to the pool.
I let my daughter swim, and she was having the time of her life. The sun was starting to go down, and I was hungry as hell. After a while, we got out of the pool and then went to find food at the restaurant.
Once I made sure that they were seated and eating, I took out my phone and saw that Jim had sent me over 20 attachments.
I clicked the first one, and it was a police report from 12 years ago.
The victim was Marcus Ramsay. Leah had barely turned eighteen when she caught a charge for stalking.
I read the affidavit, and it seemed like Déjà vu.
The second police report was from a man named Brandon Johnson.
It was 9 years ago. There was so much shit attached to his name I couldn’t believe what I was reading.
With everything she had done to him, I’m surprised he wasn’t hiding.
There were at least 10 complaints related to him and his wife alone.
There were restraining orders and violations of restraining orders. It was bad.
One of them even said she showed up to his wedding in a wedding gown.
I dropped the burger that I was holding when I read that the sentence for the last charge was her being confined to a mental institution for a year.
A memory from years earlier flashed back.
“Stop crying, Leah. You said that you wanted to work out with me”
“Well, I thought we would keep it cute for the first day; I didn’t expect you to kill me.” She groaned.
“This is light; you got one more set of 50 squats to do.” I coached her.
“I’m tired.”
“Stop whining. Open your mouth for me.”
“Yes, daddy.” She joked, making me laugh as I squirted water into her mouth and then slapped her ass for motivation.
She finished the set, and I let her breathe and sit down. She sat near me, cheering me on as I finished the rest of the workout without her.
When it was time to go, I stood from the bench and grabbed our things. I noticed her shoestring was loose, stepped in front of her, and leaned down to tie it.
I stood back up, and she said, “Careful, Mr. Sanders.”
I turned to her, raising an eyebrow. “What?”
“The last man who made me feel like this got them taken away from me.”
I didn’t know what the fuck she was talking about then, but now I know she meant the shoelaces. Cause she couldn’t have any in the fucking mental institution.
“I’ll be back, baby. Jim is calling me.” I said as I excused myself from the table.
“Sanders. Who the heck is that you had me investigate?” He asked as soon as he answered the phone.
I looked around to make sure that I was alone.
“I guess you can say she was an ex that I just bumped into on the cruise. She’s finessed Eris into offering to hire her for our baby shower.”
“Ugh,” I could hear him cringe. “That’s tricky. I wouldn’t allow that. This seems like a lifetime movie waiting to happen. One minute she's decorating the baby shower, and the next she’s cutting it out of her belly. Watch your ass. If you need a restraining order, let me know.”
“You think she’s dangerous?”
I asked from a legal standpoint not that I would think twice when it came down to Eris and Rocki.
“I think it’s a very real possibility. Listen, I’ve got to go. If you need anything else, let me know.”
We disconnected the call, and I went back over to the table. Before I knew it, Leah, the dude, and the baby came up the stairs and headed over to the bar. After a minute, I felt her eyes on me, and I turned toward her. She watched me over the rim of her cup, then winked.
The same wink that got me to hop off the back of a chair and follow her ass through a crowded club had me ready to push her off the boat in the middle of the Atlantic.
If it was anything that dealing with Leah taught me, it’s that never to meet a woman covered in blood and dressed as a possessed doll and think she wasn’t about to cause me hell. She had a card in front of her telling me exactly who she was, and I didn’t take heed to it.
If I could do anything about that night over, I would still go out, but I definitely wouldn’t take my ass to the Museum of the Forbidden.