Roman Blake

Prologue

One year ago…

After the long night I had, I knew Mo and I had a big day ahead of us, traveling to Italy for our second wedding anniversary. Since I needed to pay the Gambino family a visit, I figured I could kill two birds with one stone.

“Are you sure you wanna handle this business now?” my bro, Royce, asked.

“Yeah. Mo keeps tripping over me working so much, so I promised her this is the last meeting before I call it quits with all this street shit. We’ve been married two years now, and I’m ready for some kids.”

“I can dig it, but I just didn’t think you would chance bringing her down there.”

“Yeah, that’s not usually my norm, but me and the Gambino family are cool, so this should be an in-and-out meeting. Then we can get right to what we came here for.”

“Alright, I just wanted to make sure you were good with this, since me and Truce can’t go with you.”

“I swear, bro, I’m good. I got a couple of my soldiers going, so we should be straight.”

Royce meant well, but I also knew I had never did nobody dirty. I wasn’t the type to cross people just because I could. I was about my money and my business. So once the business was handled, I was going to give my wife the vacation of her dreams and hopefully make a baby while we were there.

After Royce and I finished talking, he made his way out of my home office. Once I wrapped up my work, I headed upstairs to the bedroom I shared with the love of my life. We still had to finish packing since we had an early flight.

Mo was standing in the closet, folding one of them little dresses she loved wearing on vacation.

The soft yellow one. The one that always made her skin glow like God took extra time on her.

She looked over her shoulder when I walked in and smiled, and just like that, the weight on my chest eased up.

“There you go,” she said. “I was starting to think work done kidnapped my husband again.”

I smirked and moved behind her, sliding my arms around her waist. “Not this time. I’m all yours.”

She turned in my arms and looked up at me. “You better be. I’m serious, Roman. I need this trip.”

“I know.” I kissed her forehead. “That’s why we going. Business first, then it’s just me and you. No phones, no interruptions, no street shit.”

Her eyes searched mine like she was trying to see if I meant it. With Mo, I learned real fast that words didn’t move her nearly as much as consistency. She had heard promises before. The difference was, mine were the only ones I ever tried to keep.

“You promise?” she asked softly.

“Of course, I promise, baby.”

That seemed to settle her. She gave me that little smile I would’ve gone to war for and pressed her lips to mine. It was soft at first, then deeper, slower, like she was trying to pour all her love into me before we even made it out the country.

The next morning came fast. By the time we landed in Italy, the sun was sitting high and golden over the coast. Everything looked expensive, peaceful, untouched. The kind of place where people came to fall in love, not lose what mattered most.

For the first day, I let Mo enjoy herself. We ate, walked the town, laughed, and took pictures she knew I hated taking. I still did it because she asked. Anything that made her happy, I was with it.

The meeting with the Gambinos was set for that evening at one of their private villas tucked off the water. Old money. Old power. Men who smiled in your face while measuring your worth at the same time.

I left Mo back at the house we were staying in with security nearby. I told her I’d be gone an hour, two max.

When I got there, the energy felt off before anybody even spoke. It was too still. Too polite. Too rehearsed.

I sat across from Salvatore Gambino at a long table with two of his men on either side of him. My soldiers stood behind me, and I got right to it because I wasn’t there to play games.

“I’m shutting my operation down,” I told him. “I came out of respect to let you hear it from me first. After tonight, I’m out.”

Salvatore leaned back in his chair and stared at me for a long second. Then he laughed, but it wasn’t the kind with humor in it.

“Out?” he repeated. “A man like you don’t just get to walk away because he suddenly wants to play husband.”

My jaw tightened. “I wasn’t asking permission.”

The room changed after that. I felt it in the way my soldiers shifted behind me. In the way the men near the door straightened up. In the way Salvatore’s expression hardened.

“You built too much with us,” he said. “You know too much. Men have died behind business tied to your name. There is no retirement plan for this life.”

“I’m done and like I said I came down here to tell you myself out of respect. I made you some good money over the years and I’m leaving on good terms and that should be the end of the discussion,” I spoke, being serious.

For a second, nobody said nothing. Then Salvatore gave me a cold little smile.

“That may be true,” he said, “but the life is not done with you.”

The second I stepped outside that villa, every instinct in me lit up. I reached for my gun before the first shot even rang out.

“Move!” I yelled.

Gunfire exploded from both sides of the courtyard. My soldiers returned fire immediately, forcing me toward the car. Glass shattered. Bullets tore through stone. One of my men dropped before we made it past the fountain, blood spraying across the white concrete like paint.

I fired twice and caught one of theirs in the throat. Another came from behind a pillar, and my other soldier put him down before taking one to the chest himself.

By the time I got in the car, both the men I brought with me were either dead or dying. One slumped halfway out the back seat. The other never made it off the ground.

My heart was pounding for one reason now… Mo.

I sped through them winding roads like a man possessed. I called the house three times. No answer. Called security. No answer. That was when the cold started creeping up my spine.

When I pulled up to the villa, the front gate was cracked open. One of the guards was laid out beside the entrance, with a puddle of blood under him. Another was dead inside the doorway.

Everything in me went still.

“No,” I yelled, already running. “No, no, no.”

Inside, the house looked like a storm had ripped through it. Furniture overturned. Glass everywhere. One of my men was dead near the kitchen, another folded beside the back doors leading to the beach.

Then I heard it.

A gunshot.

I ran toward the sound so fast I almost lost my footing. When I burst through the back doors, the world slowed down.

Mo was on the sand.

Three men were near her. One was backing away with his gun still raised. Another was yelling in Italian. The third turned when he saw me and reached for his weapon.

I shot him before he could clear it.

Then I shot the second one.

The third took off running down the shoreline.

But all I could see was my wife.

I dropped to my knees beside her, my hands already pressing against the blood soaking through her dress. Her eyes found mine instantly, wide and scared, but still so damn full of love it broke something in me.

“Roman,” she whispered.

“Nah, nah, baby, stay with me.” My hands were shaking so bad I could barely keep pressure on the wound. “You hear me? Stay with me. I got you.”

She reached for my face with trembling fingers. “They were waiting… they were waiting for you.”

My chest caved in on itself.

The bullets were never meant for her.

They came for me, and she got caught in it.

“I’m sorry,” I choked out. “Mo, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She gave me the faintest shake of her head, like she didn’t want my apology. Like even then she was trying to protect me from myself.

“Roman… listen to me.”

“I’m listening, baby. I’m listening.”

Her hand slid down and pressed weakly over her stomach. At first I didn’t understand. Then she looked up at me, tears mixing with the pain in her eyes.

“I was gonna tell you tonight,” she whispered. “I wanted it to be perfect.”

My whole body locked.

“What?”

A tear slipped from the corner of her eye. Her lips trembled when she smiled.

“I’m pregnant.”

The world stopped.

Everything around me disappeared…the water, the blood, the wind, the bodies in the sand. All of it. It was just me, my wife, and the words I had wanted so bad I never imagined hearing them like this.

“No,” I breathed, but it came out broken. “Nah, baby… nah…”

“We were gonna have a baby, Roman.”

I bent over her, pressing my forehead to hers, trying to hold her together with my hands, my body, my will. “We still are. We still are. You hear me? Don’t do this. Don’t leave me like this.”

She winced, then coughed, blood touching the corner of her mouth.

“I love you,” she said.

My vision blurred. “I love you too. More than anything. More than this whole world.”

Her fingers tightened against my wrist for half a second.

Then they went loose.

“Mo?”

I shook her gently at first, then harder. “Mo... Monique… Baby, wake up. Wake up!”

But she was gone.

Something animal tore out of me then. The kind of sound a man makes when his soul gets split wide open.

That last man was still running.

I laid Mo down carefully, kissed her forehead, then got up with murder on my mind.

I chased him down the beach like death was behind us both. He kept looking back, panicking, stumbling through the sand. By the time I caught him, I hit him so hard he dropped flat on his face.

I turned him over and started beating him before he could even beg.

“You killed my wife!” I roared, slamming my fist into his face again and again until my knuckles split.

He tried to fight back, catching me with a wild swing to the jaw. I barely felt it. I dragged him up by his shirt and drove him into the side of a rock wall lining the edge of the beach.

He grunted, elbowed me, then pulled a knife from somewhere on him so fast I reacted a second too late.

The blade sliced across my jaw causing me to staggered, and before I could recover, he drove the knife into my side.

Pain ripped through me, but it wasn’t stronger than my rage.

I grabbed his wrist, slammed it against the rock until the knife fell, then wrapped both hands around his throat. He clawed at me, gasping, kicking, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. All I could see was Mo bleeding in the sand. All I could hear was her telling me she was carrying my child.

I squeezed until his body gave out.

When I finally let him go, he dropped.

I stood there swaying, blood running down my face, my side burning, my chest hollowed clean out. Then I looked back toward the shoreline and saw my wife still lying there, so far away.

I made it back to her and collapsed beside her body, pulling her into my lap even though I knew it was too late. I held her until my arms went numb. Until the sirens came. Until the sky darkened. Until I couldn’t tell her blood from mine.