“Initially, I didn’t tell you because I knew it would fuck with your head. I didn’t want you off your game while hunting in a different fucking country.” He holds up his hands in a surrender motion. “My bad for watching out for you,cugino.”
His words stop both Kortez and I from pacing, something I didn’t even realize I was doing. I see the understanding shining in Kortez’s eyes at the same moment I’m sure it shines through mine. Roman knows how dangerous this life is and he’s not wrong, the knowledge that he was here with our Eve would have fucked with us so bad we wouldn’t know the safety from the trigger.
I watch in rapid fascination as Kortez’s eyes turn into slats as he rounds back toward Roman. “You said initially. What was it after?”
There’s Kortez, always catching on to the smalldetails no one else realizes. It’s why he’s going to be my second when I take over the family.
“It was as you two so dramatically pointed out – I wanted her, too. I was falling for her before I even knew who she was, but when I figured out, I fell even more.” He shakes his head as I open my mouth. “No, Atlas, I know it’s fucked up, you don’t have to tell me that; but it’s the truth. She’s gone through so much and she’s still this badass, sexy, intelligent fucking woman.” He scoffs and waves his hand, “So, yeah, a little of it was selfish.”
I want to be mad, but I can’t. I would have done the same thing in his position because I don’t care who else loves Eve, she’s mine, too. “And my son? Why didn’t you tell me I had a son when I got here?”
He goes quiet, the air turning cold in the room around us as his eyes flash with an emotion I don’t see often from my cousin. Jealousy.
“You wanted that, too.”
He shrugs, “Do I want her to have my children? Absolutely. That’s not the reason I didn’t mention anything, though.”
“Then what is?”
“I didn’t know if she was going to tell you.” The silence that follows his answer is heavy with his unspoken words.
His loyalty is now to her. To my Reginetta.
I silently watch as Kor collapses on the couch across from Roman and it’s like seeing him give in to the exhaustion has released a dam of my own. I sit down next to him as he pulls out a pocketknife, mindlessly cleaning under his nails as we all sit in silence.
We’ve been searching for Eve any chance we got and Roman stumbled upon her because of an idiotic setup from Wade he got mixed up in. Not only her, butmy son.
An unplanned laugh slips from between my lips as memories of my son’s sleeping face flash through my mind. “Dio mio,I have a fucking kid.”
I see Kortez nod from the corner of my eye, but I can tell he’s still lost inside his own head, not processing what I’m saying in the slightest.
Kortez’s knife glints in the light, causing the images of my son to turn into something much more sinister. Wade found Roman right here in Denver, got to him in my own club. How hard would it be for him to track us down now that we’re in town? We pissed him off by going for his people in Cuba and he's going to want to retaliate…what better way to do that than to go after the two people I love most in the world.
“We’re leading him right to us.”
That gets Kor’s attention, and I see the blood welling from where he cuts himself from jolting at the meaning of my words. “Wade. He’s going to be looking for us and Eve – “
“Kortez!” Roman stops Kor’s spiral before it gets too far down. “I haven’t seen any sign of him since that night at the club and even if he did get close, Eve and Abel have us to protect them. I’ve already got a few precautions in place.”
“What precautions?”
Roman pulls out his phone and waves us over. “I can hook this up to your computer when you get it set up, Kor, but I used the same program you have on the penthouse to get something set up here.”
He swipes through each angle of the security cameras he has placed not only in and around Eve’s house, but in Wylder’s house, in their backyards, and even a few places around the neighborhood. “How did you get the supplies, and everything set up?”
“I set up the ones around the houses and had Paolo do the neighborhood ones when he dropped everything off. I have a few guns and some ammo in a bag upstairs along with a few other things we may need.”
“Fucking Paolo.” Kortez chuckles. “You know he’s going to charge out the ass for that, right?”
Roman shrugs as he closes out the screen, “Already sent Atty here the invoice.”
Sure enough, when I pull up my phone there’s an encrypted invoice from Roman waiting for me in my inbox. I scroll through everything he had delivered, noting just how good of a job he does thinking on the spot, but I pause when I reach the last item on the list. “Placebo birth control pills?”
Kortez snorts in amusement as he sits back down on the couch, his knife coming right back out despite the barely clotting cut on his palm.
Roman doesn’t look sheepish as I look down at him though, instead looking somewhat proud of himself. “Snuck into her bathroom last week while she was in her shed and switched them out. You may already have a kid with her,cugino,but I’m next.”
A faint scream sounds from next door, a scream I have committed to memory despite it being a decade since I’ve heard it. My Eve just found her release and by the sounds of it, it was a damned good one.
