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“And that’s how you know that you still are. Because if you were really a dead cold asshole, you wouldn’t even blink at that shit.”
He huffed out a laugh. “When did you get so smart?”
I smirked and reached over, slapping him on the back. “You know, you aren’t the first person to ask me that.”
“Because it’s so damn shocking when you say something of worth?” Romeo fired back, and my friendly pat quickly changed to a closed fist, which I drove straight into his arm. Romeo barely even flinched, the smile pulling at the corner of his mouth disappeared quickly, though, like it had never been there. “I thought you’d think I was completely fucking broken.”
“You not hear me when I said I’ve got your back?”
He would go back to Vegas when everything was said and done.
The place where he was a king.
The brotherhood was never a place for a man like Romeo. He didn’t want to rely on others. He didn’t want to have the pressure of feeling like there were times when their lives would be in his hands. For him, it was always going to be better for him to be alone, to make his own rules, and not try and live by anyone else’s.
In his own way, that was how he protected the people he loved.
Seclusion.
I knew, though, that this time he would make his own rules, be his own man, and there was no way in fucking hell anyone would make him do anything he didn’t want to.
He’d done his time here.
I was a little surprised he’d lasted so long.
With Visser gone, Romeo was free to do whatever the fuck he wanted without having to look over his shoulder. But he’d chosen to stay at the clubhouse for the few months I’d been locked up. He’d even taken on some of my work at X-Rated, and a couple security jobs when the club needed an extra hand. He wasn’t exactly an open book, but he made sure everyone knew how much he appreciated what the club had done for him.
And soon, he was going back to the shadows, a place where I would never be able to survive myself, but where it just so happened that some living things found their home. In the darkness. It was where they felt like they could be themselves. Where they felt in control of not just themselves, but of the world around them.
“So, we still haven’t covered this who is Eliza question,” I noted, turning the conversation away again.
“She was the one person who kept me sane the first few years in that house,” Romeo explained. “She had her own issues. She was damaged, she was broken, but she got me.”
“Foster kid?”
He shook his head, and I saw the sadness in his eyes. “Sheriff Visser’s actual daughter.”
I couldn’t stop myself from cringing, a cold shudder running from my toes straight up the back of my spine. The idea of that man having a child made me feel sad. But the fact he had a daughter made me feel sick because I instantly knew by the way Romeo had described her that it wasn’t as though Visser had treated her much better than he had treated Romeo.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered, trying to get my head around that.
“Exactly,” he replied through gritted teeth.
“Please tell me she got out.”
His hands squeezed into fists, his knuckles turning white and the veins all up his arms protruding to the point where I thought they could burst. “I fucking thought she had. I packed up all her shit one day while he was at work. Had a guy in the force owe me a favor for not fucking killing him when he tried to jack some shit. She was meant to be put in hiding. He swore he would. Somewhere even I wouldn’t be able to find her.”
“But apparently that never happened.”
“Visser must have found out. He must have taken her and…” he paused, and I could read the pain on his face. The way his brow pulled together and his nose scrunched up. “That was his parting fucking blow. That I’d thought for two years she was safe and making a life somewhere. Instead, he’d destroyed it.”
He really cared about this girl.
Whether it was romantic, or whether he was just protective of her like a brother would be of his sister, I couldn’t quite tell. But it didn’t matter.
I pulled my phone from my pocket.
Romeo watched curiously out of the corner of his eye as I found the contact I needed and his dial.
Ring. Ring.
“What’s up?”
“Hey, Wrench, I need your help.”
