Page 14

14

Roman

R oman couldn’t stop thinking about yesterday.

He’d been attracted to Aldous since the beginning. He enjoyed pushing him to his limits, but was careful not to tread beyond that. Aldous’s past was a blade that had shredded his family to ribbons. Further traumatising a wounded soul for sport wasn’t something he was capable of. He wasn’t a sadist.

Roman had always been careful to keep his jokes cheeky rather than flirtatious. He hadn’t let his gaze linger too long. And, most importantly, he’d kept his attraction to himself.

Except yesterday, Aldous hadn’t extended him the same courtesy.

The interlude in the cabana had been more than fun—it had been enlightening.

It had started with the familiar prickling on his skin when Bri took his shirt off. The feeling he was being watched. Bri’s eyes perused his body, sure, but so did her husband’s.

Initially, Roman reasoned with himself, but by the time he freed his erection there was no doubting it. Aldous’s gaze positively smouldered as he drank in the sight of Roman’s cock, every bit as aroused as Bri.

Aldous had reclined against the pillows, his thick length outlined against his trousers and hooded eyes rasping across Roman’s lithe form.

He hadn’t dared acknowledge it, because he knew the moment he did would be the moment Aldous fled. Instead, Roman had been subtle, sneaking in glimpses where he could, devouring the way Aldous bit into his bottom lip. The sight of him reclining on a bed, blistering with lust. The unyielding erection between his legs. Shit, even the hint of chest hair poking through the vee of his shirt.

Even thinking of it now had his cock hardening. It was miracle enough that Bri returned his feelings, not even mentioning the fact he’d wrangled his way into her bed. To have both Bri and Aldous at the same time?

Christ. He’d embark on his long-awaited retirement from his prodigious career as a professional friend with benefits. Roman’s eyes drifted over to Aldous, exhaling softly. His job did make it more difficult to date, that was true. But it was also true that he hadn’t really found anyone he’d wanted to settle down with—and not for the lack of searching.

It was sod’s law that he found two of them at once, and that they were already married to each other.

A sharp metallic shot rang out across the dock.

Roman fought his instinct to yank Aldous down, even as he watched the crane drop its load onto the metal shipping container beneath. For the rest of the port, it was business as usual. The sheer amount of noise was immense; the rumble of ship engines, the beeping and hissing of machinery, the gentle creaking of dock lines, and, loudest of all, the occasional blast of a brain-rattling foghorn.

It was technically his day off. Koa had sent a replacement to guard Bri for the day. Roman had taken the chance to accompany Aldous to the port to watch the Jalisco steel shipment being unloaded. Not that Bri really needed her replacement guard—she was breakfasting at some fancy restaurant with Reina, plus both her guards.

Today, Aldous needed him more.

“Nothing will happen,” Roman assured him gently. Perhaps more gently than he would have before yesterday. “This place is crawling with Syndicate men, all ready to secrete away the, ah, steel .”

Aldous’s clenched jaw briefly loosened its hold. “Are they men you know?”

“Some.” The two of them had passed Koa’s SUV on the way in, but Roman had seen neither hide nor hair of him so far.

“I’ll sleep easier knowing Vivian’s additions are off my ship.”

Roman couldn’t blame him. He wouldn’t sleep well knowing there was millions of dollars of cocaine being smuggled in on a ship he owned either. “You know I wouldn’t have let anything happen to you.”

A guarded frown crossed Aldous’s brow.

As the last container was loaded off the ship, Roman turned to face him. Narrowed eyes. Crossed arms. Clenched jaw. Tension pouring off him like smoke from a flame. The man couldn’t look any more closed off if he tried.

Roman stared into those amber depths for so long he was in danger of getting lost in them. “We haven’t talked about yesterday.”

Aldous’s voice was a curt snarl. “I see no reason to.”

Roman stepped closer, until almost all the distance between them had been bridged. Pleasure hummed through him—a month ago, Aldous would never have allowed him to get this close. “I disagree.” Roman lowered his voice to a whisper. “There was one thing I wasn’t quite satisfied with.”

Focusing on the ship, Aldous ignored him.

“One of us didn’t come.”

Aldous’s eyes blazed, a sneer creasing his nose—but a voice interrupted whatever he’d been about to say.

“Roman.” Koa jogged up to them, his footsteps surprisingly light for his broad frame. “I’ve been looking for you.”

That caught his attention. “Why? Has something happened to Bri?”

“She’s still having breakfast with Reina, same as when you left her. Reina’s security guard updated me not two minutes ago. They’re fine.” Koa’s eyes flicked to Aldous. “No, I need to talk to you. Privately.”

Roman gave an easy shrug. “Whatever you need to say can be said in front of Aldous.”

Koa didn’t look convinced. “You’ve known him for weeks, and you expect me to trust him with sensitive information?”

“Take it or leave it, babe.” He shrugged, not bothering to correct his friend’s misassumption. He knew Aldous far better than Koa realised, even before Bri’s wedding.

With a huff of indecision, Koa relented. “Martinez and his wife are dead. So is Figueroa.”

Surprise had him taking a step back. Martinez and Figueroa were both on the Syndicate’s committee—one step below Vivian and Reina. “How?”

“Home invasion for Martinez. His wife was shot dead in her bed, but Martinez wasn’t so lucky.”

“Was it the Wraiths?” Roman asked, frowning.

Koa nodded. “We don’t even know how they got Figueroa. One of the warehouses just got his head delivered in a fucking box. There was an attempt on Gaskell the day before yesterday, but Gaskell hamstrung the bastard and handed him over to Vivian.”

Roman’s lips curved. That was a fate worse than death— by far . “Has he revealed anything useful?”

“Nothing we didn’t already know.” The bump on his throat shifted. “They’re working their way up the food chain, and sooner or later they’re going to reach the top.”

The Wraiths were perhaps the only gang in the area Roman hadn’t worked with—meaning he had no sway with them whatsoever.

All he knew was that they worked systematically. They were ruthlessly, chillingly efficient, killing without mercy and vanishing without a trace.

There was a reason they hadn’t hired him like the other gangs did. They didn’t need to. He was one man, one killer—the Wraiths were all killers.

Laughter danced across the table as the five of them sat round it. Dinner with Dex and his fiancé Laila had been enjoyable. Bri and Laila seemed to be getting on particularly well. Next to Bri sat Aldous, who became more disagreeable with every hour that passed. He’d barely said a word through the main course, and nothing at all during dessert.

“So where did you two meet?” Bri asked, smiling good-naturedly at their guests across her empty dessert bowl.

On her other side, Aldous glared.

Dex smiled at Laila softly, a ruby engagement ring sitting on her finger. “Funnily enough, Roman introduced us.”

Releasing a bark of laughter, Roman stretched out, laying his hand across the back of Dex’s seat with a smirk. “In a way.”

“What does that mean?” Bri asked, her enquiring smile one of someone searching to be included in the joke. She adjusted her seizure bracelet to allow her to rest her arm on the ocean of varnished oak comfortably.

With a flick of his dirty blond hair, Dex crossed his arms. “Roman and I were sort of together at the time. Long distance, but we saw each other once a month or so. One day he asked me if I’d ever thought about… inviting someone to visit our bedroom, shall we say.”

As he glanced away, a muscle in Aldous’s jaw ticked.

Apparently someone was even more bad-tempered than usual tonight. Hopefully Bri wasn’t hoping to throw many dinner parties.

“Oh.” Bri’s eyes widened, as though yesterday he hadn’t tongue-fucked her cunt whilst her husband watched.

“So I introduced Dex to Laila.” Not that Laila had been called that then, but Roman wasn’t going to deadname her. “And quickly realised that the two of them were disgustingly, sickeningly perfect for each other.”

Dex’s grin flashed, putting down his cutlery. “You’re always welcome back for a visit. ”

The offer didn’t surprise him—it had been the same one they extended every time they caught up together. Roman usually accepted. His work meant that maintaining a relationship was difficult, and Dex and Laila both knew his likes and dislikes, and he knew theirs in turn.

His gaze slid across the table to Bri. He would usually accept… but after everything that had happened between the three of them, it felt disloyal to do so this time. Roman opened his mouth to decline, but a growl cut across the dining table.

“Enough,” Aldous snapped, darkness swirling in his eyes. “Bri has been waiting days to learn more about her father. Put her out of her misery.”

“You’re right.” Dex held his hands up. “I got carried away talking.”

Roman got to his feet and, with Laila and Bri’s help, began to clear away the dishes. “No need to be a dick about it though, eh?” he whispered to Aldous, knowing it would only anger him further.

His broad shoulders dipping in a long exhale, Aldous’s jaw clenched.

Collecting up Aldous’s empty bowl, Roman leant in over his shoulder, until his lips almost touched his ear. “Your dentist must hate you,” he murmured, low enough that only they could hear. Roman briefly dropped his focus to Aldous’s lips before flicking back up to those amber eyes—eyes that had held him captive since their first meeting.

It would be so easy to give in to the desires burning him from the inside out, but—as usual—he resisted.

As the plates cleared, Dex was quick to take up the space they’d occupied with the documents he’d brought. Some of it was familiar; copies of the documents they’d seen back in the records room were here, but so were similar looking records of other properties in Mexico owned by Jose Hernández.

A surprising amount, actually. Why the fuck did one man need to own so much property?

“So I’ve been able to track his whereabouts up to a certain point,” Dex began, sharing a somewhat hesitant look with Roman. “He was born in 1950 in Mexico City.” He tapped a photocopy of a birth certificate. “His father—your grandfather, Jose Sr—was also born in Mexico City, and served in World War II as part of the 201 st Fighter Squadron.”

Amazement lit up Bri’s eyes. “Was he a pilot?”

“Not quite. A mechanic.” A smiling Dex laid out a photo on the table; three men stood before a fighter jet aboard what looked to be an aircraft carrier, their hair lifted by the breeze. “This one is your grandfather.”

Pressing her fingers to her lips, Bri beamed down at the photograph. “This is incredible.”

“As for your grandmother, I don’t know when or how they met. I can just connect the dots they’ve left behind. In 1945, your grandfather married an African-American woman called Mary le Beau.” He passed her another photograph, this one displaying a couple smiling on what was, presumably, their wedding day.

Dex continued, detailing the bare bones of Jose Hernández Jr’s life. There wasn’t much to go on—census records, a house purchase, a mention in a newspaper. Clearing his throat, Dex sighed. “Which brings us to 1968.”

Bri looked to Roman and then to Aldous. “What happened in 1968?”

“Your father was at university in Mexico City. He became involved in a student movement that was occurring at the time. He attended a protest a few days before the Olympics began—a peaceful protest, but a large one. Around 10,000 people, if I remember rightly.”

A flicker of recognition dawned on Bri, quickly followed by a horrified gasp. “Was that the massacre?”

Dex nodded.

“Massacre?” Roman asked, bewildered.

“We learnt about it in school,” Bri explained quickly. “Students were protesting against the Olympics, and the government ordered the army to open fire on them. So my father was actually there ?”

“He was—and he was arrested for his trouble. From what I can tell, he wasn’t injured, but after 1968, your father’s tracks become harder to trace. What I can find are more arrest records. He spent time in at least one detention centre for attacks against state forces, which eventually snowballed into kidnapping and assassinations.”

Bri’s focus jumped over to Roman at the final word, but quickly returned to Dex. “Against who? The public?”

“Intelligence officers. The police. Even the army. Whichever part of the regime he could get his hands on. The last mention of Jose Jr was in 1982, after he escaped from prison in Mexico City.”

To her credit, she didn’t flinch. “So that’s it? He just disappears off the face of the earth?”

“He was three years into a 38-year prison sentence. I think I’d rather disappear too.” Dex’s eyes were compassionate. “I do have a photograph of him, but it’s not as casual as the others.”

Bri frowned. “Then what is it?”

“A mugshot.”

She held her hand out. “Let me see.”

Roman approached her as Dex gave her the black-and-white photograph, glancing over her shoulder. A dark-skinned man holding up a placard glared back at them in the photo, his nose covered in a bandage and both eyes shadowed in bruising.

Recognition flared within him in an instant. “He looks like you,” he murmured, running a tender hand down the indent in her waist. Kind of.

She looked back at him, her smile inches from his. “Do you think?” she whispered, her voice a hush of excitement.

“You have his cheekbones.” Roman dropped his voice, pulling her back to his front. “His chin. Probably not his nose though.”

“Or his ability to commit armed robberies.” Her lips pursed to the side with a playful edge.

“Don’t say that,” Roman drew the sentence out, as though he was comforting a disappointed child. “I’m sure you’d be great at them.”

Something halfway between a snort and a giggle escaped Bri’s lungs. She turned back to Dex. “Thank you for finding all this,” she told him, awash in sincerity. “Given who my mother is, I expected my father would be a little rough around the edges.”

That was one word for it.

Dex’s knowing look passed between Roman and Bri. “It was my pleasure.”

Aldous’s curt footsteps approached the table for the first time. “How long do you think it’ll take you to actually complete the job?”

The question caught Dex on the backfoot. He paused, in the middle of packing Jose Hernández’s paper trail back into a folder. “I can’t promise anything, but if you want me to carry on searching then I’ll certainly tr—”

“Good.” Aldous’s voice sliced through Dex’s, his expression devoid of emotion. “Then I look forward to your next report.”

Roman huffed out a frustrated sigh as Aldous stalked from the room. The distant sound of his footsteps on the spiral staircase reached their ears. What did I say about not being a dick?

The silence of Aldous’s departure clogged the air in the room, and Roman’s face contorted into an apologetic grimace. “If it makes the two of you feel better,” he whispered, his voice exaggerated, “he’s like that to everyone.”

He wasn’t, strictly. In fact, Aldous seemed to hate Dex and Laila even more than he hated everyone else.

Dex let Aldous’s rudeness roll right off his back, returning the folder into his battered leather satchel—but leaving the photographs he’d brought with him. “I’ll do my best to find him.”

“Even if I’m just chasing ghosts?” Bri asked quietly. “He wasn’t exactly young when he had me.”

“No,” Dex agreed, putting an arm around Laila and swinging his satchel over his shoulder. “But I’ll keep looking. With any luck, we’ll find him before...”

Dex cleared his throat, leaving the rest unsaid, but Roman heard it all the same. Before it’s too late.