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Roman

T he familiar scent of his motorbike helmet pressed in on his head from all angles as he turned onto the desert road. The day was hot, but the bike’s engine was hotter, the vibrations allowing him to feel every inch of the asphalt. He shifted up a gear with his foot, no doubt smearing an oily mark over his heavy black boots.

Roman increased his speed as the road stretched out in front of him, man and machine working together in a symphony of noise and heat.

But through it all, there was only one thing he could focus on: Aldous.

Roman didn’t think he’d ever been so hard in his life—and that was saying something. The feel of Aldous’s lips against his own had been equal parts magic and erotic. Fuck, and the low rumble of the groans the man made.

He’d been a second away from getting on his knees to hear more of them when the fear had set into Aldous’s eyes. The horror.

Sexuality was a complicated concept for many men, particularly when it came to their attraction to other men. Initially, Roman had thought Aldous was being homophobic towards Dex—and then the penny dropped.

Roman had been relieved, both because Aldous wasn’t a bigoted prick and because it meant that Roman’s attraction to him wasn’t one-sided.

Not that that made things simple. If anything, it made it that much more complicated. Aldous’s cousin, Jensen, had previously asked him to dig up old newspaper documents related to Jensen’s murder charge.

Twenty odd years ago, Jensen and Rhys, Aldous’s older brother, had been arrested for the torture and murder of a man called Graeme Friedman, the headmaster of a local private school. One that Aldous attended. A few years later, there had been a retrial, after evidence came to light that Friedman had abused several of the children in his care.

And even twenty years later, Aldous still couldn’t stand to have people touch him.

Roman didn’t have to be a fucking genius to connect the dots.

After he’d left Aldous’s room, he’d been halfway through a text to Jenny, asking him—for no particular reason—to message Aldous to double check he was okay. Then he’d heard the moaning.

Thank Christ I didn’t send that text.

A text had arrived for Roman, however. The Silvas cartel had payment for his hit in Tijuana ready and waiting. The last job he’d done before Aldous had careened back into his life.

He slid his tongue along the inside of his lip. It had taken all of his willpower not to touch Aldous last night, his hands steadfastly at his sides, itching to sink them into Aldous’s hair or slide over his chest or delve into those grey fucking sweatpa—

Roman gave himself a mental headshake. Now was not the time to be getting hard. If he rocked up to his meeting rock hard, then Tomas would get the wrong idea.

He pulled off the main road onto a desert track. The journey would have been quicker on his R1—a high-performance Supersport bike—but the last thirty miles were why he’d chosen to make the journey on his trailbike.

Eventually, he arrived at the gates guarding the entrance to the Silvas compound. Warning signs littered the area, warning of loose dogs, itchy trigger fingers, electric fences, and video surveillance. Movement in the guardhouse told him he wouldn’t have to wait long, but they’d have been alerted he was coming from the moment he turned onto the desert track.

Roman should know; he helped install the security system.

The heavy gates slid open before him, and he sent a nod to whoever was manning the guardhouse. Finn, most likely. Shifting forward, he opened the throttle and carried on down the driveway, entering the compound proper.

Buildings appeared as he neared the vast main hall, a barn that had been converted and extended until it barely resembled its former self. Parking his bike, he pulled off his helmet with a groan of relief, ruffling his hair after its confinement.

The blast of air conditioning that hit him as he walked into the lounge was even more of a relief. At this hour, it was mostly empty, but tonight it would be a hive of activity. Silvas members would swarm the bar like flies, throwing back shots as easily as water.

At this time of the day, however, the cushy sofas and bar stools were empty of the arses that usually filled them. Only two people remained: the bartender and Tomas, his hip cocked against the bar as he sipped from a tumbler.

“I wasn’t expecting you until later,” Tomas said, his voice drifting across the large open space. “I thought you were working for the Syndicate.”

His heavy boots thudded against the wooden flooring. “I am.” He smirked, knowing the beef between the Silvas cartel and the Syndicate stretched back far longer than he could remember. Roman took jobs from both, but he was careful not to get involved with inter-organisational quarrels. “Although I’d be interested to know who told you that.”

Tomas flashed a dark smile at him, stubble shadowing his angular jaw. “I’m sure you would. Mezcal?”

Roman shook his head. “As much as I enjoy your legendary hospitality, today is a flying visit. I’ll take anything non-alcoholic and cold; it’s a long drive back.”

“Made up your favourite room,” Tomas tempted him.

“Next time,” he promised, accepting a glass from the bartender. “I can’t be away overnight.”

“From your job or someone’s bed?”

Roman sent him an easy shrug, not biting back his grin. “Sometimes they’re one and the same.”

Revulsion was a spasm across Tomas’s face. “Please tell me you’re not fucking Vivian Yarborough.”

He choked on the soda he’d been sipping, coughing until his eyes watered. “Why,” he spluttered, “would you put that image in my head?”

Tomas’s laughter, full-bodied and infectious, echoed around the empty hall, but there was curiosity at its end. “Wouldn’t happen to be that billionaire asshole you’re living with, would it?”

Roman kept his face empty of the emotion pounding in his chest, but he suddenly realised where Tomas was getting his information. “Dex and Laila stopped through here on their way back, did they?”

“Maybe,” Tomas admitted, running his hand over his closely cropped hair. “There’s rumours on the street the Syndicate are having some issues. That true?”

“Might be. At first, I did wonder whether you were behind it.” Tomas’s father, the Comandante, always had a strict policy of not interacting with the Syndicate. But Dante wasn’t in charge anymore; Tomas’s older brother was—and Arturo played a very different ballgame.

“We might have been… taking advantage of the chaos, to put it bluntly. With them so wrapped up in their internal politics, it’s been easier to ramp up our operations. But no, we’re not the source. You know who is?”

If it was anyone else, Roman would have kept his mouth shut. “Word is it’s the Wraiths.”

The good humour slid off Tomas’s jaw and shattered onto the floor. “Fuck.”

Roman agreed. Dante’s famous hatred of the Syndicate was a line in the sand, one the Silvas cartel knew not to cross. The Syndicate extended them the same courtesy.

The Wraiths were different. They weren’t just a cartel or a gang; they were a full-on paramilitary operation with a penchant for violence and enough firepower to operate with impunity.

Roman knew what Tomas was thinking by the sharp clench of his jaw. The Wraiths extended no courtesies, and if they were gunning for more territory then it wouldn’t be long before the Silvas cartel was in the firing line. Again.

Next to an air vent above the bar hung a Wraith medallion, slowly spiralling like a malevolent wind chime. The only way to obtain one was to be sworn into the Wraiths—or to take the life of one of its members.

“It makes sense, as much as I don’t like to admit it,” Tomas admitted reluctantly. “Over the last few months, we’ve had reports of people paying to be smuggled across the border, but never arriving. People picked up from homeless shelters, but never returning.”

Roman’s brow pulled together. “How many reports?”

“Enough that it reached our ears far before it happened to someone we knew.” Tomas exhaled, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “I don’t give a shit who it is, Roman, but I need somewhere to start.”

“Who disappeared?” he asked quietly. “One of your members?”

Tomas shook his head, his eyes firmly shuttering. “A girl I knew.”

“I’ll try and find out what I can. I know the Syndicate caught a Wraith a couple of days ago. If they’ve got anything out of him, I’ll be sure to pass it along.”

“Appreciate it.” Clearing his throat, Tomas opened his jacket to pull out a little wallet of cards from an inner pocket—cards, Roman knew, that were pre-loaded with cash to pay contractors like himself.

Over on the bar, a phone buzzed. Tomas picked it up. An incoming call notification filled the screen, but it was the photo at the centre that seized Roman’s attention. It was a man he recognised, Dante, smiling in the very room they were in now. A birthday cake sat in front of him, with a gold 70 candle lit.

As Tomas answered the call, Roman’s face loosened in shock. Not because of anything Tomas did, but because it wasn’t the first time in 24 hours that he’d looked at a photo of Dante.

Last night, when Dex laid out the array of documents and photographs, Roman knew he recognised the mugshot of Bri’s father. It hadn’t been some undiscernible resemblance to Bri after all. He’d met the man before, albeit nearly forty years after the mugshot was taken.

The last mention of Jose Jr was in 1982, after he escaped from prison in Mexico City.

But Roman didn’t know him as Jose; he had always been Dante—or El Comandante. The Commander.

Fuck.

Did Tomas know? Or Arturo? What about the fine line bullshit Dante had always touted to keep his business away from the Syndicate’s? Was that because he knew Vivian was raising his daughter?

His shocked expression morphed into an ugly grimace of revulsion. That meant Dante and Vivian had slept together. Ew. Roman suppressed a shudder; he could digest that sour realisation another time.

Because Bri mentioned finding a birthday letter from her father—so he knew of her existence.

He frantically tapped Tomas to get his attention. “I need to speak to your father. It’s urgent.”

Tomas stopped mid-sentence, frowning at whatever he saw on Roman’s face. Eventually, though, he passed the phone over.

“Dante?” he began, a thousand explanations rushing through his mind. “It’s Roman.”

“Hey, gunslinger.” Dante’s familiar voice came down the line, hoarse with age. It had been more than a year since they’d met in person. “You keeping outta trouble these days?”

“Not so much,” Roman’s laugh was tight. “I… I’m working as a bodyguard for Brianna Yarborough.”

“Oh.” For a stuttered breath, there was silence. “She got married recently, didn’t she?”

Too late, he realised his mistake. She was Brianna Stone now . “She did.”

“To some foreign billionaire. I saw the photos—she didn’t look very happy.” Dante’s tone was rougher than expected, but Roman trudged on.

“Not at first,” he admitted, “but they’re getting on okay.” More than okay, if the noise from Aldous’s bedroom last night was anything to go by. “Her husband and I have been helping her with something actually. Bri’s looking for someone.”

“Oh?”

Roman didn’t mince his words. “Her father.”

The pause that followed was an all-consuming black hole, relentlessly pulling in the world around them. Where Dante said nothing, however, Tomas jumped into motion—shifting from casually chatting to the bartender to locking eyes with Roman, his full lips parting in surprise.

In the absence of the actions of the father, those of the son confirmed something: Dante hadn’t kept Bri’s parentage a secret. If Tomas knew that they had a younger half-sister, then so did Arturo.

“Dex was looking into things for us, tracking her father based on the little info we had to go on. The trail went cold in the ‘80s, but he showed us a mugshot last night,” Roman said, low and quiet. “I thought the guy was familiar, but it’s only now that I’ve connected the dots.”

Dante’s silence continued.

“I can’t keep this from her, Dante.” Roman spoke to him as much as he spoke to Tomas. He may have worked for the Silvas cartel as a contractor, but he wasn’t bound to obey them. “I… I care for her too much to do that.”

Finally, Dante’s gruff voice broke the spell of silence. “Will she want to meet me?”

The relief of his admission cracked a smile across Roman’s face. “I think so. Do you want to meet her?”

“Since the moment we were parted. The only thing standing in the way of that has been her mother.”

“Then let me see what I can do,” he promised, passing the phone back to Tomas and pulling out his own. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure they’d ever discover her father’s identity, but not only was her father still alive—he wanted to meet her.

The edge of his lips curled up, excitement flowing through his veins as his phone unlocked. Notifications filled his screen, as they always did. His eye caught on one he hadn’t seen before, but the bottom of his stomach dropped out when he realised what it was.

SeizWatch: Seizure Detected 171 Minutes Ago

Adrenaline slammed into him like he’d just been thrown off his bike, cutting through the satisfaction of finally finding Bri’s father. She’d had a seizure—nearly three hours ago , whilst he’d been riding through the desert’s haze without a care in the fucking world.

“Fuck,” he croaked. He’d abandoned her this morning, and for what? To get paid.

Roman’s fingers flew across the phone screen. His nerves had always gifted him a steady hand, but not today. His phone trembled in his grip, shaking like a leaf as he held it up to his ear.

“What’s up?” Tomas asked him, one eyebrow hitched.

“Bri has epilepsy, and she had another seizure.” His voice almost cracked. “Come on,” he willed, barely hearing Tomas’s response. “Pick up, pick up, pick u—"

“Hey you,” a surprisingly flirty voice answered.

“ Bri ,” he choked. “I got a notification that you had a seizure. What happened? Was it a false alarm? Are y—?”

“I’m fine,” Bri spoke over him. “I did have a seizure. Bit my tongue pretty bad, but thankfully it wasn’t like last time. It was, what, a minute max, Aldous?” There was a pause. “He says it was a minute and fifty one seconds.”

“Fucking hell, I nearly had a heart attack.” Roman leant on the bar, inhaling for the first time since he’d seen the notification. “Did you fall again?”

“No, we were already, um, in bed.” He almost laughed at her awkwardness. “But Aldous has been looking after me. He’s already had the doctor out here, but even though she said I’m fine someone still won’t let me out of bed.”

Her voice was pointed—no doubt at her husband—but Roman agreed with him. “No, do what Aldous says. Stay in bed for the day. Let him take care of you. The last thing we want is you pushing yourself too soon and having another seizure. I’ll be home in a couple of hours to keep you company, okay?”

“I’ll keep a spot in the bed warm for you, shall I?” Roman could feel Tomas’s stare burning into him, but thankfully Bri didn’t go any further. “Where are you?”

“I…” What could he say? He was with her half-brother? Would telling her the truth cause too much excitement this soon after a seizure? Roman wasn’t nearly qualified enough to answer that. In the end, he decided that he couldn’t keep it from her. “I had some business to take care of, but I actually ended up taking care of yours too.”

She paused. “I don’t know what you mean. Has my mother done something?”

Roman gave a soft laugh. “No, patootie. I found your father, and he wants to meet you.”