Roman's Redemption: Roman: Book II (Roman's Trilogy) (17 page)

Lizbeth is putting my things away while Mother and I sit on the front porch watching Ivy play in the sprawling, rich green grounds surrounding the plantation. Contentment settles around me and for the first time in a long time I feel as though I can finally, blessedly breathe.

“I knew you’d like it here.” Mother’s voice stirs me from my internal musings. “You were born here, child, I know you only remember the ranch growing up, but we lived here with my momma and her sisters until you turned one. Sittin’ out here watching Ivy play brings back so many of those memories.”

From the corner of my eye I watch my mother’s hand come up and wipe away a stray tear before continuing to speak with a cracked voice, “I…Sebastian, I know I wasn’t the best Momma in the world. I know you’re angry at me, and if there was anything I could do to take back time and fix the things my actions broke, I promise, child, I would.”

“You would?” I ask narrowing my eyes on hers as she nods. “And what about the things your actions are breaking now, you gonna fix those too, or wait thirty more years before you let the guilt of them reach your soul?”

She gasps as if I’ve struck her, as if the words I speak are sins committed in the middle of the church aisle before the entire congregation.

My chuckle causes her to recoil, sinking back into her seat and turning herself away from me.

“Mother, your job is done here, go,” I nod towards the road. “Go back to your beloved Roman. I think Lizbeth, Ivy, and I will manage just fine without you.” I stand from the porch swing and jog down the steps and out into the yard over to where Ivy is kneeled in the grass watching as two ladybugs crawl up each of her chubby fingers and around her wrist.

“Hey, Winter Ivy, whatcha got there?” She flicks both ladybugs off her hand and looks away. “What’s wrong, darlin’? Can I get you something?”

After she stands up she brushes her hands down the backside of her skirt and runs towards the house calling out over her shoulder, “Yeah. You can get me my shoes and take me back to my momma and daddy!”

When she slams the front door behind her my eyes drift over to where Mother is standing on the edge of the porch. It strikes me how much she looks like royalty, her green chiffon dress is blowing in the warm, humid wind. Her dark dress contrasts against the white house with seven massive pillars holding up the two hundred year old house.

When our eyes lock her eyebrow raises and she smirks before turning and following Ivy into the house.                                                                                                                                                                           

It takes time. Patience. Love. As well as the desperate need to succeed in order to obtain something you truly want. Winter was much harder to break and remold than I originally thought she would be. We had our squabbles, our disagreements, which I guess is all a part of breaking down a spoiled child and making sure she is taught her place. Luckily for her, she is a quick learner. Ask questions, you go in the box. Disobey, you go in the box. Talk back, disrespect, ask for your parents, fail to eat your dinner, defy me in any way, you go in the box. The first few times I was concerned, but before I changed my strategy little miss Winter’s screams began to become quieter, her fingers, once bloody nubs from clawing at the raw wood of the box started healing, and her time spent in the box lessened fairly quickly. And when I saw the last of that obstinate fire in her eyes, the last of her will being snuffed from her young soul, I knew I’d finally succeeded. I’d finally won.

I didn’t like the amount of weight she’d lost because of her misbehavior, but sometimes a parent has to accept there are some things even we cannot control.

It’s been almost a week since Winter has been punished and sent to the box, she’s set her own little record and I doubt I could be more proud. Well, at least until the first time I saw her in her preschool uniform.

My dear sweet Winter, pretty as a flower. Lizbeth french braided her hair into pigtails. She wore her white cap sleeved button up shirt tucked into her blue plaid skirt, with knee high socks and her shiny black patent leather shoes. Pretty as a flower.

“We’re all ready, aren’t we Winter?” Lizbeth smiles while helping Winter with her backpack.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Remember the rules?” I ask her walking from the shadows of the room.

“Yes, sir.”

Lizbeth hands her a lunch box.

“Most important?”

She sighs before straightening her back and correcting her posture, “My name is Winter Angelina and I moved here from up in New…” Her brows furrow, “New Yolk. You is my dad,” Her chin quivers and her eyes water for a split second, causing me to almost kibosh this entire absurd plan. Then she looks at Lizbeth, smiles and whispers, “You is my mommy.”

I stare at her, dead pan, “New York. Upstate New York. I guess it’ll be fine. Surely they’ll blame your ignorance on your young age.”

I see her mother’s attitude glaring at me from her blue eyes before she’s able to hide it. When I step forward and raise my hand prepared to slap her across her bratty face, Lizbeth steps forward.

“You did very good, sweetie. Let’s get going, you don’t want to be late to school on your first day.” Lizbeth grabs her keys and smiles over her shoulder at me, leaving she mouths ‘goodbye.’

Damn spoiled little bitch.

Oh little miss Winter will be spending the night in the outhouse out back, also known as the box for her little display of misbehavior.

She may have been easier than her mother to break, but I have a distinct feeling my problem with her will be a continuous fight between me and the innate will and strength she inherited from both Roman and Mac.

Chapter 24

When the authorities found Dolores’ car abandoned on the side of the interstate ten hours after she and Ivy left to go to the shoe store only thirty minutes away, my whole world fucking exploded. From the moment Heather was found, Andrew has been working nonstop trying to find Sebastian, as far as the underworld knows, there’s a million dollar bounty on his head. I want him dead or alive. Hell, I’ll take just his head at this point. The authorities are ‘doing everything they can.’ But still everyone is coming up short.

Everyone except my father, that is. Apparently he’s been funding the bastard’s extravagant lifestyle for almost a year.

While Dolores spoke to Heather, asking to take Ivy to get her some new shoes, and Heather agreed- she then kissed our baby girl for possibly the last time, my father laid out what looked like eight by ten crime scene photos. And there were more than enough of them.

Sebastian has been planning this game much longer than I anticipated. After the photos of my sins were laid out across my desk, more photos were laid out on top. These photos were of the different samples he’d collected. Semen, pubic hair, swabs of god only knows what, murder weapons, cut cable ties, up close pictures of pre and post mortem inflicted wounds, abrasions, and ligature marks.

It is an extensive list of items for an expert serial killer/rapist starter kit. Practically a ‘how to guide’ for any novice looking to sharpen his skills.

With judgment staring back at me from my father’s eyes, he promised to defend me and remain at my side. He promised we would overcome these trying times and, as a whole family, we would always make it out of every hard time. Even be strengthened from it.

We aren’t a whole family any longer.

And I don’t see us coming out of this stronger than before. I have half a wife and a missing daughter. Things like wholeness, strength, and family died the day Ivy went missing. Honestly I don’t believe things will ever be whole again, not until my baby girl is returned.

There are so many questions and absolutely no answers.

Why did Sebastian go to my father for the money when it was my debts needing to be paid? Who took Ivy? Did Sebastian? And if so, why? To hurt my wife? Or to hurt me? Where is Dolores? Was she also kidnapped? Was she murdered? Was Ivy…I can’t even finish the last thought without standing from behind my desk with such force my chair slams into the wall and I begin pacing the length of the wall made of floor to ceiling windows in my office, raking my hands through my hair.

Tension is rolling off of me in waves as frustration and dread settles heavy around me, so much so when Andrew knocks on the door I’m in his face before his foot can cross the threshold, “What the fuck do you want?”

“Sit down.” Andrew’s hands clamp like vices around my wrists and he jerks the lapels of his suit jacket from my fists. “Once you calm down, stop seeing red, and stop breathing like you’re having an asthma attack, I’ll tell you what I’ve interrupted your brooding and pacing for.”

I’m going to kill him. I know I promised Heather that Sebastian would be the only person I had left to kill, but Andrew is quickly making a liar out of me. “Andrew. Do. Not. Fuck. With. Me.”

“Breathe. Stop talking through your clenched teeth. Let me know when the red has cleared.”

“ANDREW!”

He slides a file across the desk, knocks twice, and pins my eyes with his. “One of my men, Jase, found Dolores. She’s in his warehouse right outside Tucson, a little place called Catalina right off highway 79. He said his kid brother ran into her at Denny’s in Flagstaff, remembered hearing his brother talking about a missing kid and the picture of the old lady she was last seen with. The kid, Stevie, he’d been a busboy at the restaurant for less than two weeks, and he made quite a scene when he questioned her before dragging her out of the restaurant. Cops showed up, but they were already thirty miles away headed south to Jase’s place.”

Andrew flips the file open and raps his knuckle twice on the picture, drawing my eyes downward.

It takes me a minute to recognize the woman who practically raised me. She looks so frail, her face has aged a decade, and the circles around her eyes make her thin face look harsh and gaunt.

“Jesus H Christ.” My eyes scan every detail of the picture, memorizing every angle, looking at every item in the room captured inside the pictures frame. “How long has Jase been working for you? Do you trust him?”

He sinks into the oxford leather chair across from my desk and sighs, “I trust him, he’s been with us a little over five years.”

I nod before my thoughts begin falling from my mouth, “I want Dolores brought back home. Have one of the maids open up her room, notify me as soon as she’s here. I want her questioned and I want it taped. I don’t care if she is interrogated for twenty-four hours, I want answers. All I’ve been given so far are more questions, and now it’s time to get the answers I fucking deserve.”

Andrew leans over, pushing the heel of his hands against his eyes, “Man, Jase has questioned her for thirteen hours straight, she isn’t saying shit. She won’t say who took Ivy, she won’t say where the last place she saw Ivy was, hell, Jase said she hasn’t even uttered a single word.”

Grabbing up the file, I stalk towards the door, “Oh she’ll talk. Get her home and tell her I asked her to talk, and she’ll talk, mark my words.”

After stalking through the house my feet abruptly stop in the hallway outside our bedroom when my eyes land on my wife’s small frame huddled on an overstuffed chair looking out the window. There is no emotion to be seen, no tears, no sadness, just a blank stare on her expressionless face.

I want to ask her what she’s thinking, how she feels, but I never ask because I don’t want the answer I already know I don’t want to hear. After padding my way across the hardwood floor, I lean over my mouse’s still frame and brush my lips on the top of her head, whispering, “Why are you sitting in the dark, mouse? Are you okay?”

I count to a hundred before conceding my defeat, “I love you. I’m going to shower, I’ll be right out.”

The door to the bathroom almost closes behind me when I hear my wife’s doppelganger speak, “Roman, you know just as much as I that Dolores Chaisson is behind your daughter’s disappearance. Heather, or mouse, whatever the hell you call her, may prefer to keep her blinders on and ignore the shit I saw, the similarities between the main players on the other guy’s team I clocked five seconds into this twisted game we’re all playing. I just pray to whatever God listening you won’t let your ignorance blind you like your weak wife.”