ROMA KING: Book 1 in the Roma Royals Duet Read online

  “Gypsies?” Andrew asks.

  “Yeah. Haven’t you been watching the news? They caught them last week. Two of ’em. Brothers. Cops caught ‘em trying to rob a bank. That would be interesting, at least.”

  “If they were only arrested last week, they won’t be in court yet,” Andrew says, but he still sits forward, resting his forearms against the bar. Waylon’s eyes have hardened at the topic of conversation. Even Garrett has looked up from his Jack. It seems Henry has the attention of the men, even if Sarah blows out her cheeks and begins to trace the tip of her index finger through the ring of condensation left by her glass on the bar top.

  “I heard there was a whole camp of them, moved into town. Didn’t even know Gypsies still existed,” Andrew says.

  Waylon’s hackles are up—I can tell before he even speaks. “Oh, they exist all right. Used to rob my parent’s store blind back in Portland when I was a kid. They’d steal anything that wasn’t bolted down. I’m surprised they’re trying to hit banks, now, though. Didn’t think they were organized enough for that.”

  “Clearly, they’re not.” Tossing his bar rag over his shoulder, Henry opens the cash register, takes out a stack of bills, and begins to count the night’s takings. “They wouldn’t have been caught, if they were now, would they?”

  Garrett cants his head to one side, as if he’s thinking deeply about this reasoning. Sarah feigns indifference, sliding the golden sun pendant she always wears up and down along its chain. Her shoulders are tensed, though, her lips pressed together, as if she’s trying to bite back her words, which is very unlike her; Sarah has an opinion on everything and isn’t afraid to tell you, even if she knows it will cause an argument. In fact, that’s when she loves to share her opinions the most. Tonight, she taps a bright red fingernail against her knee and gazes off into space, keeping her mouth firmly shut.

  “What about you, Zara? You noticed any Gypsies around here recently?” Henry asks.

  “I don’t think you’re meant to call them that anymore. And no, I can’t say that I have.”

  “God, not more of this renaming non-sense,” Andrew grumbles. “Did you know, you’re not supposed to call a woman a woman, or a man a man anymore? Everyone’s supposed to be ‘gender neutral.’” He throws air quotes around the phrase, as if he’s just said something in an alien language we’re probably not familiar with. “And what, exactly, are we meant to be calling Gypsies now?”

  Everyone looks at me. Even Sarah, out of the corner of her heavily mascaraed eye. I do not want to be dragged into a conversation about how ridiculous society is becoming, and how sensitive the general populous is when it comes to offending minorities. Unlike Sarah, I hate arguments, and my opinions on the matter are very clearly very different to Andrew’s: people have the right to be called whatever they want to be called in my book. If someone wants to be identified as a fucking toilet brush, then let them be a fucking toilet brush. Just don’t expect me to sit for hours and bicker about it. “I believe they’re called Travelers. I could be wrong, though.”

  “Travelers. Ha!” Waylon shakes his head as he drains his glass. “If they were travelers, they wouldn’t have settled here. They would have stopped for supplies and then they would have disappeared. But no. They’re out there, robbing banks and raising hell by the sounds of things.”

  “I think it’s time for me to get on home now,” Sarah says abruptly. She slides from her seat and collects her shawl that was draped over the back of her stool. “I think I forgot to feed Sparks, and we don’t want to keep you here all night, Henry. Zara, will you walk me over, darling? I could use an arm to hang on.”

  “Of course. I don’t mind. My bed’s calling me, anyway.” I rise, placing a ten-dollar bill down on the bar that Henry promptly pushes back toward me, telling me the same thing he always tells me whenever I try to settle my tab with him.

  “We don’t charge for apple juice here, sweetheart. We’re not monsters.”

  Andrew and Waylon make reluctant noises about seeing us home—they’re big, strong men after all, and it’s their duty to protect us weak and feeble women. Ha! Garrett even goes so far as getting to his feet, but Sarah waves all three of them off with a dismissive flick of her bangled wrist. “Don’t you worry yourselves, gentlemen. We’re going twenty feet. We’ll be just fine. You can see the door to the building from here, anyway. If it looks like we’re about to be raped, you can come pound on your chests and frighten away our attackers.” She snickers wickedly as we leave.

  Lakes of water have gathered in the street, and Sarah and I have to weave our way across, trying to avoid the deepest sections. It rained earlier—nothing new there—but now the night sky is free of clouds. The moon hangs like a polished silver dollar overhead, the unusual amount of light it gives off casting long, stretched out shadows from the lamp posts and the cars that are parked at the side of the road.

  “Something’s up,” Sarah says, as she slips her arm through mine, leaning into me. “Tell me what’s bothering you.”

  Ironic, since I was about to say the exact same thing to her. “I don’t know what you mean,” I reply.

  “You’ve been quiet all night. And you didn’t cuss a single one of those boys out for being stupid. Not even once.”

  I smile. Stepping up the curb, I assume my familiar stance, leaning against the public payphone at the foot of the stairs to our building while Sarah rifles in her purse for her keys. “I’m just tired. It’s been a crazy long day. I’ll be fine in the morning.”

  She stops rummaging and sends me a sharp, narrow-eyed glance. “There’s something else. I know there is. Tell me, or you won’t be able to sleep tonight.” For the longest time after I moved into the Bakers’, I had trouble sleeping. I tried herbal remedies, Nyquil, exercise, and eventually was prescribed some pretty heavy hitting sleeping pills, but nothing helped. And then, after one of our first Tuesday night gatherings, Sarah turned to me and said, “Not sleeping? Oh, that’s simple. What’s on your mind right now?”

  “Nothing. Nothing important, anyway.”

  She’d given me the same flick of her wrist that she gave the boys just now and told me to tell her anyway, no matter how unimportant my thoughts were.

  “I need to remember to pay my gas bill tomorrow. And I have to send off a birthday card for my father, or my mom will kick my ass.”

  Sarah had just grinned and squeezed my hand. “Easy. I’ll remind you to do both in the morning, I promise. Now you don’t need to worry about anything.”

  I slept properly that night for the first time in weeks. And, for the first time in weeks, I’d dreamed about him.

  Ever since then, she’s relieved me of my stresses before bed, promising that it’ll make the difference between dreaming and lying awake all night, staring at the ceiling. Thus far, she hasn’t let me down, and I’m thankful for that. They may be graphic to the point of pornographic, but I’m used to my scandalous dreams, now. I’ve kind of come to look forward to them. I rest my temple against the side of the payphone, sighing. “I had a call today. A hard one. A five-year-old little boy, trapped in a house with his dead brother. Kind of shook me up. I heard the door being kicked in by the EMTs, and then the call ended. Now I have no idea what happened to the little boy. I hate not knowing.”

  Sympathy washes over Sarah’s face. “Can you ask the EMTs?”

  “Not supposed to. We accept the call. We help any way we can. We send whoever we can. The call ends, and we accept another. We can’t get invested.”

  C-o-r-e-y. Corey. His call was one of the first I received at the beginning of my shift, and I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about his soft, reedy, high-pitched voice for the rest of the night. I assisted countless other callers, but the whole time I was filled with a deep seeded unrest. He’d said he didn’t know where his parents were. Did that mean they’d abandoned him with his brother? Gone out to score, or to drink, or to party and not given him a second thought? Or did it mean they were at work, and they were goin
g to be returning home to tragedy, one of their sons lost forever, the other so traumatized that he was going to be in therapy for the rest of his life? The later would still be terrible for Corey, but at least in that scenario he had a loving mother and father who’d help him through what happened.

  In my mind, however, I can’t escape images of a wide-eyed little boy, thrust into the care system, confused, hurt and alone, without anyone to really look out for him. And that…that just fucking kills me.

  Sarah has found her keys. She places a hand on my shoulder and leans in close. “You’re a tiny thing, Zara Llewelyn. A five-foot four red head, who can’t weigh more than a buck thirty. For all that, you’re a superhero. Don’t forget it. You also need to remember that you can’t save everybody.”

  “I know.” And I really do, but still… I’m going to be hearing Corey’s voice replaying for a long time to co—

  A blast of sound explodes in my ear.

  Holy shit!

  I leap…

  I don’t know which direction to leap in, only that I’m surprised out of my own skin and my heart is thundering in my chest, and my feet are no longer on the ground. Sarah staggers back, clutching at her chest, her mouth forming a perfectly shaped O.

  “Jesusfuckingchrist!” she hisses. “The phone? The phone’s fucking ringing!”

  And it is. Shrill, and loud, and unexpected. I find myself three feet away from the payphone, one foot in the gutter, my body coursing with adrenalin. I start to laugh, mainly from sheer hysteria, my pulse giving one last hiccup before it begins to slow, and then Sarah is laughing, too.

  “Fuck me,” she exclaims. “I’ve never heard that phone ring before. Didn’t think it even was still connected.”

  We both stare at the ringing phone as if it’s about to perform another trick. “I didn’t know a call could ring for this long.”

  Sarah picks up her purse—she must have dropped it when I was busy shooting ten feet into the air like a startled cat—and slings the straps back over her shoulder. “It’s probably a scam call or something.”

  “Probably,” I say, shooting the phone another suspicious look. “Come on. I’m starving. I’m going to throw some mac and cheese in the microwave before I fall into bed.”

  The phone continues to ring as we make our way into the building.

  Sarah gives me a fierce hug when we part on the third floor. The clop of her ridiculous heels echoes as she continues up the stairwell to the fifth floor, where her larger, two-bedroom apartment is located.

  As I make myself some food, I push all thoughts of Corey out of my head. Sarah was right; I can’t save everyone, and I can’t take on the pain of the entire world. I’ll end up breaking if I try. One person can only do so much.

  Teeth brushed, hair brushed, and PJ’s on, my body hums with exhaustion as I sink into my mattress thirty minutes later. It’s habit alone that has me turning the TV on, the sound muted. Light leaps up the walls of my bedroom while some stupid reality show star talks at the camera. I’m tired enough to sleep for a week, but as I’m just about to drift off, my body locks up again, muscles tightening, my heart surging. The same sound that frightened the living shit out of me downstairs has started up again.

  The phone outside the front of the Bakersfield Apartment Building is ringing.

  Three floors up and through a tightly closed window, the phone’s sharp, piercing ring sounds out a total of fifteen times before it finally falls silent.

  2

  PASHA

  ROMA

  “Take one more step and I’m gonna lay you out, you Pikey piece of shit.”

  The guy I’ve been trading blows with for the past fifteen minutes is sweating profusely and looks like he might fall down dead any second. On the other side of the chain link, his trainer thinks it’s a smart move to threaten me into submission. Little does he know, he’s just fucked the fight for his friend. Not because of the threat he just hurled at me, but because of the name he called me.

  Pikey.

  People watch one movie and they think they know what they’re talking about. Guy Ritchie did a fair enough job of portraying Pikeys in ‘Snatch,’ but now everyone thinks they know everything about me. I am not a fucking Pikey. I’m not Irish for a start, even if my accent might sound a little that way. I’m not a Traveler, or a Hedge Crawler. I’m something else entirely, and while I might be in the process of severing all ties with my family, I am and always will be…Roma.

  Something else altogether.

  The guy swaying on his feet with the split lip raises his fists, putting on an admirable show; we both know there’s nothing left in his tank, though. I feint to the left, accepting the weak hit to my side, trading the strike for the window I need to end this. It doesn’t take much. I launch my fist into his jaw, embracing the pain, and the guy’s eyes roll back into his head.

  Satisfaction floods me as I watch him go down.

  A roar of sound fills the cavernous space as three hundred punters, blood spiked with testosterone, either celebrate or dispute my victory. I forget they’re even there most of the time. The crowds that gather to watch the fights take place underneath the Braxton flower markets every night don’t really matter to me. I don’t need their favor or approval. Their adoration passes me by unnoticed. On light feet, still full of energy, barely even tired, I stand over the guy I’ve just knocked out, ready and waiting, just begging the guy to wake the fuck up and come at me again.

  The ref, if you can even call him that, hurries into the cage, putting himself between me and the fallen fighter, muttering a warning under his breath that I don’t hear.

  Get up. Get up. Get the fuck up, you miserable sack of shit.

  His eyelids flutter, but that’s all. Normally when someone gets knocked out, they’re up and on their feet, pissed that they got put down. Not this guy, though. He’s as limp as a gutted fish, practically fucking snoring. His mouthy trainer enters the cage in a whirlwind of bad polyester and hair spray, his steel grey hair coiffured into a style that looks like it last saw the light of day in the eighties. He leaves his guy down on the ground and comes barreling at me with murder in his eyes.

  “You got no fucking sense at all, you fucking moron? Have you any idea what the fuck you’ve just done?”

  I grin at him. My teeth must be red with blood; the coppery tang of it is all over my tongue. “I don’t throw fights, man. If your guy wasn’t up to it, he shouldn’t have gotten in the cage now, should he?”

  He stabs me in the chest with his index finger. “I am not your friend. I’m guessing you won’t have many friends here tonight after that shitty stunt you just—”

  He stops speaking the moment my fist makes contact with his face. A puff of crimson explodes out of his nose, and then he’s bent double, cupping his hands over his nose, releasing a low, enraged howl. The crowd erupts, some people laughing at the guy as his overly-sprayed hair sticks up in the air, while others hiss and boo. I stoop down, crouching next to the guy so I can whisper into his ear. “Don’t ever touch me. Not inside this cage. Not out of it.”

  “All right, all right, Rivin, that’s enough.” The ref, a short motherfucker in his late fifties, comes at me with his hands in the air, careful not to make the same mistake as the trainer as he attempts to herd me out of the cage. “C’mon, man. You got a paycheck to collect on, an’ we need you out of here. If you’re not gone in the next thirty minutes, we won’t be held accountable for what happens to you.”

  I back up, mirroring his pose, hands raised. “Just gotta be asked nicely. That’s all.” Out of the cage, down the steps into the heaving crowd, I can see the anger on the people’s faces. They obviously bet on the other guy, some Eastern Block bad ass by all accounts, and they’re not happy that I just cost them their paychecks.

  Stale beer rains down on me as I head toward the locker room. A couple of guys look like they’re thinking about raising their fists to me, but the malevolent, borderline crazy grin I turn on them has them deciding aga
inst it.

  This is a lawless place. There are very few rules here. There’s nothing to say I can’t knock a couple of them out if I’m feeling like it. They know that. They accepted that fact the moment they paid their cover charge and entered through the narrow doorway.

  I’m bleeding, bruised and riled as all hell as I stand in front of the mirrors in the locker room, unraveling my hand wraps. My knuckles are already turning a vivid shade of purple, but at least they’re not split open. The same can’t be said for my bottom lip, though. I prod it with my tongue, hissing at the stab of pain.

  “Walking a fine line, aren’t you?”

  I turn toward the voice, scowling at the man standing in the doorway. Tall, broad and covered in tattoos, the guy bears more than a passing resemblance to me with his thick dark hair, his height and his build. Though, I’m far better looking than him, of course. “Surprise, surprise,” I say. “The man himself. Patrin Rivin. As I live and breathe.”

  He strolls into the locker room, picking up the hand wraps I’ve discarded on the floor, and he begins winding them into a roll. “Don’t pretend like you didn’t expect to see me here eventually, brother. You knew we arrived back in town.”

  “Yeah. A month ago. I’m surprised it took you so long to come and find me.”

  He nods, rocking his head from side to side, making a soft humming sound. “You know how it goes. Takes a week to get everything unpacked. Another to make everything nice and fancy, the way she likes it. Another week for supply runs. We opened doors last Thursday. I was half expecting you to show up.”