“I swear, John, I didn’t know. I warned Torque off. I told him not to follow anymore of the leads he thought he had and to stay out of it. I guess he thought Misha was threatening me. I didn’t want to get his hopes up, so I didn’t tell him about Misha’s promise to get me to Natasha.”
“Okay. You need to see Misha and he’s hell bent on seeing you. We need to collect Torque anyway. We’ll head out first thing in the morning. We’ll get you the answers you need. I promise.”
“John, if I’m right, you, Torque, and munchkin are the only family I have left.”
“You know that’s a lie, baby. Mom would kick your ass for it too.”
Roni snickers a little. “You know what’s crazy?”
“What’s that?”
She links our fingers together. “I know why I am the way I am now.”
“What do you mean?”
“My father was always distant and cold. I thought I had to be that way for him to want me around. I was always so afraid he’d leave me again.
“That he never wanted me in the first place. So, I had to be prefect for him to want me. To this day I don’t know why he left me behind and didn’t come back for me until my mother died.
“I don’t want to be this way with our baby—detached, cold, cautious. I never want her to feel the way I did with my father. Oh God, John, there were times I thought my mother hated me too. I think some part of her blamed me for losing my father.”
I free one hand and reach for her face to turn it up toward mine. “We are not your parents. I know how much you love that little girl in there. This is the first time you’ve been in the same house with her and you haven’t hovered over her or watched everyone around her like a hawk. That alone tells me how much you’re hurting right now.”
“I… I… when the doctor told me about the damage to my womb from my injuries and all the torture, John, I didn’t think she would make it.” Tears start to fall and her lips tremble. “She’s everything to me. Why wasn’t I everything to them?”
I kiss her lips. “I don’t know, baby. But you are everything to me. I love the two of you so much. I love you with everything I am.”
“Which is why you can’t do this with me. You need to be here for—”
“Did you bump your fucking head?” I seethe before I catch myself.
“No, but you must have talking to me like that.”
“Roni, you’re not doing this alone. We are going to handle this together. You’ve been around long enough to understand the type of man we’re dealing with when it comes to Misha.
“There’s no way I’m sending you into that fire without me. You need to go see Misha; we go to see Misha. You need to right this wrong; we right this wrong.”
Roni
I purse my lips. I should have known he wouldn’t see this my way. The look in his eyes tells me this is the one time my defiance isn’t going to fly. While some part of me wants to protest, I want him with me.
If I’m right… Oh my God, if I’m right this is so much bigger than me. Logan and LaSalle’s names have never rung in my head so loudly. Now John’s causal mention of them bangs like drums inside my skull.
The meeting I never set up before leaving for DR. The two associates from New York. I’m not ready to tell John what I think I know. I don’t know how he will feel about any of it. Hell, I don’t know how I feel about it.
“What if this is too much? What if what I need to do crosses that line?”
“If you haven’t noticed, I’m the line crosser. Which means, I was made to be here for you.”
I pause to think and nod my head. He leans in and crushes my lips. His soft but firm mouth grounds me and all the emotions floating around inside me.
“Let me see that,” John says as he breaks the kiss, reaching for the phone in my lap.
Plucking the device up, he splays our linked hands on my belly. He opens my phone and taps at it until the song changes. “For the Love of You” by The Isley Brothers starts.