Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 32396 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 162(@200wpm)___ 130(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32396 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 162(@200wpm)___ 130(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
She wasn’t sure if he understood what she was trying to say.
“How long has it been?” he asked.
“Five and a bit years. Six in a few months,” she said.
“Do you regret it?”
Beth looked at him and frowned. “Yes and no. Yes, because I thought we were leaving our problems behind. I thought Mom and Dad were the problem.”
“Ben’s a problem,” he said.
“Yeah, he’s a problem, and he is still my brother, but I don’t know, coming here has helped me get some perspective. I’m a little confused, because I love him. I loved my parents, but I was able to leave them. With Ben, I feel we have fallen into this horrible rut.” She sighed and moved over to the bench.
“Talk,” Rome said.
This was so strange for her. She didn’t really know Rome. Yes, she knew he was a scary and dangerous man, and that he could kill her and no one would come looking for her. Talking to him shouldn’t be easy, and yet it was.
She took a deep breath, about to avoid it, but then decided to take him up on his offer to listen.
“I love my brother, I do, but I think when this is over, I need to leave him behind as well. There are things I want in life, and coming home to find your brother trashing your apartment, or having sex on the sofa, and not doing anything to help pay the bills after five years, it … it’s not good.”
“You want to leave?” he asked.
She pressed her lips together.
“You know it’s not a bad thing, to want to leave that kind of shit behind,” he said.
“Like you know what I’m talking about,” she said.
“I killed my father when I was thirteen years old,” Rome said. “No one knows this. For as long as I can remember, that man was beating me with his belt, sticks, his fists, there was even a time he took a hammer to me. Trust me, that man was a nightmare, and I was afraid of him. I don’t know what happened. I was growing up, and the beatings were hurting less, but I was starting to get angry. I was starting to see the truth, and one day when he was beating me and he smashed a bottle over me and was going to start jabbing that thing into me, I snapped. To this day, I don’t know how it happened, but I got that bottle, jammed it down his throat, and watched him die.”
“I’m not going to kill my brother,” she said.
“But, my point is not to kill your brother. With the piece of shit he is, someone else will do that job, but you can’t be afraid to walk away. You can’t be afraid to make a life for yourself. Sometimes it’s better to walk away than live your life, dying inside, hoping tomorrow never comes.”
Beth felt tears spring to her eyes as she looked at Rome, and in that moment, she knew there was more to him than met the eye. He was more than just a criminal, a killer.
“You shouldn’t cry for that,” he said.
“I don’t know how you’re able to say the right words, but you do.” She let out a laugh, and he pressed a handkerchief into her hand.
“When all of this is over, I will find the means to allow you to start a new life,” he said. “If you’re interested, I will even set up a cleaning business for you, and you can do the books yourself. We’ll come to some kind of percentage arrangements, and we’ll do business together.”
She frowned. “You’d be willing to do that for me?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because sometimes in life, bad shit happens to good people, Beth. You’re a good person. I know that, and I know I’m using that. Maybe this will be my good deed.”
She laughed. “Helping me leave my brother behind to deal with his own problems is your way of doing a good deed?”
“Helping a woman who needs it, who has done nothing wrong, who is only trying to make a life for herself. That is the good deed I am talking about, and if it stops any bad shit from happening to her, then I am all for it.”
She pressed the handkerchief beneath her eye and gave a little laugh. “You better be careful, Rome, people might think you care and you have a heart.”
“I don’t. That was beaten out of me years ago. A heart is a weakness I don’t have. What I am, is reasonable.”
“Beaten?” she asked.
“I told you, my dad.”
“What happened after?”
He pursed his lips and she knew this was where he was going to try and make his escape. She reached out to him.
“Stop, okay, I get it. You don’t want to tell me. You give me half a story, but I don’t know if you’re aware of this, I am a good listener. I don’t know if you like talking or not, but I won’t share anything with anyone.” She laughed, she just couldn’t help it. “I don’t have any friends to call my own.”