Falling For Rome 2 Read online

  Falling For Rome

  Part 2

  Rome and Nakhti’s Tale

  Edwina Fort

  Table of Content

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  The Epilogue

  BONUS CHAPTERS!

  Note From Edwina Fort

  OTHER WORKS BY THIS AUTHOR

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2019 by Edwina Fort

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below:

  Author Edwina Fort

  P.O. Box 346

  Keithville, LA 1047

  www.authoredwinafort.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Falling For Rome 2/Edwina Fort. – 1st edition

  ISBN

  Acknowledgements

  As always, I’d like to thank the Heavenly Father for allowing me to be his vessel yet again. I’d also like to thank my family, my team, and my fans. Without y’all none of this would be possible. If these stories touch you in anyway, please pay it forward and try and make somebody’s day. You’ll be amazed at how far a simple smile can go; it could be just the thing to chase away a terrible woe. Something as simple as holding the door can make one feel as if they can bear it a little more…

  Naw, I ain’t never been much of a poet and expect by now that you all know it…LOL!

  But seriously, the world is getting colder, y’all… we have to do all we can to shine as much love in it as we can… and that’s real!

  Peace

  There is one who scatters, yet increases more. And one who withholds more than is right, But it comes to poverty. The generous being is enriched, And he who waters is also watered himself.

  --Proverbs 11:24-25

  Chapter 15

  Should Have Bet on the Queen

  True Love is Like Playing Chess. The Boy Plays and is Always Afraid of Losing His Queen. The Girl Plays and Risks Everything to Protect Her King…

  --Unknown

  Nahkti

  “Rise and shine…sunshine," I said to the slumbering man, careful to keep my voice low so that the guard who slumbered right outside his door didn't hear me.

  When Saw Buck realized I was straddling his chest his eyes widened. But when he realized that all of his muscles were paralyzed and he couldn’t move anything but his eyelids, panic set in. His lips twitched as he tried without success to cry out.

  I held up the little brown canister of the gas I’d used to paralyze him, showing it to him.

  “Believe it or not, this nerve gas was created to be a pesticide in 1938 Germany. But Adolf Hitler made a decree that anything that can be used as a weapon for the military had to be reported. So the creator of this silent but very deadly chemical brought it in to be inspected and the Hitler regime picked it up instantly. But it didn’t become magic in a bottle until our government got a hold of the recipe and perfected it. You see, it can’t be detected in the system four minutes after ingestion.” I smiled down at him. “Isn’t that awesome?”

  The smile disappeared off my face. “However…there is a downside to it. Unfortunately, it’s going to cause you to have a massive heart attack in about ten minutes. By the time your men find your body in the morning, they will simply assume that all those years of sucking down rib tips and T-bone steaks have finally caught up with you. I did a little searching into your medical records and it looks like you’ve had a few scares over the last few years. Doctor’s been telling you for a while you have to change your diet.”

  I put my hand on my chest shaking my head sympathetically. “Hey man, I feel your pain. Apparently, I have pre-hypertension. Looks like I’m going to have to make a few changes before I end up like you…who believe it or not, is having a pre-heart attack.”

  When his eyes opened wider, I held up my hands. "I know…I know! Pre-anything is really silly, isn’t it? But in your case, it is a reality. You, my not so good friend, is Pre-dead.”

  I couldn’t help the giggle that escaped my lips. That was just damn hilarious.

  “Anyway, I woke you because I wanted to tell you a few things before you go and meet your maker. First, you were right about Rome, he does have trust issues. And I have mommy issues… I think we were doomed from the beginning.” As I spoke a fresh wave of pain resurfaced and a tear escaped my eye to run down my cheek.

  As I wiped it away, I gave him a pathetic smile before shaking my head. “It’s a shame too…Because I love him.”

  It had been nearly a week since I left Rome, a week in which I've laid low. Believe it or not, his reach was pretty far, he had the whole city looking for me. The airports were a no go. The bastard had hacked the system and had an APB put out on me that couldn’t wait. He’d put images in the system of how I would look in various disguises, including wearing a beard and mustache… it was crazy.

  Chicago had a lot of cameras and I didn't doubt he had access to every one of them. But none of that mattered because I'd found my way out…I just needed to clean up this little mess here before I left. Rome, the chess mastermind, had studied my file until he knew me better than I knew myself… He was aware of what I could do and yet still never thought to play his Queen.

  “So, I bet you’re wondering, why I’m doing this to you when you were right about Rome all along.”

  I could see in his gaze that he was. I leaned closer so that my lips were very close to his.

  “I’m doing this because you are a bad man. You are a cancer on the planet, and if not stopped, you will only spread to destroy as much life as you possibly can. I’m doing this because I am the vengeance of God and your time has come to an end. I’m doing this because although Rome may make a horrible boyfriend, he is a blessing to this earth, and he gives life and plants seeds that will grow into great trees that will bear beautiful fruit one day. I’m doing this because I will destroy anything that tries to stand in the way of that.” I sat up smiling brightly.

  “K?” I told him patting his cheek again before I stood. His frightened eyes followed me, but I could already see the life leaving them.

  For his sake, I sure hope he made some kind of peace with the man upstairs. Judgment was going to be a monster for him. Careful not to disturb anything, I made my way back to the window I’d come in, and as quietly as I came, I left, gently closing the window behind me.

  Rome

  I picked up the burger and took a huge bite as I continued to scan the screens in front of me just like I have been doing for nearly two weeks. Jo’s office had purchased her an open ticket for a flight to D.C. for when she’d completed her mission.

  And although I knew she was too smart to use that ticket, I had rotating footage of O’Hare airport up on one screen. There wasn’t an entrance or exit to the building that didn’t rotate across the screen every four seconds. On the other
screens, I had Midway Airport, the train station and rotating footage of every Greyhound bus station in the city.

  I’d also hacked into the city’s streetlight cameras that the public didn’t know was face recognition software and programmed them to search for Nakhti’s face, alerting me if they picked her up. There was nowhere she could go in this city where I could not find her.

  And yet…It had been nearly two weeks and my arms were still empty. I couldn’t sleep in my bed because it felt foreign without her. I couldn’t eat normal food because it felt strange not forcing her to try something or watching her flinch from the taste of vegetables.

  Damn, I even missed watching her pretend to gag from anything that said low fat or low sugar.

  “Yo…Bro? It’s some sh*t going on in these streets that you need to know about.” My brother’s timid voice came from behind me.

  He and my men have been tiptoeing around me because I’d threatened to kill them if they spoke to me without the whereabouts of Nak. I didn’t want to hear anything else. And yet here he was trying to tell me some other sh*t.

  He carefully approached me.

  “Is that a burg—” he gasped when he saw the burger in my hand. “Oh, hell naw! I’m calling ma…” He turned to hurry toward the door.

  I shook my head…I was surrounded by idiots. “Rob…” I growled, not wanting to talk to anybody.

  He stopped. “Yeah?”

  I exhaled. “You said it was something going on I needed to know about.”

  “Oh yeah! Saw Buck dead.” And then he turned to head back toward the door.

  “What?”

  His steps halted again and the chump turned around with that grin on his face that said…I knew that would get your attention.

  “Who killed him?”

  He shook his head. “Nobody, dude had a heart attack.”

  I narrowed my eyes as I watched him go.

  Heart attack?

  My phone dinged on the desk. I snatched it up as excitement shot through me. Please let be Nak!

  When I saw it was Jo I squeezed the phone in my hand to keep from throwing and smashing it.

  Bastard Fed: Need to talk to you on a secure line…

  I knew this was coming, even though it was hard for me to stop searching for Nak for even a moment. The fillers I had put out there about Jo was finally bringing me information I could use and I ain’t going to lie, this sh*t was wilder than I could ever imagine. Jo was a victim. He had no idea of the sh*t that was done to him, he nor his siblings. The man with no shoes had been right, Jo was a triplet, he had two identical brothers.

  One was a DEA Beast. He was feared in the field by dope dealers and cops alike. His record was full of lawsuits, complaints of unnecessary roughness and unnecessary kills. Sh*t, dude had hardcore drug dealers wanting to go into witness protection to be protected from him. No question, like Jo, he was a goon. But unlike Jo, he was a bully… And according to his record, kept testing positive for weed in his piss.

  His other brother was retired and considered extremely dangerous. He’d worked for a branch of the government I’d never heard of before. But that was nothing unusual, branches were created on a regular. If there is a problem, the American government got together a group of people whose job it was to study the problem, infiltrate the problem…and then destroy the problem.

  Jo’s brother was the latter part of that equation. He cleaned up situations before anybody ever knew there was a situation. He was considered a ghost in the field. Only those that knew him knew about him.

  While in the field, he’d almost lost his left eye, suffering complete blindness in said eye. He was no good to our government in that condition, so they’d let him go, although they are keeping a close eye on him.

  Now he was a civilian living pay check to pay check doing security work. I shook my head, all those years he’d served his government, and in the end, he still had to struggle to survive.

  Jo had two more siblings, but their whereabouts are a little grainy. He has a sister named Debra, she disappeared in the system after receiving a juvenile life sentence for killing her mom’s boyfriend. When I pulled up the last remaining files on her case, and when I say last remaining, I mean someone went out of their way to make them disappear.

  But now that my bait is catching fish, I’d managed to entice that information to the surface. Anyway, in her file, she told the police that the man had used his finger to hurt her before he stabbed her mother, who’d tried to stop him from raping her child in the chest. Only then did Debra grab the knife and stab him in the neck.

  The fact that she received a juvenile life sentence for that let me know that there was foul play involved.

  Jo’s oldest brother is by far the most mysterious. There is hardly anything found on him, except that he’s wanted dead or alive by damn near every government on this planet, including ours.

  But like I said, the dam had just broken, and I really haven’t had time to look over everything I had. So I didn’t have a full breakdown for Jo yet.

  Me: Where are you?

  Bastard Fed: Home office.

  A few clicks on my computer and I’d successfully hacked into his. The surprise on his face was amusing.

  “You hacked a system I was told was un-hackable.”

  That was funny…

  “Oh yeah, is that what the brochure told you?”

  “That’s what the man who cleaned out your little bug told me.”

  The fact that his man had only found one bug let me know that his man was an idiot.

  “Yeah, well, he lied to you. Once I’m in there is no getting rid of me.”

  After finding out this new information about Jo, my feelings for him had changed. He still irritated me greatly, because he was a cocky bastard and he had absolutely nothing to be cocky for. However, these folks had done a real number on him and his siblings.

  I’d found footage of how they were tortured as children in order to break their minds. They went through sh*t that I wouldn’t wish on my enemy…

  Speaking of my enemy, something about Saw Buck suddenly having a heart attack wasn’t sitting well with me. As I spoke with Jo, I pulled up Saw Buck's autopsy report and sure enough, it stated that the cause of death was a massive heart attack.

  A massive f***ing heart attack?

  I texted Hannibal and asked him when the funeral was. I had to see it with my own eyes. Something was telling me that Nak was behind this.

  Damn it! She would do this sh*t! As if her leaving me wasn’t f***ing tearing me apart. She would take out my enemy before she went, searing the fact that I am the dumbest mutha f***a in the world in the center of my forehead.

  Hannibal hit me right back letting me know the funeral was today. It was happening now.

  Although I didn’t think he did, I asked Jo if he knew where Nak was. It didn’t hurt to cover all my bases. But once he told me he didn’t, I got extremely irritated and needed to stop talking to him. But before I let him go, I warned him to protect my sister and niece.

  Although I really didn’t know how dangerous this situation was, judging by the trouble that was gone through to hide the information I’d found, it could be quite dangerous.

  Once I disconnected with him, I grabbed my truck keys.

  “Where the hell you going?” Rob asked as I walked past him and a few more of the fellas on my way to the truck.

  “To Saw’s funeral…” I growled. I had to see for myself. I had to see if she left me with this burden to carry. She wasn’t satisfied to just rip out my heart.

  No…

  She had to throw the mutha f***a to the ground and then stomp on it.

  “I told y’all this nigga done gone crazy…” Rob said as he and my men hurried to their cars to follow me.

  Yeah, it was crazy as hell to go to this funeral. But I didn’t care if they killed me. I had to see if this was Nak’s work.

  As soon as we entered the f
uneral, everything came to a stop.

  Sh*t, I was going to try and slip in and slip out. But since they had made a show of it, I might as well walk it out.

  I strolled down the center aisle, my men looking just as confused as Saw Buck’s followed.

  When I got to the casket, two of Saw Buck’s generals stepped in my way.

  “What you come for…to gloat?” One of them sneered.

  Bobby who had been comforting Saw’s main girlfriend stood and put his hand on the general’s shoulder stopping him.

  “Naw…it’s cool. They was boys once. If this was him in the casket, I’m sure Saw would have paid his same respect.”

  He wouldn’t have. But folks needed to believe all kinds of lies about the dead. The general nodded without asking any questions. It was clear Bobby was now chief.

  My gaze went to his. “You chief now?” I asked because I ain’t supposed to know that.

  Playing his role well, Bobby folded his arms in a very hostile way. “I am…”

  I was too miserable to congratulate myself. Instead, I turned to look down at Saw's dead body…and I knew.

  It hit me like a ton of bricks. This was Nak. Nak had destroyed my enemy in a way that looked completely natural. She had done something I hadn’t been able to do. Not only did I feel like the biggest f***ing loser in the world for losing her, I also felt like a fool for underestimating her.

  What the f*** had I thought?!

  I don’t know if my knees gave out or if I just lost the will to stand, but the next thing I knew, I was clutching the casket staring at this dumb mutha f***a, who had finally broken me down. And not because he was dead…But because it was his death that made me see how dumb of a mutha f***a I really was.

  I’d f***ed up!

  I f***ed up so bad!

  “Come on, Rome, it’s gon’ be okay.” My brother said as he and Hannibal tried to pull me back to my feet.