Page 3 of Roman Blake
They came for me, and she got caught in it.
“I’m sorry,” I choked out. “Mo, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
She gave me the faintest shake of her head, like she didn’t want my apology. Like even then she was trying to protect me from myself.
“Roman… listen to me.”
“I’m listening, baby. I’m listening.”
Her hand slid down and pressed weakly over her stomach. At first I didn’t understand. Then she looked up at me, tears mixing with the pain in her eyes.
“I was gonna tell you tonight,” she whispered. “I wanted it to be perfect.”
My whole body locked.
“What?”
A tear slipped from the corner of her eye. Her lips trembled when she smiled.
“I’m pregnant.”
The world stopped.
Everything around me disappeared…the water, the blood, the wind, the bodies in the sand. All of it. It was just me, mywife, and the words I had wanted so bad I never imagined hearing them like this.
“No,” I breathed, but it came out broken. “Nah, baby… nah…”
“We were gonna have a baby, Roman.”
I bent over her, pressing my forehead to hers, trying to hold her together with my hands, my body, my will. “We still are. We still are. You hear me? Don’t do this. Don’t leave me like this.”
She winced, then coughed, blood touching the corner of her mouth.
“I love you,” she said.
My vision blurred. “I love you too. More than anything. More than this whole world.”
Her fingers tightened against my wrist for half a second.
Then they went loose.
“Mo?”
I shook her gently at first, then harder. “Mo... Monique… Baby, wake up. Wake up!”
But she was gone.
Something animal tore out of me then. The kind of sound a man makes when his soul gets split wide open.
That last man was still running.
I laid Mo down carefully, kissed her forehead, then got up with murder on my mind.
I chased him down the beach like death was behind us both. He kept looking back, panicking, stumbling through the sand. By the time I caught him, I hit him so hard he dropped flat on his face.
I turned him over and started beating him before he could even beg.
“You killed my wife!” I roared, slamming my fist into his face again and again until my knuckles split.
