Not the Lozadas. For as long as Rome could remember they had lived like hippies, skipping from town to town and going wherever the wind drove them . . . or the need for the next big score did. Edna and John had met during a drug-fueled bender and decided that they were perfect for each other. They didn’t marry—no need—and lived the nomadic lifestyle of two bikers who had not a care in the world.
Their two boys, Rome and Jericho, weren’t really children to them as much as they were tools. Need to run a scam to pick up some money? Stick one of the boys on a street corner with a sign and watch the dollars roll in. Need someone to distract a cop while Edna and John raided a nearby house for stuff that was easy to pawn? Have Jericho cause a diversion a block away.
Hell, Rome and Jericho weren’t even their real names. Jericho was John Lozada . . . and so was Rome. His father had given them the same name as him because he said he couldn’t decide their names at the spur of the moment. As it turned out, having the same name as his father just made it easier for him to steal their identities and rack up thousands of dollars in debt. By the time Rome turned eighteen, his credit rating was shit, his juvie rap sheet was a mile long, and he was a high school dropout (hard to graduate when your toker parents are homeschooling you).
It was a shit lifestyle, but it was all Rome knew.
J was two years older, though, and even though J made it seem like he didn’t care about a thing, it must have bothered him, because one day Rome woke up and J had left. Just up and left Rome with Edna and John. He’d expected his parents to be mad, but they didn’t seem to care much at all. They just smoked a bit more weed, took J’s share of the drug money, and leaned on Rome to pick up the slack.
And Rome found himself realizing that he could escape, too. That he didn’t have to be locked into a lifestyle of crashing on people’s couches and switching IDs until he found one that someone would take. A lifestyle of avoiding particular counties because of outstanding warrants for his arrest. Of taking off in the middle of the night and switching plates at the junkyard to avoid being caught.
So when he was old enough, Rome left, too. He got minimum-wage jobs, and he worked. He lived with a girlfriend, or a buddy, and paid rent, and planted roots in Houston. He was normal.
Of course, planting roots meant that people caught up with you. It wasn’t long before Edna and John showed up, wanting to borrow money. And when he felt guilty and gave them a few dollars, they’d come back from time to time, because they knew that he’d be good for it. Rome built himself a decent life, meanwhile. He worked at an auto-body shop, and when he broke up with his girlfriend, he got his own apartment. Bought his own bike.
Life was all right.
Then one day Edna showed up by herself. She needed bail money to get John out of jail. Or at least, that was her story. Turned out that what she really needed was a place to stash all the crack she was selling, and she hid it in Rome’s bathroom, under the counter.
Two days later, the cops showed up at his place and he was off to jail.
Edna came to visit him, too. Begged for him to take the fall instead of her. It wouldn’t be her first offense, and she was older and in poor health. If the hammer came down, she’d go to prison for years on end. But it would be adult Rome’s first offense. They wouldn’t throw the book at him, not for a first offense. Could he take the rap for his mother just this once?
And Rome wanted to say no, but looking at his mother shaking and trembling in front of him, weeping with fear, he hadn’t had the heart to send her to prison.
He was always a f**king sucker for tears.
So he took the fall, and sure enough, they didn’t throw the book at him. They took one look at him, at his tats, and at the amount of drugs, and his lawyer suggested they plead out. So he did.
He only got six years in prison.
Thanks to good behavior, though, Rome got out in four years. That was eighteen months ago, and he was learning that life was even harder after being a convict. No one wanted to hire an ex-con who was covered in tattoos, no matter how much he smiled or how hard he promised to work. If he did get a job, it was always for minimum wage, and they ended up letting him go for spurious reasons half the time. He went from job to job, unable to make decent money. And each time a job ended, he packed up his small bag of possessions, moved to a new town, and tried again.If he was on the move, John and Edna wouldn’t be able to find him.
He did keep in contact with Jericho, though. Last he’d heard from his brother, J was working in west Texas. Plumbing or carpentry or some shit. Jericho wasn’t a bad guy.
But wherever Jericho went, he suspected Edna and John wouldn’t be far behind. If one Lozada was looking for him, the others would be, too.
Jericho was currently smiling at him over a cup of black coffee, like he was enjoying himself. Not Rome. He was pretty f**king miserable at the moment. He’d gone from a state of pleasure to misery in no time flat this morning, it seemed.
“So what do you want?” Rome asked again.
“Just wanted to see how my baby brother was doing.” He shrugged. “And I’m actually in the area, myself. Had a job that was in this part of the state, and stuck around for a relationship. Neither one worked out, so I’m currently trying to find my feet again.” He shrugged.
“And John?”
“Just got out of prison, I’m told. Sixteen months.”
Disgust threatened to choke him. Sixteen damn months? Rome had done twice that for drugs that weren’t even his. “Where are they at?”
“Last I heard, they were in Lufkin. But if they catch wind that you’re over here and you’ve got a cushy little setup, don’t think that they won’t be heading over to say hello. The last thing you want is to find out that good old Mom and Dad parked their newest pot trailer in your neck of the woods.”
And wouldn’t Grant just f**king love that? Rome groaned and rubbed his face, trying to think. If John and Edna showed up, he’d have to get rid of them quietly without them raising a stink. The easiest way to do that was to pay them to leave, of course . . . but he was broke. Hell, he didn’t have more than ten dollars to his name at the moment. If they showed up, Grant would be suspicious of what Rome was up to—with good reason.
And all he’d need to do was run a background check and see Rome’s totally shot-to-shit credit, his prison record, and his felony rap sheet. Rome would get the boot, and he’d be on his way once more. No cozy little cabin in the woods, no job running a paintball course.