Page 30 of The Prez

The brief happy feeling in my chest is snuffed out by the realization that I’m a failure. I can’t protect Omari. I would fail him like I do everyone else in my life. He could do better than someone like me. Someone that let their mother die and let their sister disappear from his life until it was too late. Someone who didn’t check on his best friend’s health, and now he’s in the ground. I’m no good for him.

Jace pokes his head into my office, saying everyone is in the library waiting on me. I nod and stand, but before I can head out of my office, my phone rings in my pocket. The country code of +53 pops up and I sigh, settling back into my chair.

It’s not Rax, as he calls from a VPN and his number shows up as a United States country code. It could only be one person.

“Maria,” I say, switching to Cubano. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”

“I talked to Rax,” she says, her voice small and sad. “Elena died?”

I curse under my breath. The only reason Rax knows about Elena is he called me about a shipment and I was trying to get Little Raf to sleep before I hired Omari. He heard crying and asked what was going on. In my sleep deprived state, I spewed everything to him. It didn’t cross my mind to call Maria and tell her. My mind was on making sure I didn’t implode from the pressure of taking care of a baby and continuing with my MC. Selfish, but I never claimed to be anything else.

Leaning back in my chair, I look up at the ceiling and say, “Yeah, Maria. She died. I should have told you, but I’ve been so fucked up about it. I’m sorry.”

Her sobs are soft, but I can hear them clearly. I feel even more like shit that I kept the death of our sister from her. Over and over, I continue to fail everyone.

“What happened to her?” Maria asks after she finds her voice.

“Car accident.”

“And you have her baby? My nephew.”

My heart clenches as I say, “Yes.” I don’t tell her that I don’t know him, even though he’s been in my possession for almost two months. I don’t tell her that a stranger knows more about my flesh and blood than me. I don’t tell her I held him today for the first time in weeks.

“Please, Raf,” she begs, “please bring him to Cuba. Please. I’d like to see him.”

“I’ll be down to visit in a few months.”

“Can you bring him with you? I know it’ll be hard traveling with a baby, but … please. I don’t ask for much, ever. But I need this one thing. I couldn’t see Elena before she was gone. I want to see her baby.”

If I bring Omari, he would be with Little Raf, so itwouldn’t be an inconvenience for me. Omari would be able to calm the baby easily. He’s so good at taking care of him. “Okay.”

Her sigh of relief is heard clearly, as well as her prayers of thanks. “Thank you so much. Thank you. I love you, Raffy.”

“Yeah, see ya soon.”

I hang up, not wanting to talk about Elena. If left up to my sister, she’ll bring up old memories so we can keep the memory of Elena alive. I can’t do that. I’m holding on to the frayed edges of my soul as much as I possibly can.

I push roughly out of my chair and stomp off to the library, more irritated now than I was before I spoke to Zeke. My enforcer knows some of my past, but not all of it. He doesn’t know how I let everyone in my life down. He wouldn’t trust me to lead them if he knew. None of them would.

Zeke is wrong. There’s a lot not to like.

My brothers are waiting for me when I enter, their attention turning to me as I sit at the head of the table.

“Alright,” I start the meeting, looking around at everyone gathered, “we have the opening of our Hunterfield chapter in a few weeks. We need to figure out the logistics. Pete, what you got?”

We go through what we need to take care of before we open and initiate the new chapter. We’ll be gone for a weekend so we can get the chapter up and running and discuss our business with our delegates there. Some of the members are from chapters in other states, so they know how Devil’s Mayhem operates, so it won’t be too in-depth of a crash course for those. The new members and prospects from right there in Georgia will have to learn, but the brothers there can handle it.

We break when we get everything squared away.

The guys want to party tonight, but I’m not in the mood. I just don’t want to be around the noise.

It surprises me that I want to be home with Omari and Little Raf. Even if I don’t hang out with them, I want to be near them.

“I’m out,” I tell Zeke, clapping him on the back.

“Me too,” he says, waving at the other guys. “I wanna curl up with my Counselor for a few hours, maybe watchAlien.”

“You’re obsessed with that movie,” I say as my lips twitch into a smile.

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