( π‘™π‘œπ‘£π‘’ π‘Žπ‘›π‘‘ π‘€π‘Žπ‘Ÿ )


"cause we made it this far on for better or worse
I wanna feel it even if it hurts
if I gotta cry to get to the other side
let's go cause we're gon' survive"



"I really like this one" iman said to her best friend janelle as they were shopping in the chanel boutique in soho.


"it's cute" she said. "this shade of purple is so pretty".


"right! and I have a lilac purple bodysuit that matches this too" iman added. "i'm gonna get it".


"girl this is almost six thousand dollars..." janelle told her, even though iman was very much aware, and didn't care.


"yeah" she said. "it's not like I don't have it...".


"right... you are married to daddy warbucks after all" janelle shrugged.


"this is my own money on my own card" iman defended.


"iman you haven't worked in five years, that is roman's money that he gave you. he's practically giving you money like you're a trust fund kid" janelle said to her. "which is why you need to lea-".


"don't start that janelle" iman groaned as she began to walk away from her friend.


iman and janelle have been best friends since they were nine, meaning that janelle has been in iman's life for a very long time. when janelle first met roman, she already knew the type of man that he was. an asshole.


janelle and roman do not get along at all, they HATE each other. janelle finds roman to be a toxic and controlling douchebag that doesn't treat her best friend right and she wished that iman would leave him. meanwhile roman finds janelle to be a noisy know it all that is always butting into his and iman's business and he hated it, and what he hated even more was that iman was always telling her their business.


they couldn't stand each other and they both wanted iman to get rid of one of them. janelle wanted iman to divorce and dump roman and roman wanted iman to drop janelle as a friend. iman wasn't gonna do either so she was always of the middle of their arguments of them talking shit about each other to her, which always led to her reprimanding them to stop. they argued like they were siblings.


"you're acting like i'm lying, he won't even let you be independent. got you being a stay at home mom while he's being the samoan pablo escobar" janelle said.


"I just don't wanna hear about it right now" iman sighed.


"just like how I don't wanna hear about him being a dick each and every day when you know damn well that you have the power to leave him!" she exclaimed.


"I mean why won't you leave him iman? all you ever do is say that he doesn't show you any love unless y'all have sex, and as far as I know when a man only says that he loves you when he wants some pussy, he ain't shit and you should just dump his ass".


"I love roman janelle, and that's never gonna change" iman said.


"it should" janelle said. "I mean do you really want your own daughter to be living under that man? or to end up like-".


"he wasn't always like that" iman interrupted. she hated how janelle would bring in jianni whenever she talked about how shitty roman could be. talking about how she should raise jianni without roman in the picture or that jianni shouldn't have to witness her parents arguing all the time, or that jianni shouldn't end up like her.


"oh really? show me a time when roman wasn't the biggest asshole on the planet" janelle scoffed as she walked away.


iman knew a time.




March 11th, 2015


it was nine thirty at night and roman had came into bar on 9th ave. he surely needed a drink after his informants fucked up a major deal with some suppliers, pissed wasn't even the word for how he felt right now. hopefully some drinks was gonna make him feel better.


he sat right up at the barstool as he waited for a bartender to attend to him and get him the drinks that he wanted. about two minutes later, a female bartender came up to him.


"bar" was one of roman's favorite bars in the city but he had never seen this woman that was about to give him a drink before. she looked like she was short behind the counter, and she was brownskin with her hair in a braided up bun. she was wearing a black tank top with leather leggings and roman could tell that she had a nice figure. he couldn't keep his eyes off of her.


"hi how may I help you?" she asked him in the basic welcome saying.


"uh.... can I have a drink?" he asked. he was definitely sprung, couldn't even say what kind of drink he specifically wanted.


"okay.... what kind of drink?" she chuckled.


"a modelo's and some whiskey, bourbon" he told her.


"a beer and whiskey... damn" she said.


"been a rough day, I need it" he sighed.


"well.... it's coming right up" she said as she walked away to prepare his drink.


when she came back with his glasses he took them so fast and chugged the beer down. while he chugged the beer down, he kept his eyes locked down on her. she was very confused as to why he was staring at her so hard but even she will admit that she found the man that she was serving very attractive.


"damn you really did have a rough day" she said.


"I might need another" he groaned.


"might wanna calm down on that, unless you have a designated driver to take you home" she said.


"see you're smart" he said, which made her laugh a little. "what's your name?".


"um iman" she told him. "and you?".


"roman" he told her. "iman is such a pretty name, makes sense because you're a pretty woman".


"thank you" iman smiled as she was clearly blushing. "i'm named after the model, she was my mom's favorite".


"oh.... I don't know who i'm named after. maybe the empire I guess" he jokingly said.


"right" she chuckled.


"so iman, I have a question to ask you...." roman began to say.


"why is a pretty girl like you working in this rugged bar?".


"gotta make money" she laughed. "it doesn't matter the location, I just gotta make this money".


"I know but, you don't need to be working in here" he said.


"are you trying to get me out of here? cause that's what it's sounding like..." iman asked him as she was looking a bit skeptical at what this man that she just met wanted from her.


"I mean I could if I wanted to" he said. "if you wanted too".


"you know for a woman that you just met five minutes ago you're talking a big ass game" she chuckled. "what's your goal here "roman"?".


"what time do you get off?" he asked her.


".... at eleven" she said with a confused look on her face.


"so i'm gonna stay here for the next hour and a half and we're gonna get to know each other" he told her.


"I literally have to work" she said.


"I don't care" he said. "I wanna get to know you, and I know you do too. so we're gonna do that".


iman was very confused as to what and why was this man so persistent on getting to know her and speaking to her. she literally has to work for another hour and yet this man is willingly to stay in this bar just to speak to her no matter what.


but the more she thought about it, the more she did start to like that a man had this much interest in her. iman was far from an ugly woman obviously but iman also hasn't paid a man any mind in three years, so she was going to be dipping herself back into a situation with a man again.


"okay.... let's talk until I have to serve again" she said.


"i'd love that tamaitai" he smiled.


"what does that mean?" she wondered as he just called her something in a language that she doesn't even recognize.


"means princess in Samoan, which is what I am. I'm samoan" he explained.


"oh.... it's cute" she grinned, blushing again.


roman and iman spent the rest of the hour talking to each other, getting to know each other pretty well. there was some banter here and there and some good conversation. luckily it wasn't too crowded on this Wednesday night so iman only had to disappear twice, the rest of the time was filled with them talking.


once the clock hit eleven iman was off so her and roman left the bar right after she clocked out.


"it was really nice talking to you" iman said to him as they were walking out to his car.


"you too, you're nice to be around" he said. "that was definitely needed, the assholes at my job pissed me off today so talking to such a beautiful girl really helped ease my mind".


"glad to be that relief" she smiled.


roman and iman stared into each other's eyes, admiring each other. roman found iman to be one of the most beautiful women that he's been in contact with, and he's been with a couple. meanwhile iman found roman to be, well "fine as hell". the long hair, chizzled jaw with goatee, and nice smile really sparked an interest into her. they definitely wanted to see each other again.


"what time is it?" she asked him.


"eleven o eight, why?" he wondered.


"shit! i'm gonna miss the last bus of the day!" she exclaimed.


"what?!" roman wondered.


"the last bus of the day leaves at eleven ten, I'm not gonna make it to the nearest bus stop on time" she sighed. "it's all the way down the street. fuck I gotta take a taxi again".


"no you don't have to do that" roman said. "I'll take you home".


"what?! no roman you don't have to, i'll just take the taxi home seriously" iman said.


"why waste your money on a dirty ass taxi when I can take you home right now?" he said.


"I have tip money, shit you tipped me one hundred dollars!" she said.


"that you can save and use to buy you something sexy to wear whenever I take you out" he said which caught iman off guard, but made her want him. "now come get in my car and let me take you home".


iman obliged to the man and hopped in his navy blue rolls royce as he drove off to her house. iman was in shock that this man has a rolls royce, which made her think about what kind of job did this man have, he didn't even mention it when they were taking. was he a company ceo? was he a lawyer? was he a trust fund kid? what was he?!


seven minutes later they arrived at iman's apartment building on west 86th, the parc cameron apartments.


"oh you live around here..." roman said. he only trailed off for the fact that his "job" usually does business around here.


"yup, and central park right down the street" she said.


"oh yeah..." he said.


"thank you for the ride roman" she said.


"no problem. I wasn't gonna have you riding in a taxi or walking at night out here" he said. "don't need anything happening to you".


iman smiled at that.


roman pulled out a paper that he had in his car and grabbed a pen and started to write something down. when he was done, it was revealed to be a phone number.


"call me" he said.


"I will" she smiled.


she ripped off some of the paper and wrote down her own number and gave it to him.


"do the same" she smirked.


"you know I will" he smiled.


iman got out of the car and walked to the entrance of her building. once he saw her get in the building, he drove off. iman went off to her apartment.


iman loved the fact that this guy was sweet. he was cool, attractive, and cared for her safety to the point that he drove her home! yeah, this guy was gonna be someone that she was gonna have around.


definitely.


and what made it even better was that when iman got out of the shower, roman was already calling her.


"you missed me that much?" iman teased on the phone.


"of course" he said through the phone. his deep voice through the phone was giving iman such butterflies, butterflies that teenage girls would have when speaking to their big school crush.


roman was iman's big school crush.




after dropping janelle off iman went back home. she grabbed her shopping bags and left over food from the lunch that her and janelle had at alidoro and walked inside the building and went up to their penthouse.


iman walked through the door of the house and she was surprised to see who was here.


it was roman. he was sitting in the living room playing his playstation four, wearing a tank top and sweats. his muscles gauging through and showing off his tribal tattoo that iman loved so much. she smiled at how fine her man was.


but then she had to get back to the bigger picture, her being surprised that he was home at this time. it wasn't even three thirty yet and he's already home. she liked it, but she was very confused.


roman had turned his head and saw iman so he paused the game that he was playing and walked over to her.


"there you are, where have you been?!" he wondered.


"as you can see i've been out" she told him.


"spending money on useless shit again" he mumbled.


"if you didn't want me to spend money then you should've never put thousands of dollars on this card" she spat back at him.


"I can drain that shit out in a heartbeat, watch it" roman said to her, glaring real hard.


"anyways...." iman shrugged as she rolled her eyes at her husband being an ass again. "what are you doing home so early?".


"felt like coming home" roman said. "hope you're happy, this is what you wanted right?".


"yeah...." iman trailed off. she then began to go to the bedroom to put up her purchases. roman followed her.


"where is jianni?" roman wondered. "why is she not home".


"jianni is at preschool, she's there until four" iman told her clueless husband. roman was never home much during this time so he only caught jianni was she's not in school, does he even know that she goes to preschool?


"since when was she at school until four?!" he asked her.


"since she started.... last year" iman glared. "but you wouldn't know because you're never home. did you even know that she was enrolled into preschool?".


"weren't you the one that begged me to put her into that preppy school, using my money to pay for the shit? of course I know she's in preschool" roman scoffed.


"then how do you not know that school ends for her at four?!" iman exclaimed. "oh yeah cause you're never home!".


"you better calm the fuck down iman, you know damn well that i'm the last person that you wanna get loud with!" roman also exclaimed, equally getting loud with her. "be lucky that i'm home now and that i'm not cheating on your ass!".


"you probably already have! fucking some white bitch thinking that she better than me!" iman yelled back.


"ain't nobody fucking no white bitch iman! you're getting all mad cause I forgot the time that jianni gets out of school, get out your fucking feelings!" he spat back at her.


"it's bigger than that roman... YOU'RE NEVER HOME!" she yelled. "this is the first time that you've been home early in forever! your daughter barely even sees you it's like she doesn't even have a dad!".


roman was already on the verge of grabbing iman up and fixing her attitude but this just sent him over the edge. anytime someone mentioned or insinuated that he wasn't in his daughter's life or that he was a bad father it would drive him crazy, and it would drive him to fuck up the person that was talking shit.


so roman grabbed iman and pushed her onto the wall that was in their room. he was hovered over her small frame, she was 5'3 and he was 6'3. a whole foot bigger than her, and he was pissed off.


"you really gonna say that shit iman?! after everything that I do for this family, for her, for you?" he growled, talking lowly into her ear and neck.


"it's not like i'm lying" she whispered, which prompted roman to grab her chin and pin her onto the wall making sure that she didn't try to leave him, at all.


"don't you ever say some shit like that ever in your fucking life again" he spat at her. "I take care of my daughter, I am a great father. i'm the one making the money and i'm the reason why you and jianni are living in this house. I am the money maker, don't you fucking dare try to say that it's like she doesn't have a dad because she most definitely does. don't you ever do that shit in your life again.... are we clear iman?".


iman didn't say anything, she just looked roman in the eye and then looked him up and down.


"I know you heard me girl.... are we clear?!" he repeated getting louder.


".... yes" she softly said.


roman let go of her and walked out of the room, slamming the door shut on the way out. meanwhile iman went into the bathroom that was in their bedroom and looked at herself in the mirror, she was in tears.


only sometimes she was brought to tears when it came to her arguing with roman, most of the time she was just pissed and would block him out. this time was one of those times that she was brought to tears because of one of their arguments. all she wanted was for him to actually be around, she understood that he had a job, a life to attend to but she just wished that it was able to fit in for their family.


for her.




a couple hours passed by and now they were eating dinner. jianni was already home and the family was eating dinner, lemon pepper chicken, rice, and asparagus for the couple and jianni had chicken nuggets and french fries, since she was only four.


"so how was your day at school babydoll?" iman asked her daughter.


"it was fun!" she exclaimed. "we colored, we played outside, we sung songs, we watched a movie, and I learned how to count to twenty!".


"good girl!" iman smiled. "you're so smart".


"I can count it right now!" jianni smiled. "uh... one, two tree, fou, five, six....".


a cell phone ringing interrupted jianni counting her numbers. it was obviously roman's, of course. he got up and walked away from the table to take the call, which made iman sigh.


"momma I thought that you told daddy no phone at dinner?" jianni said to her mother.


"daddy has a call from work, he had to answer" iman told her.


"daddy's always at work...." jianni said, which started to make iman a bit emotional.


jianni was very smart for a four year old, which was blessing and a curse in many different ways. it was a blessing for obvious reasons but it was a curse since whenever roman and iman would argue (especially about him barely being home and the "job"), they feared that jianni would overhear them and catch onto what's going on and the last thing they needed was jianni thinking that her parents hated each other.


even though it did seem like it sometimes.


roman came back to the table and grabbed his plate and started to grab his belongings.


"where are you going?" iman asked him.


"to work" he said.


"you already left for the day though I thought" she frowned.


"and now i'm going back" he said back to her. "i'll be back later".


"bye daddy" jianni said to her father.


"bye babygirl" he said, walking over to kiss her forehead and then leaving the house.


now it was just iman and jianni, like how it always is. iman sighed yet again as she finished up her food, she was clearly upset. the one time she thought that her husband was gonna stay home and he's leaving yet again.


"momma are you okay?" jianni asked her mom. this was gonna make iman crack.


"i'm fine babydoll" she said softly. "i'm gonna be fine...".


"hey, how about you finish your food so you can take a bath and get ready to go to bed. i'll read you a bedtime story tonight".


"yay!!! thank you momma!" jianni smiled as she hugged her mother.


iman smiled at how happy her daughter was. jianni was truly the light in her life, and whenever she was down, jianni was always the one to make her feel better. she was truly an angel.


the glue of it all.







roman pulled up to a warehouse in harlem in his black jeep wrangler, with shades and a leather jacket on. he didn't even need to go through security, they wouldn't even touch him, he loved that. once he got to the back, he got out of the car and walked into the building.


when the security saw him, they parted like the red sea when they saw him. the fear in their eyes honestly made him laugh, he loved that people feared him. he enjoyed the power that he had over people.


he walked through those big doors and saw his people in dark dimmed lights, collecting masses of cocaine, heroin, marijuana, molly, ecstasy, shit so many drugs that roman would forget sometimes. his empire was fuming with drugs, and he loved every minute of it.





"here is the tribal chief"

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