The Runaway Gypsy

I should have known they would come after me. I should have known that using the Roma tricks would get me found faster. I ran out of cash three days ago, and I had to do something. The old tricks seemed like a good idea for some quick money. I wish I would have known how close my brothers were to finding me. I knew they had been looking for me, I know they had almost caught me twice now, but I had gotten away on a hope and prayer. This time I was not as lucky. I had made my way to New Orleans before everything went to hell in a handbasket. That's when I found a crystal ball in a prop shop and thought it would make me a quick buck. All it did was set me up to be easy prey. Four of my five brothers came at me from all sides. However, my twin was standing right behind me, waiting to grab me and pull me to the waiting SUV. Besides the driver, the only two people in the massive SUV are my brother and me. He is glaring out the tinted windows into the dark Louisiana night as it passes us. You would never know him or any of my brothers were sent to hunt me down. They all wear suits and shiny shoes; all look like they belong in a board room. You would never know they are gypsy princes born into a world long written into fairy tales and forgotten about. Then again, from my dirty, ripped jeans and hoodie, you would never know I was a gypsy princess. That's what got me into this mess, to begin with. It was the night of my eighteenth birthday. My parents had pulled out all the stops for my party. A masquerade ball to top all balls before it, there was no expense spared, and no detail left undone. Gypsy families traveled from all over America, and some even came from the old country to attend. I was the first gypsy princess born to my family line in over one hundred years. My father's family was known for its male line, breed like horses and oddly only males, that was till my mother had my twin brother and me. My brother was born five whole minutes before me, and then I came and surprised everyone. The night had started as a dream. Lavish ball gowns and tuxedos move all around this dreamland I find myself in, all our faces hidden behind elaborately decorated masks. Midway through the night, the dancing started, and the ball turned into a nightclub; gowns had been changed out of into barely-there rave outfits, the men had lost their tux jackets. Everyone was having a good time, that's when I noticed my father on the upstairs walkway talking to a man I had never meet or seen before, he was my father's age and it looked to me as if they are having an earnest discussion, but why would they be discussing anything here, at a part? I didn't let my mind think too much of it because my twin brother grabbed my hand and pulled me onto the dance floor; as the music pumped into us, I was happy I had changed from the heavy ball gown into leather pants and bando top it made it so much easier to dance on the packed dance floor. As the song went from upbeat and fast I to a slower song, the DJ announces that it's for couples, as all the single people, including myself, leave the floor in search of a drink or an ice bath to jump into someone catches my hand and pulls me back to the dance floor. I turned towards the pull g and thinking it is one of my brothers as no one else would grab me, only to find a stranger pulling me back towards the dance floor. I pull my hand away but the stranger has a firm grip on my wrist at this point and is all but literally dragging me across the dance floor. When he makes it to the dead center he stop walking spins around and pulls me close to his chest, as he cages me in his arms he start to sway us back and forth in a dancing motion. He is taller then I am even in my 120 millimeter Louboutins, he towers over me which isn’t hard at a whole of five foot four I almost make five foot eight in my high heels but it’s only barely. He has raven black hair and the bluest eyes I have ever seen behind his mask but other then that all I can tell about him is he is tall and pure muscle, I can feel his muscles threw his crisp dress shirt and he smells delicious. He doesn’t say anything, he just sways us back and forth and holds my body entirely to close to his. I try to pull away, try to add space between our body’s as to keep watching eyes from being gossiping tongues tomorrow, in the gypsy world a girls reputation is everything, if it’s bad you suffer but if it’s good you thrive. However when I try to pull away he pulls me closer to him. I can feel every inch of him, I can feel how the sway of our body’s is turning him on, I can feel him pressing my lower back closer to his body to add more friction for him. That’s when I brake my silence “I wish you would stop that, pulling me closer to you. I don’t know what your game is here but my brothers are not going to be happy with you making such a spectacle of me” He stops swaying us but doesn’t let me go, he doesn’t let me have even a inch of space. He leans down and places his lips to my ear and inhales my scent, I can feel his breath on my neck, it does things to me. I shiver in his hold as he whispers “Dear princess your brother have no say over what I do with you, and every soul here can gossip all they want tomorrow I don’t care because you belong to me” I gasped and as he stands back I pull my fist back and punch him as hard as I can. His hand leave my waist and I storm away from him as fast as I can but it’s not fast enough because he grabs my wrist again but this time I’m not being pulled to a dance floor again. I have five brothers I know how to bring a man down when I need to, I let him pull me back close to him, I let him start swaying us again, then I line up my knee and plant it in his manhood. He goes down like a bag of rocks, and I sachet myself right to the stairs that lead to where my father is. As I approach my father I hear him ask me if that was really necessary but as I look down to the jerk kneeling holding his junk and my brothers laughing at him I nod my head at my father “He said I belonged to him and he could do what ever he wanted with me and that people could gossip about me all they wanted to that he didn’t care. So yes I think he needed that” My father stands silent as he lights his cigar looking down at the jerk trying to gather his self and get up. My father doesn’t say anything, he just puts his hand on my walk and starts to lead me to a room off to the side, as we go inside he tells me to sit down that we need to talk. I sit and look at my father wondering what we would need to talk about, but before anything is said the door my father had closed behind us burst open and I spin around to find the one and only jerk standing there mask off his very handsome face and a look that would kill me if it could. My father lets out a huff of smoke as he says “Bo come in and sit down, Laila and I was just talking about you. I think it’s time we bring her up to speed with the rest of us, don’t you” I look to my father in shock as this man walks into the room and sits across from me on the sofa. As he walks I hear the oddest clicking sounds and that’s when I noticed he is wearing heeled boots, western boots, who wears western cowboy boots in New York City? I have never even seen a pair of cowboy boots before never mind a person who wears them. “Laila this young man is Bo, his father is Montgomery Declare King of the south. As you know our family has never had to make a oath before because we have only had male born into our line, so the oaths was made to us. However now there is you and Montgomery and I have been talking for a few months now and we think you and Bo would make a lovely couple” My jaw is on the ground and I’m in fully shock hearing my fathers words. You could hear a pin drop the room is so silent, no one says anything. My father crosses the room to a bar and pours himself a drink, walks back across the room “Laila close your mouth before you start to catch flys” with that I snap out of my shock “what do you mean lovely couple, what are you talking about” I all but scream at my father as he sucks on his cigar. He then looks at me but it is not him who answers my question is Bo “ he means we are to be married, our fathers made a oath of marriage between our families.” I hear the words he is saying but they don’t make sense to me, why would my father make a oath of marriage, why would he use me as a pawn to make ties with another family?. I turn on my heels and head for the door, I pull it open to find my two oldest brothers on the other side standing guard. My oldest brother turns to see me and pushes me back into the room as he walks in “sit down and hear them out Laila, you know how this works we have all been threw it, you watched when me and Kathy was oathed, you watched it happen when Landon and Daisy was oathed, you watched it with everyone of us but Lucas and that’s only because you two wasn’t of age yet. So turn around, sit down and listen to the terms give it a chance to settle in” I turn and huff my way into a chair and fold my arms over my chest, I’m starting to get cold because the upper part of my body is only covered by a flimsy bando top, as I start to shiver and run my hands over my arms I hear a curse under some ones breath. Bo hits his feet like lightning hit him and he crosses to the chair I’m sitting in, with two strides. He bends down in front of me “you look like your freezing and it’s about ten degrees cooler up here then on that dance floor” it’s then that he wraps a jacket around me and starts rubbing his hands up and down my arms “look I know this isn’t what any girl would ever want, or how they want things to go down. My sister has already read me the riot act before I even got on the bird to come up here. She didn’t pipe down till she walked in here tonight and your brother Lucas started chatting her up but it is what it is we might as well get use to it” he stand up and goes back to the sofa like that’s it’s, like we might as well just accept it is what it is. I nod my head and ask to go to back to my room for the night, I tell my father in cold and tired and I don’t want to go back to the party. He agreed and had my brother Mark walk me to my room. Little did they know they wouldn’t find me there in the morning, great thing about hotels they are easy to runaway from. I packed a few pairs of yoga pants and jeans a hoodie and some shirts and the rest of my basic stuff into a backpack. I opened as many of the cards I got handed to me from the party and took the cash out of them and shoved it into my wallet, I took out all my credit cards and left them on the nightstand along with my cell phone. I wrote a note to Lucas knowing that if I left with out a word he would panic and turn the world upside down looking for me, we have never spent more then an hour apart ever, but I knew my heart was braking to leave him and I knew it would kill him knowing I ran away even from him, but I did just that. Now a year latter here I am, sitting next to Lucas in the back of the SUV waiting for him to say something but he doesn’t. We pull up to a private airport hanger with a small private jet ready to take us back home to New York City, back to the hell I am going to have to face. When we step onto the jet I come to a shocking halt as my eyes land on the handsome cowboy slumped in the seat I normally sit in with black cowboy hat pulled down over his eyes. Landon my oldest brother Mr hear them out himself is behind me and says “I swear he can sleep threw the coming of Christ, it’s amazing I would kill to be able to sleep like that” I spin and look at him “what is he doing here? Why isn’t he in ten buck two where he belongs? Why is he here in my seat on our families jet?” Landon just c***s his one eye brown goes to his seat. Lucas on the other hand picks now to open his mouth “ he is here because this is where he belongs, he has come to find his future wife because she ran away from a hotel a year ago like some crazy person. He is here because my wife has begged me not to disown you and turn on you the way you turned on our family, he is here to do right by you, and as so I expect you to do right as well” I’m stunned at my twins words, I’m stunned by how cold he can treat me, as if I just ran away because I was wanting attention or something stupid not like I ran away to avoid being sold off like a cow. “ I didn’t turn on my family Lucas I ran away because I didn’t want to marry a total stranger, I ran away because what else was there to do everyone else had talked about how it was what it was and I could just get use to it” all he does is give me a cold glare, “ don’t pay attention to Lucas,Laila he hasn’t had enough sleep since the baby came he’s always in a b***h mood any more” my head spins from Mark to Landon to Perry before landing back to Lucas “when did you get married and have a child?” What all have I missed in a year? The voice that answers isn’t any of my brothers but is coming from under a black cowboy hat that is still slumped over in my seat, “He married my sister Nova, almost nine months to the day she pops out lung almighty and they are just living the dream over there in the land of no sleep. It’s rich tho that it wonder is giving you the third degree when the same night you ran off he took a wild hair and ran off with Nova to Vegas” the bottle of water he catches with out even moving his hat is stunning yet childish of Lucas to throw at him. “That is totally different I was not oath bound, I never brought shame on my family” with that the cowboy hat moves and Bo stands as tall as he can in the little jet “no you brought shame onto my family, you took something that did not belong to you. You know I wouldn’t have it any other way Novas happiness means the world to me and Lung just makes it even better but do not sit here and act like you have not done your fair share of wrong, she did what she thought she had to no one holds that against her. I may not agree with Laila and what she did but if I was her I most likely would have done the same thing. Plus I won’t have her talked down to like that so mind you mouth skippy” I can’t help the smile on my face as Bo takes my seat again, I’m sitting smirking at Lucas when he launches himself at me like we are five and all hell brakes loss in the little aircraft. Mark and Landon grab Lucas Perry and Rhett grab me and pull Lucas and me apart, no one even sees Bo coming but he lands a few good punch’s into Lucas face before I get loss of my two brothers and jump on Bo’s back and start hitting him. Once again Rhett grabs ahold of me and in a booming scream tells everyone to stop, Rhett has always had a edge of danger to him so we all freeze in place. Rhett tells everyone to take their seats and keep their hands to them selfs for the rest of the trip back home, and like bad children we do as we are told. As we are all mumbling under our breath and returning to our seats Rhett turns to Bo “Bo I’m only going to say this once so you might want to listen, don’t ever get in the middle of the twins, and don’t even side with one over the other. They will claw your eyes out as quick as look at you” then Rhett takes his seat at the far back of the jet and the door to the jet closes and we start to taxi off. I’m in the very first seat on the small air craft, Bo is behind me, Mark, Landon and Perry are all sitting together around a small table getting ready to play cards once we are in the air, Lucas is in the bathroom nursing a busted lip thanks to Bo and Rhett looks like he is already asleep in the farthest seat in the back where our mother normally sits. I sit up on my knees and look over the top of my seat to find Bo stunning blue eyes looking right back at me “is your hand okay” I ask and he looks down, flex his fingers then nods. He doesn’t speak to me just nods “thank you” I say and it must catch him off guard because he ask “for what” I kneel up the seat a little more and rest my chin on the top of the seat “for standing up for me, for telling Lucas to stop throwing rocks from his glass house and for punching him” he is sitting looking at the edge of his hat now as he spins it around almost as if he is making sure the hat don’t have any damage done to it. It seems like a hour has gone by before he stops inspecting his hat “I won’t take it to kindly him treating you like that, I know it’s not my place to speak for you that way my momma didn’t bring me up like that, to speak for a lady she told me not to be foolish and think woman couldn’t or wouldn’t speak their minds but he didn’t have no right to be doing you like that” as he speaks I can hear a southern twang when he speaks and it set butterfly’s free in my belly, but I dare not tell him that “ well thank you” he nods and puts his hat back on, I don’t know what comes over me but I reach over the seat and pluck the hat off his head “ what the hell?” He says I a spin and sit back in my seat Perry laughs and I throw the hat at him and he puts it on, Bo’s face is totally drained of any color and he looks from Perry to me “what you do that for darlin” I turn to face him “my name isn’t darlin it’s Laila, and it’s a stupid hat what’s the big deal?” He leans back in his seat and gives me a knowing smile “well darlin, I think Laila is a mighty pretty name and all but you seem darlin to me, it’s the hair isn’t it?” I am now back on my knees looking over the top of my seat to him “what” I ask at his question “the hair Nova and momma is always telling me how pretty my hair is most girls don’t like the hat cause it covers it up, you think I’m sexy with my black hair and big blue eyes don’t ya darlin” I just roll my eyes and turn back around in my seat. As I look out to the darkened heavens I can hear my brother hooting and laughing behind me but I just wish God would make a way out of this for me. I must have dozed off some time during the flight because I wake to hands feeling around my waist and open my eyes to Bo trying to find the parts to the seat belts for my seat, he is bent down and leaning into me sleigh his big strong hands trying to feel to where the seat belt is under me to pull it out but I shift my weight and stretch out around him I push my chest and crotch up towards him in my sleepy stretch and he freezes and looks up to meet my breast pushed out in his face I might not have the biggest chest there is but what I do have is attractive his breath catch’s and it takes him a second to recover from my body stretching out along his. When he looks up further he meets my smiling gaze and smiles back “hello darlin, sleep well?” I nod my head and ask if we are landing “no we have about another thirty minutes before we land give or take, we hit a rough patch and you almost went flying out of the seat so I was just trying to buckle you up” I nod and curl back into my ball. It doesn’t seem like thirty minute has passed but we are now landing at JFK airports private hangers I can see the black town cars waiting for us to land, I can see all the men standing as security, normal people would swear we had connections to the mob even tho we don’t. I sit up straight and buckle in for our landing into hell. I know the route those town cars are going to take, I know the drive way to large private estates, I know the gate code to get into that drive way as well, I know what home looks like, I also know I would rather go anywhere else, do anything else but face my father the traitor. As we depart the flight I count the cars, there is more then normal. When I get into the first waiting cat with the door open Bo follows me in and sits beside me. I give him a puzzle, look enough to ask why he is sitting here next to me in this car and watch as my brothers get in the second and my twin get in to the third car alone “ what are you doing Bo? “ he looks at me as the car starts to pull away from the tarmac “I’m riding back with my wife to her family home, you might as well get use to it we are oathed to each other” I don’t say no more I turn and look out the window. I’m dog tired, I feel as tho j haven't slept in a month, I'm hungry and I'm.cold. As I'm thinking about not wanting to go home.my stomach let's out a nasty growl and Bo looks at me “arr.yih hungry when was the last Tim you are?” I start to pick and the him.lj e I my shirt “im fine” is all I say but he doesn't let it go “tell me.right nos when was the last time you had a meal, was it earlier today? Did you have inch or anything. I just shake my head and wave him off telling him in good “Darlin you may be a lot of things but a good lier is not one of them so tell me the truth when was the last time you ate?” I avert my eyes and answer him truthfully “a few days ago” he leans up and tells the driver that at the next drive threw that’s open to pull in and get me food. He mumbles something under his breath and his face looks like he just sucked on a sour lemon “ I’m not your responsibility ya know, I can take care of myself. I don’t need to be stopped for food I would rather just make it back to my father house and get this all over with so I can leave again” he looks at me like I have three heads “your father don’t have much to say once we are back and the only place you will be going is back to my apartment with me” now it’s my turn to act as tho I have sucked that lemon “ no I won’t, I may have ran away but that doesn’t mean I gave up my pride, I’m not going back your apartment with you. Your crazy like I told you a year ago I don’t know what game your playing but I’m not going to be the topic of peoples gossip” he curses load this time and punches the passenger seat in front of him “ you really don’t f**king under stand do you. The oath is a contract, an agreement. In the paper work both sides agree on terms, how long we will court, what will be provided by my side or myself, what yours will provide, when weddings will be, how long we get to wait before s child has to be produced, things like that. Our whole life’s get planned out for us by our fathers, the only pull we have is threw my say after we are married and that clock runs out of time in less then two hours” I’m puzzled, I know how the oaths work, I know that it’s a basic road map on what my life will be like if I sit, shut up and do as I’m told, but I have never been good at doing what I’m told. His words about the clock running out tho doesn’t sit well with me and I can’t help but ask what he means even tho I don’t think I’ll like the answer at all “the oath gave us a year before we marry, tonight it’s up…”