Page 30 of Bratva King's Secret Twins

He sits up, still straddling me, and places both hands on his lap with a lazy smile. “Oh come on, Miss Rose, we’re grown now.”

My grandmother clocks her head to the side and stares Mason down. “You don’t fool me, Mason. I know your daddy. I know how you boys get down.”

Mason’s eyes harden into an icy glare as he looks Nana up and down, sizing her up like a predator assessing its prey. A smirk tugs at the corner of his lips as if he’s already planning his victory.

“How do we get down?”

“By beating your women into a pulp,” she declares, running her tongue across her gums with a chilling smirk and a humorless laugh. “But you see, I’ll tell you what I told your granddaddy when we were young.”

Mason laughs, a smirk playing on his face. “Oh yeah, and what did you tell him?”

My nana reaches into her coat pocket and brandishes a gun, pointing it directly at Mason. “I told him that I am a sharpshooter who will kill him and you dead without hesitation.”

Mason’s humor leaves his face, but he looks my nana square in the eye and scoffs out a warning: “Miss Rose, you’re not the only one with a gun.”

Nana smirks, her finger resting on the trigger. “I bet,” she says calmly as she cocks the gun. “But I am the only one with their gun cocked and ready to blow.” Her voice drops lower, almost a guttural growl. “So as I said, get the fuck up off my granddaughter and mosey yourself up out of this house.”

Mason’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t meet her challenge. Instead, he slowly rises from his position on top of me, maintaining eye contact with Nana the entire time. His hands are up in the air as a sign of surrender, and his voice is calm but firm.

“48 hours, Gwen, not a minute after,” he says, not backing down. I don’t dare look in his direction but feel his gaze streaming down on me.

Nana Rose shakes her head, her gun hand steady. “We’ll be, Mason, but if you ever try to pull this garbage again, I won’t hesitate. Understand?”

Mason bares his teeth in a smile that isn’t quite a smile, then turns his gaze to me. “Neither will I.”

Nana Rose keeps the gun trained on him as he walks past us out the door. I stay lying on the ground, my hands above my head and my breathing unsteady. Nana’s breath comes out shaky, but she doesn’t make me move because I feel completely human for the first time in my life, no more bravado or slick comeback to defend me.

I am terrified and frozen on my living room floor.

14

GWEN

Nana sits on the couch next to my idle body, but after about ten minutes, she whispers, “Gwen, what happens in 48 hours?”

My chest tightens, and I want to pull my hair out and scream, but I don’t have the energy to do so because everything feels so out of reach, so out of control that I want to crawl into a ball and sob.

“In 48 hours, either I get him the one hundred and ninety five thousand dollars, or he wants me to himself,” I respond, not daring to look at her because I know her heart is shattering into a million pieces.

“You can’t be his.”

“I can’t get one hundred and ninety five thousand dollars in two days.” I finally sit up.

My head feels heavy, and my chest is so tight with the need to cry that I am practically shaking as I look over at Nana, whose eyes glisten with tears, but her lips are in a straight line with a confident look.

“Then you need to run.” She slaps both of her thighs with her hands and gets up, walking towards the kitchen. Her statement sends a spark of electricity through me, and I shoot up, trying to follow her quick movements into her bedroom.

“I can’t go on the run with two five-year-olds!” I whisper yell, afraid Mia, who is still playing with herUncle Mason’sBarbies, will hear me arguing.

Nana Rose looks over her shoulder, narrowing her eyes at me as she lowers to her knees as if she is about to pray, but instead reaches underneath the bed. She reveals a pink, rosy box I remember from childhood because I couldn’t touch it.

“Nana?” I question, cautiously moving forward, but she doesn’t respond.

Instead, she whispers to herself as if she is talking herself into whatever she is about to reveal to me. “Nana, you’re scaring me.”

Taking a deep breath, she begins to speak, “Your grandfather was a terrible man. He was just like Mason, quick-tempered and dangerously possessive.”

She opens the box, revealing stacks of neatly bundled cash, along with important paperwork like birth certificates and social security cards and a small, silver revolver.

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