Page 26 of The Devil's Demise

“Is everything okay here?” a manager asks, his glasses tripping down his nose as he fixes them.

“Yes, Andy, thanks.” Dante walks up, clasping his hand with a shake. “My wife and her estranged mother were having a little disagreement.” He leans in closer. “The woman is a little . . .” He circles his index finger around his temple.

“Don’t you listen to him!” my mother snaps, grabbing Andy’s arm, and he gently flicks it off.

“Ahh, do you need help, ma’am?” Andy scratches the top of his balding head.

“She’s the one that needs help,” she snaps, pointing at me.

“I got this, Andy. We’ll get her out of here.” Dante gives him that winning smile.

“Ahh, okay. Well, if you need me . . .” He sets to walk away.

“We’re fine.” Dante grins. “We’ll behave. I promise.”

“Okay, have a nice day.” Then he’s gone, leaving us with her.

“Nice try, Mother,” I grit.

“We should go, baby,” Dante says, coming up to me. “But hear me,” he now tells her. “You come anywhere near my family, and the things that I’ll do ... well . . .” He snickers. “Let’s just say, you know what I’m capable of already. Except now, I have children to protect from the likes of you.”

She pops her chin up, looking this way and that, pursing her lips, fixing her satchel on top of her shoulder.

“And unlike you”—he bends in real close—“I actually know how to protect what’s mine.”

Her wrath-filled eyes go to us again, but her mouth stays shut. For once, my mother is speechless.

“It must kill you to know I’m happy,” I say with a grin. “And that you didn’t get anything you wanted.”

“Whatever.” She dismisses us with a flick of her hand. “I’m done here.”

She doesn’t even look at Carnelia, and I hate that this happened in front of her. But God, I couldn’t hold myself back. I waited so long to tell her off, knowing I probably never would, and when I saw her, it all came out.

She took and she took, to make herself fulfilled in some demented way, while I suffered. My therapist says she’s a classic narcissist, and I guess, over the years of speaking to him, I can see it. Now, it’s like I’m looking at her with clearer eyes. She’s crazy. I don’t care what clinical term there is for her, but she is truly insane. She has to be.

She blows out a noisy breath, and with a stare filled with derision, she turns away and marches out of sight, her short heels clacking until we no longer hear them.

“Are you okay, Mommy?”

I face my daughter, throwing a huge smile onto my face, faking it for her. “Of course I am!” I blink back tears. How could my own mother treat me this way? “I have you, your daddy, and soon your baby brother. I’m the happiest mommy alive.”

“Good.” She nods. “Because whoever that lady was, I don’t like her. Not one bit.”

Dante chuckles, placing her down on her feet, and she takes both of our hands in hers.

“Me neither, baby,” I say as we head back to our shopping cart, still where we left it, and together, we finish shopping and head out the door.

Once we make it back to Dante’s SUV, and Carnelia is strapped in her car seat, Dante tugs my hip and pulls me close enough to kiss me. “If that bitch doesn’t put you into labor, I don’t know what will.”

I scoff. “It’s the least she can do.”

CHAPTER4

DANTE

“I knewI should’ve killed her,” I say, pacing in the giant-ass hospital room, Raquel on the bed, looking too damn calm for someone about to have a baby.

“Babe, come here,” she calls stretching out a hand, the IV sticking out from her arm. “It’s going to be fine. You’ll see.”

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