Page 33 of Mafia Kings & Wedding Rings
We agreed that I would go home and come back later that evening. I left his home nervous as hell. Lord knows I needed the money, but it made me uneasy thinking about moving into this house with them. Plum must have skimmed over that part on the application, and I didn’t see it in the job description until I had already arrived on the scene. Trying to keep my expectations low, I decided I would roll with it but keep looking for work in the meantime just in case.
Staten
“My God, Staten, it smells like garbage in here.” My mama plugged her nose and used the lever on her wheelchair to push herself into my house.
Behind her, Sol also turned up her nose in disgust.
“It’s been a long day, Ma. What y’all doing here?” I asked, leaving them in the foyer while I went to the living room.
I’d started some of the cleanup process and dumped trash left behind into a big garbage bag. There was still so much more to do. A big laundry basket sat nearby, and it was easily filling up with dirty clothes from the past week. Every time I picked up something or took in the mess, it only further pissed me off at Cyra’s ass.
“Obviously, making sure the hazmat team doesn’t need to be called in here,” Sol said, closing the door behind her.
“This week has thrown us off?—”
“It seems there were already some holes in this system before now,” Rossi surmised, eyes surveying the mess that had become my home.
“What you want from me, Ma, hmm? I’m doing everything that everybody fucking wants, but I don’t seem to be making anybody happy!”
“Why are you here?” she questioned.
“The fuck are you talking about right now!” I barked, throwing a bunch of toys into a large plastic bin.
“Stat,” Sol warned in an even tone. “Nobody is trying to pressure you into anything.”
My aunt was often the voice of reason. We were closer in age than me and my brothers, so it wasn’t rare for me to go to her for advice coming up. She did the same to me when she needed it. Before she got married, she’d had her share of fuck niggas and trauma, and I’d always been there for her like a brother rather than her nephew.
“I don’t need you to speak for me, Sol.” Ma’s tone was even, and she never even blinked when looking at me from the doorway in the foyer.
“Fine. How about I go check on the kids?” Sol backed up toward the staircase.
Sighing, I dropped down onto the couch to catch my breath. I needed to smoke more than anything, but I didn’t need nobody talking shit to me about that either. Instead, I slowly leaned back and stared straight ahead, still gripping the garbage bag as it rested between my legs.
“You don’t have to hold back anything with me, Staten Marek. You know this. You left all those years ago, running from your legacy. From your memories. From the reason I’m bound to this chair now, and you have a bullet scar a few inches from your heart.”
Listening to her retell the story left my pulse racing as flashes of that night flickered through my head like a bad movie. This was nothing new for me. That shit lived rent free in my mind. I still woke up in cold sweats, feeling that bullet piercing my chest. Leaning forward, I steepled my hands together and buried my face in them. It didn’t matter what part of the world I was in; I couldn’t outrun it.
“I couldn’t stay here. I didn’t want to become what he was in the end. Cold. Ruthless.”
“Your father was a lot of things, Staten. Did he change after almost losing us? Absolutely, but he was trying to work through that. He missed you. He never said it, but I could tell. When we had dinner and holidays, there was always this gap because you weren’t here. You took our grandchildren away. I think that was very selfish.”
“Staying here and possibly having what happened to me happen to one of them was all I could think about,” I admitted, shaking my head.
She pushed the lever forward on her wheelchair and moved closer to me.
“You barely kept in touch. Do you know how many nights that hurt me?” she asked with misting eyes.
Hearing the pain in her voice left me briefly closing my eyes before opening them and facing her.
“I might be stuck in this chair, but it could have been a lot worse, Staten. You almost lost your life saving mine, and I am forever grateful for that.”
“I would do it again.”
“I know.” A soft smile lifted the corners of her mouth, and she reached out to place her hand over mine. “Because that’s the kind of man you are. I knew when you were a child that you would never be like Justus. I never asked you to be. He wanted to run his empire with his sons at his side. It hurt him that you, out of everyone, didn’t share the same vision.”
“He survived without me.” I sniffled and shifted my gaze from her.
There was a part of me that would always regret not making amends with Justus before he died. It was just one more thing a nigga had to compartmentalize. Shaking my head, I swiped my fingers under my nose and took a breath.
