Page 61 of The Players

Okay, that was just weird. She couldn’t believe his mother gave up that easily. Maybe she couldn’t stand the animosity that Sy radiated toward her. The tension in the room was so thick, it could be cut with a knife.

“Put it back,” Sy growled.

Holding her bag closer, Erica kept on walking. “I’m leaving.”

“I said, put it the fuck back!”

It took Carmen a second to catch on. “No…”

Erica’s cheeks turned red. “I need this,” she snapped, not even bothering to deny what she had done.

“Don’t give a fuck,” Sy said, his tone ice-cold. “Whatever you just stole, put it on the counter, and get the fuck out of our home.”

“I wouldn’t have to steal anything if my sons would help their mother out!” Her hand waved around the room. “You have all of this, but spend it on your whores.” The facade of the contrite mother had completely vanished.

Carmen ignored the jab and kept a hold of Sy. He stood rooted to the spot next to her, as if his feet had grown into the floor. She didn’t believe he was actually capable of hurting his mother, but she didn’t want to take any chances. He would never forgive himself.

In the meantime, Erica continued to slither toward the penthouse elevator. Any second now, she would be gone with the loot.

Carmen couldn’t care less about the stuff Erica might have stashed into her bag. She was more concerned with Sy. All emotion had left his face, which was an eerie sight to behold.

His eyes pinned his mother to her spot. “If you don’t put the fuck back what you stole, I will fucking break every bone of that bastard of a boyfriend of yours.”

“You wouldn’t.” There was fear in her voice.

“I fucking would. You know why? Because, unlike you, my brother actually taught me a thing or two about life. Like to never make an idle threat. So, yeah, I will cut up that junkie ass boyfriend of yours and I will fucking enjoy it.”

Erica started pulling out items from her bag, while cursing him. “You’d love to finish your brother’s work, wouldn’t you?” she spat. Several of Carmen’s gold rings and bracelets rained down onto the carpet, followed by a Rolex. “I curse the day you were born. You boys ruined my life! I gave up my youth for you, and what do I get in return?” After vomiting those loving words, she left, leaving a trail of destruction behind her.

No good deed ever goes unpunished.

Carmen could just kick herself. “I’m so sorry.” Sy was staring into the distance, as if there was something interesting on the skyline. When the silence stretched for another minute, she couldn’t take it any longer. “Vince warned me. I should have listened. Please say something. Or yell. It’s okay if you yell at me. I deserve it.”

And then some.

He pulled her close. She burrowed into him, needing his support as much as she wanted to give it to him.

“You couldn’t have known,” he said, his voice tight. “Good old Mom is a master manipulator. All junkies are. She’ll do and say anything to get her next score. And Frankie, well, he’s her enabler, just as the men she had before him. They’re like freaking cockroaches; kill one, and another one immediately takes his place. I pay her rent and utilities every month, so she doesn’t end up on the street. It’s no use giving her money. She’d only spend it on drugs and her loser boyfriends. Viking has cut all ties with her. He got arrested for nearly killing the man who… burned me.”

“I’m so sorry,” she repeated, not knowing how else to respond. No words were enough to put out the fire in his words.

“If it hadn’t been for some judicial error, he would have been locked up for years. In the end, Mom didn’t cost him his freedom, but she did cost him Elena. She ruined them.”

He grabbed her chin and kissed her deep. The unspoken words hovered between them.

I don’t want her to do the same to us.

Then he let her go and went into the shower. All she could do was watch him leave.

***

It was close to midnight, and Carmen was still wide awake in her lonely bed. Sy hadn’t come to her. He always came to her bed during the night. Other times, they started making out on the couch while watching a documentary, and he’d drag her off to bed. If it weren’t him, then it would be Vince to instigate it. Never since they had become intimate had they left her alone all night. She found she missed their warmth. Vince hadn’t come home yet, and she had no idea where he was at this hour. He’d been gone a lot lately at night.

When the clock hit one o’clock, she heard the front door open. That must be Vince coming home. Footsteps stopped at her door for a second, then they went on. She heard him enter the shower and the water start running.

She got out of bed, put on her slippers, and went to Sy’s room. He was tossing and turning in bed. Beads of sweat covered his body that writhed as if in pain.

She couldn’t stand him going through a nightmare. She walked up to him and slowly rubbed his shoulder, in the hope of waking him up.

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