Page 76 of Bad Men

Behind him, my mom turned away to gather the scattered dishes stacked on every piece of flat surface and rush them to the kitchen, but I knew from the way they rattled in her hands that she was crying. The sight filled my own eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I never meant to upset you. I lost track of time and—”

He blew out a hard huff of air and raised a trembling hand. The withered palm scrubbed the weary lines etched into his handsome face.

“Where were you?”

“A friend’s house?” My breath rattled in my chest, a hitch that made my lie all the more evident.

From the glint of bone deep disappointment in his eyes to the way he turned his head away, I knew he didn’t believe me.

“We know, niña,” he murmured so quietly, so completely broken that I almost shattered. “We know what you’ve been doing and with who.”

The very air went from my lungs, taking with it all sensations in my limbs. A fog drenched my thoughts, creating a mess I couldn’t paddle through.

“What?” was the best I could muster.

With the weariness of an old man approaching the end, he shuffled over to the sofa and gingerly lowered himself onto the cushions with a deep exhalation.

“You know we live in a small community, Mia,” he stated. “We look out for one another. Did you honestly think someone wouldn’t see?” His brown eyes lifted to my face. “We know about…” he broke off the give a vague twirl of his wrist in indication. “We know who you have been bringing into our home when we’re not here.”

The spit in my mouth turned to ash. Any excuse I could think of rolled across my tongue like grit.

“I know you’re a grown woman,” he continued, not wanting, or needing my excuses. “I know you could have had your own life by now in some fancy school miles away. I know. You deserve better than the life we’ve given you—”

“No, that isn’t—!” I started to protest and was stopped by the hand he put up.

“But we’ve done our best. We gave you a home, a family, a community. We provided the best we could, which is why this … decision of yours makes no sense. They are thugs, Mia. Criminals. Associating with them will only lead to something bad.”

“They’re not thugs,” I rasped, willing the words out. “I know what people think of them, but they’re not like that. Not really.”

“Mia,” he said with a quiet ripple of steel. “They are bad men. It doesn’t matter that you don’t think so. They have created that name, that legacy for themselves. Your name, the name your mother and I have worked your whole life to protect means everything, niña. Without your reputation, what do you have? Those people who came running the second they thought something had happened to you, those people who stayed up all night praying for your safety, who drove across this whole city searching for you, do you think they would respect you and love you the same way if they knew what you were doing not with one, but two men? Two, Mia? No self-respecting woman would associate with men like that, but two…” he gave a disgusted shake of his head that wrenched something inside me. “Girls who do these things also have a name and people will never see them past that. It doesn’t matter if they attend church every day or feed the homeless. That mistake will follow them for the rest of their lives and I won’t let that happen to you.”

Shame burned white hot in my cheeks, a flaming pit of self-doubt and loathing. I had always known what I was doing, the lust I was feeling for both men was improper and sinful, not to mention abnormal, but I’d thought I would be more careful. I didn’t think I would get caught. More still, I knew I would do it again. I loved them. I knew that as sure as I knew I had let my family down. I didn’t care what the world thought of me or my relationships. It only mattered what my parents thought.

“I love them,” I whispered, breathing the words into life for the first time.

I wasn’t sure how I expected my father to react to the confession, but it wasn’t amusement. His laugh, cold and brittle surprised me.

“What do you love?” he asked. “What about them could you possibly love? They murder people. They sell drugs to children. They take money from people who are already suffering. This is what you want in a man? This is how we raised you to think?”

“They don’t sell drugs to children,” I defended, the only aspect I could defend.

“Mia!” he snapped, amusement gone. “Listen to yourself. They are messing with your head. They are using you to get what they want. Do you really think they care about you? Do you think there isn’t a dozen other girls already in their mind ready to replace you? What are you offering them that they can’t get at any corner block? Have they made you any promises? Have they done anything to suggest they will stay with you? What will they do to you when they are done using you? What will Eduardo do if he thinks you’re a threat? What will he do to send a message to everyone else?”

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t answer without lying and if I was lying who was I lying to? He clearly knew the truth. I was the one fooling myself because they had never made me any promises. This whole thing started because I wanted to pay my family’s debt. That implication on its own suggested I was exactly the type of woman my parents were afraid of me becoming. I had literally sold my body to two men in exchange for a favor, men who had not once made any sort of indication they ever wanted more. In fact, they had pushed me away at every turn with their rules and warnings. We hadn’t had a single conversation that hadn’t ended in sex. They wouldn’t even stay in bed with me long enough to catch their breaths. True, there were moments we connected but maybe that had all been in my head. Maybe I was just an idiot, a naive, virgin too stupid to recognize the difference between fucking and a relationship. I had put my family’s name, their reputation on the line for a passing amusement. But worse than that, I had put them in danger. The incident with Alejandro — an incident my father didn’t even know about — should have been a wakeup call. What the hell was I doing?

I fought not to cry. I bit down hard on my bottom lip, urging back the tears blinding me. The sound of my father’s voice faded beneath a shrieking hum amplifying between my ears. It rang with the force of my heartbreak.

“Mia.”

The dam burst, expelling a stream of hot agony down my cheeks. It cleared my view of my father climbing to his feet and moving to stand before me. His warm, rough hands rested lightly on my bare arms, focusing my attention on his kind eyes.

“We will fix this,” he promised me. “Don’t worry. Your mother has already called your Aunt Victoria. She is on her way.”

Inner turmoil aside, I gaped at him. “Why is Aunt Victoria coming?”

He pulled me to the lumpy armchair and nudged me into it. He perched on the edge of the coffee table facing me.

---