Page 55 of My Mafia Queen

“Tell me about you, Carmina. I need to know more about your life,” he says seriously, and I slide back into my seat before looking out the window.

“You know most of what’s important about me.”

He stays silent, and when I swivel my head to him, he tears his cigarette away from his lips and pushes the smoke out, the wind playing with the sparks.

“Why was that man really after you?” he says, his raspy voice vibrating across my skin. “Other than that you didn’t put out?”

I suck in a long breath, weighing my words.

“I made a mistake,” I say, and his eyes come to me again.

I ponder a good answer, although there isn’t one.

There’s nothing I can tell him to make myself look good.

“I needed a way out… From my family situation.”

He lifts an eyebrow.

“And you thought that man would be the answer to your problem?”

“No. I was desperate. And I thought he’d deter my father from acting out.”

“Hmm… Did it work?”

“No. He was worse than my father, and I ended up keeping them away from each other, which defeated the purpose.”

A few moments pass.

“What did your father do to you?” he asks thoughtfully.

“He neglected me and my sister. He’d always considered us a burden, and when my mother died, my aunt moved back to LA so she could take care of my sister. I did my best to parent her as well since I was six years older, but my father never allowed us to go live with Edith, my aunt. He wanted us to share the hardship with him. That’s what he said. More than anything, he wanted the money he received from the state for being a single father. Other than that, he wasn’t easy to live with.”

My voice is cold, as if I’m talking about someone else’s life.

The truth is, this reality had crushed me while growing up.

The thought that we were poor and with no adult supervision or food and clothes was terrifying to me.

The money that he had was never spent on us.

That’s one thing.

And then there was the emotional abuse he’d put us through. Thinking about it makes my stomach churn even now, and that’s why I’ll never talk about it.

Tina and I have constantly feared for our lives.

Other than being in a state of panic, I’ve never learned anything from my father.

He’s passed no morsel of wisdom to us.

I’m surprised Tina hadn’t been institutionalized, and I’m a functional adult despite still dealing with the fear he’d put in me.

It’s just that now my anger and desperation are bigger than my fears.

That’s why I took stupid risks, like hanging out with Beau Anthony and going to Las Vegas to make money.

“Was he physically abusive?” he asks, and my eyes center on a muscle throbbing in his jaw.

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