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Before he could protest, I said, “I’m grabbing my laptop. If I have to sit down here with you guys, I’m going to drive myself insane.”
I didn’t have much schoolwork with being so new into the semester and all, but I had an essay due in a week that I could work on. With my bag and all my study materials in hand I went back to the living room, dropped into the armchair, and peeled my laptop open. I stared at the blank screen for far too long. Eli brought a cup of hot chocolate, setting it on the dark mahogany coffee table before me.
My concentration was shit at best while I attempted to gather sources and put my thoughts in order.
After another fifteen minutes of staring at the blinking cursor, I asked, “Did you guys know my mom?”
Eli’s leg immediately stopped bouncing, and four heads swiveled in my direction at once. Kieran coughed, though it was clearly fake.
Aaron strode into the room, looking like a personal storm cloud hovered above his head. “Yes,” he said in a biting tone that was more suited to Rafael or Kieran.
Eli shot him a withering glare.
Rafael exhaled harshly before pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. I gave him my own look of disdain. Smoking didn’t bother me, but in this house…the place that my mother adored, it seemed distasteful.
Not that they didn’t all smoke in the basement anyway.
I looked to Aaron first since he seemed like he’d be the most forthcoming. “How did you know her? I’m guessing Romero introduced her to you all, but I don’t remember ever meeting you guys before that night…” My voice trailed off and my cheeks heated.
Kieran’s lips curled into a smirk.
Darren cleared his throat. “It’d really be better if he told you himself—”
Aaron scoffed. “He won’t be able to tell anyone anything for a while if that bastard just stared a turf war. Besides, she deserves to know.”
My stomach flipped nervously. “Know what? How you met my mother?” Confusion laced my tone.
Kieran straightened before nodding once. He hesitated, leveling me with a look that said, Are you sure you want to know?
I bit my lip for a moment. “Just tell me whatever it is you’re all being so cagey about.”
Another beat of hesitant silence, then, “She was a drug runner for Romero way back when.”
My jaw went slack. Every part of me felt like it had been doused in ice water. I couldn’t find my voice for several seconds. I swallowed—or tried to—but the lump in my throat only grew. I tried again, this time succeeding. “She what?” The words were somehow a cross between a whisper and a snarl.
Eli looked nervous, shifting on the couch.
Kieran didn’t seem fazed by my reaction. He continued. “It was marijuana at first. She was good at what she did, and Romero promoted her to handling cocaine. Occasionally she’d move product for one of us.”
My blood started to boil. I knew where this was going.
“It wasn’t more than a few weeks when Romero realized she was ingesting more than she was successfully getting over the border. When the time came for him to dole out the only punishment that fit the crime, he found out about you.”
The tips of my fingernails dug into my palms so hard the skin began to break. My body shook with anger.
It was his fault.
He put the drugs in front of her and she became an addict. It’s his fault she never cared for me. She struggled every moment of my life because of him.
I got to my feet, my laptop crashing to the floor. My whole body shook with the rage I only barely kept leashed.
“Romero spared her because of you,” Rafael chimed in, the tendrils of smoke from his cigarette curling like graceful dancers toward the ceiling.
“And when he realized her addiction was too strong to be beaten, even after a decade of being separated from the temptation, he married her. Provided for her, but also kept her clean,” Kieran said, as though that was some sort of consolation for the hell I’d been put through by her problem.
And now I had confirmation that they were never in love. The marriage was born out of guilt. But I couldn’t bring myself to care. He’d lied. Repeatedly.
“She still died because of it,” I snapped, unadulterated hatred coating my veins and penetrating my every cell like a poison. “If he hadn’t put the damn substance in front of her, none of this would have happened.”
