“Because with you, I at least have a choice in that manner. I don’t have to worry about being beaten or raped against my will. I have a choice with you, Sandro, because somewhere deep down, you have some good in you. So, please, let me get back to my dishes. I would hate for your cousin or brothers to come over and see the house isn’t tidy and make me suck dick before blacking my eye and forcing me to clean after. All the while you sit in the office and pretend you don’t hear.” She rolled her eyes and went back to washing dishes.
Standing from the counter, I placed myself behind her, moved her hair over, and licked the back of her neck. She stiffened underneath me, but I didn’t care. She tasted so good. Smelled even better. Running my hand up the back of her thigh, I lifted her dress.
“Sandro, no.”
“Fuuck, I love?—”
My body jerked and flew into the opposite counter before I could finish my sentence.
Shio stood above me, but his facial expression was neutral. He didn’t look mad or angry. He just looked like… Shio. That was him as of late. No emotion. The only time he showed emotion was with his mother and his cousins. With me, I got nothing. He barely looked my way.
“Son. It’s okay. When two people are in love, things happen. How do you think you got here?”
“Don’t touch my mother.”
He took a step in my direction, and Shannon pulled her gloves off. “Shio, iska daa. Mar dambe ima taaban doono. (Leave it. He won’t touch me again.)”
He turned his head but kept his gaze locked on me. That was another thing I was starting to despise. Shannon often spoke to Shio in her native tongue, but I never saw him speak it back. He always understood her, though, and I didn’t like that. I, too, spoke in my native language, but we vowed to never teach the wives and children because it gave us an advantage—at least that is what Benito felt.
“Yes, son. Go play. I know I am.” I struggled getting up as Shio walked around me. “That’s right, son. Listen to your father.”
Standing fully, I looked in the direction of Shio as he walked toward my office. When I started to follow after him, Shannon tried to grab me, but I shook her off.
“Shio!”
I was struggling to keep up, but when I saw him come from the office with my black box and enter the bathroom across from it, all of the high went away.
With the strength of a superhuman, I made it to the bathroom in one second flat. “What the fuck are you doing, boy?”
Shio held the box over the toilet and began emptying its contents. I launched forward and grabbed him, but it was too late. He had tossed the entire box inside the toilet. I snatched him, but he snatched back, slipping, and once he hit the ground, my feet were against his chest before I knew what I was doing. I was still high, even though I could focus more now, so I knew I was using all of my strength. Even with him struggling tobreathe, he didn’t squirm against me. He didn’t fight against my foot either. He just lay there with the weight of a grown man, robbing him of his breath.
Looking into the toilet, my heart dropped seeing my drugs floating.
“Ti voglio bene figlio mio, ma ti ucciderò se osi toccare di nuovo le mie cose. (I love you, son, but I will kill you if you ever touch my things again.)”
I smiled while not letting my foot up, the weight still making it hard for him to breathe. His mom had her language, and I had mine. He didn’t know what I was saying, and that gave me a sense of pride that I shouldn’t be feeling when it came to my son. He should’ve been my pride and joy.
Shio blinked, grabbed my foot, and twisted it in an unnatural position.
“Arrrrghhhh!” Hot pain shot up my leg instantly.
“Se osi toccare di nuovo mia madre, non dovrai preoccuparti di uccidermi. Perché prima ti ammazzo io, spacciandoti per qualcun altro. (If you put your hands on my mother again, you won’t have to worry about killing me. Because I’ll kill your high ass first.)
He let my foot go with a shrug and then lifted himself up from the bathroom floor. My ankle was hurting, but I knew once the drugs wore off, it would be a lot worse.
“The next time one of your nasty-ass family members touch my mama, you gone be the one to pay for it. On foe ’nem.”
He left me in the bathroom, high, confused, and now afraid. The boy was becoming a man. And I was his public enemy number one. But above all, I realized that my son, a child that had come from me, was too fucking smart and calculated for his own good, because when and how did he learn to speak Italian?
The heart of man plans his way, but theLordestablishes his steps. – Proverbs 16:9
The Lord was establishing my boy’s steps. I just didn’t want him stepping all over mine.
Closing the book,I did what I normally did when I read an excerpt written by Shio’s father: picked up the phone.
Shio. I… I don’t know how to do this. But I’m trying. I will get better. You will see. I hope you are staying safe, and remember, today is meal prep day.
I then remembereda scripture from the Bible that I read yesterday and sent that.
