After about ten minutes of driving, she turned the music down and faced me.“Shio. We have to talk.”
I knew we did. I was just processing everything and wasn’t in the fucking mood. My night went from thinking I’d found my wife to finding a baby mama and a daughter.
I kept my face toward the road as I replied, “And we will Bahati.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“But our daughter?—”
“She’s safe, fed, and dry.”
“Thanks to yourgirlfriend, right?”
“Bahati, we were just in a fuckin’ shootout. I went on a suicide mission to get you and Shya… One that could haveresulted in all of us being killed, and since you’ve touched down, you’ve been tight about Solana when she ain’t did shit to you but make sure Shya straight.”
Defending Solana felt like the right thing to do, but the words tasted vile leaving my mouth.
“Don’t do that, Shio. You only came because they told you about Shya. Had it not been for her, you wouldn’t have come. Let’s be real.”
Her African accent was still strong and deepened when she was worked up. If we were in any other circumstances, I would’ve enjoyed hearing her speak with such passion. Shifting in my seat as I scanned the road for anything unusual, I tossed my eyes at her, finding her already eyeing me. Bahati was supposed to be dead to me, yet she was here because of my decisions.
Or was she?
What a fucking coincidence that when she popped back up, the chess pieces were knocked all over again?
“But I came, Bahati. You sitting next to me, right?”
“I wouldn’t have gotten kidnapped had it not been for you!”
I rubbed my hand down my face and squeezed my eyes shut as we approached a red light. Every vein in my body was twitching. It felt like a dark cloud had been looming over my head lately, and that it was only a matter of time before the rain poured. Everything felt wrong. My life had been intentional, strategic, and calculated. I’d made sure of it. So much of my world had been controlled by the men I came from that it nearly drove me crazy. Then, the Cuppacio men were killed. I went into tactical mode. Life still didn’t feel like my own when my cousins and I were grinding to feed our family, so I started creating more structure. Religion, fitness, reading—those helped center me in the chaos. I was grounded by routine and discipline.
Then, I got with Bahati, and shit started looking up for my family and me thanks to her pops. We had a stable plug and a stable income. Both were a first for us, and we were eating. Then her feelings drove her actions, and she started fucking with my paper, so I had to dead that shit.
That’s what I did—I handled shit.
I wasn’t a man of immediate action unless I’d assessed the situation. Back then, you would’ve never been able to convince me that I’d be given an ultimatum about who I was marrying between two unfavorable women. Bahati may have seemed like the obvious choice to Don’s ultimatum, but she was just as far from it as Solana was. I had issues with both women, and constantly comparing and contrasting them wasn’t something I took pride in. But I couldn’t stop. In a way, it was necessary.
Don putting me on a time clock to marry one or the other was some goofy shit. Another man putting me, Shio Cuppacio, on a timer was fucking laughable. I did shit on my own fucking timing while making my own fucking choices. Those choices, though, had Bahati sitting next to me, seething because I wouldn’t answer her questions. My choices had her out in the world, taking care of a little girl as a single mom. My choices had failed to allow me to see Solana for who the fuck she was. All that shit had me questioning every fucking thing.
Slightly turning my head, I could see that Bahati was still pouting. If nothing else, she was beautiful, but within hours, she’d proved that she was still an emotionally driven woman. That was a “fuck no” for my lifestyle. She didn’t know how to read the fucking room, and when she did, her first move was to figure out how to get ahead of whatever so that her outcome was advantageous. The shit was selfish, and I wasn’t marrying a selfish woman. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t be marrying either of the women, but I couldn’t say no without fucking up my cousins and my brother.
“Bahati… I didn’t mean for you to get dragged in this shit.”I didn’t think I’d ever see your ass again. Damn sure didn’t want to. But that’s what happens when you spare a motherfucker.“But you got my word that no harm will come your way ever again,” I said, keeping some of my thoughts to myself.
“And Shya?”
Shya.
The light had turned green, so we were back in motion, but I still glanced over at Bahati. She was slightly turned in her seat, legs folded, and staring at me. Her big lips were pouty, and her eyes were wide with wonder. But Bahati wasn’ther, and she definitely had some shit to her.
“You willing to get a DNA test to prove she’s mine?” I asked, glancing at the road, then back to Bahati.
She blinked but then nodded. “Yes. She looks just like your mother, Shio.”
I watched her for signs of deception as I countered, “You don’t know my mother.”
“I don’t, but you’ve watched your stepfather enough on YouTube for me to know what she looks like.”
