“But I wanted to and I can do what I want.” She had the courage to say to his face.
“See….that’s the part that’s fucking me up,” he slammed his hand on the counter.
Nina stared at him, looking quite incredulous. “So I can’t have compassion?”
“No, you can not so stop playing with me.”
She laughed but he didn’t find anything funny. “Do you hear yourself?”
“I hear myself clearly and you better start doing the same.” Jio was sick of her for real.
“No, you don’t. Because one minute you’re standing here telling me you don’t want to be like your father, and the next minute you’re trying to control my every move.”
Jio went still. According to the look on his face, her words hit him and she saw it too.
His voice lowered. “Don’t compare me to that nigga.”
“Then stop sounding like him!” she spat. Nina knew she had crossed into dangerous territory but she meant every single word.
Jio stared at her until his cold facial expression made her stomach tighten.
When he spoke, his voice was low and scary. “If I find out you ever visiting another nigga that’s not me again,” he said, “I promise you not gon’ like what I do to him next time.”
Nina’s heart almost fell out of her chest. Two things were wrong but she would only address one for now. Since deep down she knew that he had something to do with Kobie’s injury, she just wished he didn’t. This was the side of Jio that she loathed and kept trying to love out of him.
“Why do you keep threatening me?” she wanted to know.
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m telling you what’s gonna happen if you keep playing with me.”
Her eyes widened.
“You starting to take my kindness for weakness.”
Nina stared at him like she didn’t recognize him, even though she did. She noticed every version of him. The good. The bad and the downright ugly.
The boy crying into her stomach.
The man trying to be better.
The gangster making promises that he intended on keeping.
The lover that he desired to be.
“Or maybe it’s the other way around,” she said quietly.
Jio frowned. “What?”
“You’re taking my kindness for weakness.”
Nina pushed off the counter, emotion rising hot in her chest now.
“Maybe because I love you, you think I’m supposed to accept everything. Maybe because I forgive you, you think I don’t see what you do. Or is it because I keep letting you back in? You think I don’t know how sick this is sometimes?”
Jio’s nostrils flared.
