Nina felt Cairo stiffen behind her.
“Call it what you want but I can back up anything I say.” Her mama’s North Philly side was resurfacing.
“Oh!” Auntie Vee said expressively. “So now we getting somewhere.”
Jackie took one step forward. “Try your luck.”
“You told your daughter my family was the bottom of the pit.” She moved closer. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Nina’s heart slammed against her ribs.
Her mother’s face shifted, not because the accusation was false but because it had come back to her.
“Please let’s not do this,” Nina begged.
Jackie’s eyes shifted towards her and they were filled with fear. Nina had crossed into a world that Jackie’s touch couldn’t reach. Nina didn’t even flinch at the profanity, guns, or the men who stood outside. She knew these people. She’d grown accustomed to this new life that she was building with Jio. It seemed like her allegiance was to the Gottis and not the Marcelle Family, and for the woman who carried her for nine months, it was painful to witness.
The door opened behind them and Nina didn’t have to turn around to know who’d entered the bakery. She could feel herman’s energy in her sleep. Jio stepped in, dressed in all black, and he wore a calm expression that made Jackie and Cairo nervous. Everyone else was used to his domineering presence.
His eyes scanned the room, he took in everything and everyone before even parting his lips. Jio was in the middle of picking up some money that a nigga had owed him for far too long when his lil’ cousin called. He thought his ears were playing tricks on him, but nah. Mrs. Marcelle was standing in the middle of his family’s bakery like she was the big dog.
“Mrs. Marcelle.”
Jackie looked at him like she wanted to spit on him. She better not though.
“Do not speak to me like we are acquainted.”
Jio smiled as he held his hands up and took a step back. “Understood, my apologies ma’am. Can we help you with something?”
He was killing her with kindness. Typical behavior for Mr. Gotti.
“I want what I came for. Two pies and a strawberry brownie.”
Auntie Vee spoke up. “Jio, she can’t eat here and I mean it.”
She wasn’t going back and forth about it.
Nina’s stomach dropped.
“Auntie,” Jio said sharply.
“No!” She crossed her arms across her big breasts.
Nina touched her mom’s shoulder. “I will get it for you another day. You’re causing a scene. They have other customers; you don’t like to be embarrassed….” She was doing her best to diffuse the situation before a fire was ignited that she couldn’t put it out.
“You think I’m scared of these goons?” Her mama looked her dead in her eyes.
Nina had never seen her behave this way, but her cousins had told her stories about Lil Jackie from back in the day.
“Mama…” Nina kept trying to warn her to let it go in her own way.
“I got my gun in my purse and I’ll use it.”
Jio’s cousin chimed in, “Bitch and you don’t think we won’t use ours?” She was sick of sitting back and letting this old ass hoe talk to them any type of way.Who the fuck did they think they were?
“What you wanna do then?” she bucked and before she knew it, she’d pulled out an old rusty gun from her pocket.
Off the rip, the Gotti family pulled theirs from got damn everywhere! The register, under the table, there was even a .9 millimeter in a cake box.
