“Yo, chill. Everybody is doing the most for no reason!” Jio clapped his hands. He dealt with real problems in the streets. Nina’s mom yapping her mouth was juvenile.
“She talking about us like we not nothing,” his cousin hollered at Jio.
“I said chill.”
Jackie’s face had gone pale although she tried to hide it.
Nina stepped fully in front of her mother now.
“Everybody stop.” Her voice shook, but she didn’t care.
“I can’t believe you fell in love with a Gotti. You have disappointed me, Nina Marie, truly…” her mother said as tears fell down her face.
Jio slowly turned his face back toward Jackie.
“You got that one,” he said calmly.
Jio moved closer but Nina blocked him. “She’s trying to get a reaction out of me, not you.”
He looked down at her. For a second, all the noise in the room disappeared. His eyes softened just barely, not enough for anyone else to notice, but Nina did.
He wouldn’t hurt her mother in front of her, and it wasn’t because she didn’t deserve to be punished for the disrespect,but because his baby stood there, and he loved her more than anything. Because of that love and respect, it made shit way more complicated than it needed to be.
Jio looked past Nina to Jackie.
“You came into my family’s place disrespecting people who never did nothing to you.”
Jackie’s voice shook with anger. “Your family has done plenty.”
“To who?”
“To my daughter.”
Jio’s jaw tightened as Nina closed her eyes briefly. If she could be anywhere but here….
Jackie continued, although her voice shook.
“You have no idea who she was before you.”
The room silenced again.
Beneath the classism, insults, and layers of disgust… only a mother could hear the grief in her voice. A mother grieving the daughter she thought she lost to a man she considered beneath them.
Jio didn’t have anything to say.
“You used to dream bigger than this,” Jackie reminded Nina.
Nina felt the words land like a bruise. Her man spoke up, “She still does, in fact, it’s bigger now.”
Jackie laughed bitterly. “Let me guess, that’s because of you? Now she can dream about being a Mob wife?”
“Call me what you want, Mrs. Marcelle. I can’t convince you that I’m anything other than what you already think you know.”
Jackie looked at him like he had lost his mind.
“You are poison.”
His aunt lifted the gun slightly. “Bitch you gots to go.”
