Page 30 of Heart Of A Goon II

“What else is she saying happened?” he finally spoke.

“Won’t talk about the shit. She paranoid and that’s beyond the drugs. I don’t know what happened to her, but she had bruises on her like someone was trying to get at her.”

Capone leaned on the truck and took a deep sigh. “How the fuck did we end up here?”

“Being black and making a shit ton of money,” Cappadonna whistled, then he and his twin echoed the same motions without even knowing. Both were staring out into thin air turning their head simultaneously.

It was funny because we always forgot that they were twins. Shared the same womb and spent their entire life together before being separated. Not to mention, they both had their own personality, so we saw them as their own person. It was moments like this that reminded us that they were twins.

The Delgato twins.

“Where’s Inez now?”

“Corleon has her at this crib for now.”

“Had,” Corleon replied, leaving the house with a laptop in his hand. “Security caught her going through the woods in the back of the house. She gone.”

“What the fuck, Inez,” I whispered as I slid my hand down my face and sighed. What the fuck was she doing?

Who was going to protect her stupid ass?

INEZ

Past

Recommendation: Listen to “When We Were Young” by Adele

Fuck.

I could hear the front door slam as my son flung his backpack into the kitchen chair. Shortly after, the sounds of the cabinets being opened and closed started. I stared at the small nylon bag that held all my medicine and quickly shoved everything back inside it before closing it.

“Ma, you home? When you going to cook? I’m starving. I’m about to walk to the corner store and get a hero,” he complained, as he usually did when there was never any food in the house.

When I decided to move in with Rylan, I knew there would be some learning curves. We had made a child together but had never lived together. He didn’t know how to be a parent because he was always in and out of Melle’s life. If it wasn’t for my cousins helping whenever he needed diapers, clothes, or anything, I don’t know what I would have done.

My mother and aunt jumped right in when it came to helping me raise him. I was allowed to finish school while having a child. They made sure that I had as much help as I needed without ever throwing it back into my face. When it came to hanging with my friends, they allowed me to have a life, because I was still a teenager.

Rylan came in and out like he had always done. For birthday parties, he would show up with a gift and come to play the good father, and I allowed him. I wanted my son to have his father around, and I tried really hard not to become the bitter baby mother. I learned early on that nagging and bitching kept him away, so I did my best to avoid that. Even when new women stepped forward with his kids, I remained his peace when I should have become his war. I smiled when I should have screamed. Displayed grace when I should have given Ken the greenlight to put his gun down Rylan’s throat.

I put the bag under the sink and came out the bathroom, right at the same time he was coming up the hallway. My boy wasn’t a little boy anymore and he was transforming into a young man right in front of my eyes. He talked like Goo and Ken, moved like them and even looked up to them. While we both knew the life that Goo and Ken were into, we knew they made those moves for our family. In a way, me and Mel both looked up to them. Melle never wanted for anything because they made sure that we always had.

“You good?” he questioned, as I stood in the doorway of the bathroom, needing this fix desperately.

I had slept all day, and this was the only time I forced myself up to feel good before Rylan came through the door. This was all he had left because he claimed money was low, and he owed somebody money.

Rylan always lied about owing somebody money.

My mother always told me that the most dangerous man was a good liar. There was never money for anything in this house. I hated having to ask my cousins or mom for money because I knew how they felt about the situation. I didn’t want to hear their mouths complaining about me making a dumb decision to be with Rylan when I could have come home.

This was our home.

I needed them to realize that I was grown and a mother. This was what was best for me and Ramelle. He needed to see his mother living on her own, not under her own mama’s roof. My mother kept crossing the lines of grandmother to trying to be his mother. Yeah, I knew she helped raise him, but I was his mother. What I said went, and she should have never gone above my head because she thought she had more authority than me.

Whenever I had to fix my mouth to ask for money, I always had to talk myself up to it. I knew it would come with a lecture, and it almost always started with Rylan. Whenever money was low and things needed to be paid, Rylan would leave. He wouldn’t leave for a day. He would leave for weeks, leaving me to deal with the landlord.

Mostly because he knew I would find a way to handle the bills without him. I refused to have my baby out on the streets, and I wasn’t going back to my mama’s house.

“Yes. I’m tired and the first thing you come hollering about is food,” I snapped, pushing past him to go back into my bedroom.