SEVEN #5
Auntie Vee’s face hardened again. “You won’t ever get a crumb out of my bakery again. Now, I’m not going to ask you to leave again.” Her eyes found Nina’s. She warned her without saying a word that shit could get ugly.
Jackie lifted her chin. “It’s just interesting to watch everyone pretend this is normal.”
Nina’s stomach sank.
“Mom….”
“No,” Jackie snapped. “Y’all think you're untouchable but you’re not. I’ll have you shut down so fast you won’t even be able to blink.”
His auntie tilted her head. “Is that a threat?”
The bakery went silent.
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 her man’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.
“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.”
Jio held up one hand without looking at her. “Chill.” He flashed her a grin so cold and deadly.
“It’s all good,” he said. “My future mother-in-law was just leaving.”
The words landed like a bomb, capturing Nina’s breath as her mama’s eyes widened in horror, and his family shared a laugh at her expense.
Jio looked at Nina, and without a question, he was asking her to choose. Nina hated that her heart reacted before her mind could because it wasn’t up for debate and her mama knew it too.
Her mother eyed her like she finally understood the depth of the problem, and it pained her to witness. Nina wasn’t trapped at all. It was obvious that she’d chosen whose side she was on.
Jacqueline adjusted her coat with trembling hands as she tried her best to recover her dignity.
“This is not over.”
Jio stepped aside smoothly.
“I’m sure it’s not,” he said quietly.
Jackie walked toward the door but stopped beside Nina.
For a second, she looked like she might say something motherly that could possibly erase everything that had just taken place.
Instead, she whispered, “You are losing yourself.”
Why would Nina ever expect anything positive from the lady who brought her into the world? She had to work on managing her expectations.
She left without another word. The bell above the bakery door jingled softly behind her.
Nina stood there feeling like something invisible had cracked wide open. No one moved or said a word until Jio told his folks, “Put the guns up. Flip the sign to open. We got money to make.”
Jio turned to his auntie.
“Put that away.”
She muttered something under her breath but did as he said.
Cairo shifted awkwardly, still holding shopping bags.
“I’m sorry this happened,” he said to Nina.
Nina turned to him. “Don’t be.”
Jio’s eyes moved to the bags.
“You got some good stuff?”
Cairo looked surprised by the shift.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll check it out later. Welcome to the city.” Jio dapped him up.
Auntie Vee approached Nina with a small saucer in her hands. There was no pity on her face, only recognition.
“Baby,” she said gently, “Would you like some cake?”
The question was so absurd after everything that had just taken place that Nina didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry.
Instead, she nodded. “Yes ma’am, thank you.”
Jio stood beside Nina silently as she accepted the plate.
Neither of them spoke for a long time.
Finally, Nina looked at him.
“Future mother-in-law?”
His mouth curved faintly. “You heard me.”
“You’re insane.”
“Nah, that’s your folks!” he chuckled, pulling her in for a hug and a kiss to her forehead.
Nina looked away first because the truth was too dangerous to hold directly.
She stood between two worlds with cake in her hand and her heart split clean down the middle.
For the first time, she understood that loving Jio wasn’t just going to cost her peace, but it was going to cost her every fuckin’ thing. Literally.