Chapter 3 #2
Look a man in the eyes. That was one of the few things my daddy taught me growing up when he wasn’t too busy cosplaying an angry mobster.
“I didn’t do shit to your daughter. The question you asking me, you should be asking yourself.”
He drew his head back, glared at Solana, who was standing there without an ounce of shame. I knew she was no longer high, but the glossiness in her eyes told me that she was itching for another line or ten.
“What?” he asked, confused.
“Don’t worry about it. Look… I need you to get your hoe-ass son on the phone. He’s in the company of a muthafucka that has something that belongs to me.”
Solana scoffed but looked off before I could shoot her ass a glance. She was on thin fucking ice, so it was in her best interest that she stood the fuck down.
“Hunh?” Don asked as he placed himself into my line of sight.
“Mr. Cuppacio, let’s talk this out like gentlemen…” Ines bargained.
“Fuck being a gentleman! I tried that. I did that. Being a gentleman makes muthafuckas believe they can play with you. Do it look like I got Fisher Price stamped across my fuckin’ forehead?”
“Shio…” Don rubbed his temple with his free hand while his other was tucked in the pocket of his suit pants.
“Papá. Solo díselo. ?Dile lo que sea que le estés ocultando! ?Díselo! No más mentiras. No más secretos. (Papa. Just tell him. Tell him whatever it is you’re withholding! Tell him! No more lies. No more secrets.)”
“Solana! ?Soy tu padre! (Solana! I am your father!)”
“What the fuck is these muthafuckas saying?” Don whipped his head back and forth between Solana and her father.
Solana trembled. “I’m more your property than I am your daughter.
” She continued shaking, her movements reflective of her pent-up frustrations.
“You are my owner! You own me! You own me and use me as a pawn! But there’s no need to get into that.
Tell him! If not him, tell me! Because I’m done for, either way! I was done the day my mother died!”
“Fuck tu madre (your mother)!” Maura spit on the ground next to her.
She still found time to insult Solana, even with her kneecap shot off.
“I thought we had some family shit going on… This shit is unreal.” Don ran his hand down his face as if his being in the Ledesma courtyard was a regular occurrence—a normal one.
“Can I at least get my wife some help?”
“Muthafucka, talk!” I pointed my gun, ready to push one in the dome of his Mexican ass.
“Okay, okay!” Ines gestured for me to put the gun down, but I left it aimed.
One wrong word, and I was turning this nigga into a fucking bowling ball—three shots to the fucking dome.
“I owe your Don.”
“What?” Solana gasped, but I wasn’t too surprised.
“I got in over my head. Many years ago, the Rodríguezes demanded that I pay them, even though no business was done with them. At first, I refused. Then, I began to notice my loved ones would either turn up dead or incarcerated. So, I gave in. I went with it, paying millions of pesos every month, and for what? Because they said so. But it was fine. I paid what I was told to pay for years. Things were tight, but I made it work.”
Solana watched her father in disbelief. I honestly didn’t give a fuck about the back story. I was just wanting him to call his bitch boy and tell me where my child was. However, he continued.
“Then, the eldest son of the Rodríguezes stepped into his role as the leader, and he raised the prices. I didn’t know what to do.
I have a family. I have people who depend on me to feed their families.
I needed help. With what he was asking, had I continued to comply, I’d have nothing.
I’d done business with Demise’s father back then, so I reached out only to find out he’d passed on.
Demise let me borrow the money, but I was to hand over something valuable in return.
So, Shio… you were sent here to confirm if one of my sons was deemed valuable to your organization.
If one was, they’d join you until my debt was paid. ”
I grunted, gaining Don’s attention.
“You could have saved that story, Ledesma, because he knew all that. Ain’t that right, Shio Cuppacio? Always ten fucking steps ahead.” Don taunted.
“I saw the look on your face at the dinner table. My sons… They were worthless,” Ines said, his tone a mix of shame and anger.
“Ines!” Maura shrieked.
“They are! They are spoiled and entitled. There is nothing they could do for anyone. I panicked, realizing Shio could see their lack. Then, Solana walked in. She walked in, and I just knew… I knew that it had to be her. I could tell by the way you was looking at her. I knew because—”
“Arrrghhh!” Maura’s wailing ass stopped Ines from continuing his weak-ass testimony.
“You knew?” Solana gasped, hurt evident in her voice.
“I ain’t know shit.” I spat out, gun still drawn on Ines weak ass.
Don cackled. “Lying is a sin.”
“Yeah, well, it’s muthafuckas in here whose sins are greater than mine.”
“So, that’s what I am to everyone? A pawn? A whore?”
Using my top teeth, I scraped my bottom lip. “I need a fucking address. Now.”
“Are you fucking serious?” Solana closed the gap between us, and though I towered over her, she was all in my space with her chest poked out. “You fucking knew? So what am I? The charity case. The fucking collateral?”
Her glossy eyes were now wide and wild with pain.
“I… I was willing to give myself to you! I was going to! Tonight! I’d planned on letting you have me, and just to keep you safe—to keep you from going into a war that you didn’t deserve, that the wives didn’t deserve…
I was going to surrender myself to the Rodríguezes! But that would have been unwise…”
She placed her hand on her chest as if she were catching her breath.
“So if my father had come up with the money, you would have just taken… Taken my virtue from me… And… and sent me back? If he hadn’t come up with the money, what would I do?
Die? After… after everything? I just mean nothing, Shio? ”
My muscles hardened in my face while Solana processed her words. She blinked, looked off, and then blinked again. “How fucking dare you?”
Don laughed before walking over and sitting down. “This shit is better than reality TV.”
Solana balled her fist, and before she could pound my chest, I grabbed her wrists, pulling her so close to my chest that our bodies were welded.
“I’d just found out about Ines and Don’s deal mere hours before our date.
Still, I was willing to take yo’ ass out.
Still, I was willing to figure shit out and let you choose if you wanted to be married to Felipe or me…
Because, as you know, this shit was going to end with you being married, whether you like that shit or not.
If not me, if not Felipe, then maybe some other muthafucka on the other side of the world.
The nigga whose nutsack you come from has only one fucking thing that is valuable.
One.” I applied pressure to her wrists so that she understood what that one thing was—who that one person was.
“Don, Ines may have had hope for his bitch-made spawns, but you knew. You knew when I came here that his sons were a lost fucking cause. You sent me here just to lay eyes on Solana. I did a background check on Ines, and a daughter never came up. But you knew. You set her in my path in hopes that it all would work out. You set the trap and released the fucking wild.”
Don began picking invisible lint from his tuxedo before looking up without a care in the world.
“But what I can’t understand is, why the fuck would you give me a muthafucka that’s already promised to somebody? I know why Ines did it. He did it as a last resort—he needed the money. But why did you do it? I know it wasn’t just to play matchmaker.”
Solana and I were still caught in each other’s gazes, neither exchanging looks of pleasantry.
I’d been talking to Don, but I needed her to feel everything I was saying.
What the fuck had it been about this one fucking girl, with her soft fucking flesh?
How the fuck did she hold so much power when she didn’t realize the shit herself?
“Ines…” Don called out.
“You were never intended to marry Felipe. Yes, you were to be arranged in a marriage, but never with him. It’s why I hide you from the world, Damita.
I never even propositioned you to them… As far as they knew, you were a ghost. But on a night out, they found you.
You think I would want you married off to a man of his caliber?
A monster? I wouldn’t do that to you, hija (daughter).
“So, when I saw the way Shio looked at you, I ran to him and begged him to teach you. It was the first thing that came to mind. He refused to take you with him, so I went over his head. I asked Don Demise to protect you… Just until I could find you a new husband. A husband that was more powerful than the Rodríguezes. He would protect you, and he would get one of my children to hold until I paid my debt. It wasn’t supposed to be that way, but that’s how it happened. ”
“As collateral, Papa? You could have told me. You could have told me! What if they had been worse? What if they’d been sexually assaulting me?
Beating me? But I guess that’s why you continued the doctors’ visits.
” She scoffed. “You know how many days I found myself depressed, thinking about my impending doom? I thought my life was over!” Solana broke our gaze and was now glaring at her father.
“I’m sorry, hija (daughter). I couldn’t risk it. They’d kill you if my plan got out.”
“Let me ask you one question, father. Why didn’t you just make a deal with Shio for me? He has money. He has status. He isn’t afraid of the Rodríguezes. I saw it! You could have arranged for me to be married to him.”
“Yeah, tell her why, Ledesma.” Don pushed with a menacing smile on his face.