Chapter 16
Shio Cuppacio
“The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped. The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped. The Lord is my strength—”
Waaaaaahhhh Waaaaahhhhhh!
I didn’t want to disrupt their flow, so I ignored the first few minutes of Shya’s crying.
She’d started by the time I finished my stretches and hadn’t stopped.
Thirty minutes of nonstop screaming was excessive, though.
Pressing the pause button, the treadmill’s belt slowed.
My calves burned but that didn’t stop me from leaving the gym and climbing the stairs two at a time.
Reaching the top, I headed toward the room where the cries came from.
The heavy scent of fresh lemon filled the air since the housekeepers had been by yesterday.
My floors squeaked under my gym shoes, and the wood was so polished that I could nearly see my reflection.
I paid the team a hefty salary, but each time they left my house squeaky clean, I found myself thinking about giving them a raise even though I was paying them much more than I was initially quoted.
Waaaaaahhhh Waaaaahhhhhh!
The sight of me didn’t stop the tantrum she was throwing.
Shya sat on the bed, the collar of her pajamas was soaked with saliva dripping from her mouth.
With each squeal, snot poured from her nostrils, and her chubby cheeks were soaked with tears.
Her hair was still in two spiral-tipped buns at the top of her head, split by a part.
Yesterday, she’d worn a lime green dress from the clothes I picked up for her last week, and the matching bows were still in place.
Bahati hadn’t changed the hairstyle, but she’d been refreshing it, or else it would have been a fuzzy mess.
Scooping Shya from the bed, I bounced her in my arms to calm her, my clothes slightly damp with sweat.
There had been so much I’d been handling that most days I was gone before she woke and home by the time she’d cried herself to sleep.
I checked in on them by watching my cameras, and Shya spent most of her day crying.
I had questioned Bahati a few times when I came home, and she would be in the kitchen trying to get me to eat her food, but she assured me time and time again that she was just spoiled and in an unfamiliar setting.
Bahati had the patience of a saint. Most of the time, when I looked in on them, she was either trying to calm Shya or letting her cry it out.
Like now, Bahati was on her stomach, the bed cover tangled under her, with her ass hanging out of the panties she wore.
The oversized T-shirt was bunched up at her waist while she slept peacefully.
The phone I’d loaned to Bahati was on the nightstand, and most days, it stayed there without her touching it.
I didn’t want them stuck here all day without some means of communication, although I had assured Bahati that she was free to use the Range Rover to travel anywhere she pleased.
She had a spare card, the keys, and her full day to herself, and the most she’d done was shopped online for her and Shya.
However, most of the purchases were for herself since Shya already had plenty.
Not wanting Shya to wake her mother, we headed to the kitchen.
At the halfway mark, she had begun to calm down.
As soon as I flipped the kitchen light switch, the spices from whatever Bahati had cooked the night before greeted me.
Shya wiggled from my arms. The moment I let her down, she steadied herself and went into the half bath.
When I saw her approach the toilet, I turned and let her do her own thing.
It almost looked like a phenomenon, seeing something so small on two legs and walking.
We had babies in the family throughout my life, so I wasn’t oblivious to the anatomy of a human being, but being that this one belonged to me, I couldn’t help but be amused.
It was good that she was walking, though, especially since Bahati’s arm would be in the cast for another month or so.
Bahati hadn’t told me much about Shya, but she did mention that she was potty-trained along with some other shit, and I was impressed.
At her age, she shouldn’t be in fucking diapers anyway, but still, there were plenty of babies who needed extra time to get the shit right.
Outside of the constant crying, Shya was independent.
Instead of the sound of the toilet flushing, I heard bare feet on the wood floors. Scooping Shya back up, I led us to the sink.
“When you handle your business, you gotta make sure you wash all the germs off your hands.” Holding her over the sink by hooking my forearm around her belly, I soaped her hands and placed them under the water. “See? This is how you get the germs off.”
She didn’t reply as she watched the water rinse her stubby fingers. I placed her on the counter, patted her hands dry, wiped her face with the same paper towel, and then disposed of it.
“You good now?” I stood back, waiting for her reply. As I knew she would, she simply blinked at me. “What do you want to eat? Pancakes?”
Blink. Blink.
“You gotta speak up… Cryin’ ain’t the way to communicate. You cry to express your emotions or to release your frustrations. But if you have somethin’ to say, if it’s somethin’ you feel, you gotta let it be known.”
Blink. Blink.
I had noticed by day three that she simply wasn’t a talker. If it weren’t for her crying day in and out, I would have thought the fucking Rodríguezes had done something to her vocal cords.
Shutting the fridge with more force than necessary, I had to take a moment to calm myself.
Those fucking Rodríguezes were known to cause chaos in Mexico City but had gone ghost underground.
We hadn’t seen any more missing persons reports, or at least their loved ones hadn’t reported them yet, according to Don’s police contact.
I was a patient man and had somewhat agreed to Don’s plan of action, but my thoughts were plaguing me about wanting them motherfuckers dead by tomorrow.
Solana’s phone buzzed in my pocket, switching my thoughts from Felipe to her bitch-ass brother.
I’d just gotten her phone back yesterday after it was with my tech guy for two days.
He was trying to trace her brother’s phone number but came up completely empty.
I was hoping to at least find his location because I’d feel better knowing where they were hiding than just letting them coast in Mexico.
Shya’s little chest was heaving as she watched me.
I was beginning to feel sorry for my little baby.
It couldn’t feel good to constantly cry all day.
The more she cried, the more I wanted to introduce her to my mother.
First Lady Washington was a fucking baby whisperer.
Solana must’ve had that same damn gene because Shya hadn’t cried with her either.
I’d even called the fucking doctor again, the one who had examined her, and he assured me she was fine.
His professional opinion was that she was just homesick, spoiled, and traumatized from being in a fucking shootout. The same shit Bahati had been saying.
Pulling the phone out, I read the two text messages displayed across the screen.
Solana
Shio.
Solana
Can we talk?
I couldn’t let Solana get in my fucking head.
Her texting me wouldn’t help the buried thoughts, and I had to let her simmer for a bit if I wanted her to get off that shit.
Since I was off her, I had been attempting to focus on Bahati and seeing if she and I would fit together if married.
Every thought, however, caused me to stay further away from the house instead of trying to be in her space.
It was just something about her that had me questioning Bahati rather than trying to build some type of trust.
She spent most of her time cooking, so I’d made sure to have groceries delivered with the things I thought she needed.
She would order things but hadn’t been as generous with her spending on food as she’d been with clothes.
Bahati had run up some commas on the designer websites.
I didn’t mind because I’d given her the card to begin with.
Where the fuck was she going in Prada dresses when she never left the house was a mystery to me, but fuck it—I didn’t stress over money anymore.
Grabbing one of the sippy cups left drying on the island, I filled it about halfway with orange juice, screwed on the top, and handed it to Shya.
Last time I made Shya a cup with milk, she wasn’t fucking with it, so I figured juice would be safe.
I placed the cup beside her because I figured she wouldn’t take it from me.
It didn’t take long before she was tipping her head back and chugging it down.
Shya was one of the prettiest little girls I’d ever seen.
Though she spent most of her day dehydrated from crying, she was a good toddler.
From what I could tell, she didn’t wander off; she ate her food when fed, and when Bahati fell asleep on her, she didn’t climb out of bed or do the silly stuff toddlers do, like sticking shit in wall sockets.
That fact didn’t stop me from getting the housekeepers to plug all of the outlets just in case.
“Why didn’t you wake me?”