Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 57779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
21
NERO
My mother survived in the ruthlessness of the bratva because she has the gall of a woman with a heap more power, and an inability to stand down even when she’s in the wrong. The way she pegs her shoe at me when I enter her condo is a sure-fire indication, not to mention the words she spits out in Russian.
She tells me I am not the son she raised, and that if I’ve come to ask for forgiveness, to walk straight back out, but she is nowhere near ready to speak with me yet.
I dodge a second flung object when I don’t heel to her command before following the direction from where it came.
A reason for her red-hot anger confronts me first when I enter the roomy kitchen. Tasha is sitting on one of the stools nestled around the kitchen island, eating the baked goods my mother usually makes for me.
I didn’t arrive to collect my weeks’ worth of supplies, because I have the world’s best baker as a neighbor, and a hunger that suddenly has nothing to do with baked goods.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
Tasha’s gleam ripens when my mother reacts negatively to my scorn.
Her aim is precise this time, and it thrusts me back three spots.
Who knew a rolling pin could be used as a deadly weapon?
“That is no way to speak to your wife. I raised you better than that.”
I narrow my eyes at Tasha, warning her our discussion is far from over, before shifting my focus to my mother. “You also taught me not to steal. That if I want something, I have to earn it.”
I bounce my eyes between a pair nowhere near as aged as they should be. She had me young—young enough for only the faintest wrinkles to crease the corners of her eyes.
“Where were those morals when you stole fifteen million dollars’ of uncut coke from the Popovs?”
Tasha draws in a sharp breath, wordlessly announcing she had no clue my mother’s theft was so significant, and the consequences such an action could invoke, before she adds words to her reply. “I had no idea she would take that much. I swear to God.”
I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her, which would evict her from my mother’s condo with only one toss, and the distrust is heard in my tone when I point to the chair she vacated in a hurry and say, “Sit the fuck down.”
“Nero!” my mother scolds at the same time Tasha says, “I swear, baby. I had no idea. I just asked her to take a little to force you back to our marital bed. I wanted you home, with me, where you promised you would forever be during our vows.”
She releases a bunch of crocodile tears that instantly unearths the entirety of her ruse. My mother canoodles her as if she is her child, while promising her she hasn’t done anything wrong.
“What did you tell her?”
“Enough, Nero,” my mother pleads. “Your wife is upset. Can you not see that?”
“She isn’t my wife. Can you not see that?” I’ve never snapped at my mother like this, but I’m at the end of my rope, struggling to hold on. “Is she anything like I would usually go for? She’s blonde. I favor brunettes. She cuts people down with insults. I prefer women who lead with kindness.” I drag my eyes down Tasha’s body like I did the morning I woke to her standing over my bed, showing me our marriage certificate. “I like my women with meat on their bones.”
“Meat? Please,” Tasha pushes out with a mocking laugh. “She’s fat, Nero. There’s a big difference between a piece of steak and a flabby slab of pork belly from a pig incapable of rationing its daily food intake.”
She just made a fatal mistake. My mother is a curvy woman, has been her entire life. She’s lived with the stigma of what that means for as long as she has the scars of a scorned woman.
Tasha’s concern picks up when my mother moves to my side of the kitchen to gather the rolling pin she lost when she flung it at my head.
“I’m not saying all women are like that. We’re built differently by God.” She went too far to try to pull the good Christian girl routine on my mother, but she keeps trying. “And that’s what makes us unique. It is just… her. Miranda is—”
“Miranda?” my mother asks, her brows as quirked as her pitch.
When Tasha remains quiet, my mother strays her dark eyes to me. A smirk plays at my lips from the hope in her eyes before I notch up my chin.
She looks pleased for me… until she remembers one factor my father’s betrayal will never allow her to overlook. “But she’s married, Nero. She was not yours to touch.”