Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
What would he say about my new love with Jasmine? Pussy whipped, probably. He’ll say that my affection for her will die down and I’ll want something new. But how happy has that made you, Dad?
I blew out a long breath. Jasmine’s and my families were seriously messed up. Once we reunited, I planned to take us far away from them all.
And we will reunite, tesoro.
I returned to Benny’s journals, skimming a page here or there, until Jasmine’s name came up and I was forced to stop and stare at those beautiful letters. A sigh left me, and I read on.
Sophia remains five steps ahead of me.
Jasmine called. My little Jasmine dialed my number. Her father’s friend. Vivian’s dad. A man she only now knew from our daily carpooling Monday through Friday, and the few times I could convince Sophia to let her and her brother come over, under the guise of visiting Vivian.
It doesn’t matter.
My little Jasmine called me, when the blood poured, and I answered as a beast would do. I soared down like an enraged father eagle and stabbed the rat out with my claws.
Jasmine must’ve been shaking as she spoke my name in the phone. “M-mr. Nix?”
“Jasmine, is that you?” My heart boomed fast in my chest. I checked the time and held in a curse. It was two in the morning on a Tuesday. Why would she be up? Why would she be calling? Who did I have to kill?
“M-mr. N-nix, he’s bleeding—”
“Who?”
“This man that came into my room. Troy ... Troy stabbed him. He’s in my room.”
“Troy or the man?”
“They’re both in my room.”
“I’m coming. Get Troy and hide. Whoever’s bleeding, won’t be bleeding anymore. I’ll take care of it.”
I don’t know how Jasmine figured out that I would be her hero, but she simply understood it at the right moment and acted. Of the three kids, she had my brains.
Jasmine is the only one I’ll never have to worry about.
My little girl didn’t even have to tell me what had happened, but I let her. I held her in my arms. She shook against me.
The boy? Troy. He wouldn’t come close. He sat off in the far corner and stared at us with blank eyes.
The boy is now a man.
He’s grown up too soon and I don’t know what to do about that. I could show him the way I’ve survived or I could let him find it out on his own. He’s a smart one, too, but he’s got my rage.
Already hates his mother, just like I did at that age.
That rage has grown in his chest like a flower in the spring, and every now and then I can see petals pushing out of his skin. He’ll be a rose bush of thorns by the time he’s eighteen, and never let anyone get near him, for fear of cutting their skin.
I got to South End in no time. Scar and his buddies got rid of the body in Jasmine’s room.
Troy got him good.
Sophia lay passed out on the couch the whole time. The kids thought she’d taken something. You should have seen the way Troy looked when he said it.
Anger radiated off of his little frame. “She was high and asleep on the couch, when Jasmine started screaming.”
So my boy had to take care of it. Sophia was lucky she had passed out.
But the shit didn’t stop raining from the clouds, once the body was gone.
The worst part of the whole evening happened right as I carried a sleeping Jasmine to my car. Troy followed us with two bags full of their clothes. When Sophia decided to come back to consciousness, she’d have to look for them.
Let’s see how long it takes her to realize the kids are gone. Since when has she been a bad mother? I’d seen her do trifling things to other people, but never to her kids. She destroyed mountains for them, but never put them in harm’s way.
Or was that wrong?
Was she always this bad?
Her older boys had a name in the streets, and if I asked too much about them, people shut their mouths. No one talked to me about them. Word had been put out on the street to keep Benny out of the Montgomery boys’ business.
“Benny.” Scar’s voice cut through the cold night.
I set Jasmine down in the car and shut the door. “Troy, go into the passenger seat.”
Troy ignored me, leaned against my hip, and held my hand. Since it was the first time he’d let me get that close, I left him alone.
Scar looked down at Troy. “What I got to say, the boy shouldn’t hear.”
“Say it.” I tightened my hold on Troy’s little hand. “He’s not a boy anymore. This one is a man. He killed the guy.”
“I know.” Scar studied the boy too much and then glanced through the window at Jasmine. I never liked to bring Scar around the kids. He stared at them too much, it made me want to shoot him right in his forehead.