Page 135 of The Mob: Shio Cuppacio

I didn’t have time for this shit, but I stayed on the line because I’d vowed to trust my intuition more, and it was telling me to wait. When he flipped the screen around, I was taken aback like a motherfucker, but that was still a trade insult.

“Bahati… We have Bahati.”

“I still don’t give a fuck! That’s pussy from years ago.”

Bahati looked as good as she did when I spared her fucking life. I had every intention of killing her for playing with me, but I just choked her ass to sleep. I didn’t like how I treated her, but I was a different nigga back then. I could tell she’d been roughed up, judging by her ripped shirt and the tears running down her face. Her hands were bound, and there was tape over her mouth, but other than that, she looked good. I still didn’t fuck with her, and since I’d never been in love with her, snatching her from her world to get at me was pointless.They’d have better luck calling her daddy.

“I ain’t fucked with Bahati in years. No deal.”

“Wait… I wasn’t done.”

He pointed the camera at a mattress, and my entire body froze.

I could feel the yogurt I’d eaten trying to come back up, but I swallowed it down.

“He also hasher. He says turn Solana loose and you can get them both.”

The line disconnected.

I tried dialing it back, but I didn’t know the damn password to Solana’s phone.

With shaky hands, I burst back into her room and went straight into her closet because that's where she had to be. All kinds of thoughts were running through my head. What the fuck? How the fuck? My blood began to pound in my temples. There, on the mattress, was a body with skin the same as mine, curly hair wild, and arms taped to the front, with her mouth taped. I had only caught a brief glimpse and knew. They didn’t have to say it because I knew.

“Solana! Unlock the ph”

My eyes were finally working, but Don must’ve messed with my 20/15 vision because the last two things I’d seen couldn’t have been real. I couldn’t have seen what I saw on the mattress. Nah, I was unwilling to believe it. I had been careful. I was always careful.Weren’t I?

I thought I was just imagining what I’d seen, and if I was, then I had to be imagining this shit right in front of me. Baby hairs framed her pretty face, her makeup was perfectly applied, and the dress hugged every curve. She was so fucking beautiful. So fucking shapely and pretty. Nonetheless, the prettiest people do the ugliest things. That much I knew, and Solana was proving it.

I watched as she had a hundred-dollar bill rolled up and held to her nose, snorting a line of white powder. She was so into it that she didn’t even notice me on her left side or hear me barge in, asking her to unlock her phone. In front of her was a floor-length mirror. I watched her reflection as her eyes rolled back, and she stood up straight and danced in front of the mirror.She tossed her head back in laughter, even though nothing was funny.

Pretty little fucking sinner.

She bent down to hit another line, and before she could sniff, I had her hair balled in my hands and her head lifted. Walking her to the mirror, I stared at her through it, and her eyes were bulging at the sight of me. It made so much fucking sense—the sleeping all day, the laziness, the throwing up during workouts, the barricading herself in the door.The excessive time spent in the bathroom and closet, where I didn’t have a digital view like I did in the bedroom, to see her pretty face sliding across a hard surface as she sniffed the very drug the mob flooded the streets with.

“Solana…” I could hear the chill in my own voice.

She lifted her hands, palms facing the mirror. “Shio, I can explain…”

Her lipstick was smeared, and there was powder across her nose and hands.

There wasn’t shit to explain.

“Shut the fuck up. Let’s go.”

Keeping her in my grip, I walked us out of the closet.

“What… Wh… Where are we going?”

Kissing her jaw, I pushed her forward. “Para recuperar a mi maldita hija(To get my fucking daughter back.)”

God first.

Make sure the family good.

Eye them Cuppacio boys, the little and the big ones.

Build a relationship with my brother.