Married to a Brownsville Bully 2

by Jahquel J

  “And we’ll be back in one piece. About last night, don’t go too hard on your sister.” She touched my chest.

  “Nah, that shit ain't nothing to play with. Today could have been a different scenario. I love you, Golden and that shit pissed me off.” Did a nigga just tell her that I loved her? The shit came out my mouth so natural that I didn’t even have to second guess it.

  She leaned back and stared at me. “You serious? You love me?”

  “I wouldn’t have said it, if I didn’t mean it.” She grabbed my face with both of her hands and planted a kiss on my lips.

  “I’m scared,” she admitted. I could tell she was scared. That word scared the shit out of her, and it scared me too.

  “Tell me why?”

  “The last person that told me they loved me ended up hurting me in more than one way,” she revealed.

  “You think I’ll hurt you?”

  “Physically, no. Emotionally, you have the potential to. You have my heart in a lock, and that hasn’t happened in a while, and I never thought that it would happen ever again.”

  “Just like I have the potential to hurt you emotionally, you have that same ability to do the same to me. Don’t say it back, because I don’t want you to say it because I said. Tell me when you’re ready and on your time.” I kissed her hands.

  “Deal.” She smiled and sealed our agreement with a kiss on the lips.

  “Kissing, mom!” Gyan squealed when he entered the room. Golden’s face turned to stone because she didn’t want him to know about us.

  “Gyan, what did I tell you about coming into rooms without announcing yourself?” she scolded him.

  “Mom, can you leave the room so I can speak to Mr. Yoshon?” Gyan said as he placed his hands in the pockets of his shorts. I laughed because this boy had a personality that was out of this world.

  “Boy, who d—”

  “Ma, let him speak to me. He’ll come get you when we’re done.”

  Holding her arms up, she closed the door behind us. Gyan continued to walk toward me with his hands in his pockets. He did a little cough to clear his throat. “What are your intentions with my mommy? Don’t tell her I used mommy either,” he told me.

  “I just want to love her and show her how a real man treats a woman.”

  “Are you going to hurt her like my dad did? I don’t want to see my mommy crying and stuff like that again.”

  “Never. You got my word on that,” I promised.

  He smiled. “Okay, Mr. Yoshon, you can love on my mommy.” He held his hand out and shook mine. “My mommy smiles more, and I found her singing and dancing like she used to do,” he informed me.

  “I want her to continue to smile; she deserves to smile.”

  “And we get to live in your big house too. So, can I get my room painted or something, that white wall is boring,” he tried to add in some negotiations.

  “Let me and your mama work that out, ight?”

  “Okay. Time is money.” He tapped his imaginary watch and I chuckled out loud.

  “Oh, I know. I got you!”

  He left the room and Golden returned with her Gucci bag slung over her shoulder. That girl wore that damn bag everywhere she went. You didn’t see her without that bag. “What did he have to say?”

  “That’s between me and him.”

  “Ugh, y’all both make me sick. I made you some lunch and it’s in the kitchen. I’ll see you later.” She blew me a kiss.

  “Ight. Bet. Be careful and call me when y’all get there.”

  “I will.” She left out the room, and I got up, so I could go eat some food. My stomach was touching my damn back. It felt like I went out for a damn night of drinking with how my stomach felt.

  After brushing my teeth, showering and getting dressed, I emerged from my bedroom. Pit Pat had the patio door open, and she had food set out on the table with some water and lemonade. It was a beautiful day today and I now understood why Golden wanted to take Gyan out. She probably knew that Pit Pat wanted to talk to us, Pit Pat came out of her room and offered me a smile.

  “Hey baby, I got some food on the patio and Yolani is on her way over.”

  “On her way over? She’s across the hall.”

  “She went to run some errands this morning or something. Go out there and wait, and I hope your day is cleared,” she told me.

  I didn’t have shit else planned for the day. All that I need Golden to handle with the dispensary was already handled. Today was a relaxing day, and I didn’t want to get into some deep ass talk. Yolani had already fucked up half my day because soon as I woke up, I thought about the foul shit she did last night with Golden. Pit Pat had arranged for room service to bring different fruits, breakfast pastries, and eggs along with bacon. She had three types of orange juice and lemonades too. I sat down and rested my feet on the ottoman while I waited for Pit Pat and Yolani to get their shit together. Even if I didn’t have shit to do today, the last thing I wanted to do was to be sitting here.

  “What’s good?” Yolani came strolling onto the patio with dark shades and an energy drink. She wore sweat shorts, wife beater and a pair of Gucci slides.

  “Shit. You sure energy drinks good to be mixing with coke?”

  She plopped down in the chair and didn’t bother to remove her shades. “I fucked up last night. Golden held it down, so you know she’ll ride for you.” She tried to make it seem like that made it that much better. Not the fact that she fucking gave my girl her drugs to hold when the cops pulled them over.

  “You just going to try and find some light in the fucked-up situation you created.”

  “Yeah. Bitches are expendable; we’re not. Me getting booked in the system wasn’t an option. You the one who taught me that.” She nodded with a smirk on her face like she had done something good.

  “Bitches, Yolani. Bitches! The women who carry themselves like sluts and want to do everything in the world to get my dick in their mouth, not her. Golden isn’t one of those bitches.”

  “Shit, if Hazel was there, I would have done the same. Hell, I’ve done it a few times when we went out to dinner. While she in the bathroom, I slip it in her purse and slip it out before we make it back to the crib.”

  Who created this monster? Was I responsible for doing this shit? I handed Yolani an empire where she didn’t need to put nearly as much work as I did. She got the luxury of bossing niggas around, and they listened because they knew it would be hell to pay from me. Anything she wanted, I made sure to work ten times as hard to provide it for her. How did I go wrong? They said you couldn’t have a conscious and be in the streets. That was something I had a hard time doing. I couldn’t look away from the foul shit that went on in the streets. For every person I had to murk, there was an anonymous donor who donated money for the funeral. The streets wasn’t for me. You couldn’t have a heart and deal with the streets, and my sister had learned and adapted something I never wanted for her. If it was one thing, I wanted her to have it was compassion. I wanted her to rule the streets, but also have a heart. It was clear that Yolani didn’t have a damn heart. If she did, she wouldn’t be sitting here and telling me that she slips coke into her wife’s purse occasionally.

  “Yo, I can’t sit here and listen to this shit,” I sat my English muffin down on the coffee table. “The fuck is up with you?”

  “This been me. You gotta do people dirty before they get a chance to do you dirty,” she replied. “You need to stop acting like you didn’t teach me some of this.”

  “Nah, in the streets all bets are off. You gotta get a nigga before he do you wrong, but you’re sitting here talking about your fucking wife!” I roared.

  “That bitch in her feelings and then some.” She leaned back and relaxed like she wasn’t talking about Hazel. Hazel wasn’t even my shorty and I was pissed like she was.

  Hazel deserved more than what the fuck Yolani was sitting up here giving her. Despite what they were going through in their relationship, she had always been there for Y
olani when it counted the most. She was sitting up here talking like she was some bitch in the street, instead of the woman she claimed she loved.

  “You only care are about your fucking self. Nobody else fucking matters, right? Like you putting coke in Golden’s purse.”

  “She was good. I would have bailed her out. Only because she’s your little plaything. If she wasn’t, I’d be on a flight back to New York.”

  “Shut the f—”

  “Aye, I don’t want to hear that cutting up. Sit down and calm down, Yoshon,” Pit Pat finally graced us with her presence. If I sat out here with this ruthless bitch for one minute, I couldn’t promise what would happen to her. Yolani had me so fucked up with the shit that continued to spill out of her mouth.

  “What’s up? I gotta go and handle some shit before I get on a flight back home. This trip was a fucking waste,” Yolani openly cursed in front of our grandmother. I slipped once in and a while, but I made sure not to do it when I was speaking to her.

  “What’s up?” Pit Pat mocked.

  “I mean, you said you gotta talk to us… I wanna know what’s going on?” she smartly replied like she wasn’t talking to the woman that raised us.

  “Yolani, I will put you over my knee an—”

  “Pit, I’m a little too old and fast for you to be putting me over your shoulder. For real, what’s going on?”

  “Then damn drugs. When you started doing those, Yolani?”

  “Why both of y’all so concerned with what the fuck I do? If I do a little coke to destress, what is it to y’all?”

  “Because then you become the crack head of the family with the thinning hair.” Pit stood there with her hand on her hips. “I want this shit to stop now. You don’t need to be doing drugs, Yolani. If this….” she allowed her voice to trail off and sat down.

  “If what?” I spoke up.

  “It’s about time I told y’all about the business. I’ve been hiding for years, and Baru has hated what I’ve done. Told me I spoil and baby you both and you need to know.”

  Sitting up, she had me worried. What the fuck was she talking about and what does Baru, my supplier, have to do with this? “What you talking about, Pit?”

  “Yoshon, do you think my brother magically made a trip here on your 18th birthday? Do you think I chose to live in Belize?

  “Pit, what’s up with all these weird ass questions? And who the hell is your brother?” She had me more confused than I originally was.

  “Baru is my half-brother and he’s your uncle. The family business is guns,” she revealed and I leaned back in the chair.

  “You mean to tell me that we own a fucking factory of guns and we’ve been buying them? Yo, I’m really about to take over the streets.”

  “Shut your fucking mouth!” Pit Pat raised her voice louder than we had ever heard. She was so loud that even I shut up and I wasn’t even speaking. “You will not speak a word of what I’m telling you. If you do, I can’t help what happens to you.”

  “Your Santana name means a lot to you because you felt like you built. It’s been built long before we knew about you, baby boy,” she chuckled.

  “I’m lost.” Yolani slapped her forehead.

  “The Santana Cartel is one of the most ruthless cartels in Belize. We have family members all over the world and they meet once a month to discuss operations in the cartel. Your uncle Baru is the head of the cartel since his father’s father was the man who started it. We’re siblings by the same father, not mother. He couldn’t step down until a boy was born. Yes, you have plenty of male cousins, but they weren’t my papa’s grandchildren. Your mother is my only child, and she can’t take lead of the cartel since she’s a woman.”

  “What the fuck? So, I can’t take lead of the fucking cartel because I gotta pussy and not a dick?”

  “You would never be head of the cartel for reasons that have nothing to do with your genitals.”

  “Why didn’t you never tell us this?” Why did she hold all of this from us? If she didn’t tell Yolani, I would understand. But, me? Why did she hold this from me? Yolani was too much of a hothead and wouldn’t be able to process it the way it needed to. Even Baru lied to me. This man was a mentor to me and this entire time he was of kin to me. This shit was too wild for me and I had to lean even further in the seat.

  “Baby, I wanted to tell you, and something stopped. I know what the Santana cartel is about and I know how ruthless they are. I figured what you do in America was enough and you didn’t need to get involved. Baru is ready to step down. The man is in his seventies and he’s ready to retire with his twenty-five-year-old wife. He’s been on my neck to tell you or he would tell you.”

  “Yo, this shit is wild.”

  “I still find Baru’s fine ass wife and his old ass disgusting.”

  “Shut the fuck up!” I barked at my sister. Here our grandmother was sitting here and telling us that we had ties to a cartel, and she was worried about what our uncle and his wife looked like. The shit pissed me off because I was trying to process this shit.

  “I came here on a student visa and I was eight months pregnant. The women in our family don’t carry too big, so I was able to disguise it well. Not even Baru knew until I got to the states. I took a few classes because that’s what Papa wanted me to do. When I had your mother, it was the best day of my life. It was sunny, she slipped right on out, and I got to leave a few hours after. Papa wasn’t pleased because she wasn’t a boy, but he loved his granddaughter with all his heart,” she spoke from the heart. I could tell from the way she stared off into space as she spoke. “When your mother turned eighteen, she met some boy. I thought it was a silly crush and it would fade away. When she came in the house with a sonogram, I knew it wasn’t a silly crush anymore. When I told Baru and my papa, they were excited. This was a chance at them having the baby boy they’ve been waiting for. When we found out you were a boy, the whole town where we are from celebrated. Baru got the call at three in the morning that you were born, and you were to be named Yoshon Dadir Baru Santana.”

  I finally knew where the fuck my damn name came from. All my life I wondered where my long ass name came from and my grandmother played it off like it was my mother’s doing.

  “Man, this shit is crazy. How does Baru know that I want to be a part of the cartel?”

  “This is why I hid it. You’re not given a choice; this is your life. You’re meant to stand head of the cartel.”

  “I’m not moving to no damn Belize. You live in the slums and shit, for what?”

  “Buoy!” she hollered in her accent. It only came out when she was passionate about what she was speaking about. “I don’t live in the slums. We have a family compound that looks over all of Belize and the coasts.”

  “All this celebration for this nigga, what about me?”

  “Your father named you. Baru had a man that he wanted you to marry when you were eighteen. He’s a prominent member of the cartel, but I told him about your situation.”

  “That I’d rather lick pussy than get my pussy fucked?”

  Pit Pat was disgusted by Yolani’s actions. I could tell from the way she kept cutting her eyes at her. “Your mother was supposed to kill your father. He was stealing, and since she brought him in, she had to take him out. Some way he found out and decided to beat her to the punch and murder her. I never forgave myself for that. Baru put so much pressure on her to handle him and I knew she wasn’t ready. Your mother didn’t want this life and it was pushed upon her. I didn’t want that for you both.”

  “That’s why that nigga got dealt with.”

  “Sorry to burst your bubble, baby girl. Your father was already handled before you got there. All you did was added bullets to his body. The bottle of gin he was consuming had poison in it already. He was dying, either way, all you did was expedite it.”

  “Why did mommy struggle? She worked hard as hell and sometimes two or three jobs at a time.”

  “Your mother didn’t struggle. You both had
a nice roof over your head, no? Anything you wanted your mother provided for you.”

  “She did,” I agreed. I guess I thought I should have been living in mansions being that I was heir to the throne of the Santana Cartel.

  “Yeah, but we went to public school,” Yolani’s dumb ass had to blurt out.

  “Oh, so you had a bad life because you went to public school? That was your mother’s choice. All of it was her choice. Her fear was raising entitled and soft children, which she didn’t.”

  “Where do we go from here?”

  She sighed. “We take a trip back home so the family can meet you. They know about you all, but besides Baru, they have never met you both. If you could pull your nose out of cocaine long enough, I would like you to be there,” she shot at Yolani.

  “Funny,” she chuckled.

  “This is too much for me to take in at once. I need to take a nap and think about this alone.” I stood up and walked over to my grandmother. Tears fell down her cheeks. I knew this was a hard conversation to have.

  “I never wanted to lie to you about this.”

  “You were protecting us. Mama left, and there was no one protecting us, so you stepped up and did that. I don’t fault you for that at all, Grandma.”

  She looked at me and stood up. Wrapping her arms around me, she sniffled into my stomach. “I love you both so much. This isn’t the life I would have chosen for neither of you.”

  “Stop stressing. I don’t want your pressure getting back up,” I warned her and kissed her forehead. “Know what I’m craving?”

  “Some Johnny cakes.” I smiled, knowing that would make her feel better. Catering and caring for us was something that brought her so much peace. After the afternoon we had, she needed something to take her mind off all we discussed today.

  “I can get to the store and get some ingredients to make them,” she smiled and cheered up. “I’ll go make a list and have Golden take me when she gets back.”

  “Okay.” I kissed her once more. Walking past Yolani pissed me the fuck off. “Me and you will talk at another time.”

  “Yeah, ight. Sound like this nigga ‘bout to become the king of Wakanda,” she laughed at her own joke. Even Pit Pat followed behind me and left her dumb ass on the patio. Right now, I needed a nap and to rest my mind.