Mae’s shoulders sagged. She held that fucking journal against her chest like she was scared I’d toss it in the fire if she let it go. She was right. I would. I didn’t wanna know shit about my mother. A shitty life was no excuse for leaving me behind for the Diablo prez. Fuck, I had to work alongside Chavez most days now. It was his old man my mother had shacked up with.
I didn’t wanna fucking know.
Kissing Mae again, I went into my office and shut the door. I slumped behind my desk and took a long fucking breath. My cell buzzed.
Ky: They’ve made it to the first check-in.
Me: Good. Any trouble?
Ky: Not yet. But we’ll no doubt hear the alarm come morning when Quintana realizes the bride has been taken.
A sick kind of smile spread on my lips. I wanted that fucker to suffer. I wanted him to know I was coming for him and that his days were numbered. I rubbed my hand over my head, then texted back.
Me: Good.
The email intercepted by Chavez and Shadow, explaining what the cartel planned to do to us in an attack, lay on my desk. I looked down, and I felt like punching the fucking wall when I read the section that had stood out to me.
Take the mute’s slut of a wife and unborn kid and sell them to the contact. They’ve been looking for someone like her. But make the mute watch her being beaten to within an inch of her life before you slit his throat and burn that fucking club to the ground. Nazis are taking too long as always. We’ll kill them in one quick attack.
My heart slammed in my chest as I tried to calm the fuck down. I reached for a smoke and the Beam that I kept in my desk drawer. I took a long drag. The python in my throat was like a vise, choking me the fuck out. I shut my eyes, but all I could see was Mae in some Mexican’s arms, Charon in her belly, as she was kicked to shit. And me, held back by the cunts, unable to do a fucking thing about it.
I pushed back from the desk and marched to the living room. I stopped in the doorway. Mae lay asleep on the couch, with that journal open on her chest. Moving her shoulders, I sat down and laid her head on my knee. My hand trailed through her hair. Still as long as it ever was. Still just as black.
My own fucking Persephone.
She only got more beautiful by the day.
Mae’s stomach shifted. I reached out and laid my hand over her dress, my lips hooking into a smile when I felt my son kick my hand again. I exhaled a long breath as my hand moved upward and landed on the journal. I stared at that leather book like it was a fucking grenade.
“Get the fuck in here, Mute,” my pop said. He walked back into his office.
“What the fuck d’you do now?” Ky asked.
Shrugging, I walked into the office. I didn’t know.
“Shut the door,” Pop ordered.
I did as he said, then I heard someone suck in a breath. I looked over to see a slut in the corner of the room. She’d been beaten up. She had blood on her face and was crouched on the floor. “River?” she whispered. My stomach rolled at the sound of my real name.
I frowned. My pop laughed. “Don’t recognize her, kid?” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s because I’ve rearranged her face. Or maybe it’s because you were so young when she betrayed us for Diablo cock.” He paused, and I knew it was so whatever he said next would punch me harder. “It’s your slut of a mama.”
My eyes widened as shock cut through me. “Mama?” I wanted to say, but my throat wouldn’t work. I couldn’t fucking speak!
“Kid’s still a retard. Actually . . .” My pop laughed. I couldn’t stop looking at my mama. She started crawling toward me. I wanted to go to her, but when I tried to move, my pop said, “One more step, kid, and I’ll make sure you don’t wake up for a week.”
I stopped dead, because that was a promise I knew he’d keep. He’d done that before. I wasn’t going through that shit again. Pop turned back to my mama, whose eye was closed with bruising. “Like I said, he’s still a retard. Can’t speak for shit. But it got worse when you left.” I glared at my pop. I fucking hated him at times. He smiled at me. Sometimes I wanted to punch him so hard. “You made him st-st-stutter. My fucking heir to this kingdom, nothing more than a useless little mute cunt. Who the fuck is ever gonna be scared of him? How the fuck will he ever lead my Hangmen when I’m gone?” My pop shrugged. “The fucker takes after you. Weak-as-piss retard.”
“River.” My mama reached out for me. I felt my throat getting thicker, and tears built in my eyes. But I couldn’t cry. Pop would beat me if I dared cry.
In a second my pop was off his chair and gripping my mama’s hair. He yanked her to her feet. Mama screamed, but Pop didn’t care. “She left you, kid. Don’t let her crawling on her slut knees, calling you by that piece-of-shit name she gave you, fool you. She fucking left you for a Diablo.” I frowned. We didn’t like the Diablos. They hated us and we hated them. My pop told me that one day soon he was gonna catch one and give me my first kill. He said that another war with them was coming. It hadn’t been long since the last one ended.
“River,” my mama said. “I can explain, baby. I’ve come back for—”
“Shut the fuck up, bitch.” Pop punched my mama in the stomach. Her legs buckled, but Pop’s hold on her hair kept her upright. Pop looked at me again. “She left you, kid. She chose her new man over us. She’s back now because he saw through her pathetic shit and doesn’t want her anymore. Or . . .” He turned her and slapped her across the face. I stepped forward, ready to stop him, but Pop smiled at me over her shoulder. I knew that look on his face. I didn’t dare move anymore. My heart was beating so fast, and all I wanted to do was rip her out of his arms and run away. “Or have you come here for that cunt? Has he sent you in as a mole?”
“No!” Mama cried. My pop turned her around until she faced me. Mama held out her hand. “River . . . I’m so sorry . . .” she whispered, but before she could finish what she was saying, Pop put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger. My eyes snapped shut as the bang thundered around the room. When I opened my eyes again, Mama was on the floor, blood pouring from her head. But her hand was still stretched out in my direction, and her eyes were open . . . and looking right at me.
“Mama . . .” I whispered. I felt a tear on my cheek.
Pop walked past me and slapped me across the face. “Cut the pussy fucking tears, Styx. That slut was nothing but trouble from the first time she spread her legs for me. Sanchez sent her to start the war. And it worked. She didn’t want you, kid. She didn’t love you. This was all bullshit, and she was using us to get in further with the Diablos. She’s going to the boatman with no coins on her eyes. She can wander lost for eternity. It’s what the whore deserves.” My pop slapped me on the back, then left the room. I stared at my mama until the prospects came in to move the body. I stared at her blood drying on the floor until someone came in and cleaned it.
She didn’t want me.
She’d only come back to start a war.
She was a fucking whore, like my pop said.
And I hated her for going off with Sanchez. I hated her for leaving. But most of all, I hated her for not loving me enough to stay . . . or at least take me with her . . .
Mae shifted, snapping me from the memory of that day, and moved closer to me on my lap. I looked down at my hands; they were fucking shaking. Asshole, I said in my head. Pop was right—you’re a fucking weak-as-piss retard. I closed my eyes and got my breathing under control. I was the fucking Hangmen Mute—I didn’t feel this shit. Especially over a slut who didn’t want me.
Mae’s arms wrapped around my waist, and the journal fell to my side, the spine digging into my hip. I took in a deep breath and breathed out through my nose. I clenched my jaw, fucking ready to rip out my own traitorous brain as the memory I’d tried to forget still played on a loop in my head. Doubt was starting to creep up my back. Had she come back for me? Had she come to take me from Pop and all the shit he put me through?
Mae sighed. “I love you, River.”
River . . . Rive
r . . . River . . .
I took another mouthful of Beam and swallowed it down, feeling it burn a path from my chest to my stomach . . . then, like the weak piece of shit I was, I picked up the fucking journal. My hand shook as I held it.
Like I said, he’s still a retard. Can’t speak for shit. But it got worse when you left . . .
Had it? I couldn’t fucking remember ever speaking right. Then again, I didn’t have many memories before that night—just a blur of hanging with Ky and avoiding my old man’s fists. But I remembered watching my pop put a slug through my mama’s head with crystal clarity. I remembered her dead, open eyes and the smell of her blood. And I remembered hiding the trunk she’d brought with her in my room, in my closet. I’d never seen what was inside, and forgot all about it . . . until today.
I stared into nothing, just listening to Mae breathing, for a good few hours. Until I opened the journal and stared at my mama’s handwriting. It was messy, but if what Mae had read was true, it sounded like she wasn’t from a good background. I didn’t even know if she’d gone to school.
I didn’t mean to start reading. But I did. With Mae in my lap and our boy in her belly, I read about the woman I’d always been told was nothing more than a slut, a shitty excuse for a mother.