Especially when I had no children to worry about, making it harder to leave.
“My father used to take me to Restaurant 1969 on my birthday every year,” I started, since it really did all circle back to that, if I thought about it. “And I think that was how he found himself wrapped up with the Polat family.”
“Your pops owned a laundromat, right?” Brio asked, clearly having done some research on our family.
“He did. It was really important to him that he owned his own business.”
I remembered being proud of him and resentful of him in turn during my childhood. Because it seemed like no matter how hard he worked, we never had two pennies to rub together after bills were paid.
I had never been a needy kid, someone who wanted the latest and greatest. I guess because I always knew there was no chance for that. But also because I’d been raised to appreciate experiences and relationships more than things.
But as I got a little older, as the weight of poverty seemed to weigh down our whole family at times, I used to wonder why he was so stubborn, why he wouldn’t just give up on the laundromat and get a job with a better, more stable income.
Of course, on the day when I got the scar, I finally learned the truth.
I wasn’t sure which had been worse that day.
The idea of marrying Eren.
Or the guilt over any negative feelings I might have felt about my parents and their ability to provide for us.
“Eren’s family extorted yours,” Brio said, eyes knowing.
“Yeah,” I agreed, nodding. “We never knew. My sister and me,” I clarified. “I honestly don’t even know how much my mother knew until after my father died.”
“Why did your old man pay?” Brio asked.
“That’s a good question,” I said, shaking my head. “I think it was fear. Eren is good with a threat. I could see him saying he was going to call in inspectors or something and have the business closed down for some fake violation or something. My father was a good man. But he was a little naive. And… maybe even a bit… I don’t want to say weak…”
“Passive,” Brio supplied, saving me from more guilt for even uttering the word.
“Exactly. He wasn’t a fighter. He once caught some neighborhood kid trying to break open the vending machine at the laundromat and instead of yelling or calling the police, he hired him to clean the place.”
People don’t steal because they like to steal, he’d explained to me when I’d seen a young, sad-faced woman taking food from a bodega once. They steal because they have no other way. People are overall good. Circumstances are what make them act badly.
I’d never had a reason to doubt those words.
Until I met Eren Polat.
Who extorted—stole—just because he wanted to, because he was greedy, because he was sick enough to get some sort of pleasure in his power over people.
“Your father sounds like he was a good man.”
“He was,” I agreed, nodding. “A good man who got wrapped up with a whole family of bad ones.”
I never got confirmation on it, but as I had time to think about the situation, I figured that the Polat family raised the extortion amount every single year, explaining why my father worked longer and longer hours, yet seemed to bring less and less home.
“Tell me about how you found out about the Polat family and yours,” Brio demanded, his hand still on my neck, but now his fingers were gently massaging the muscles there, trying to ease some of the tension trapped there.
“I was coming home from work,” I said, feeling my shoulders slump as the memories came flooding back to me.
“From Restaurant 1969.”
“Yeah.”
It had been a good day for tips. I was excited to go home and tell my little sister that I was going to finally be able to get her that new laptop she’d been wanting for months after the one I’d handed down to her had died, leaving her with no way to play around online or chat with her friends since we couldn’t afford to get her a cellphone. But I’d been working on that too.
I’d been ready to sing-song her name as I stepped inside.
But then the sound died on my tongue as I stepped inside to see my mom standing in the kitchen, white as a sheet, her hands wringing together as she looked at the man standing in front of her.
Eren Polat.
My boss.
I was using that term lightly, of course. He was the owner, but he had next to nothing to do with how the restaurant ran. That was left to managers.
But I knew who he was, of course. I’d even needed to wait on him a time or two before.
I couldn’t fathom what he was doing standing in our shoebox apartment. Or why my mother seemed so distraught.