Lev: a Shot Callers novel (27 page)

Chapter Thirty-Five
Mina

What what now?

Alessio
was my brother?

Holy crap on a cracker.

I did not see that one coming.

My body jerked in my chair, causing my knees to hit the table and my cutlery to clink loudly. Lev’s hand covered mine in quiet support, kindly ignoring the way it shook. My mouth went dry. I forced myself to breathe deep.

No one spoke.

I didn’t look at Alessio when I asked quietly, “You said you weren’t my father.” I was confused.

Laredo let out a soft sigh. “Alessio is not my biological son. He was my brother’s boy. Making me your…”

My brow bunched. “Uncle.”

He smiled. “My dear niece. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you happened across my path. I thank you for giving me this night. I loved your mother very much.”

Oh, my God. My head started to pound. I reached up to rub my temples. “Maybe we should start at the beginning.”

Laredo chuckled. “Clara used to do the same thing when she got a headache.”

My fingers stilled. I opened my eyes to look over at him. “Yes. She did.”

“Don’t look so surprised, Mina. I knew everything about her.”

I doubted that. I knew my mother better than anyone, thank you very much. Alessio kept quiet. I was grateful. I needed time to adjust.

“Okay,” I uttered. “Your brother is my dad. Alessio’s dad. Where is he?”

“Dead,” Alessio sneered. “Trust me, you’re lucky you never met him. He liked to kick my ass whenever the fuck it suited him. Fuck knows what he would’ve done to you.”

To my surprise, Laredo agreed. “Yes. Enzo was not a kind man. So when I pursued your mother, it was only natural that he made it a competition.” He shrugged. “Clara danced like a dream. She was an angel. After my wife passed on, I thought I would never feel love again until she came along.”

But I was stuck on something he’d said. “My mother was a server, a waitress. Not a dancer.”

Laredo seemed taken aback, as if he didn’t know how to tell me something important. “Mina,” he started. “Clara worked at my first club, Sweet Blood. She was a dancer, my dear. One of the best.” At my blinking stare, he added, “Did you never wonder how a waitress could afford the home you had? Did you never notice that she only worked nights?”

Shit. He was right. Our house has bigger than average and I never went without. We never had money problems. Our bills were paid on time. I had the best of everything. Every night, she put me to sleep and went to work. She would come home just before I woke to get ready for school, smelling of stale beer and…

“Oh, my God,” I breathed. “My mom was a stripper.”

Lev turned to me and stated, “There’s nothing wrong with that. People need to work, Mina.”

“I’m not judging her,” I lied. “I’m just wondering how I never saw it.”

Laredo smiled. “She was your mom. She was your world. You were a child. How could you have known?”

Nicolas Van Eden spoke then, “My mum was a street lady. She sold her body to all the men in our neighborhood. Some of my
boykie
friends even had a go at her.” He shrugged and smiled widely, “Still love my mum, God rest her soul.”

God, he was adorable.

Roman Vlasic added to the conversation, “My mother was a doctor.” His eyes dimmed. “She was a terrible person. Cold and bitter.” He eyed me good. “Just because my mother had a respectable position, it didn’t make her a good person,
lutkica
.”

Davi Lobo spoke rapid-fire in a language I couldn’t understand. Laredo listened intently, nodding before turning to me. “Davi understands a little English, but only speaks Portuguese.” Well, that would explain why he was looking at me so fixedly. He probably didn’t have a fracking clue what I was saying. “He said that sometimes people do things that are beneath them to provide for the ones they love.”

A soft smile graced my lips and I held Lev’s hand tight, running my thumb over his fingers. I spoke gently to Davi. “Yes. I suppose sometimes they do.”

Philippe sipped at his crystal glass of water. “I didn’t have a mother.” He smiled sadly. “Count yourself lucky to have had one, no less a mother who loved you so.”

They were right. My mother was wonderful. I suppose it just hurt knowing that perhaps I hadn’t known her as well as I thought. But all the important things…I knew those. Memories of her took me back to my youth.

I don’t know why, but I felt I needed to share. “My mother, Clara, was a sweet woman. She smiled all the time, and laughed almost as much. She was like a ray of sunshine, pretty as can be, and she always had time for me.” I smiled to myself. It was nice to talk about her. “She sang to me before bed. We always had dessert. She helped me with my homework.” I turned to Lev. “She was smart.”

He squeezed my hand, smiling softly at me, and I went on. “Whenever I was in a bad mood, she would take me down to the store and tell me to fill the shopping cart with anything I wanted. We’d eat ourselves into a food coma.” I chuckled. “She always had the corniest jokes just to make me smile. She was on the PTA. Made my Halloween costumes from scratch. Took me to the beach on the coldest days just to sit on the sand and take in the air. She was a great mom.” My heart panged with guilt. I turned to face Alessio. “And I’m sorry you missed out on that.”

Alessio’s expression remained hard, but when he turned to avert his eyes from mine, I could see he was affected.

Why didn’t Alessio live with us? Why was he left to a father that didn’t want him? I didn’t understand.

I faced Laredo. “Why were we separated?”

Laredo ran his tongue over his teeth. “Because it hurt Clara, and my brother liked to punish her.” He frowned, almost lost in thought. “My brother was married. He didn’t have children with his wife. Clara was nothing more than a plaything. I tried to make her see reason so many times, but,” he sighed, “she loved Enzo.”

Oh, Jesus.

My heart sank. She was the other woman? Who the hell was this person?

“Enzo was good to her for a while. Treated her well. She loved the attention, of course.” He raised his brow as he made his point. “He was the better looking brother.”

I see.

“Clara fell pregnant only a month after sleeping with Enzo. The entire club knew who the father was. Clara asked him to leave his wife. He refused. She told him she would leave him. Just disappear. Told him her baby needed a father.” Oh, God. She sounded a little like Irina. My stomach dropped. I was so embarrassed. “He told her that after she had the baby he would leave his wife. But I knew he way lying.” He shrugged. “It was no surprise to me that after she had Alessio that he stayed with his wife. Clara was heartbroken. She planned to leave town. Enzo caught her packing her things. He went ballistic.”

Laredo glanced at Alessio before turning back to me. “He beat the shit out of her. Said that if she tried to leave him again, he’d kill the boy. I had no doubt that he would. She wasn’t stupid enough to try again. At least she was allowed to see her son.”

“He beat her?” My voice shook. “She was the sweetest person in the whole world, and he
beat
her?”

Laredo leveled me with a stare. “Enzo used whatever means to keep her by his side. When Clara realized she’d picked the wrong guy, she turned her affections on me.” He smiled. “I was good to her. I loved her. I wanted to father her children. It wasn’t fair that Enzo had that. He didn’t deserve any piece of her. She found that out a little too late. But I took care of her as much as she let me.”

My view of my mother was dimming fast. “Yeah, she sounded like a real peach.”

“We grew careless,” Laredo ignored my snide comment and went on. “It didn’t take long for Enzo to grow suspicious. He walked in on us one night and I was caught with my hand in the cookie jar. I fought my brother tooth and nail. I fought so hard that I broke his bones as well as mine. But Clara…she’d had enough of us. She took off, leaving Alessio behind.”

Poor Alessio.

My throat thickened at the harsh fact.

How could she?

“My brother tried to take Alessio’s life a week later. He attempted to drown him in the bathtub. But he couldn’t see it through.” He turned to look at Alessio. “He didn’t want to love the boy, but he did. A month later, Enzo was found in his home office stone-cold dead. He’d died of an accidental drug overdose that I presume was not so accidental. Enzo’s wife didn’t want Alessio. She knew he was the product of an affair, so I adopted him. He should have been my son in the first place. I love him very much. I tried to find Clara, but she hid well, funnily enough, right under our noses. I didn’t even know she passed away until two years ago.” He eyed me. “I didn’t know she had a daughter.”

Hope beamed from somewhere deep inside of me. “How can you be so sure you’re not my father? You said you were intimate…”

But he was already shaking his head. “No. I’m sorry, Mina. I’m not your father. We never took our affair that far. It’s just not possible that you’re mine.” He huffed out a breath. “But I would’ve killed to be your dad, sweet girl. Know that.”

Tears prickled my eyes as I nodded solemnly.

Alessio had heard enough. He sneered at me from across the table. “While you were out picking flowers with your ma, I was hiding bruises from my friends.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my eyes shining.

“What are you sorry for? You had a good childhood. I was forgotten. That’s life.” As I looked down at the table, he spoke into the silence. “What? You don’t want a brother any more?” My heart broke. He huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. Not good enough for you, am I? Just like ya mom.”

Lev gripped my hand so tight it hurt. “Shut your mouth.”

He said this at the same time Laredo called out, “Don’t speak out of anger, my son. You best be quiet, Alessio.”

“No,” Alessio went on. “How about we tell her about the time my father kicked me so hard in the chest that I stopped breathing? Or about the time when he came home from the club, pulled down his pants, and pissed all over me while I slept.”

Tears were trailing my cheeks now. My chest ached with every beat of my heart. I fought desperately not to sob out loud.

Lev growled, “I’m warning you, Alessio.”

“While she had sunshine and lollipops,” Alessio began to shout, “I had cigarette burns across my fucking arms.”

The men around me had started to object angrily at Alessio’s outburst. All I could do was blink through my tears and speak quietly. “I didn’t know.”

Alessio stood. “How could you know? Living your perfect fucking life in your perfect fucking house with your goddamn whore of a mother.” He pointed at me hard. “You got the life I shoulda had.” He clapped slowly, humiliatingly. “Congratulations, Mina.” His lip curled as he whispered, “You got it all.”

By this point, Lev had enough. He threw his chair back so quickly that it flew to the ground. He was quick, but I anticipated the attack before it began. Alessio laughed viciously, his arms wide, welcoming the impending attack. The men stood, Nicolas and Roman rushing to pull at Alessio while Davi and Philippe moved to see what Lev would do.

My arms wrapped around his waist and I gripped him tight, digging my feet in as he dragged me. “I’d like to leave now, sweetie.” Something in the quiet way I spoke must have warned Lev against this fight, because, his chest heaving, teeth gnashing in fury, he slowed to a stop, turning to wrap his arm protectively around me.

Lev turned to my brother and whispered in deathly calm, “You’re going to regret your words.” He panted. “I’m going to make sure of it.”

Alessio hooted loudly. “
Oooh
. I’m so scared.”

There was no way to sugarcoat it. My brother was a jerk. A cruel, nasty jerk. I didn’t want to know him. I wanted to pretend this night never happened.

Turning to Laredo, I kept my eyes on the ground as I stated, “This was a bad idea. I’m sorry for the trouble.”

He sounded miserable. “Mina, please don’t go.”

“Enjoy your dinner,” I replied as Lev walked me to the double doors. Before we made our exit, Lev paused mid-step and turned to face Alessio one last time. What he said made me cry all over again.

“Mina might have had a decent childhood, but she’s been dealt her share of hardship. She’s been without a home for seven years. She spent that time on the streets, sleeping in alleyways, eating trash to stay alive. Where were you sleeping two months ago, Alessio?” He spoke quietly, “I found Mina sleeping next to a puddle of piss, so emaciated that she was on the brink of death having not eaten in days.”

“Mina,” Laredo muttered, shaking his head with sadness. “Sweetheart.”

Lev eyed my brother, who lifted his chin in defiance. “Don’t assume to know her. You don’t know anything about her, you sack of shit.”

I cried into Lev’s sleeve, tired of people seeing my tears. Lev rubbed my arm as we let ourselves out. As he opened the front door to let us out, I heard Nicolas Van Eden speak, his accent thick and harsh.

“That girl is your sister. She was sweet. And you…you are a fucking asshole,
boykie
.”