Page 43 of Our Mother's Sons

“Daddy, we came here to interrogate your men. You said you didn’t have anything to do with sending the hits after my sons, but someone in the mob is doing it. Jeovanni and Jovani have no enemies, and they didn’t have any until I came around. I’ve been back in their lives for a few years now, and as soon as I sat down with you a few months ago and let you know I’d been building a relationship with them, we have enemies.”

I didn’t know that shit. I thought Bendetti always knew that Melissa had been sniffing around us. I guess you learned something new every day.

“Daughter,” Bendetti smiled.

Smack.

Melissa fell to the ground with a hard thud, and before anyone could react, he snatched her up by the hair and punched her in the face.

“What the fuck!”

Letting my grandmother go, I reached for my gun at the same time as my brother, but the twenty men lifted their weapons. Deuce and Rome had theirs drawn, too. Bendetti still had Melissa dangling by her hair as blood oozed from her busted lip and now swollen eye.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, sons. Daddy, they were just leaving. I’ll stay. It’s fine,” Melissa tried to reason.

“You bring them to my home and question me as if I had something to do with anything? Have you thought maybe associating yourself with niggers is the reason why you are having these mishaps,” he spat, spit fling into Melissa’s face.

“Aye, let our mother go. You think we give a fuck about being outnumbered? Your men can try, but I guarantee all of y’all are coming on that ride to hell with us. Won’t none of us make it out this bitch alive.”

“Facts! You know what-”

I snatched Melissa from his grip, and since he had her by the hair, some of her extensions were left in his hand.

“Fuck wrong with you putting your hands on our mother? Bitch ass white boy.”

Placing Melissa on her feet, I grabbed her chin and inspected her face. Tears were pouring down her bruised eyes; other than the busted lip, she would live.

“Stop trying to reason with his ass. We all leaving this bitch together. I know you think that’s your daddy, but the moment you chose our daddy over him, you were dead to him. He can lie all he wants but we know he the one behind all this shit. You don’t need the fucking Bendetti’s. You got us, aite?”

Melissa nodded.

“These are not your children! They do not carry my legacy! They are trash! Trash from the slums, just like their father was! That’s why I killed him and dumped him in the ghetto at his mother's porch! I hated his black ass-”

Poe pow pow pow pow pow.

You would have thought Fine Shyt taught Bendetti how to dance with the way his body was Harlem shaking. As bullets entered his chest, one ending his life with a headshot, his body fell.

Looking around, Deuce, Rome, and my brother were just as clueless as I was because none of them had ended his life. Melissa was still sniffling, so she hadn’t done it either. When Jeovanni’s eyes grew big, I followed his vision to the side of me.

“That was for my only child! You sick racist son of a bitch!”

Joanna had a small gun raised, one that she used to use to threaten men who got too drunk at the pool hall when Jeo and I were too young to defend her, even though we tried. Her hand was still shaking while she cried.

“Men. Stand down!” Melissa walked up. Her tears were now dried up, and she didn’t even blink as her daddy lay in a pool of his blood.

“My father is dead, so as you know, everything falls to me. I’m your boss now! You will not harm my children!”

The men looked around at each other as if they didn’t know what to do.

“Deuce, kill three men,” she instructed.

Deuce lifted his gun and let off on two while Rome killed one. When the bodies dropped, the rest of the men fell in line and dropped their weapons.

“Now, is there any confusion on who is in charge?” Melissa asked. The men shook their heads.

Her heels echoed as she walked to her father’s body.

She kneeled and looked at his body without an ounce of pity.

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