Page 33 of The Price of My Sins

I dragged a slow breath through my nose, then shifted my tone. “Let’s cut the bullshit. I didn’t come here to trade insults.”

“Then why did you come?” she asked coldly.

“To let you know… I know you didn’t pull the trigger that night,” I said, voice calm but pointed. “I know it was your son.”

She didn’t react at first. Not a twitch or a flinch. But I saw it; the way her fingers tensed where they were crossed and the way her shoulders stiffened before she rolled them back like she hadn’t just been hit with a sucker punch.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said after a beat—too smooth and quick.

I chuckled. “You don’t have to play dumb, Zora. I just wanted to look you in your face and let you know. I see you. I see him. And I’ve been quiet, but that silence… it has an expiration date. I’m coming for your son. He is going to pay for killing my brother. And then I’m coming for anyone associated with him. An eye for an eye.”

She shifted her stance, a flash of panic in her eyes before it was buried under that wall she’d spent years perfecting.

“You can keep protecting him if you want,” I added. “But just know… secrets don’t stay buried forever. And when it all comes out—and it will—I want you to remember this conversation.”

For the first time, she didn’t have a comeback. And I didn’t need one. Instead of waiting, I stood up ready to exit. Hitting the table with my knuckles, I stated the final words I needed Ms. Zora to hear. “Oh, and I heard you are being released early. Enjoy your freedom while you can. You will be back in that orange jumpsuit real soon. But this time, your son will be wearing a matching one.”

I gave her one last look and walked out, leaving the air dense and her conscience louder than anything I could’ve said.

I didn’t want Boris or his mama dead. Death was too easy. Too clean. I wanted them to rot in a cell and feel every second of what they took from me and my family. I wanted them to wake up every day with the burden of my brother’s ghost pressing down on their chest.

I knew my brother wasn’t perfect. He indeed had a hand problem. But so what? A lot of women run their mouths and push buttons and need to be disciplined. They play victim until the moment they’re backed into a corner. Then it’s all “self-defense” and “I feared for my life” bullshit like that erases everything that led up to it.

My father taught me from a young age that women are here to serve men, not the other way around. Zora should haveobeyed her husband and just stayed in her place, just like my mama had done until she died.

So no, I didn’t want Zora and Boris gone. I wanted them to be held accountable publicly while feeling miserable about their lives. I needed the world to know they weren’t innocent. I wanted to strip away the sympathy they wrapped themselves in like armor.

Because pain like mine doesn’t fade—it festers. I planned on making sure they felt every ounce of it, piece by piece.

The sun was just starting to cut through the gray skies, casting a golden line across the top of the gates like it was offering me some kind of blessing. But I wasn’t ready to accept it. Not yet.

I’d stood in front of this place a hundred times before. Visiting hours. That damn metal detector. The hard plastic chairs. The phone that never worked right. The plastic table that separated me from the woman who raised me behind bars, but today was different.

Today, those gates will open. Today, thanks to Boston & Deuce’s connections, my mother was walking out of Bedford Hills Correctional Facility a free woman. I wasn’t even sure what to feel. I’d been waiting for this day most of my life, but the emotions tangled inside me like barbed wire. Relief. Guilt. Love. A bitterness I’d buried so deep that I thought it was gone until this moment, standing here, waiting.

For twenty years, I saw her in orange jumpsuits. A number instead of a name. An inmate instead of a mother. I memorized her smile like a prayer and hated the way the guards watched me hug her like it was contraband. I’d leave every visit feeling hollow, like I had to be strong enough for both of us, and my pain had to remain quiet because hers was louder.

But now? Now she was walking through those gates. Not as inmate #414808, but as my mama again, and that terrified me more than anything. What do you say to a woman who missed your high school graduation? Who wasn’t there when your heart got broken for the first time? Who didn’t get to see the man you became on the outside, only the boy you left behind in the visiting room?

I shifted my stance, heart pounding, hands stuffed in my pockets to hide the shaking. I was supposed to be cool. Solid. Unshakable. I was Boris, my mama’s son, the one who held shit down. But as those metal doors buzzed and began to creak open, I felt like I was thirteen years old again, waiting by the window for a woman who always came home late sometimes but still came home.

The gates creaked open, and out stepped my mother, a small bag in hand, walking slowly like she wasn’t sure if the ground under her feet was even real. Her head was held high, though. Chin up, shoulders square—that pride in her spine, even after all life had tried to break her with, was still present.

She was wearing the outfit Olivia and Lexi picked out for her, and I swear to God, I almost turned around and asked the guards to take her ass back in until she changed.

It was tan, tight, and showed way too much leg. The jacket was cropped, the top was low-cut, and I had to blink a few times to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. And the heels? Red-bottoms. Probably Lexi’s idea. She was walking like she hadn’t been on anything taller than a flip-flop in twenty years, but she was trying to hold it together.

I ran a hand over my face and shook my head, chuckling under my breath. “These damn women…” But still, she looked good—better than I expected. Healthier. Hair long now, thick and full, flowing down her back in soft waves. Time had aged her, sure, but it hadn’t taken her light. She still had that quiet firein her eyes, that same look I remembered from when I was a boy. The one that told me even when she was tired, she wasn’t done.

She spotted me leaning against the car and stopped in her tracks. Her lips parted and her eyes glossed over. For a second, neither of us moved. We were scared that this moment might break if we breathed too loudly.

Then I opened my arms, and she didn’t hesitate. She dropped the bag and came to me fast. Those ridiculous heels clicked against the pavement like they had somewhere important to be. When she wrapped her arms around me, all I could do was hold her securely.

“Boris,” she whispered into my chest. “My baby.” She clung to me like she didn’t believe I was real and if she let go, the whole world would snap back into place, and she’d still be on the inside, looking out.

I held her tighter. “Nah,” I murmured, my throat tight. “Not no more, Ma. I'm a grown-ass man now. But I never stopped being yours.”

She cried then. The kind of tears you only let fall when nobody’s watching but the person who knows your whole story.

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