Threats and Promises
Given my history with Marcus, he understands my need to wrap things up in North Carolina swiftly. After securing a job for me in Texas, he rescheduled my appointments so he can take on my clients. Always the caring Dom, he paid me with a bonus to make sure we had more than enough to get started.
My mom gave her notice at her job, too. Then we packed up and were in Texas in three weeks, starting over.
Trenton has been more than liberal with Trey staying over. In fact, since we moved here, he’s only been back at the ranch for two nights.
Although the boy eats a ton, my mom loves cooking for him, and he loves all the Mexican specialties she makes for him. Trenton has come over for dinner quite a few times, as well. It’s hard some days to look at him and keep my resentment at bay. However, he’s trying, and ultimately, he’s given me more than I ever could have expected.
Wayne is home from the hospital after completing the rehabilitation program for stroke patients. His left side is still paralyzed, and he’s in a wheelchair. Permanently confined and dependent on others, the tyrant certainly has been knocked down a peg or two.
When I drop Trey off for the night, he asks me to come inside. He wants to show me a charcoal sketch he made specifically for me. How can I deny him this?
Entering the house, an eerie feeling washes over me. I make it into the great room before Wayne wheels in front of my path. Trey’s eyes widen as he sees the menace in his grandfather’s face toward me.
I wave Trey on to go upstairs, smiling reassuringly that everything is going to be okay. He doesn’t need to see what may or may not go on here.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to see my son’s artwork,” I answer, remaining firm in my position and tone. He will not intimidate me.
“You know you can’t be here. You can’t have him, Sophia. Pack up and go back to Carolina before I get you and your mother sent back to Mexico.”
Before I can respond, Trenton charges into the room. “You will cut the shit right now, Dad! Sophia has every fuckin’ right to be here. Gone are the days when you threaten her and her mother.”
“It’s not a threat, Trenton. She’s always had a hold on you. Your weakness is wrapped up in a five-foot-tall package of Hispanic beauty. You’re a fool to think she’s more than border trash. The spic hasn’t followed the agreement both she and her mother signed. The consequences are simple and managed easily enough with a phone call.”
“You son of a bitch, you forced them to sign papers without proper legal representation, without witnesses, and under duress. Blackmailing Sophia to give up her son, to lose everything to protect her mother and herself, was a low blow, even for you. She’s missed more than any mother should. Worse than that, Trey has missed the amazing, beautiful woman who is his mother.”
“You are blind. She’s playing you. This was a way to be supported financially and an assurance to stay in America. She never loved you or the boy.”
Before anyone can stop me, I slap Wayne across the face. “Don’t you ever say I don’t love my son.”
“Assaulting a disabled man? Oh, you can serve jail time before going back to your poverty-stricken, small-town homeland.”
“She’s not going anywhere,” Trenton states, reaching into his back pocket to pull out folded legal papers. “This grants her joint custody of her son. As his father, I have rights … rights that I’ve used to give her back what was stripped from her needlessly. Your papers hold no weight in a court of law.”
“You bastard! All these years you sent her money, I never said one fucking word.”
My heart is beating a mile a minute as the truth of so many things comes crashing down on me. Trenton sent money to my mom to take care of us. He’s never let go of me, but thought he was protecting me. He was blackmailed into this as much as I was.
It couldn’t have been much, but then again, under his father’s hold, he wouldn’t have much to send to us. It warms the broken part inside me.
Wayne continues, interrupting my thoughts, “You’ve taken care of that bitch since we took over this farm. I told you to send her all the fucking money you want, but she wasn’t to get the boy, or she would be sent back to Mexico. Obviously, you think you’ve found a way around this.”
Trenton’s chest is rising and falling in exaggerated breaths as he tries to control himself.
“Mr. Thurman, I can no longer be deported, nor can my mother.” I raise my hands up at him in surrender while standing my ground. He no longer has power over us. “I understand that my mother came here on a work visa with the first family and it expired. Then we came under your employ, and you made sure she never got the proper paperwork. As we were taken care of financially, she made the mistake of trusting you. Once upon a time, you used all this against me. I lost my heart when you ripped my son away.
“Well, Mr. Thurman, you are an intimidating man, but one who no longer holds the power here. After we tried to fight the papers and the lawyer stated we must clear up our citizenship before we ever stood a chance against your connections and money, we did. Give it your best shot, you old bastard, but I’m here to stay.”
Leaning in, face to face with him, I continue, “I will fight for my son with every breath I take until the very last beat of my heart. Use every threat you can come up with, but I promise you with everything inside of me, I won’t go without a fight this time.”
With nothing more to say, I brush past him and make my way upstairs in search of my son.
The hold is gone. No one will keep my boy from me again. Now I can live my life.