CHAPTER EIGHT

Santana

The way things ended with Sammie weighed heavy on me the entire time I sat in Pop’s office. I was going over the contacts in his pagers and I had three pagers memorized. There were three more left.

I created a system in my head of area codes and layered them in my mind from least to greatest. I had to put them in some kind of order or I’d go crazy. Pop seemed proud of my progress so he let me weigh in on how distribution would go for the newest town he acquired.

There were rumblings around the table but those assholes were just street soldiers and Pop shut them up with a single glance. Seeing the power he held made me want to study under him even more. I wanted to learn everything he had to teach.

Sammie would eventually figure everything out though.

I was seconds away from fucking her when everything came crashing down. She had so many questions and she had a right to know the answers. I had a right to know even before being brought into the operation.

After the meeting was over and everyone split their money, Pop gave me my first cut. My eyes widened when he slapped three stacks of cash in my hand. He chuckled at my expression, the cigarette between his lips moving with his laugh.

“It’s just three grand but there’s more where that came from if you keep playing your part and learning at the rate you are, mijo.”

“Thanks, Pop.”

Dom sat tucked away in the corner while Pop counted out the rest of the money. He handed Dom his cut then went to the main restaurant to feed some of the money into the registers. Once he did that and it changed hands with customers, it wasn’t dirty. He’d been using his restaurant to wash money ever since he got big enough to distribute drugs outside of our city.

To the eyes of the law and everyone else, he looked clean as a whistle. Nobody questioned why Pop had so much money they all assumed it was because Papa’s was the most popular restaurant in town. They were right and wrong at the same time.

“You’re moving up the ranks fast, Santana,” Dom remarked as he studied my face.

“I’m trying to be quiet, calm my temper down, and learn. Hopefully, I can run the business one day,” I mused out loud. I kept thinking about Sammie though. I hated seeing the hurt in her pretty eyes. I wanted her smile back. Shit, I wanted her to look at me the way she did when I was on top of her, pressing my cock against her hot pussy.

The vision made my dick jerk. I shook it off and focused on the present moment. I’d talk to Sammie in the morning.

“What’s on your mind, Santana?” Dom asked.

“I was thinking about my sister,” I answered honestly. I loved that I could talk about her out loud without anyone knowing the sinful shit that was brewing between us.

Sinful.

Wrong.

“Sam? How’s she doing? I haven’t seen her in a while.” Dom’s eyes brightened at the mention of Sammie.

“She’s fine. Getting ready to graduate high school.”

“That’s good. Man, time flies. I remember when she was a baby. Now she’s all grown up. Does she come by the restaurant during the day?” Dom asked.

“She does whenever she’s not busy with cheer practice after school,” I replied with a slow nod. I thought about anything and everything so that the image of Sammie in her white and yellow cheerleading uniform didn’t infiltrate my mind.

“I’ll have to come see her then.” Dom held my gaze for an extra beat. “If you’re thinking about Sam then why do you look so glum?”

I glanced around the office like my father would jump out any minute. “I’m kinda torn, Dom. She doesn’t know about any of this shit and she keeps asking me questions about where I’m going with Pop at night. I don’t know what to tell her because I’m sworn to secrecy.”

A sigh weighed Dom’s shoulders down as he rested his elbows on his knees. His brows furrowed and he said, “Alina and Chris never wanted you kids involved in this life. It’s messy, kid. People set you up, people get killed, and people go to jail for a long fucking time. If your dad wants to keep her out of it, then respect his wishes.”

Out of all the words Dom spoke, the only thing I heard was my mother’s name roll off his lips. I didn’t budge. I didn’t launch into a barrage of questions either. I sat silently and nodded at him then I thanked him for listening.

Pop came back in and we knocked back a few drinks, as had become tradition over the past few weeks, then we headed back home.

I didn’t unload everything until I was alone with Pop in the quiet confines of his car. The moment we pulled away from the restaurant, I railed into him.

“Mom knew about this shit?” Anger painted red streaks along my words. “She knew about the operation?” Pop tensed immediately, his knuckles turned white as he strangled the steering wheel.

“Who the fuck told you that, Santana?” He gritted out.

“Dom! Someone that’s not even in our fucking family circle told me something about my mother that you should have told me.” My chest pounded with rage and confusion. I wanted to smash my fist through something. Blackness as dark as the night sky edged in on my vision. I hated getting that pissed.

“Listen, mijo…”

“Nah, Pop. Don’t mijo me right now. I don’t want to hear that shit. I want answers. I’m tired of the secrets they don’t make any sense. You can’t keep chunks of your life from Sammie and me.

I was cool with you bringing me into the fold and teaching me the ropes but I’m not cool with lying to my little sister and I damn sure should have known about my mother’s involvement in this.”

“Watch how you speak to me! I’m still your father regardless of how hurt your feelings are, Santana!” His voice bounced off every surface in the car.

I stewed in my seat, needing to release my anger some kind of way.

I needed to sink my teeth into something and let venom flow like a black mamba.

“Your mother and I didn’t want to tell you kids. You two were so innocent and we wanted to keep it like that. Well,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “I wanted to keep you out of the know forever but Alina wanted you to find out once you were grown and had your own lives.”

“So once she was gone you decided to ignore her wishes and push ahead with your own.” My shoulders ached from my muscles being wound so tightly. We pulled into the driveway and rage propelled me out of the car. I didn’t want to finish our conversation without Samira. Fuck that.

I’d kept enough from my sister and I was ready for her to know what was going on and what had been going on since we were kids. “Santana!” Pop shouted after me, his feet rushing behind mine as I raced for the front doors.

My breathing was rapid as I unlocked the house and punched in the code on the alarm system. “We will not have this discussion in the house. We could wake Samira,” he hissed.

“That’s the point,” I gritted out. “Do you know how close we are? I can’t lie to her. The best thing you and mom could have ever given me was her. I’m done hiding this.” My heart thumped against my chest. I’d never professed my love for her that way but it was true.

Sammie and I were best friends and anyone that tried to stand between us got crushed every time. If I was going to work with Pop then she was going to know about it. I wasn’t going to tell her behind his back or any shit like that. I was going to tell her right in front of him and let him answer for everything.

“Yo, Sammie!” I shouted upstairs in a thunderous boom. Pop grabbed my shirt and slammed me against the wall so hard the drywall beneath cracked under my bulk. A slice of pain pushed through my spine and I growled, shoving him off me. He slid back on his feet and regarded me with wild eyes.

Are you really going to fight me because I’m tired of the secrets?” I fumed. I didn’t want to fight my father but if he kept pushing me, my testosterone wouldn’t let me remain docile.

My brows furled together and the sound of rushing blood crowded my ears. My hands begged to be made into fists but I refused to hit Pop. I took a step back and looked into his bright green eyes. They were clear and they were fucking angry. He bared his teeth and got ready to speak but there was a creak in the floorboard by the steps.

“What’s going on?” Sammie’s sleepy voice made Pop deflate. It had the same effect on me.

“You happy now, Santana? You woke your sister up.” Pop tossed his hand in the air and shook his head.

“I am happy. That was the whole fucking point.” I clenched my teeth so hard my head throbbed.

“Santana, what’s going on?” Sammie walked over to me and touched the side of my face. Jasmine filled my nose and I took a second to breathe them in. She was the epitome of stopping to smell the flowers.

“You wanted to know what me and Pop have been doing every night when we leave. You wanted to know what we were keeping from you, right?” Her eyes went wide like she couldn’t believe I was bringing that up in front of Pop but fuck it. My patience had completely evaporated in a mist of heat when Dom inadvertently let me know that my mother was in on the entire operation.

“Santana, this is not your place,” Pop growled at me and stalked over until he was a wedge of tension between my sister and me. At least right then she was still my sister. We hadn’t fucked yet. Maybe lines were crossed but at that moment if we wanted to turn back and never mention what happened between us again, we could.

“What is going on?” Sammie asked for the third time in a row. Her voice was a high-pitched squeak that caught Pop’s attention immediately.

“Listen to me, Samira, Pop isn’t who he’s pretended to be our whole lives. I mean, he is but he isn’t. He’s been leading a double life.” The thought must have been so outrageous for Sammie because she tipped her head back and laughed. Remnants of sleep still clung to her tone.

“What? What do you mean, Papa’s been leading a double life? Like he has another family or something?” She quizzed. The smile started to fall away from her face when she noticed neither Pop nor me were laughing with her. “What’s the double life, exactly?” She asked.

“He’s using Papa’s as a front to sell drugs. He’s one of the biggest drug connect in the state. We’re not talking lower level street soldier shit. Pop has an entire ring of men under him including most of the staff at the restaurant.

He’s been doing this shit since we were kids. That’s why he has so much money and we have such a nice house and cars and can afford to go to an Ivy League school.”

Silence settled into the cracks and crevices created by the nuclear bomb I dropped in our foyer. Sammie’s green eyes sharpened to emerald daggers as she stared at Pop. Her full lips drew together tight forcing her words to turn staccato.

“Tell me he’s lying, Papa.”

“You know I’d never lie to you,” I frowned, folding my arms. Roaring silence continued to pump through the house as Pop tried to find his words.

“Santana, why the hell did you do that? You stirred the pot for no good fucking reason.” Pop paced the floor and ran his hand through his hair about a dozen times. I didn’t care. I felt lighter without the burden of keeping secrets on my chest. It was out in the open now. She knew.

“I did it because she needed to know. She’s not a little kid and neither am I.”

“Papa, you’ve been a drug dealer all this time?” Sammie asked, rubbing her forehead and walking over to Pop.

“Your brother shouldn’t have told you. Not like he did. That wasn’t the right…”

“I don’t care about how Santana told me. I only care that at least he thought enough of me to tell me.” She shot me a glance full of gratitude and for a moment her features softened. Her tawny brows relaxed and her pink mouth went soft. She was insanely beautiful with every emotion that flickered across her face.

“You’re blaming everything on him as if Santana was the one keeping a huge secret from me most of my life. Like he was letting me walk around thinking my life was normal when in reality I’m the daughter of a fucking kingpin! That was you. You did that. Not Santana.

Now tell me up front…are you a kingpin?” Her lips trembled along with her words but she stood toe to toe with our father, demanding an answer from him. The girl was brave as fuck because there wasn’t a man in Pop’s ring that would do what she was doing right then. There probably wasn’t a man in Rhode Island that would stand up to him that way.

I realized that to me, Pop was intimidating as a father but to everyone, else he was intimidating as a ruthless monster. The dichotomy was difficult to grasp still.

Pop’s heavy brows fell low on his forehead and his breathing became easier as if he’d accepted that everything was in the atmosphere now and couldn’t be taken back. Sammie and Pop looked at each other, jade on emerald.

“Yes, mija. It’s true.” His words were simple and clear and if he’d said them years ago, we wouldn’t be standing there tangled in a web of anger and confusion.

***