It was the most honest thing Rosetta had said to him in years. Benito’s head swam, but he knew her too well to fall for it. Deflection was her middle name. A trip down memory lane meant a pass on the present. Fuck that. “How long?” Benito ground out. “How long have you been out of work?”
“Since December.”
“Last year?”
“Yes. I used the money you sent for Gianna for a while, but then you stopped paying it into my account.”
A flash of guilt stabbed Benito’s heart. “I had to stop putting money into your account. The feds were all over where I was at. I couldn’t even bring cash around, but Gianna said you didn’t need it. She never said you’d stopped working.”
Rosetta sighed. “You should never have used that dirty drug money to pay our rent anyway. It could’ve got us evicted as much as this could.”
“I know that now. But I was a fucking kid when I started and there was no way out.”
“There’s always a way.”
“Oh yeah? So why are we here?” Benito held up the ruined letter from the housing association. “How have you been out of work for eleven months and not paying your rent if you have all the fucking answers?”
“I never said that.” Rosetta snatched the letter with shaking hands and tore it to shreds. “Just that you didn’t need to waste your life being a—a criminal when I raised you better than that.”
“You didn’t raise me at all,” Benito refuted. “You—”
“Stop fighting.”
Benito whirled around. Gianna stood in the kitchen doorway behind him, school bag in hand, tie loose around her neck as she clutched her precious orange cat to her chest. Her cheeks were flushed, as if she’d run all the way home. “The hell are you doing here?”
“I live here,” she snapped.
Benito advanced on her, two long strides that brought him close enough to see the shivers wracking her slender frame. “You don’t live here between eight and four on weekdays. Did something happen at school? Did they try and call Mum?”
“I wasn’t sick.” Gianna set Sullivan down and he scampered away. “I told them I had a dentist appointment and she didn’t answer when they called to check.”
Fresh fury corroded Benito’s gut. He threw a dark glare at Rosetta. “See? This is what your bullshit does. If Gianna was a different fucking kid, she could be on a county-lines run right now and you’d have no idea.”
Rosetta shook her head. “Perhaps you should explain to Gianna why you know how that works. And don’t lie. Roberto told me what you were doing in London, so don’t pretend you have the moral high ground here. We all fail her, ometto.”
Little man. Benito’s glower reached nuclear levels. “Don’t call me that. I’m not ten years old anymore and you stopped giving a shit about me way before that.”
“Stop it,” Gianna wailed. “We don’t have time for you two to do this. We need money, Beni. By five o’clock, or the housing association are going to tell the council to evict us.”
Benito sucked in a hot breath. It seared his lungs and synapses, focusing him, but barely. He reached for Gianna and pulled her close, keeping his gaze on Rosetta. “How much will it take to calm this shit down?”
Rosetta shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Because you haven’t spoken to them.” It wasn’t a question.
And Rosetta didn’t answer. She turned the stove off and left the kitchen, and with Gianna in his arms, Benito lacked the will to chase her.
He looked down. Gianna stared up at him, eyes wide with worry she was too young to know. “They need two thousand pounds,” she whispered. “And this month’s rent, and a payment plan for the rest of the arrears. The housing man told Mum through the letterbox.”
“Two thousand?” Benito’s stomach sank. He had ten times that buried in the fucking woods, but he couldn’t touch it. Not for this. Rosetta was right: if it hadn’t been laundered within an inch of its life, it was no help to anyone. “How much is the rent these days?”
“Four fifty.”
Shit. Benito ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t have it.” The lie made him sick. “I can get some, but not that much, and I don’t know how Ma can commit to a payment plan if she’s not working anymore. Why didn’t you tell me that, G?”
Gianna squeezed her arms around Benito’s waist. “She said she was going back. Then she didn’t and they sacked her, but she doesn’t know I read the letter before she burned it in the sink.”
More fury heated Benito’s blood.
Gianna leaned back to fix him with a deeper stare. “Please don’t be angry with her.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. I can feel your belly shaking.”
Benito snorted. “No you can’t.”
“I can.”
“No you can’t. That’s not a thing.”
“It is with you, because you keep everything inside, like Mum does. That’s why she doesn’t go to work or let people in the flat, because she shakes all the time . . . because she’s scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of everything. She’s agoraphobic.”
“Says who?”
Gianna pushed away from Benito and wiped her eyes. “I don’t know. Me? Why else would she be trapped inside like this? Beni, she hasn’t been to the shops in months. We get everything delivered.”
“How is she paying for it if she’s not working?”
“Child benefit. And my dad’s money when he remembers to pay it.”
“He doesn’t forget—” Benito stopped and rubbed his mouth. Did any of it even matter anymore? Fix this. You promised her. He took a slow breath and considered his options. Small amounts of cash were explainable as savings if the feds ever came knocking. He could get a bank loan for the rest. Maybe. But even as he thought it, the realist digging a grave on his soul shouted him down. On what collateral? You’re a taxi driver, fam. No one’s gonna lend you shit.
Benito pictured the mountain of money buried in the woods and felt sick to his stomach. What was the point in any of it if he couldn’t do the one thing that mattered? If he couldn’t take care of Gianna?
You bought her the iPad with clean money.
But an iPad didn’t keep a roof over her head.
Or Rosetta’s.
I don’t hate her.
“Okay,” Benito said. “I need to go to the bank. How much time do we have?”
“Until five o’clock. The housing man said we need to call him before then and make a payment over the phone.”
“I can’t do that, G. Anything I get is going to be cash.”
“Maybe he’ll come and get it then.”
Benito doubted it. He’d never met any fat cat from the social who’d go out of their way like that. “Do you have his number? Mum tore up the letter.”
“I have his card.”
Gianna flitted from the room, leaving Benito alone with his thoughts. His brain thundered, emotions clattering into him from every angle. Rage. Fear. Sadness. Embarrassment that he was going to have to call this prick and beg for more time. He pulled his phone from his pocket and swiped the screen.