Cobra looks at me with a pleading look, before saying, “What good would it have done for her to acknowledge that she loved me and that I loved her? Priest,”
He cuts himself off as I turn from him and start riffling through a set of cabinets to the side of the kitchen area.
“What are you looking for?” he asks.
I ignore Cobra and look at Bones. Bones looks just as outraged as me, as he knew that Cobra had loved mom but hadn’t realized the depths of the lies around us.
“Where in the fuck did you hide my torch?” I ask Bones.
Cobra looks at me with eyes wide with terror, as he should.
“Please!Please-please-please, not my ca-” he begins to plea, but Bones pulls out the hand held torch from a cabinet that I wouldn’t have been able to reach without help or a foot stool, staring down Cobra as he does it, his face pulled taught. His deep brown skin is pulled taught over he clenches his teeth.
“Here,” is all Bones says.
The look of betrayal on Cobra’s face is nearly comical, his jaw is slack and his eyebrows are nearly at his hairline.
“You're really gonna help her?” Cobra asks.
“You should have known to tell her the truth. I am not going to stop her from exacting justice. You know the rules,” Bones stares at him, his face still taught form clenched teeth.
The mafia men are watch this exchang, obviously confused as to what the hell is going on between us crew members. That is until I light the torch, then some sort of clarity floods their eyes.
Alonzo is at a loss for words and looks at me with a wavering emotion that passes too quickly for me to read. But this isn’t about them, this isn’t about what they think of me.
Before Alonzo can say anything, Cobra starts trying to talk me out of what I’m about to do.
“Please, Priest, I know you're mad but do you have to take it out on my baby? Shit, you can wipe the floor clean with me in the ring and I won't fight it at all.”
I roll my eyes, because he should know better, “I am punishing you, for lying to me. This is not a bargain, or a negotiation. You have had years to tell me the truth, but you chose concealment. Why would I take you to the ring. I know you. You don't give a fuck about taking your licks, have no issue with it. Why would I exchange this punishment for something that doesn't matter to you at all?”
Alonzo’s face goes back to being utterly confused, “You are going to punish him?”
I don’t fight the eye roll as I answer, “This has anything to do with you. Cobra knows that the people who lie in this crew get punished the same as him. I have no patience for lies.”
Bones places one of his large hands on my shoulder, heat radiating from his palm. He feels like he’s hot enough to start a damn fire with his hands.
“Mind if I help?”
Cobra makes an audible gulp and his eyes are back to being wide and terrified. You’d think I was threating his dick with how scared he was, but no, there is one thing Cobra loves more than any body part.
“Bones! Seriously!”
I don’t have to look up at Bones to know that he’s glaring at Cobra when he speaks, “You know better. You know that lies are the fastest way of ending up on her shit list and this time I agree completely. I won’t help dig you out of the hole you decided to bury yourself in.”
I lead Bones outside, leaving everyone else still in the warehouse, the mafia men trying to figure out what in the hell is going on, Cobra trying to decide if he’s going to be able to handle watching what I’m about to do.
I can hear the others trying to decide if they should follow when I pull a cigarette from my cargo pants. Gottta love multiple pockets, right?
I usually don’t smoke, but on average I don’t have this much stress in a single day either so I feel no remorse for my lungs when I inhale the nicotine, it has been a rough fucking day. I know that it’s not just the cigarette in my mouth that is showing just how fuckin’ stressed I am. My pacing is a good indicator, Rosary following at my heels like the little duck dog she is. Occasionally I’ll stop and look at Bones who’s standing there watching me, and looking at him and Rose are the only things keeping me calm enough not to just release the pent up scream of my frustration.
The morning light gleams off the 1968 428 Cobra Jet painted a pure white, and it takes me by surpised that it’s already early enough that I’m seeing the first rays of dawn. The Cobra Jet is the only thing in the world Cobra had loved as much as Mom, and in a short while, it would serve as a physical reminder of why withholding information from me was always a bad idea. I’d been willing to forgive his involvement in Mom’s concealment from my father, because that was her mother’s wish and I myself am not too sure if I’m even remotely was intrested in being a mafia princess.
But this, this lie, was something Cobra knew would change my whole world, surprisingly more than finding out my father was alive and looking for me, for years. Mom had preached that no one should ever be ashamed or hide who they love, because your love should be big enough to face any challenge if it’s real. That all consensual love was something to be proud of, no matter what.
Bones is standing there watching me seemingly unravel, something he’s probably only witnessed once before, when Mom died. I notice hes constantly flexes his hands, like he’s holding himself back from just stopping my incessant pacing. He occasionally runs his hands through his shaggy hair, at a loss for what to say when finally, looking at the white car he speaks.
“Have you decided what it’s gonna say?”
I hum at him for a moment before responding, still toing and froing, “Oh I’m toying with putting ‘rat bastard’ or ‘Pants on fire’,” I can’t help the small chuckle that follow just saying that.
Bones chokes on a laugh and asks, “Aren’t those a little-?”
“Childish?” I shrug, “I’m feeling childish, so I wouldn’t be surpised. Well, what’s your suggestion?”
Bones carefully considers the car, and then he smiles, those blinding white teeth stark against the deep brown of his skin, so close to Mom’s that people used to think he was her child and I was the friend. Had too much Alonzo in my blood to give me that milk chocolate brown.
“I don’t know...maybe ‘Even the Boss answers for his lies’ or something. As many words that get the point across so that everyone gets that he got caught lying to you. He might be leader but he makes mistakes too and we move forward because we are a unit.”
I nod as I finally stop pacing, take a long drag on my cigarette. I consier the little hand torch, note that my nail polish has begun to chip, the low cut coffin nails no longer perfect in their bright gold paint.
“That could work. He’s gonna have to drive it around for a minimum of two weeks too. The whole town is going to know, they don’t need the details because they won’t really get it, but they need to understand that whie to them their word means next to nothing,” another pull on my cigarette, “her, you break the trust, you will repent, and will be held accountable.”
Bones tips his head back, looks at the sunrise, with a smirk on his face, “Is it kinda wrong that I want to record it so I can show Angel?”
At that a soft smile spreads the corners of my mouth, because I know Angel, “Oh god, she’ll kill you if you don’t record it.”