Page 54 of Two For One

Joke was on me. Masked men didn’t take them away from me, it was my work. The very thing I had built to keep me afloat, had taken them away. I had to go into my apartment because I needed to look at the spell I had made for Kaylee and prove that the spell was for Kaylee and not me. Taking a deep breath, I walked into an apartment that looked like nothing had happened.

“I thought you said it was in rough shape?” Mason asked, walking through my apartment that looked exactly the same.

“What the hell?” I said, dropping my things, rushing through my apartment, inspecting my chair, the rug that definitely had a huge stain on it from Ezra. “How?” I said, going to my cabinet that looked like what I had lived through was just a dream. Most of the jars my herbs had been in had broken, and I was dreading to see how much inventory I would have to replace.

Surprisingly, everything was the same and not a single thing was out of place or broken.

“Hija de tu chingada madre,” my abuela yelled.

I looked over my shoulder to see her walking in and I rushed towards her, embracing her like it might be the last time I did it.

“Abuela,” I sobbed.

“Mija,” she said, embracing me gently. “I’m so very mad at you right now, but I will yell at you later and possibly hit you with the chancla for good measure.”

“No, yell at me now,” I said, hugging her tighter.

“I should, but I’m just glad you are ok,” she said, pulling away to cup my face, wiping my tears, muttering something in Spanish.

She was probably cursing me with something inconvenient, like diarrhea, to make sure I suffered a little more.

“Hello, Mason. Thank you for bringing my granddaughter home and watching over her the past few days.” She blew him a kiss as she walked to the kitchen to put the bag I didn’t notice on the counter.

“Of course. I would do anything for her,” he said with a blush.

“Now, I made some caldo; come and have some,” she said, waving him over to the bar.

“How did you know I was here?” I asked, wiping my face.

“Your silent lover came to me to help him with this,” she said, grabbing a pot.

“What?” I whipped my head to her, thinking I had heard wrong.

“Ezra came to me a couple of days ago asking for help,” she said, depositing the bowl of beef soup into the pot.

My body felt hot, wondering why the hell he would go to my grandmother for help and he better not have⁠—

“He said he had messed up and brought bad men to your door and he wanted to fix the apartment before he left,” she said, like she was talking about one of her Spanish novelas. “I slapped him for putting you in danger, and then I helped him. I might have hit him with chancla one more time for good measure.”

“Abuela!” I gasped.

“He deserved it, but your other lover deserved a smacking for putting you in danger too, but he was absent. Ezra didn’t tell me his location, or I would have marched right up to him and beat him with my shoe.”

I chuckled, imagining her beat up O, who probably would let her and then tell her to kindly fuck off. I don’t know why he had such a soft spot for her.

“So, you know what happened that night?” I asked.

“I knew what those men were, mija,” she said, grabbing tortillas to heat them up. “I grew up around men like them. Your grandfather worked for men like them when we lived in Mexico. We left that life when I found out I was pregnant, he couldn’t risk us and we both knew the dangers of staying. His friend, who he worked for, gave him an out, so we took it. We came to America for a better life. Never in a million years did I think you would end up right where we had been so long ago.”

“Excuse me? I thought you left Mexico for better opportunities, not to run away from…the cartel,” I said, trying to wrap my head around this fracture my abuela had just caused.

“We did come for better opportunities, but we did not run away,” she scowled, putting the tortillas into a kitchen towel. “I just didn’t think it was necessary to tell you why we left other than a vague generalization.”

I stared at the women who had raised me not knowing what to say.

“Anyways, I knew they were a part of whatever goes on in these towns. I've seen plenty of dangerous men in the area and when I met them, well, I knew you would be ok because they loved you,” she said, grabbing bowls. “It’s the only reason I didn’t make them stay away when I saw how happy you were. You deserve happiness, mija.”

“Next thing you’re going to tell me you were a mafia princess and⁠—”