Claiming Them by Rosa Mink
Chapter 4
Luca
Iknew it was a risk bringing her here, but I also figured it would let her relax a bit to see I wasn’t taking her somewhere she might find herself in danger. I’ve no doubt that Camila will tell our other sisters and tomorrow I’ll get a visit from both Emma and Olivia at the shop.
They can’t keep their mouths shut amongst each other. Mama’s a different story thankfully because she would gladly call up a priest to get me married. To get any of us married.
Camila is the oldest of my sisters, twenty-seven to my thirty, while Emma is twenty-three and Olivia the baby at just twenty. Hell, she’s only two years older than Rylee’s son but thank god she’s a fuck lot more mature.
My hands still itch to get around the kid’s neck for disrespecting my girl the way he did. He’s lucky he’s her son because if not, he’d be in the hospital right now for scaring her. My girl shouldn’t be scared, not ever.
She should feel safe and secure. Happy. Wanted. Needed. Listened to. Not have some asshole, refuse to let her do what she wants. Fuck, she can do whatever the hell she wants, work if she wants, although she wouldn’t have to.
Four years ago, some dude I didn’t know waltzed into my shop just as I had a cancellation, wanting to get a tat covered over. It was some chick’s name and he told me while I worked up a quick idea that he found her fucking some drummer when he came home a few weeks prior to that. He wanted it covered because every time he saw it, he got pissed and it made him want to drink. Which didn’t set well since he was five years sober and didn’t want to fuck it up over the woman. The name was thankfully short, not overly large with a heart above it. He’d said to just make it into a solid block or barcode or something similar so he could at least stop looking at it.
I wasn’t about to put my gun to skin for just that and instead, turned the name into a fucking awesome dragon that was chomping down on that heart. Dude sat perfectly still for five hours for us to finish it, gave me a hell of a tip, and headed out. Two months later I almost shat myself when I turned on the TV and saw the same guy giving an interview on some red carpet.
Apparently, his old tat was a huge deal and the new one in its place brought on a ton of questions. It was on full display with his jacket sleeves ripped off. That was when I saw the sign in the background noting the guy was at the fucking Grammy’s. He gave a shoutout to me and my shop, and next thing I knew, I was hiring two more artists to keep up with the demand.
I had other rock stars, celebrities and socialites come in wanting me to put my ink on their skin, and they paid for the privilege of it. Put me firmly in the black and racked my net worth up to the point I bought my mom and sisters a new house. Plus had my mom quit her job so she could enjoy the last couple years of Olivia being her baby.
My girl won’t have to work if she doesn’t want to, though. Then again, considering the sneakers the kid was wearing not to mention the apartment and clothes my girl’s worn, I don’t think money will be the reason she’s with me.
I wait until Camila brings out a huge platter of food, adding on some items not listed on her board since I’m her brother. Not that I complain since I bought her the food truck. She’d always wanted to work in a restaurant, make food. It was her happy place. She hated going to Mexican restaurants with her friends, complained that they were shit and fake food, and what we needed was a decent place around here so people would learn the difference.
After working in one, trying to get them to change their menu and methods for three years she was over it. She started working in a bakery, making desserts but wasn’t happy. So, when I reached the high five figures, almost able to touch that sixth, I bought Mama the house, paid off Emma’s student loans, then paid for the rest of her schooling, and bought Camila the food truck so she could make her own hours and not deal with the hassle of starting a restaurant.
I figured after a couple years she’d have enough following to open a space, but she loves the truck and rather than open somewhere, she bought the permit to have her truck be parked here. She normally works four days a week and Saturdays. Sundays and Wednesdays are her days off, but she’s been killing it. So much so that she bought a bigger truck and has two others help with the food now.
“Want to talk about it?” I suggest as Rylee’s eyes are shut, a soft moan coming from her throat as she takes a bite of the cheese dip and fresh chips. “The soon-to-be ex, the house, the ‘accident’ that rattled you,” I add when she glances at me a little blankly.
“I think Tyler was drinking,” she says, her eyes growing with worry. “I know it’s a lot for him, but I didn’t think he’d take it this hard. We honestly aren’t a family—the three of us. Hell, he and Mark rarely talk. I know because I’m the one that paid the bills, saw the numbers he was texting and calling. He was one of the youngest in his grade, so until the end of his sophomore year, I was still taking him where he needed to go. We’d have dinner six out of seven nights a week together. Even since he got his license, we’ve had dinner together five nights a week until I moved out.”
“How did he take it when you told him about the split?” I ask, unwrapping a carne asada taco before holding it out in front of her mouth.
She moans as she takes a bite of it and fuck, it makes my dick hard, wanting those lips wrapped around it. They’re thick and perfect, just like her ass. Her skin is lighter than mine by several shades, but she’s not pale by any stretch. It makes me wonder about her heritage with those gorgeous eyes of hers, her delicious body, and her dark, thick hair.
She doesn’t look like the kind of girl that goes out tanning to get bronzed. If she wears a floppy hat when she sits outside, I definitely don’t think she sits in it to get baked. No, the warmth of her skin is natural. Her son is paler than she is, and it makes me wonder as well, what a baby of ours would look like curled up on her lush breasts.
Shit…I’ve never thought of kids before, but damn if I wouldn’t like one with her.
“Not that well,” she says, claiming another bite of the taco before reaching for a tamale. “He wasn’t home the night I moved out, so I called him to meet me for lunch the next day. I was waiting for him to get there when my attorney called, saying that Mark dropped off the signed legal separation paperwork and he’d get the official divorce papers ready for us. I heard a huge curse from behind me and realized he’d overheard. I tried to explain but he just didn’t want to listen. I’m not abandoning him, but I think that’s what he thinks since I moved out. I just absolutely hate that place. I have since his mother drug me there to see it.”
“I’m thinking his mother controlled a lot of things,” I suggest, and she nods, shocking me with her response.
“She’s hated me from the day Mark took me over to meet his parents. It was just after school finished, I was a sophomore, he was a junior. She told him right in front of me that I’d have to stop tanning if I wanted to be part of their lives. Pissed me off but I was so infatuated and thrilled that Mark wanted me over all the other girls at school and didn’t tell her to go to hell. I just said it was natural and left it at that.
“My mother was from Colombia. Her father was American but not involved in her life. He’d gone there on a vacation and got her mother pregnant. She came here for a trip when she was twenty-two, and met my father, figured she’d like living in America better, and married him. I came along ten years later. I wasn’t planned or wanted by my parents, so when summer ended, and I realized I was pregnant…I refused to be that way with my child.”
Shit, talk about a lot of shit thrown at you at once as a teenager. The one thing that stuck with me though was knowing she really was young when she had Tyler. I already knew it but now it makes a hell of a lot more sense. Shit, she could easily pass for younger than me if you didn’t see the wealth of age in her eyes.
“I told Mark and his first suggestion was an abortion. When I said no, he told his parents, and they came to me with a check for fifty thousand dollars to get me to agree to it. In hindsight, I should have taken the check and ran for it, had Tyler, and raised him myself. I was furious with them all. Went to school the next day and threw the shredded check in Mark’s face, telling him if that’s what he thought about me he could go to hell.
“He didn’t know and took me home with him to make his parents apologize. When I told them I’d never get rid of my baby and if they didn’t like it, they could just forget that it was related to them, they flipped entirely and said that we’d just have to get married then. They gave my parents money to get them to agree to it and I wound up married at sixteen. I had Tyler a month after my seventeenth birthday and had to change schools for my senior year because Mark had to go to college at his father’s alma mater.”
I don’t even know these people, but I want to kill them for what they’ve done to her. They pushed my girl into things she didn’t want to save face. Her own parents didn’t protect her. No wonder she’s so upset with her kid, wanted out of there now that he’s grown.
“I graduated in six months, then spent the rest of those four years doing nothing but raising Tyler while Mark went to classes, went to parties, went out with people he met there. Rarely did I get to go, but it seemed normal at the time. We came back here so Mark could go into the family business, and his mother sent him the house information. I hated it on sight, but I didn’t get a say. His mother said it was the one we should have and by then, Mark just gave in on it. I still hadn’t woken up at that point when it came to Mark, and we tried for the next few years to have another baby. It just never happened.
“With Tyler in school, no other children I thought I might as well do something with my time. When I suggested it, I was told it wasn’t proper for a Curtis wife to have a job. Then Mark started working more and staying away longer and longer hours. I moved out of the master and to the second one about eight years ago because he’d wake me up when he came home, turning on the lights. We haven’t even touched the last few years. So, Tyler’s reaction to all of this…”
“Come here, sweetheart,” I say, as the tears slid from her eyes. My girl’s not going to cry without my arms wrapped around her. I’d rather she never cries, period, but I know she needs this. I lift her onto my lap, willing my hard-on to behave because she needs comfort, not sex and I’m damn well going to give it to her. I’ll give her whatever she needs.
And I’m certain what she needs most in her life, is attention, affection. She’s been alone too damn long. From now on, that shit is done. She’s going to have to tell me to leave her the fuck alone to get any time to herself.
