Enticed by a Thug Love 3 Read online

  “I was supposed to be dead for over twenty years, so I thought it was best if you still believed that.”

  “Don’t you think that was selfish?” I snapped, and her mouth dropped.

  “Alvaro, how could I have looked you in the eyes and tell you that not only was I alive but that I was strung out on that stuff? Do you think that would have been easy for me to say or for you to hear?”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but I found myself stuck.

  How would I have really felt if she told me who she was?

  “I left to protect y’all because I didn’t want my habits to destroy y’all, which it would have done if I stayed.”

  “YOU DON’T KNOW THAT!” I jumped to my feet and yelled at her. “We could have helped you! Dad would have done anything to get you better! You didn’t have to leave! You didn’t have to leave us!”

  My mom dropped her head as she sobbed.

  “Alvaro,” my dad called me, and I looked at him.

  I looked around at everyone who was staring at me, and then I sighed.

  “We needed you, Momma, more than you knew. I had Ma, and I thank God for her, but she wasn’t you. I needed you,” I said as she continued to cry.

  I didn’t want to be hard on her, but that was the truth. We all needed our mother, and she wasn’t there—not because of death like we thought but because she chose to be away from us.

  “Were you ever going to tell us?” I asked, and she looked up at me, then around at everyone, and then back at me.

  “I don’t know, Alvaro. Maybe if I wasn’t on the drugs, I might have told you.”

  “So, why didn’t you try to get clean once you knew who I was? Three years, Cookie. Three years I had been around you, and you said nothing. Why didn’t you try to come off the drugs so that you could be back in our lives?”

  “I don’t know, Alvaro. I was embarrassed. You all grew up to be such beautiful and strong men, and I didn’t feel good enough.”

  That made my mouth drop and left me speechless.

  As I sat there looking at her, I wondered if it was me would I have had the courage to tell KeKe that her dad was strung out on that stuff? That was a question I would never know the answer to.

  “Where do we go from here?” I asked after a few minutes of silence.

  Both Cookie and my dad looked over at me before she spoke.

  “I just want a chance to get to know you boys and for y’all to know me—the real me. That’s why I’m here.”

  I nodded and then looked over at Kanada. She gave me a soft smile and squeezed my hand.

  “I just want a chance to put things right, Alvaro,” Cookie added, making me look back over at her.

  “I need some time,” I let her know, and she nodded.

  Like I told Kanada, I was working on my stubbornness, so instead of shutting down like my mind was telling me to do—since she chose to lie to me and hide who she was—I decided that with time, things may get better, and that was a start for me.

  4

  A’Moya Morse

  One week later

  Feeling my phone receive a message, I dried my hands on some paper towels and took it out of my jeans pocket.

  Clare: Hi A’Moya, how are you? And my baby doing? And yes, he or she is my baby! LOL

  I chuckled at her message.

  Since she found out that I was pregnant, she had been calling the baby hers, much to Pharaoh’s annoyance. I was happy that she was happy about the baby coming because I knew that she was jealous over Pharaoh and used to being the only woman in his life that he loved. He may not have told her, but I knew that Pharaoh loved his little sister and that she loved him too.

  So, that day at her house, I wasn’t angry at what she had done with her friend—I knew it was just because she felt like she was losing Pharaoh to me. I was worried about her feeling the same way about the baby, but she showed me that I had nothing to be concerned about.

  Clare took to the news, and she seemed more excited to meet the baby than we were. Everything that came out of her mouth was about the baby and how she was going to have the baby more than I did. Like I said, I wasn’t unhappy or bothered about it; I loved it!

  Shaking my head at her and making a mental note to save the message for Pharaoh to see, I sent her a response.

  Me: Hi Clare! We are both fine, thank you, and yes, I know the baby is yours and not ours! LOL

  A few minutes later, she texted back.

  Clare: