Page 27 of Heart of Sin
“I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on with you. If I can help. Let me in, kitty cat. You can tell me anything and count on me never to judge. I’m in no position. I bash faces for a living.”
Tasha closes her eyes and lets out a lone, cynical laugh that confuses me a second.
“You pull more out of me than anybody else alive. You know that, right?” she asks bitterly.
I reach out, curving my hand along her cheek. “Your secrets are safe with me, so it’s okay. Tell me what’s up with you.”
She goes off to sit down on the foot of her bed and I join her. I can tell how unsettled she is by how stiffly she’s positioned herself, her legs straight out in front of her, her hands on her knees and her gaze anywhere but on mine.
“My money goes to my siblings. I have three of them. Two sisters and a brother. I pay to take care of them. If I don’t, nobody else will. I told you my mom is an addict. She doesn’t know what the hell’s going on half the time,” Tasha says. “My brother Ramon is in college. I help him with his tuition. My sisters Zara and Tiffany still live with my mom. If I didn’t pay for everything, they’d be taken away and wind up in the foster system.”
“Why doesn’t your mom sign away guardianship to you? You can become their legal guardian.”
“You really think they’re going to award a stripper escort custody of two girls? I’ve looked into it. I’d be deemed unfit.”
“No more unfit than a drug addict.”
“My mom’s vindictive. She’d never allow it. If she can’t have them, no one can. She’d let them go to the state just to spite me.”
“But if she can’t even provide for them?”
“Zar’s fifteen. It’ll just be a few more years she has to live with her. Then at least she can go off to college like Ray.”
“And Tiffany?”
Tasha lets out a shaky sigh. “I’ll just have to keep paying for Tiffany and making sure she’s okay where she is. It’s on me to make sure none of them fall into the same trap I did when I was that young.”
“We can get you a job at the Vittoria. Some kind of management level job. Something that’ll impress those child services people. They’ll let you be Zara and Tiffany’s guardian that way.”
“I don’t know the first thing about being a manager at the Vittoria or anywhere else.”
“So what? I’ll pull some strings. We can get you out of this apartment. Somewhere nicer for you and the girls, like Summerlin.”
“Louis, this is my family situation. I didn’t ask for help.”
“Set that pride aside and think about what’s best for you and your sisters. You want them to be under your ma’s roof if they don’t have to be?”
“I take them away, she’s going toloseit.”
“Then we’ll deal with it. Force her into rehab or something.”
Tasha laughs. “My mom isn’t going to rehab, Louis. She couldn’t even get clean when she was pregnant with Tiffany. She couldn’t hold down a job to pay the rent. How do you think I wound up taking care of everything? I had to get money somehow.”
I’ve never met Tasha’s mom, and I know it’s not easy for addicts to overcome their addiction, but my fists bunch up hearing her talk about the woman. To think she let her oldest daughter be burdened with financial responsibility for the family while she fell deeper down the hole. She gave into her vices and let Tasha support her children.
Something tells me it was from a young age.
“We’ll get it figured out,” I say, putting my arm around her. “I’ll speak to Nino. He’s in charge of Gio’s Vegas division. Fuck, I don’t know, maybe we’ll even create you a position at the resort. Senior Manager of JOB TITLE HERE.”
Tasha doesn’t know whether she wants to roll her eyes or smile. She does both.
I’m just relieved we’ve cleared things up. Now that we have, I’ve got my confirmation I’ve been right all along.
Tasha’s a good person, and she’s a lot softer than she puts on. She lives in less-than-ideal conditions just to ensure her siblings are taken care of.
I’m going to help them all.
ELEVEN