The Mafia Sacrifice

84

Starr Marie

"Oh. Hi," I say in a uneasy tone.

Angelina brings Alexei to the floor, walking towards us holding his hand. "What do you say?" She asks him, gesturing him to my direction.

He frowns as if he wanted to play or do something else. "I'm sorry Ms.Marie. I thought you were going to hurt my mommy. I'm glad you didn't," He says rubbing his head.

I let a small laugh escape my lips. "Of course. Thank you for the apology." I try to catch his eyes as he looks away. "Can we make a promise?"

"Mommy says promises are for liars," He says bluntly.

Most promises are broken. So I could see why she considered promise makers—liars.

"She sounds like a smart woman," I reply giving her a quick look. "Well, I'll just give you my word okay? I will not hurt either of you for as long as I live. Deal?" I say bringing my pinky out.

"Can that deal include ice cream?" He questions me. "Ice cream is my favorite."

"Yeah. I love ice cream too," I say with a smile. "Angelina. Do you want anything in our deal?" She shakes her head no.

"Are you sure that there is no special requests?" I push for an answer. She again, shakes her no.

This is when I really realized that all of this was about and only for her son. She asked for nothing. As long as her son was safe, happy, and healthy, she didn't care about anything else.

It only made me wonder what her life was like beforehand.

"Then that's a deal," I confirmed. He wraps his pinky around mine in a second.

"Me like to eat chocolate ice cream and strawberry's," He says jumping as he try to grab his little foot in the air. "I also like Spider-Man and the hulk. BOOM BOOM," He impersonates the hulk, acting as if he was doing the hulk smash.

I laugh. "What about black widow?"

"She's a girl. My mommy likes her," Disgust roams over his expression.

"Hey," Angelina finally speaks up. "How could you do Black widow like that," She calls as he runs away and pulls himself onto the bed. He begins jumping up and down letting generous laughs escape his lips.

"Look mommy," He calls her attention. "I can jump really really high. See!" He continues jumping as high as he can.

"That's good baby," She calls out. "Be careful."

I watch as she watches Alexei. She gave me a proud mother expression. I found comfort from it. She was making sure that they both survived and she was doing it perfectly.

"How do you do it?"  I question her with curiosity.

She unlocks her eyes from Alexei and looks at me. "Honestly... I don't know. I think that when being a mother, you are more cautious, careful, and worried when it comes to your child." She shrugs. "He's the reason I'm the way I am. Before him.. I did my job for fun. Now... it's our income."

I sigh at her words. "I respect that."

"Just wait... you'll see," She says with a small smile.

As if she remembered the reason why we were in this room, she straighten herself up and push her hair behind her ear.

"Anyways, I'm sorry about today's incident. I taught my son to protect himself. I guess he's still in the learning process do distinguishing whose the help and whose the threat," She says as we both return a laugh.