"Would you mind if I offered you some refreshments, son? I know we don't have much to give you but I promise you it will be tasty," the young mother assured as she looked up to him since she was still kneeling in front of her slightly underweight daughter.
But I really don't need to stay any longer because the girl's already home and I still need to leave so I can continue with my plan to run away from home.
Yeah bro, but is she safe? I don't think her unknowing mom can stop her new maniac hubby from doing what he wants to do with the girl!
"I would love to, ma'am…" the well-built teen decided as he graciously helped the former widow to her feet by holding her hand and gently pulling her up. The pair of similarly-featured females smiled warmly at Reuben while he couldn't avoid noticing the glaring and scowling man at the door by using his sharply trained and regularly practised peripheral vision.
Just so I can find out more about Marina's present state or even both the mother and daughter's situation here. Then I'll make up my mind on what to do.
But by that time, it will be too late to run away since your Dad will already be looking for you…
Heh, I'll cross the bloody bridge when I fucking get there. My priority now is little Marina and her mom.
"I didn't get your name son…" the mother of late twenties asked as she entered the house not minding her grimly glaring new husband. "We hardly have any guests around here and judging by your clothes and shoes, you're clearly from another part of the city.
"I'll just step outside to smoke," gruffly announced the snubbed male as he angrily stomped outside. After looking back with a furious glare at the people inside the tiny shack, he loudly banged the front door shut just to make sure he got everyone's attention.
Good riddance, you sleazy dirtbag! At least You won't get to eavesdrop on us and I won't need to see your ugly pouting mug for a while.
As soon as the heavy footsteps moved and faded away from the ramshackle door, the young man cleared his throat to answer the earlier question. "I'm sorry, Ma'am. I totally forgot to mention it. Its Reuben… Reuben Castañeda," he embarrassedly stated. "But my friends call me Rube."
"Oh, you're a Castañeda. Interesting…:" She then gracefully pulls out a dining room chair for her slightly embarrassed and shy male guest. Marina's dainty and smiling mom goes directly to the cupboards to select and pick up a few cellophane-wrapped pastries, sweets and tarts. After placing the goodies in a shallow serving basket, she placed them carefully in the middle of the dining table's scuffed and marked floral-designed vinyl tablecloth. "I used to make the desserts for your house parties, Rube. My client who caters to your family and their business contacts would bring me to his home the night before any order so I could use his full kitchen, specifically his humongous oven to bake the pastries he would serve to his customers. But when he recently died, I no longer had a client to cook or bake for. So I have no choice but to peddle these in a basket and walk around these streets. Good thing, I have wares that don't need baking. Just a stovetop which I do have because we would sure all starve to death if I didn't sell my best products on the street."
"Doesn't your new husband provide for you both?"
"He used to work in a construction company for a more-than-average daily wage. While he was still courting me he would bring us different kinds of food every day but when we got married he said he could no longer continue working in construction. He said he suddenly caught a bad case of allergic reaction to dust and cement powder. Jerome has been looking for a new job since but he hasn't had any luck so far."
Fucking lying lazy bastard! Doesn't he have any shame in letting his woman earn a living while he does nothing? What a good-for-nothing asshole!
The academy student picked up one of the whitish items inside the basket in front of him and stared at it intently with slitted blue eyes and curled thick brows, "I know this dessert! Wait a minute… Is this the same Maja Blanca Tito Joey used to serve us during private parties and corporate gatherings?" Reuben asked with enthusiastic excitement as he quickly grabbed more of the said sweet corn square-shaped sweets from the basket and swiftly unwrapped them.
"Yes, it is," smilingly agreed the blond blue-eyed woman. "Take it easy Reuben, there's more of those where that came from," the former widow warned as she watched with delighted surprise while the handsome young man devoured the unwrapped desserts in just a few hurried bites.
Suddenly, Rube found himself slightly choking on the sweet and sticky dessert so he was extremely thankful that the girl Marina had brought him a plastic glass filled with clean, clear drinking water just in time to keep him from gagging on his food.
"Thank you, Marina," he smilingly said as he took a huge gulp of the crisp clear water. After he had cleared his throat of the thick and creamy foodstuff, he glanced at the young mother to explain. "It's my all-time favorite dessert since I was a boy but I couldn't find anything like it anymore since Uncle Joey died. My dad, sister and I couldn't find anything close to it even from five-star restos, hotels or expensive catering services. It's only now that I've tasted it again so I couldn't help myself from stuffing them straightaway into my mouth and forgot to chew, hehe…" was the young Castañeda male's sheepish admission.
"Don't worry Reuben. As thanks for bringing my daughter safely home tonight, you are free to take as many as you'd like. You can even bring some home if you want to…"
"Can I really, ma'am? Even my other relatives have been searching far and wide for this particular sweet cake but all their purchases have been sorely lacking in the taste and creaminess department."
"That's because my mom's recipe came from my great, great, great, great, great grandma and they make sure they personally train their daughters to cook it until they can prepare it by heart," the silent blond girl suddenly explained with a wide cute, girly grin. "Which is why no written recipe is ever available for it."
Reuben fell silent for a moment just so he could think deeply. I think I've found a way to save this pretty little girl and her lovely loving mother… but I have to find a way to deal with this motherfucking stepfather first, the scheming youth mused to himself. Then it would be a breeze to convince my father to get a new pastry chef at home along with her daughter as a possible assistant.
+++
"I know that look, Rube…" Reena says with a knowing stare complete with a sly smile on her mature and hardly made-up face. "Out with it, love. What are you thinking of? Or to be specific, what are you remembering?"
"Nothing, my beautiful and sexy wife," he denies lamely as he walks to her classic antique oak desk where she is sitting surrounded by numerous folder files and typewritten sheets of legal-sized documents. "I was just remembering the time when I first met you, your mom and my finding out about your asshole of a stepdad."
"Ah, yes Jerome. Do you even know where he is now, darling?"
"Nope, when my academy friends and I beat him up I threw a couple of hundred dollars to his face and told him to get out of town and never come back or there will be hell to pay. Since then, not a peep from him according to my contacts…"
"If we're lucky he might even be one of the early victims of COVID 19 and we'll never get to see him again, ever," Marina says with a hopeful smirk on her lips.
"Speaking of bad guys how's your latest interviewee doing? I didn't see him in the medical bay here at The Resort, love."
"I sent him to a far-off provincial hospital and told the people there to keep the weirdo chained to the bed while he recuperated. After what he and his cohorts have done last night, I don't think I ever want to see his face ever again," sternly announces the Resort's Madame as she stretches her cramped legs. "When he recovers I've instructed the doctor in charge of him to surrender him to the local law enforcers."
"I can't blame you, Marina. I mean, we have dead security staff members because of those bastards and I don't know how to tell their families about it. Especially Oman coz he's about to get married and is super close with his mom that the kid's practically a mama's boy" sighs The Rube as he slowly rubs the back of his neck in frustration. "You know how I feel about telling broads regarding bad news, especially if it's about someone they love so much!"
"Ok, you're off the hook then because I'll be the one to talk to them. After all, I know how much it breaks your heart to see a woman cry and suffer," Reena states while slowly shaking her blond head. "I don't even know how you managed to not lose it when you met me and realized what that fucktard Jerome was making me do to him."
"Believe me, it wasn't easy but I had to make sure your mother wouldn't know or it would have killed her right then and there. Speaking of your ma, did you ask her about that Tribunal Clan that the fucking Lex prisoner told you about?"
"Unfortunately, she knows nothing about it since it was her older sister who was the one who got involved with a cult of the Dark Arts. I believe it was a similar group to what that darned mook was exposing to me last night," explains the senior female Castañeda. "And as you well know, Auntie Esther died early last year with that strange lung sickness so we can no longer ask her about them."
"I just wish there was a way to find out more about those critters other than your 'interview' with that Lex guy. I just want to help Marion out with his protecting Hiraya, and all."
"And how is your royal friend doing, husband?"
"He's still out cold and I think that the doctor's idea of blood transfusions isn't doing squat. We've already used up at least half a dozen bags of that red stuff but he's still weak and unmoving. Like a fucking comatose patient, yeah that's it," Cas realizes as if he just had a light bulb moment. "I think he needs to drink those bags of blood instead of injecting it into his veins for them to take effect. He is a vampire, after all," the former mobster slash commando concluded not minding that his wife was hearing him admit his unconscious friend's secret nature. After all, he has never kept anything from Marina since they got hitched.
"So what are we supposed to do now?" Reena anxiously asks as she mixes vodka, lime and ice cubes in a crystal whiskey glass that she took from her compact office bar. "We can't just leave him like that. What if his father calls and asks about him?"
"Nothing for now. IF his dad calls, which I'm sure he won't, I'll be the one to talk to the old geezer… Besides, I let Hiraya stay with him in his suite. I figured it would be best if she was the one he sees first upon waking up," the bordello owner assuredly states. "But for now, we wait…"