#t: antonio | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nadiazahedah · 5 months ago

Text

this is how it ends

LOCATION: Nadia's home WITH: @antoniojimenez MENTIONED: @roman-han

It had been months since Tony’s birthday, but they still hadn’t talked about the massive elephant in the room. After Nadia had kissed him, things progressed to a point she never believed she would have let them had you spoken to her even a few weeks beforehand, and yet... it felt like what she had always wanted from him: to feel desired, to feel wanted, to feel loved.

And then... nothing. Things went back to what they had been before, seeing each other when they transferred the kids to and from one another.

To say she was confused would be an understatement, but she had done so many years of chasing after him and practically begging him for the bare minimum that she’d determined a long time ago she wouldn’t do that again. If he wanted anything more to develop, he would have to do the work, and if not... then she could finally move on, knowing once and for all she’d made the right decision to prioritize herself and the kids.

When she received a text from him at an odd hour of the night, though, she couldn’t help the flutter in her chest.

“You up? We need to talk.”

Was this it?

She hadn’t been able to sleep anyway, and the kids had gone to bed hours beforehand, so she made her way downstairs and made herself a cup of tea while she waited. Her hands wrapped around a mug of the aromatic tea when she heard the light knocking on the front door. She unlocked the door and opened it, seeing Tony on the other side, looking a little worse for wear. She opened it further and let him in without a greeting, leading him through to the kitchen.

“Is everything okay?” she finally asked, voice soft. She watched him, trying and failing to read his body language to figure out what to expect.

“No, it isn’t,” Antonio answered with a sigh once he entered the kitchen. Drawing in a deep breath, or as deep as he possibly could with the weight of the truth resting squarely on his chest, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the counter. It made him feel sick, really, having to come clean about the sort of double life he’d been leading. “I haven’t been entirely honest with you about… who I am, what sort of stuff I’m involved in… a lot,” he started, falling quiet just to let that marinate for a moment. More than anything, he wished he was here under better circumstances– perhaps circumstances that would allow them to talk about what happened on his birthday and what it could possibly mean moving forward. But…in the last few days, Tony had come to realize there was no ‘forward.’ Not for him, not in this town…and so inevitably, not for them either.

Nadia could feel her walls building back up the more he spoke. It had taken years for her to finally open herself back up to him in any meaningful way, and there was no doubt in her mind that whatever he was about to say was going to destroy every ounce of goodwill he’d accumulated with her since their divorce. She didn’t speak, though, and allowed him the space to say what he’d come here to say.

“There’s a reason I’m ahead on child support now, and it isn’t from working at the restaurant,” Antonio continued, swallowing thickly. He’d dreaded the mere idea of this moment ever since he’d signed on with Los Santos, and now he was stood here wondering if it would have ever gotten to this point if things hadn’t imploded the way they had. Would he have just carried on, lying to Nadia forever? The coward in him whispered yes, he would have.

Eyeing her for a moment, he couldn’t help but wonder what this would lead to. She worked for the law, he made his money by breaking it. Would she do her duty, or let him walk? So many questions passed through his mind at a dizzying pace, but he couldn’t linger on them for long. He needed to speak his truth and accept whatever came from it.

“I’ve been flying again.” He nodded, having seen that as such a good thing for him at the time. It had put him back in the skies– the one place Antonio truly felt at home and at ease. But now…it might as well have been a curse. Clearing his throat, he looked down at the counter, unable to meet Nadia’s gaze as he continued, “For Los Santos… the drug cartel.”

Nadia froze. She had thought when their marriage had fallen apart and she’d had to leave the career she loved behind that she would never have to experience that kind of pain again – one could only hit rock bottom once, at least in her mind – but she had been so wrong. A small part of her wondered if maybe she had fallen asleep while waiting for him and this was nothing more than a twisted dream, but no, this was real and the look on Antonio’s face said as much.

Growing up in Tonopah Valley, it was hard not to know of Los Santos. They were the boogeymen parents warned their kids about, the ones who had supposedly made the streets unsafe and brought the crime to the area, though Nadia didn’t believe they were the only ones responsible for it, especially with the Sons of Silence across town. Then, being in the department, it was hard not to hear the other officers discussing the newest pick-up of a dealer in Webster Village or see an unfamiliar young woman finding herself in the ER, having her stomach pumped from accidentally ODing on drugs she’d been carrying on her person. What she hadn’t known, though, was how close to home they had gotten – her home.

Not only had she let Antonio back into their lives, but she’d let him back into her bed, and she felt so, so stupid in that moment for ever believing he could change. He had been with their children alone on so many occasions that her mind started to race, imagining them in all kinds of scenarios where they were somewhere they shouldn’t have been or just simply unsafe because of the decisions their father had made and the company he kept.

“What did you just say?” she spoke, her voice steady though she had to clench her fists to keep them from shaking. “You got yourself clean only to fall in bed with a drug cartel?” It took her another few moments of quiet fury to figure out what she wanted to say. It’s not like any of it would make a difference, in the end. “I trusted you, Tony. After everything you’ve put us through. And now this?”

Antonio watched Nadia's expression shift from one of curiosity to genuine shock, and then, to what he could only assume was anger. He didn’t fault her for it. In fact, he knew it was justified, as were his reasons for doing everything he’d done– in his mind, anyway. But when it came to convincing her of that, Tony didn’t imagine that he could. Given her line of work and everything she saw, a lot of it because of Los Santos, it was already clear to him that there wouldn’t be a path forward. And now the ball would be in her court, to see just how far this would go.

Palming at the back of his neck, he shook his head, a strained sigh leaking past his lips, “I needed money, Nadia,” he pressed, though he didn’t expect that excuse to be satisfactory, even if it was the truth. He’d been behind on child support, behind on rent, and the cartel had given him wings to get ahead of all that, and in his view, to get an opening to be around his children again. “It was a means to an end. I’m sorry.” It felt like a cheap excuse but it was the truth, regardless of how it looked. He’d done what he’d felt he needed to do in order to see his children again and if that made him a monster, then Tony was willing to accept that.

“If you needed money, then you should have gotten a legitimate job, even if you hated it!” she hissed, though the desire to raise her voice, to shout at him for endangering them all for another quick fix, rose every passing moment. “Why do you think I stopped teaching? It wasn’t because I had a desire to be an officer but because they paid more, and I needed to provide for the family you left behind.”

“Look, it doesn’t affect any of the progress I’ve made, alright? I got my life together, Nadia. I don’t expect you to approve of the way I did it, but I’m clean, all my debts are paid. I did what I needed to do.” And he’d stand by it at the end of the day, because if even only for a little while, it had allowed him to get his life back. It had allowed him to be there for his kids, both financially, and physically– and that was more than he’d ever been able to say before.

Nadia took in a deep, shaky breath, turning away from him and raking her fingers through her hair. She forced her eyes closed, begged the angry tears she could already feel rising to hold off, to wait until he wasn’t there so he couldn’t see how much he still affected her. Her desire to bring their family back together, to finally feel the love that he’d never truly shown her during their marriage, had won out in the end. She had let him return to her life – to their kids’ lives – under the basis of a lie and she’d fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker.

“I was never going to let any of it bleed over onto you, or the kids,” he continued, having made that perfectly clear to those around him from the moment he’d agreed to sign on. It was his one condition, and though they’d never been able to outright guarantee him that, they’d still assured him that they’d try to prevent it. “But it’s over now. Los Santos is collapsing and in order to keep that from affecting you, I need to disappear– at least for now.” Tony knew he could’ve gone on and on, explaining everything to her brick by brick, but he didn’t have time, and so he tried to get straight to the point. “I don’t have much time, but I needed you to hear it from me. It’s up to you what you do with it,” whether or not she chose to call it in, that was, or let him walk. He wouldn’t fault her if she couldn’t stomach doing the latter. She worked for the law, and he’d violated it. And if she decided that she couldn’t let him go freely, he wouldn’t resist. “I’ll respect whatever decision you make.”

She didn’t know what she could say to make him realize there had been so many other options he could’ve taken, so many safer alternatives. He fully believed what he’d done had been for the best, and she couldn’t disagree more. She was a fool to believe they could have ever reconciled when they were such fundamentally different people.

She should call it in. She knew that, especially with the conversation she’d had with the leader of the ATF accusing the officers in the department of being complicit in proliferating the gang violence. How would she be able to explain that to Amelia and Aaron, though? They loved their father and were too young; they wouldn’t understand why their mother was the one to have him thrown in prison for who knew how long. And, in spite of all the lies, deceit, and betrayal, Nadia still loved him. She’d still let him in because she desperately wanted to feel loved; she had no one to blame but herself.

He was her weakness.

“Go.” Finally, she broke the silence, voice barely above a whisper. She wrapped her arms around herself in a subconscious need for comfort as she turned towards him. “I won’t call you in, but I don’t want you anywhere near us again. I hope it was worth it to you.”

#self para.#sort of #t: antonio #thank u grey for helping me wrap this up with a lil bow 😘#i bet this doesn't go the way u would think it does based off that preview snippet #but u don't gotta read it this is mostly for me LMAO

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