“No, stop it! Oh my God, stop it! OK, I’ll go back out. Oh my God, stop!” Ciarra screamed at the top of her lungs, too afraid of him to take a step forward to physically stop him.

DeShawn backed off of Aston, who was lying motionless in the dust. By this point both Anthony and Robert were watching the scene from within their tents, like frightened rabbits peeking out at a predator from their burrows.

Ciarra ran up to DeShawn, desperate to make amends. She looked for him to cosset her. Her body language indicated compliance. “OK, where’s the date? I’ll go right now. Just as soon as I get him in the car,” she said.

“A’ight. That’s my girl. You go out to the cathouse now by the kiddy stroll. You see what you can pick up. But that little trick you pulled is gonna cost ya. I ain’t losin’ no revenue.”

Ciarra nodded in agreement, knowing she would have to work to pay off the money he would have made if she had shown up to whatever “date” she had been expected to service.

Satisfied, he put his arm around her neck and planted a kiss on her forehead. Aria watched him walk over and kneel down next to Aston, who was dazed to the point of not being able to get up. DeShawn pulled Aston to his feet and brushed the dust off of his pants and shirt, stabilizing the boy’s drunken sway, which had been initiated by his dizziness. “You love your momma, don’tcha? Yeah, you’re a good boy, ain’tcha. But your momma gotta work. If you let her work, one day I might teach ya to be like me. You’d like that, wouldn’t ya? You’ll be good with the ladies, yeah, I can tell you gonna be good with the ladies.”

He handed Aston’s hand over to Ciarra, who pulled the boy tight against her legs. “I’ll take you back out on the track,” he said as a final order, not bothering to wait for a reply. Mother and son stood motionless against the van, watching DeShawn walk back toward his customized black Lincoln Navigator.

Ciarra got them both in the car and rushed, despite her stupor, to clean the blood off of Aston’s face with a wet wipe. Though she heard nothing, Aria could see him crying through the windshield as she did it. Then Ciarra stripped down to her push-up bra in the front seat, changing her clothes as fast as she could to put on something sexier. When she got out of the van, she grabbed Aston and put him on her hip. The heels she was wearing wobbled when she walked across the uneven ground. Aria watched them get into the back of DeShawn’s car and disappear behind the tinted windows.