by Amarie Avant
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Aria
The next morning, for about an hour, I toss clothes over my shoulder. I settle for a sleeveless peach tea dress and match it with a jean jacket. I have a coral umbrella for the impending October rain. I almost hope it does, so if Dominic ignores me, I have an excuse. Damn, I was an ass.
Lo and behold, as I sit in a conference room outside of the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sun shines bright. A long, mahogany table spans the room to where Jack, my cousin Siobhan’s right-hand man, stands before a projector.
Still dissecting how wrong I treated Dominic, I pop out of my chair.
“Ms. Jones?” Jack perches an eyebrow.
“Um . . .” I glance out the window. My hand flies up, tangling in a pair of earrings I’ve never worn before. Roslyn was the reason. She convinced me to purchase this, that, and the other. To think, I’ve started to make an effort and Dom . . .
“Ahem.” The marketing technician sitting next to me clears her throat.
“I have a proposal for . . .” I glance across the screen, searching for the name of the new marketing account. Oh God, a clothing boutique. Roslyn is my source of trendy. I’m not trendy.
“How does this sound? Two women.” I wring my fingers, attempting to overlook the fact that Dominic hasn’t responded to my lunch date. “One model is the epitome of confidence. The other . . . not so much. Good friends. Not two gorgeous women who went under the knife.” I flip to another topic. “Um, I know my biggest strength is photos, and you’ll have a commercial to brand for this campaign so . . .” Tell me to sit down and shuddup already!
Jack nods. “Keep going.”
“They’ll have something to indicate they’ve been friends forever.”
He tips his chin.
Eyes sifting over the projector, I smile and add, “Oh! Like the vintage bracelets or earrings, the boutique has on display. They walk into the store. The diva tells the other about what she absolutely needs for tonight’s date with her dream guy. And everyone wants to be that girl.”
“Who’s the model?” a cheesy intern asks.
“No,” Jack murmurs. “The real girl—the one each woman watching the commercial or sees in Ms. Jones’ photos—they’ll know they can have that too.”
Jack loved my idea of the normal girl who gets the guy. After our meeting, I received my first invitation from the ladies on our team to lunch. Now, the notion of how I’m not ‘the normal girl’ roams through my mind as I sit, alone, at a tapas bar and grill an hour later. I cringe at the sight of the same trio of women being escorted into the rooftop dining area. I had said no. I lift my mock “Sex on the Beach.” They wave back.
A second later, my cellphone pings, rescuing me from being a loner. I answer sight unseen.
“Hey, cousin!”
“Hey . . . hey . . .” My dull tone climbs into a more promising greeting.
Siobhan chuckles. “I wasn’t checking on you. Jack has a habit of texting me a highlight of the week. You made the cut. It’s nice that you’ve finally come out of your shell a little.”
“Yup.” I sip my drink as a triangular dish with three artistically arranged pieces of seafood are set before me. “Um, yeah, thanks.”
“Oh, are you busy? Out having cocktails with the team?”
“Nope.” I pop my lips.
“Aria! I hear chatter and silverware. Don’t tell me you’re at lunch alone.” She groans. “Please allow Lincoln to introduce you to one of his British friends. I’d make a suggestion, but you know how hard it is out here for black women to find the one.”
“Hmmm,” I reply, no instant response. My gaze collides with a man at the far corner of the roof. Reflector glasses cover his mocha skin, but mirror in my direction. As I focus on the stranger, his lips pull tight.
“Okay, so you’re seeing someone.” She muses. “You might be my baby cousin, but I’m tired of having babies. It’s your turn.”
I tear my gaze away from him. He can’t be El Santo, or El Diablo, or whatever the media wants to call the crazed asshole. Not here. Not now. My search for him has stalled. When I was late for my date with Dominic, I’d been hot on El Santo’s trail. Or so I thought. I’d bought myself a ticket to the mariposa sanctuary, which included an expensive-ass guide, who probably thought I was weird for visiting on my own. She definitely gave me the side-eye after so many questions about each display. It had been a long, wasted day, like so many before as I attempted to grasp at metaphoric grains of sand.
Across the rooftop restaurant, tall umbrellas clutter the area like light blue clouds. Nobody else is hyperventilating at the sight of the lone stranger.
Shit, I’m a lone stranger.
“Hello, Ari’?”
My gaze stops. A smile ricochets across my face. Dominic.
He’s there in his leather jacket and another pair of jeans that I need to tear off his body. He leans against the side of the building, a cigarette at the tip of his lips. Unlike the man in the reflectors, whom I may be paranoid about, and I now notice has disappeared, Dominic stares straight at me.
Heat smolders his olive-green gaze, enough to burn me from twenty yards away. He pulls the cigarette from a mouth that knows me intimately and puffs an o.
“Aria?”
“Yeah-yes. I’m dating someone, Siobhan,” I murmur.
“Tell me everything, cuz’!”
I pull the receiver from my ear, eyes glued to his. “Later, girl. Gotta go.”
I press the off button, leave enough cash, and climb off the seat with my purse. As I strut toward Dominic, he heads toward the side of the building. People enter and exit the interior dining room, but he continues past it, stopping where ropes separate the rooftop restaurant from the opposite side.
Broad shoulders open in confidence, Dominic doesn’t look back. He lifts a leg then the other over to the opposite side of the cord where it reads Lounge. This portion of the roof is for an exclusive nightclub that not even Roslyn has been to.
White tarps cover lush chairs. Long hearths with sparkling gems separate the area. An empty stage is to one side, and a view of rooftops of other buildings encompasses the other. Dominic places his thick forearms on the railing.
The words well in my throat. “I know you’re angry with me.”
He moves around, leans against the railing, and points his cigarette at me while laughing a little. The incredulous look on his face floors me.
I huff. “Okay, an understatement.”
Dominic inhales deeply.
I pull the cigarette from his lips, flicking it a thousand feet down to its death. “You shouldn’t smoke these. So, now you’re not talking to me, either?”
He pulls his arm around my waist, bringing me to him and pressing our mouths together. The intoxicating, sweet scent of his cigarette floats into my mouth along with the smoke. Damn, dick move. Well, at least he doesn’t smell like an ashtray.
I breathe out the sweet, scented burn. His mouth is sumptuously close.
“Anything else you want to apologize about, LeAnna. Sí?” His eyebrow rises.
I shove at his chest then worry about him falling, but he doesn’t so much as budge. In one fluid motion, Dominic slides an arm around me. My back is against the railing. A second later, I’m swaying like a rag doll as he spins me again. My hands claim the rail as his cock grounds against my ass. A warm breeze jostles the tresses from my sloppy bun across my cheek.
Dominic’s tantalizing bravado grits into my ear. “By all means, mami. Apologize.”
As if I’m underwater, currents dance around me, and my skin burns in a flicker of desire and degradation. “Humph, I considered apologizing. Then you called me LeAnna.”
“Now, you’re angry again.” He tosses the last word, and I bet he’s smiling. “Sí or no, LeAnna?”
“Livid.” My body flushes hotter as he slides his hand between my thighs and yanks up my skirt. He aggressively palms at my pussy. The heavy lips throb, saturating for him. His rock-hard f
ront frames against my back. I open my eyes. It’s a long way down.
Dominic slides my panties over. Fire blazes across my hip as his swat prompts me to widen my stance.
“That’s right, chula. Be angry as fuck.” He launches a vicious kiss against my earlobe while thrusting into me. The pure carnality of him spearing my insides and slamming deep sends my teeth grinding into my bottom lip. I arch feverishly, cursing and praising him.
“Condom . . .” I start, my pussy drowning down on him.
“Too late, mami.” He taunts, attacking the nape of my neck with his teeth. The smoothness of his dick, the thick steel of it, pistons into me. Each drive propels me on my tippy toes and leaning toward liftoff. I bounce back on his manhood to keep from having an insane case of vertigo.
“My little chula is angry.” With his hips bucking like a stallion, his fingertips stroke circles across my clitoris. The stimulation causes my eyes to bite closed.
“Dominic, Dom!” I scream.
His bicep comes around my neck. My body is planted against his. His cock twitches in my body, changing positions. “You’re so loud, LeAnna. They can hear you. See us.”
Inhibitions dead to me, I fuck back against him. Dominic runs his hand along my throat and breast and back up again. His tongue twirls in my ear. “Let them see us, LeAnna. You are mine now, sí?”
“Ye-yessss.” I groan.
“That’s what I want to hear.” He growls into my ear. “Now, put your fucking hands back on the railing, chula. Hold tight.”
My voice shatters into a moan. Body trembling, I gasp for oxygen as Dominic surges over me. His pace grows into a frenzy, unhooking every neuron in my brain. Memories, thoughts, are all wiped away, save for sensation. I feel him, his powerful limbs. I smell him, his delicious, testosterone scent. The command of his dick. Him. Over me, under me, surrounding me, inside of me. His control.
Dominic grips my bun, sliding my face around where his breath skirts across my cheek. I gaze into his lust-hooded beautiful eyes then slide my tongue across his gritted lips. The mere sentiment begs him for entrance. Dominic consents. He fucks me hard, raw, as our tongues clash and swirl. He lets out a guttural moan. His hand curls around my throat. I gasp in a shock of air as he chokes and immerses my core in his cum. The only control I have is my pussy, clamping down on his cock, matching the vitality of his orgasm. We extend on into forever in this moment with him filling me up.
I fall from heaven as Dominic retracts his fist from my throat. His hold around my waist is my only security from falling. Blood drums my ears. My heart batters my chest. In my delirium, one consideration roams through my brain. This is therapy, my therapy.
I close my eyes, breath wavering as I groan. “Okay, no more, El Santo.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
El Santo
A furball shoots out of the room as I slide the steel door open. The bottom of my boot slams down onto the mouse’s tail, catching it by surprise. I take a puff from my cigarette while slamming my other boot into its energetic body.
“Nasty pendejo,” I mutter to myself.
Lifting an electric lantern, I start into the room.
“You’ve gotta let me out of here.” Angelica groans. “My legs . . . El Santo. They’re biting my legs.”
“Okay, lemme check you out.” I pace to her. I don’t know when the vermin came. It had to be after the field behind my building was demolished. A luxury apartment shot up into the sky, rivaling my area for port-front properties. Though I never followed through with construction, the added foot traffic has been a pain.
I lift the lantern and light trickles over her. Her tennis shoes have been masticated. Little marks and dots of drawn blood are all over the surface of her chubby thighs and legs.
“Aye Dios,” I mutter, running a hand over my masked face. Rodents never touched my ángeles. Although it’s the first time I’ve made use of the room, I blame it on the gordita. She isn’t pure.
Angelica’s eyes are bloodshot as I hold the lantern higher. “The flashlight was helping before.”
She tosses her chin across the room. Mangled bits of fur and blood chunks are on the base of the flashlight.
I caress the soft curve of her face, all the apology she’ll ever get from me.
Angelica smiles, yet the faint tremor on her lips is still there. “Di-did you meet LeAnna yet?”
“Sí, mami.” I run the back of my knuckles across her double chin.
A flush of relief brings life beneath her skin. “So, you’ll let me go?”
The edges of my mouth lift upward. I shake my head slowly. “No, mami.”
Angelica’s soft body begins to shake in another bout of tears. “Why?”
“Lemme sit with you for a while.” I settle down next to Angelica and start to clasp her hand.
“Today, I watched my LeAnna for hours. She had this flush of confidence about her while leaving her job.” I recount it fondly. “On Demand, that’s where she works. LeAnna has an eye for the arts. Innocent. She captures beautiful objects—mostly.”
I grit at the thought of how Dominic commanded her attention recently.
“She captures such beauty. None match her beau—”
Chains clink around, and then Angelica lunges toward me. I grip her restraint, bringing it across her neck, and stand. Angelica lifts to her feet, knees bending, hands struggling to save her. What a shame, days have passed since I was disobeyed.
“You’ll learn not to challenge me, Angelica!”
I settle back beside her, breathing in the stench of being so near her. I have to finish this conversation. Angelica is the only person I can talk to.
“She went to this bustling tapas bar. My LeAnna. A place so unlike her. So, very unlike her.”
“Wh-what is she normally like?”
“Shy. Meek. Pure.”
My ángeles.
Just thinking of them brings other thoughts to mind.
“The unnatural position of the victims’ bodies speaks to El Santo’s narcissism and grandiosity. Each woman left nude. Their rigid corpses laid with arms and legs spread wide. At first, it went in context with El Santo performing some sort of sexual fantasy.”
“No?” the novice detective asked.
“Not at all. No penetration whatsoever. Furthermore, the distinctive mark of El Santo positioning his victims is now being profiled as a token of innocence. An offering. A ritualistic killing, not a frenzy. You’ll see the glistening on their skins appears to be some sort of soap.”
“Soap? You’re telling me this monster washes his victims?”
“Yes, he cleanses them thoroughly. The dedication increasing the likelihood of being caught as El Santo is in the presence of his victim for extended periods of time.”
Out of all the detective’s musing, he had some accurate assessments, others not so much. No, I did not defile them. Sí, my girls were strategically placed, and sí, I spent a wealth of time washing them here. I glare at the disgusting, foul figure before me, noting the detective’s mistakes.
The cabrón referred to me as a monster.
“A good girl.” Angelica strangles on the words, responding to my statement of LeAnna’s purity.
“Sí.” The same hand I use to purify the flesh of women, I run along the back of my neck. A deep, rooted urge to perform my ritual sends my fidgety fingers in flight.
I need to cleanse, to purify another soul.
The craving swells in the depth of my abdomen as I stare at Angelica. She can sense the hunger in me because she lowers her gaze. To calm myself, I reach into my back pocket and pull out a Snickers bar, tossing it a few feet to Angelica. She catches it.
Warmth ribbons in her eyes. She’s torn between the common gesture of uttering her appreciation and detesting me. My mouth tugs to the left. She’s like my LeAnna. Even in her defiance, she’s innocent.
Fingers shaking, Angelica rips the candy bar open and bites half of it down. A few bites later, and she’s done. I reach and pull another
Snickers from the back of my jeans. This one was mine, but her love for sweets has softened my heart. With a smile, like one would have when tossing a frisbee at their pet, I pitch the chocolate bar. “Be a good puta, gordita.”
Again, she shark-attacks half the chocolate bar. “Did you talk to LeAnna?”
Angelica finishes off the bar. I transition onto my hands and knees, crawling to her. She flinches, preparing herself for my touch, but I stop when my face is an inch from hers. Her sweet, chocolate breath sweeps through the material of my mask. “Sí, gordita.”
“Your eyes.” Angelica gasps. “They were br-brown. They’re green now.”
“Sí, mami.” I snatch the mask off my face, and her voice hitches on the wrong motherfucking name. “How? This can’t be. You can’t be . . . Dominic Alverez?”
“El Santo works. Dario Alverez is suitable too. Say my fucking hermano’s name again, and I’ll fillet all the fat off your skin, my sweet Angelica.”
Chapter Thirty
Dominic
I shift in my seat as the principal prattles about Yasiel’s expulsion. I’ve been without my cellphone for almost two weeks. But my office number was also on the emergency list. His parents are harder to contact. It’s a good thing they were able to get me because Yasiel would’ve walked off school grounds.
My mind goes to Aria. After a few days of calling and texting her, I compelled myself to wait it out. I’d given her a moment to contemplate. Toward the end of the first week, I left my cellphone to visit my Colombiana client. She’s in witness protection in Alaska. My luck further soured in my attempt to get back to Miami, and I returned a few days ago.
Dario hurled my phone across the marble flooring after seeing Carlotta’s phone number pop up on the screen. He didn’t attempt to call AT&T to replace it, nor did he have an explanation about entering my bedroom. Two days ago, FedEx dropped off my new phone. The number was all wrong.
