by Amarie Avant
Aria’s eyebrows pull together. “What do you mean, he snapped?”
“I never questioned Alejandra. A person working on a Ph.D. has to be busy. I was setting the foundation for my career. She had always claimed Dario and she were friends in school when we flirted. Then after we crossed paths, she reconnected with Dario—that’s what she said. She also said they were study buddies.”
“Oh shit,” Aria mutters.
“So, when I heard she’d been in a car accident with my hermano, I thought nothing of it. Dario lunged himself from the wheelchair at me. Come to find out, they’d been in a relationship the entire time.”
“Sheesh. But how? How could she date the two of you?”
“Remember, my senior year of high school? Dario attended a gifted school—Alejandra too. We kept growing apart.”
“But now you’re his caretaker. Have you tried to discuss her actions? The two of you are blood.”
“I’ve tried it all, a bunch of Hail Marys too.”
“Well, fuck her.” Aria slides down beside me and props herself onto her shoulder. “No wonder your brother has a ten-foot pole up his ass. He was dating her that entire time?”
“Sí, that’s what Dario said. Our last year in high school, I was busy working, and they attended the gifted school. It wasn’t like Dario and I were close. He kept to himself. So, she had us both.”
“Safe to assume the bitch cheated on him more than you all are aware. Who does that to brothers? To twins?” She calms, placing her head on my chest. “I understand your hesitance, Dom.” The glint in Aria’s eyes shine in determination as if she will fight to make me love her.
Chapter Sixty-Three
El Santo
“I understand your hesitance . . . Dario.” Due to their elevated position outside on a windy day, the words were transmitted with an echo of static. LeAnna’s statement was made with conviction.
She understood me.
She would wait for me to return her affections.
I have only one problem with that.
I’m not afraid to love, and she’s misplaced hers.
“You have to get her away from him, El Santo.” Angelica’s hushed tone seeps into my musings.
Dominic spewed lies. He heaped all the blame on the innocent love of my life. Who slanders the dearly departed? They have no voice to refute anything.
Damn right, I had lunged at Dominic on the stage. “We’d gone up together. I had allowed him to speak first. He was supposed to say a few choice words while I grieved and collected my composure to speak. He ruined the last few moments I had with her!”
“Was Dominic somehow to blame for the car accident?” Angelica asks.
“No, idiota! Dominic ruined the funeral. My last moments with Alejandra were fucked over because of him! All Dominic had to do was give a short speech and introduce me, the man who fucking adored her!” My hands encircle Angelica’s throat. She’s obedient, silent, as I squeeze tight. “I was denied the right to cherish our final seconds before—I-I couldn’t save Alejandra . . . She was bleeding all over the place. Her face. Her body. I couldn’t wipe off the blood, wash away the hurt. I couldn’t save her! The funeral was supposed to be my time with her. My final goodbye.”
“El Santo,” she gasps for oxygen. “You can’t turn back time. What you can do is separate Aria from him,” Angelica repeats. “Do you have any idea the level of vulnerability there is to be the first to say I love you? Then for that love not to be returned. Save her.”
I gulp. “Alright, gordita. I’ll save her.”
I settle into the chair and crack my knuckles. Pulling out my cellphone, I utilize the application which clones Dominic’s cellphone to mine. I plan to interrupt his service for a few minutes.
I dial the bakery a few blocks away from my Papi’s home and clear my throat.
“This is Dominic Alvarez.”
What sounds like a teenager answers the phone. “Your father’s birthday breakfast was delivered first thing this morning.”
Damn, it is the pendejo’s birthday. I knew it was this month, but not the precise date. Clearing my throat, I reply, “He enjoyed it. I’d like to send him something sweet for dinner. What do you have with nuts?”
“Nuts? I think your father prefers our flan, sir.”
“Then make him flan,” I growl. “Include nuts, por favor. I’ll wire payment.”
“Okay, no payment necessario. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for my family.”
I hang up, mumbling, “I’ll never forget what you’re about to do to mine, either.”
Papi is allergic to nuts. He had an adverse reaction years ago. Had I any respect for the pendejo, it would have been scarring to watch.
It’s past midnight when I situate myself in my wheelchair, waiting for Dominic to return home. He usually monopolizes all of her time. When Dominic confessed how he had to leave during the ride from his producer friend’s home, I knew he had something weighing on his shoulders.
Funny, I do too.
A master plan is formulating in my mind as I glare down at him from the top of the staircase. It’s the only time in the wheelchair where I don’t feel so useless.
“You’re still awake, bueno.” Dominic sets his keys in a clay figurine at the accent table. “We need to talk.”
“Then talk.”
“What the fuck did you say to my woman, Dario?” He starts up the steps, a menacing look on his face. My little hermano was never a threat to me. When we were younger, he defended me on a few occasions when Papi inferred how I was effeminate due to my dislike of sports. But I still had respect for Dominic.
“I don’t remember.” I shrug.
“This isn’t working out. Your pension is enough for you to find a place in a nice area. If you need, I’ll help you move.”
“Help?” The devil almost jumps out of my bones. Dr. Anderson once said, “With determination and help you may begin to—”
“Fuck you and your help!”
“Screw you too, Dario.” He makes it up the last step. “Lemme tell you something. I have deep feelings for Aria. But I’m not picking her over you, hermano. She makes me different—I like it. When you’re ready to be different, see a doctor, a fucking therapist, anything, I’ll be there. We’re familia. We help each other. Get that through your head. But until you do, you have to go!”
“Go,” I murmur. “Okay, Dom, I’ll hire movers, have my shit out first thing in the morning.”
“You’re just like Papi.” Dominic continues toward his room. Before closing the double doors, he says, “Don’t be estúpido. Make arrangements.”
Hands resting on my eerily still legs, I watch him slam the doors behind him. The few laughs I can recall having with my hermano have faded, leaving mayhem in its wake.
One would call me Cain and him Able. But opposed to their story, Dominic deserves his downfall.
Angelica’s suggestion has motivated me to remove my hermano from the equation. First, I’ll manipulate him toward Cuba. Next, comes permanency, death.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Aria
A soft glow emits from the setting sun as Roslyn places a satchel and Tupperware onto the kitchen counter. Curious, I open the container, inhaling fresh-baked chocolate cookies. “Yum, I’m perfectly fine with skipping dinner and going in on your mom’s cookies.”
“Excuse me. I made them,” she retorts, digging into her bag for her journal.
“Wow. What’s with the domesticity?” I ask, covering my hand with oven mittens.
“Made some for Antonio. Thought I’d bring the rest for our long evening of investigation. Hey, don’t give me that look, Aria. You can’t hate him. I’ll give you ten reasons why.”
“I hate no one. My gram taught me that.” I slip a premade Stouffer’s Lasagna from the oven. The once frozen cheese is now a gooey delight. “But proceed.”
“First, you and I are ride or die. So, had you been the cop and Dominic the creepy stalker—”
“Oh, c’mon. I wasn’t a creepy stalker. Though Yasiel is a kid, he was a stranger at the time, a stranger snapping pics of my license plate.” I point a spatula at her. “That’s a dick move; you know it.”
“But Dom bought you breakfast.”
“Girl, I can afford my own meals. My motives were good. To help save lives.” I counter as we make our plates. “Now, I’ll segue back to Antonio, as he was the catalyst for this debate. Are you helping me play detective because of Antonio or—”
“Don’t!” Roslyn points her fork at me.
Sighing, I mutter, “Sorry, these are hard times for the female race in Miami.”
For the next hour, we eat at the table and watch a popular YouTuber discuss El Santo’s strategy.
“You had more notes on girls who rubbed you the wrong way in high school,” I sigh. “We haven’t learned anything new.”
“Yup. I should ask mi prima who the crime scene cleaner is. She loves to drop fragments of information. If she’d asked about the mariposas in the first place, like what exactly the worker saw, we’d have more to go on.”
“Girl, you should’ve been a cop. You ask a million and one questions,” I reply, collecting our dishes.
“I do.”
Yawning, I rinse the plates off and put them into the dishwasher. Roslyn places foil over the remaining lasagna. Just as she starts to loop her arm into her purse, I run a hand through my hair.
“What’s the look, Aria?”
“Getting sleepy. Anyway, Dominic mentioned, an um, old acquaintance. She was in college completing some sort of research on butterflies.”
“Old acquaintance or . . .”
“Now you’re being nosey.” A flicker of jealousy, for a dead woman no less, spills across my face.
“Okay, so?” Roslyn arches a brow, reclaiming her seat. Wiping off the counters, I give her the cut and dry story. I exclude my disconcerting interaction with Dario, though.
“Oye,” Roslyn mutters. “I thought my familia was a mess. At a funeral for my great uncle, his grown-ass kids appeared like cucarachas at a twenty-year reunion. So, this puta had two men fighting over her dead body?”
“Yup,” I reply, dryly, grabbing a cookie.
“Fuck her, Aria. Sounds like a hard story to share. Dom loves you.”
Cold vulnerability wraps around me, and I shrug it off. “Back to the butterflies. Perhaps there is no symbolic connection. Could it be more personal?”
“Plausible, but we’ll have our work cut out for us to find a connection.”
“What if we search some of the Cubanas’ social media pages? Lots of their family members left the pages up, so people can still share their condolences.”
“Wouldn’t hurt to try. Let’s load up on cookies. The chocolate will renew our energy.”
Two hours later, Roslyn and I have found an actual butterfly in the background image of one of the victim’s profile pictures. Another had visited the butterfly sanctuary, and three more had tattoos. We’re winding down again when Dominic’s face pops up on my phone.
Since it’s past eleven at night, my eyebrows furrow. “Hey, baby. What’s going on?”
“Dario and I are headed to Havana.”
“You sound . . . Is everything okay?”
“No. Papi was unconscious for who knows how long. He had an allergic reaction. We’re leaving for the airport now.”
“Jesus,” I mutter. “Call me if there’s anything I can do for you while you’re away.”
“No, mami. I’ll be back in a couple of days, hopefully with my stubborn Papi. Okay?”
“Alright, I’ll pray for him. Call me when you arrive.”
Once we hang up, Roslyn asks, “What was that about?”
“Dom’s father is in the hospital. He and his brother are going to visit. Must be bad. I haven’t told you, but his older brother is more of a homebody than me. The car accident that killed the girl left him paralyzed. Now, he’s depressed and—hostile.”
A little after three in the morning, I’m awoken by my cellphone. Usually, I turn it off, but I’d fallen asleep waiting for Dominic to update me on his dad’s status.
I hear a faint ping of the elevator when I reach over to grab it. Damn, Miranda usually doesn’t return before first light. It must have been a slow night.
“Dom?” I yawn. “Did you make it to Havana?”
He seems dejected, saying, “Papi didn’t want us to waste money on a flight.”
I strain to keep my eyes open. “Oh, no. But he’s your dad. If mine were . . .” I trail off, catching myself before old feelings tumble out. “I know he sounds stubborn, but I’m sure once you arrived—”
“No, chula. I’m here.”
“Here?” I mumble, sitting up against the headboard to clear the fog from my brain. Right outside the door to my room is a dark silhouette.
Trepidation stirs in the pit of my stomach until Dominic reassures me that it is him. His attractive accent soothes the anxiety in my soul. He hangs up. His handsome features come to fruition as he climbs into the bed and on top of me. I stroke his jaw. The bristles prickle at my palm. Perplexed, I wonder why would I ever fear the man I love?
Chapter Sixty-Five
El Santo
The strings binding LeAnna and Dominic are coming undone at the seams. The ones fastening her to me are lacing tighter together. She and her friend had discussed mariposas. Her musings made me smile for the first time since I held her in my arms.
“No, chula. I’m here.” I mouth into the phone, sauntering down the hall. My other hand feels for the knife in the back of my belt. Curling my fist around the handle, I curse myself for not leaving the knife in the car.
“Here?” is Aria’s groggy reply.
She settles back against the headboard. Removing my hand from my knife, I reach into my pocket and press the button of a small cell phone blocker—no more Dominic.
I climb into the bed and on top of her. “It’s been a busy night. Arguing with Dario to go. Then to have Papi complaining. So, I’m gonna fuck you now.”
“Hmmm,” she whispers, a smile blooming across her face. “Sounds like you plan to screw me hard.”
“By all means, scream at the top of your lungs—break your fucking tonsils if you like.”
In the darkness, LeAnna’s eyes spark in delight. She grips my ass. “While shouting your name?”
“No.” I press a vicious kiss against her mouth and grind my cock against her lace panties. “Scream how much you love me, Aria.”
She hitches a breath. “Dom—”
I clasp her throat with one hand. “And I will let you know how much I love this wet pussy. How much I. Love. You. Mami.”
Her heart pounds against my fingertips and palm. “It’d be foolish of me not to love you. You make me a better man, LeAnna.”
Chapter Sixty-Six
Aria
Dominic’s lips touch down on my tingled, oxygen-deprived mouth. He climbed down, still holding my voice hostage to kiss the apex of my sex through my lace underwear. I clamor for air.
He called me LeAnna again. I can’t fault him. I can’t be mad when fireworks are launching in my brain, and my heart swells. Dominic tears my panties from my body with his teeth then settles between my thighs. As if this were some ritual, his fingers cease their hold on my throat.
I suck in air.
His cock funnels into me, my sex stretching and drenching around him on key. Ecstasy sends all thought straight from my mind, replacing it with a million fiery stars.
“I love you. I love you,” I rasp out.
Shivers fly down my spine as Dominic laces my fingers above my head, pinning me beneath him.
He drives deep. With each force, my ocean sinks his dick like a submarine.
“Oh, my . . . oh, shit.” My fingers curl under, nails chewing into my soft flesh as Dominic pistons in and out of me. Struggling to regulate my breathing, I succumb to a torpedo of consistent orgasms.
“I love you, mami. You are mi amor
.” Dominic’s Spanish groanings drive his cock deeper into my ocean. His mouth descends on mine. He unhooks my thighs. He pulls out, climbing down, and slurps up my juices until my pussy convulses on his tongue. I bite mine to stop the dramatic words, ready to exit my mouth.
When it’s too unbearable, I shout, “I wanna have your baby!”
Dominic’s pussy-drenched lips slide across mine. I drink the taste of my sex as he dives in.
I gulp in air as he enters me again. He thrusts harder, and I let out a guttural moan. Sometime later, our heartbeats slam against each other as Dominic falls into me.
He leans up.
“Stay.” My thighs attempt to hold him hostage.
“Can you breathe, chula?”
“You said you love me. No going back to chula, which I must assume is a community name.”
“Can you breathe, mi amor?” He drops a kiss on my nose.
“Is chula a community name? And no, I can’t breathe, nor do I want to.” I stop myself from telling him I can die at this very moment in his arms.
Dominic’s chuckle is a low rumble from his chest to mine.
My smile uncontainable, I reply, “So, chula is a community name for all the women—”
A nibble at my nipple causes me to suck in air. I touch his face. The bristles from his strong jaw tease my fingertips. All of him teases and tingles all of me. My sex glides against Dominic. I groan. “I’m so glad you’re here, Dom.”
Thunder flashes in Dominic’s eyes for the faintest of seconds. Then he’s smiling again. I have to wonder if he thought of the argument he had with Dario and his father. But whatever had him momentarily annoyed passes. A copious amount of banter follows Dominic and me until morning light. Lids heavy, we fall asleep.
Warm sunlight caresses my skin, rousing me awake. Dominic usually favors my favorite pillow, but, today, his arms encircle me instead. Snuggling into him, I almost beg God for us to become one. The feelings I have for him are borderline psychotic. Something is different today. Like we awoke on the opposite side of eternity, and nobody in this world exists but us. Intensity surrounds him, us, and I’m captivated.
