by Amarie Avant
“Sal,” Gina pressed her hand over his, attempting to sooth the hard squeeze. He knew the extent of how hard he could squeeze her throat without constricting her breathing and seeing those beautiful eyes pop with cute little blood vessels. Then at the sound of a gasp at the door, he let her go. From Gina’s position, with her hair draped around her, Avery couldn’t see him choke her anyway. Gina slinked down onto the left side of the bed, covering herself and rubbing at the pain. “Who is this?”
He stopped himself from rolling his eyes. Any other woman would’ve been irate about another woman taking the liberty to walk into his home, and Gina, happy as could be to please him, asked in a curious, kind voice “who’s this?” What was that?
“Oh, I’m-I’m sorry,” Avery stuttered in shock. Their eyes connected for a moment, and Salvador felt rejuvenated. For the last week, he’d been dead inside. But that one look told him hope still lived for him and his Avery.
As he stared at the beautiful Avery, who looked like a princess for the plucking while wearing tight jeans and a tee, she turned on her pointy heels and walked away.
Salvador moved into action. He stumbled out of bed, yanking up his pajama pants.
“Salvador, who is that?” Gina asked more urgently.
“Stay here.”
“But—”
“Or get dressed, and you can fucking go,” he growled over his shoulder while walking through the door.
Down the stairs he went, calling out to Avery. Inside, his heart was elated. It was jealousy he saw in Avery’s eyes, he was certain of it. He put a pensive look on his face as he caught her at the front door. He placed a hand over her shoulder against the door, blocking her from leaving.
Avery huffed and turned around. In embarrassment, she allowed the words to stumble out of her mouth. “Salvador, if there’s something you need to give to me, go ahead and give it to me now. Um, I had no idea you’d have company. I’ll clear the air with her if you’d like.”
“Clear the air? She’s nothing—she means nothing to me, Avery. I met her last night, sweetheart, and damn, I didn’t even think I’d take her home. I shouldn’t have taken her home, mi amor.”
She scoffed. “No worries, Sal. Your relationships have nothing to do with me, now. It’s okay. I’m just trying to apologize for . . . why did you text me to come now?”
“I have something—” He stopped talking abruptly. His anger was beginning to rise. Avery was brushing off the situation. She had to have some type of feeling about him fucking another woman so soon. He searched the living room. Salvador had always prided himself on thinking out of the box regarding his investigations. When the heart was concerned as it was now, he hadn’t thought things through. He started to walk toward the coffee table, shuffling around discarded mail and picked up one of those call to action envelops from charities.
“Sal,” she said, eyes prickling with tears. “I want you to be happy.”
He flicked the envelope and gripped her arms. “Happy? You want me to be happy? Then come back home! This is where you’ve lived many of the nights since returning from New York. Make us both happy, mi amor. That cabron left you before, and he’ll do it again!” He barked like Antonio Banderas, his sexy Latin voice wrapping around her. He needed her to feel the intensity of his words.
She seethed in confusion. “Salvador, baby, I didn’t leave you for anyone else, please you have to understand that. I love you—”
“No, I love you!” His voice began to purr in that Spanish way that only he could as he pressed his mouth against her neck, whispering his love against her skin. He held her back again and said, “We have a good life. It’s perfect, baby, it’s perfecto! Don’t fuck it up, mi amor, don’t fuck it up.”
Avery closed her eyes and shouted the words. “But it isn’t perfect!” She huffed, feeling like she’d blurted out too much. Her eyes warmed with empathy as she tried to explain. “You’ve been perfect. I’ve always been sad.”
He refused to believe the words she said and hugged her close again. He started with tiny kisses on her neck, and Avery placed her hand over his, pushing him away.
“Sal, every single day of my life for the past seven years, I’ve forced myself to smile when necessary. I swear to you that you have pacified me the moment you entered my life, but what does it mean to pacify? It means that I went from dead to alive. You made me content. But when you weren’t holding me, the world crashed down, and everything was as it had been, Sal.”
“So, I make you happy?”
She paused for a moment. He did not understand. Avery’s gaze glued to his. She nodded. “When you’re near, you made me happy. And I honestly wanted to be your version of perfection, as you’ve been for me, but I can’t.” She rubbed a hand over her face.
“Who is this woman?” Gina snapped off each word.
Salvador hadn’t noticed her, dressed and standing across from them at the bottom of the stairs. With Avery crying, all he desired was to comfort her. But Avery opened her eyes and noticed Gina.
“Hi.” Avery lifted a palm in trepidation. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Her cheeks flamed. “Salvador is the greatest man. I hope you treat him well.”
Hair flew in the air as Avery spun on her heels and went out the front door.
Gina sneered, and Salvador stood there with his hands on top of his head as Avery opened and shut the door behind her.
She must have resurrected her backbone because Gina held her chin high and sneered the words. “Is that the reason we broke up?”
“That woman will be my wife one day.” Salvador declared. I just have to make Avery realize what she left is better than what she’s running after.
Gina clapped her hands in a round of applause. “Stunning performance, Sal, looks like you really have a damn heart! As a matter of fact, let me go catch up and warn her of just how nice you were to my face when I begged you not to break up with me two years ago, Salvador Esparza! Oh, and I’ll mention the broken arm that one time and the—”
Salvador stepped before Gina, halting her rant. A smile broke on his beautiful, stoic face. “You speak a single word to my woman, and your kids will end up in foster care without a clue as to exactly how their mother neglected them.”
Her lips trembled in anger. “You can slap me around, Sal, all you want. But don’t you ever threaten my children! You think you’re above the law, I’ll call—”
His fist slammed into her mouth; the skin of his knuckles cracked against her teeth. When he punched her again, a few of them went flying. As Gina began to fall, Salvador gripped her throat with one hand and bashed her face with the other.
“Please—” she screeched, clawing at his forearm.
Salvador bent over her now, taunting her by squeezing off her life source then letting go. With each sputter or cough, he laughed at her vulnerability. “Repeat yourself, Gina? What the fuck did you tell me, puta, because I didn’t hear you.”
Eyes wild with fear, she shook her head. Her face was a slobbering mess of blood, snot, and tears.
“Mi madre, damn, she’s such a good madre. So, I will let you go home and be the best motherfucking mother you can be, understand?”
This time she nodded vigorously.
“Just keep that mouth of yours shut.” He grinned, tapping his index finger on her swelling, bloody lips.
The house fell silent as Gina grunted, reaching to pick up her fallen purse. She moved with determination and care as she headed to the door. He stared after her, imagining the second that Avery walked out. He gave his forehead a few slaps. “Not for good,” he growled, “Avery’s is not gone for good. Think, Sal, think!”
His internal clock reminded him that it was time that he left for work. Salvador was never late. He glanced over at his white linen shirt and grumbled. Tiny flecks of blood were on his cufflinks and the sleeves. Hastily, pulling the shirt from its hanger, he headed upstairs.
At the stop of the stairs, he stopped dead in his tracks. Work. The one thought popped i
nto his head. His job would assist him in getting rid of Hardy. What made for a good motivation for murder? A previous trail of assault was a sure ringer. Either Eddie Garret or Timothy Brown had to go—or both.
CHAPTER 28
Donavan
So far, today had gone well. Mrs. Johnson had agreed that while he and Avery Castle didn’t have nearly enough money to finish the project, Mr. Johnson would start the task. Just having the name of Quentin’s construction company’s name linked to the Baudelaire renovations would assist him with future work. They’d talked about a payment plan for the future and shook hands on it.
But now, Donavan was ready to ready to talk money. He and Avery needed to secure a lot more of it to ease the start of their business. Donavan had just sat down in a chair across from Palmer in his office at the farmhouse.
“Look at that ugly ass mug of yours,” Elroy chuckled, leaning so far back in his leather chair, it creaked under his girth. “Is that little AC calling and checking up on you?”
Donavan slid his cell phone back into his pocket after responding that he had a surprise for her later. “The one and only.”
“When you were a youngster, she threatened my entire family to my face.” He tossed back his whiskey, then chewed on the ice in amusement. “So, this is the end of the line then? You two settling down?”
“Yup, I’m out.”
Palmer sucked his teeth for a moment. “Welp, before you go, I’d like to interest you in a proposal. That lovely girl is worth a lot of money. That being said, you’ve only made chump change these past few years under my wings. I’d like to send the two of you off with a wedding present of sorts. Hell, I know I won’t get an invite to the special day, but,” he shrugged, “a gift from me to you . . . for her. Set yourself up a little nest egg is my motto.”
Donavan nodded. “Give me the details.”
They both knew that a big score was exactly why he’d come by. When he’d pushed pot around for Palmer back in the day—before kids were selling molly and coke at school—Palmer had always been good to him. His father, Greg, had said there was only one end for men like Palmer when Greg had found a freezer bag jam-packed with kush when Donavan was fifteen years old. Greg’s words of advice had gone through one ear and out the other, although Donavan did respect him. But it was Avery who had brought her stubborn ass to Palmer’s compound and threatened every goon she had laid eyes on until Palmer came out, so she could insult him too. But money was necessary for the completion of the estate.
Palmer explained that in a month’s time Moses would provide him with the final details. But Palmer expected Donavan to murder a high-ranking official who came to Charlotte, North Carolina once every six weeks to check in on the little piece of ass he had holed up in a mansion in an exclusive neighborhood. Moses would gather more intel on the guarded-gates that surrounded the home and pinpoint the perfect time for Donavan to take out the target. Palmer was overly excited as he chatted him up about it.
Donavan’s hands sweated in anticipation. He had only murdered one person since returning home from the army. It was in the parking lot of a bar in Lucknow the night of his mom’s funeral. The guy he murdered had been a real prick. He’d been a lousy, loud-ass drunk, while Donavan tossed back shot after shot. Then when the man’s old lady came into the bar with a toddler in footed pajamas on her hip, begging him to leave the bar, he shoved her to the ground and got himself another beer.
For another few hours, Donavan had sat with his hands in tight fists, waiting for the man to leave. At a quarter to midnight, Donavan followed the man out, and true to form, the angry drunk was staggering toward a truck, but noticed Donavan and wanted to argue with him.
It had just taken one quick hit to the drunk’s nose to permanently shut the man up. Donavan still wasn’t sure if he felt bad about claiming the asshole’s life. Now, the thought of murdering again only made him think of one thing.
Make Avery happy.
Donavan nodded in agreement as Palmer hyped him up for the impending assassination. And he shook Palmer’s hand, agreeing that in a month’s time, Moses would provide him with more details regarding the political figure he was to kill. The money he’d make was more than what he and Avery had already pooled together to get things started. Donavan concluded that he’d just have to sneak the rest of the money into the metaphoric pot.
~~~
Later in the evening, Donavan texted Avery that he’d cook dinner at his place. She was set to arrive after her last one-on-one piano lessons course at LaChelle’s company. He leaned his elbows against the kitchen counter, reading from his mom’s beloved recipe book. The little black-leather spiral-bound book had pages falling out of it. He’d bought his mom a new book to write recipes in from a vendor at a music festival on St. John’s Island when he was sixteen, but she’d never gotten around to transferring all the good recipes into it. She’d said the damn thing was too pretty to write in.
He took special care with each page as his index finger scrolled over the cursive until he found the recipe for her famous spaghetti.
“Bingo,” he murmured, glad he’d remembered everything on the list. He moved around the tiny kitchen at ease with Avery’s CD on rotation. The pot of tomato sauce was simmering with herbs, and Avery knocked at the door.
When he opened it, he was met with the DVD Serendipity smack dab in front of Avery’s face. She wore a spring dress that brought out the gold in her skin tone. It set her tits up nice and perky and clung to her tiny waist, then the damn dress flared out, hiding all that shape and all that ass.
“I brought movies,” she shook the DVD in excitement, “and this is just the start.”
Donavan chuckled, plucking the movie from her hands. “I don’t want to watch you fall in love with any other man but me.”
Her bottom lip dropped, as she pretended to be appalled by his audacity to make such a claim. “That’s impossible.”
“Alright, no How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, that ain’t funny. And hell nah, to The Notebook.”
She countered. “Yes, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, and I agree, no Notebook.”
“Why?” His muscular shoulder leaned against the doorframe, and he crossed his leg at the ankle, waiting for her to enlighten him as she still stood on the porch.
She cocked an eyebrow. “Because it’s too angsty, and I’ll just start to think about the years we were apart. Donavan, I’m not a crier; I’m a fighter.”
“Ha, you can’t fight if memory serves me correctly. You just make those frowny faces.” He grinned. “Okay, so that means no, Cadillac Records—”
“How dare you! And I’m not speaking of the insult to how I look with my fighter face on. I’m referring to your confusion about one of my favorite movies. It’s in my bag.” She tapped her duffle. Before he could say that she had too many favorite movies, Avery added, “Cadillac Records isn’t a romance, and therefore, it doesn’t meet the qualifications for being cut, Donnie—”
“But you cry when the producer leaves Beyoncé as she sings that damn song.” He snapped his fingers. They’d watched it so many times. He was always happy when the credits ran. Unable to figure out the title, Donavan shrugged. “Let’s take that one off the list.”
She pursed her lips. “This is not a democracy. Keep defying me, and we’ll speed through the entire movie for just that one scene, watching it over and over.”
“Despite you being contradictory about not wanting to watch a romance that makes you sad; however, being adamant about watching a non-romance that makes you sad, I reckon I can agree to you fast forwarding the entire movie.”
With a laugh, she pushed at his chest, but Donavan didn’t budge. “I just love that movie. Besides the moment Beyoncé sang, “I’d Rather Go Blind” by Etta James, I knew for a fact how beautiful the song sounded. Moreover, I knew how much I was in love with you.”
He stared at her lips in much the way she always stared at his. His cock crushing against his jeans in a desire would only be quenche
d once he tasted her.
The attraction intensified, Avery chewed on her bottom lip, and then she murmured, “Are you going to let me in?”
Donavan placed a hand on her cheek, caressing it softly as his lips descended on hers. His kiss was enough to send her moaning into his mouth. He scooped her up into his arms and carried her into the house, kicking the door closed with the side of his foot. Inside of the bedroom, Donavan pulled his shirt over his head and unbuttoned his pants in record time. In a frenzy to undress, Avery tried with all her might to grab hold of the zipper on her dress. She’d done this time and time before, but with her gaze drinking in his rippled abs that descended all the way down to a perfectly shaped v, that descended even further to a super fat cock, she just couldn’t reach the damn zipper to get the thing down. She growled in anger.
Donavan’s cocky grin made her lips purse. He pulled her body to his. He was undressed, all hot, taut skin. And she was in this stupid dress that fell all the way to her calves. As they kissed, Donavan laughed at her whimper and whine.
“Help me, asshole,” she begged as his thick biceps hugged her tightly.
Donavan reached behind her. His fingertips brushed the nape of her neck before he undid her zipper. He was so suave with the movement that Avery’s frenzy slowed. Inside she felt like screaming, but Donavan had all the control as he took a seat at the edge of the bed. She stared at his lips, the edges of his beautiful mouth creased just so. He had this cocky aura about him that reached all the way from his eyes and wrapped around her.
“Undress slowly, Avery.” The intensity in his command was almost a whisper to her ears. “I have you for the rest of your life, sweetheart.”
He sat in a wide-legged stance, his big hunks of muscles and tattoos; he was strength personified. Avery stood in the same spot, feeling as shy as she was the moment she told him that he had to be her first, then and there, or she’d simply die.
Every single move she made, she contemplated on hard. Was she sexy? The richness of his hazel eyes and how the image of her drowned in them told her that her beauty blew away the seventh wonders of the world. When her hand grazed over her shoulder to take off the strap of her dress, Avery closed her eyes and imagined Donavan doing it for her instead. The material slid over one voluptuous hip and then another. A white bra and panty shorts that stopped just at the curve of her thick ass was all she had left on when she stood before him. Their eyes connected as she waited for him to give another order.
