I turned my head back to my window just in time to see a white jumpsuit sit down before me. Finally, Alonzo Martinez and I were meeting. He’s a lot more handsome than I thought with tan skin, beautiful hazel eyes with splotches of gold. Curly brown hair that sat on his shoulders. A nice build that I knew came from lifting weights out in the prison yard.
Picking up the phone, he greeted me. “Wow.” His hefty chuckle made my stomach turn. “When the guards mentioned that I had a visitor I surely wasn’t thinking I’d be meeting an ebony beauty.” Ebony beauty? Was he serious?
Tickled by his way of flattery, I laughed a little. “Hello, Alonzo. I can’t quite say that it’s an honor to meet you.”
His thick bushy brows bushed together. Under different circumstances he’d be such a handsome man. “Have we met before? Are you a reporter trying to get a story on my family?”
“No. I’m very familiar with your family but I’m not here for a story that I already know, but I’d like to tell you one. Would you like to hear it?” Regardless of his answer he was going to hear it one way or another.
His eyes pinched into slits before a nice warm smile crossed his face. Interesting that a lot of men like him, vicious killers, they always gave me warm charming smiles.
“I love the sound of your voice so please continue.” He had the nerve to wink.
Giggling and batting my lashes, I leaned in closer to the window and began. “About thirty odd years ago a lovely couple were told that they were about to be parents to a little girl. They were happy. Ecstatic to become parents. God had given them a blessing despite the dangerous lifestyle they lived. But there is always someone or something lurking around ready to take away someone else’s happiness because they aren’t happy with their own.”
Alonzo’s face remained stone, but I knew behind those gorgeous hazel eyes like his brother Miguel, he was thinking.
“A man with much history with the couple wanted to merge his business with theirs. At first it seemed like the right thing to do. It provided much provision on both parts. But then the man got greedy and wanted the deal to be set in stone by legal ties. The man wanted to merge the families by marrying off his firstborn to their firstborn. This is where the couple really thought things through. Really thought about the safety of their child and the life they wanted her to have.”
“Who are you? Who sent you here?” He hissed looking around with a recognizable menacing glare that I’ve seen a time or two.
“Now, Now. Please have manners and don’t interrupt. Like I was saying.” My nerves had settled down to iron confidence. Knowing that he couldn’t touch me, hurt me, I relaxed more.
“Like I was saying before you rudely interrupted me. The couple made a decision that would forever change the trajectory of everyone’s life. Their life and the greedy man’s life. During the time the woman gave birth, a plan had been formed. While the man was told that the child died in the womb, the mother and her newborn daughter got on a private jet headed out of state. The daughter lived with close relatives while her parents went on about their lives like nothing ever happened.
“The greedy man laid dormant for years. All was well. Folks went on living their lives until the son of the greedy man became of age and felt like digging up his old man’s failed business adventures starting with the lovely couple. In the midst of the son’s digging he found out about three boys that have been living with the couple since the youngest was six years old. The son, with no proof, no proof at all, felt like the couple had lied and made his father out to be a fool.
“So, he retaliated in the worst, and I mean the worst way possible. He killed the couple starting with the husband first. Those boys that were raised by the couple, the oldest one, he avenged the murder by slaughtering every generation of the greedy man, leaving only him and his mysterious brother alive.” Touching the glass with my hand, I smiled behind eyes clouded with tears.
“What do you think of my story, Alonzo? Isn’t it sad that their daughter grew up without her parents because they were so afraid and so focused on saving her from their enemies grasp that they forgot to protect themselves?”
He and I sat there in a stare off. I refused to cry in front of this man. I refused for him to be a witness of my mourning. Pacino’s asshole way of breaking the news happened days ago and I haven’t given myself the permission to feel, to grieve. Too much had been started that I had to see through. For now, my emotions had to be tabled.
“I told my son to leave it alone. There’s only so much I can control by being in here.” He rubbed his red teary eyes. “I-I…Wow, you look just like your mother. You have her beauty and fierce spirit.”
I had to take several deep breaths to calm myself down. The heaviness was getting the best of me and the last thing I needed was for him and me to have this compassionate moment.
“My name is Krishna Gazelle Kalmin, the daughter of Clover and Mitchell Kalmin. I came here today because I wanted you to see me. See the child that you started a war for. Your brother Miguel, he killed my mother. I’m not sure when or how, but I’m sure if it’s anything like the gruesome torture yours received…Miguel will be dead before the month is over. As for you, a man I once loved told me that any man or woman that wronged me, wronged his own soul. Those that hated me were the same. They loved death so I brought it to them. Have fun in hell.”
I walked out of that prison with my head held high. Sitting in my rental outside of the prison gates I sat there twiddling my thumbs waiting for the signal. Ten minutes later sirens went off all around the prison. If I knew like I arranged, Alonzo Martinez was dead.
“Honey, I’m home.” I announced tossing my layers of clothing with each step I took into the grand Old Town Park loft overlooking downtown Chicago. My turn-around flight from California left me tired and jet lagged. All I wanted to do was take a nice hot bath and relax with a glass of wine.
Leaning against the ash grey painted wall, I stood there waiting for his arrival. I missed him a lot. My heart started to race hearing his Bolvaint shoes walk across the bamboo wood floors. The closer his steps became, the more his Versace Eros cologne danced around me, I became giddier.
I had a full-blown ear to ear smile and all I saw were the tips of his expensive shoes. Amell made me speechless, but him, he made me feel all heavenly and giggly. Everyday felt like we were in high school crushing on each other.
“Dinner is almost cold.” His soothing baritone, rich and husky, always caused my eyes to flutter.
He and I were one in the same. We met at a time when life had been cruel and needed the warmth and comfort of another. My heart had just been given an eviction notice that I needed to leave love and its counterpart alone, and he was a widow grieving over his late wife’s battle with cancer. I was childless and he had two, a boy and a girl. A proud Marine and a daughter making a name for herself down in Miami at Jackson Memorial.
A bowlegged man, he made such an erotic thing to ogle over. Nothing about him was small…nothing. His entire frame read loud and clear that he was all man. A nice thick southern man who used weights to turn his body into every woman’s dream. And then the eyes. I loved his deep, slanted brown clay eyes.
In business he wore a look of confidence, but with me, those eyes told all his hidden desires.