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.”