“Dom, I said that I didn’t want to see you for a while.”
“We need to talk. You’re blocking my—”
I slam the knife down onto an accent table as Roslyn flies into the room.
“Oye, what are you doing to my friend!”
She rushes over to the table, wields the knife, pointing it at him. The all-too-familiar sound of Oldies music, laughter, and an ice cream truck’s call reach out to me.
An impossibly vivid memory catches me by surprise. Generally, I have a moment to touch something and cling to reality. But this time, I never get the chance to attempt an anchor. Sarah keeps waving at my parents over my shoulder. I condemn myself for being so innocent, for not speaking.
Words well in my throat. Swallowing hard, I try to muster the courage to speak of my worry.
I come to when Roslyn swipes the knife at Dominic as his fingertips glide through mine.
“Roslyn, stop. Fucking stop it. I’m trying to help her. Come back to me, Mami.” He pulls me into his arms, running a hand along my back. “I don’t understand why you’re angry. But come back to me, por favor.”
My lips begin to tremble as his start to crash down on mine. “No.”
“No? Chula. Why?” He’s crushed. My ovaries volunteer as tribute to offer him a baby, but my brain clashes. Am I crazy? Is he a jealous, pathological . . .
He’s a cheater. At the very least, I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
“Please leave.”
“Leave!” Roslyn’s blade sails between us. I jump back. Dominic stands his ground, eyes on me only.
“My crazy woman.” In Spanish, he strums together words that melt my insides. Yet when I blink, an image of his fingers thrusting into Miranda hardens my heart.
“I’m not your crazy woman anymore, Dom. I already said we were over a few days ago. Then you . . . My first instinct is my best one. Please go.”
Fire burns in his eyes.
“Go, cabrón!” Roslyn growls.
“Okay, I’ll give you time. But we aren’t done, Aria.” He saunters back onto the elevator.
“The fuck we aren’t!”
“You will talk to me. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but you will.” The elevator doors close behind him.
“Aria, how do you stop this stupid elevator? Dominic shouldn’t be able to get inside so easily! He thinks he can make you talk to him, ha! We’ll see about that.” Roslyn reaches inside her tee and snatches her cellphone from her padded bra.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m calling Antonio.”
“Why?”
“Because.” She starts then steps away from me. “Hey, baby. Aria needs your help.”
I call after her, but she’s strutting down the hall to my bedroom. Heading into the kitchen, I toss the knife, and it clatters into the sink. I heave a breath and stride to my room.
Roslyn is seated on the couch at the foot of my bed.
“You look like a woman scorned. You put the knife on him, Ros. Damn.”
“You had it.”
“I-I put it down. You saw me.”
“First, the pendejo gave you a reason to brandish it. Sí? I’m right.”
“What was I thinking?” I run a hand over my face.
“You were shaking. I have never seen you so angry in my life. What did he do?”
My hands shake in fists at my sides. “I hate this feeling, Ros. Why did you tell Antonio I need help? Just a silly broken heart.”
“Ehhhh.” She lowers her eyes.
I sling the accusation back at her. “What did you do?”
“Well, lemme say first, I might be pregnant, so consider that while reacting.”
“Pregnant?” I screech, falling back onto the other couch.
“Sí.” She nods. “I’m hormonal as fuck. I craved blood when I saw you holding that knife. I wanted to kill him. Speaking of killing, ahem.”
“What?”
“I kind of mentioned our journal to Antonio and how Dominic’s Cuban girlfriend died. He was particularly interested in her research on butterflies. Then I made a small inference, one which included Dominic as El Santo.”
Chapter Seventy-One
El Santo
Curling my fingers under, I toss a fist at my chest. Then another and another. I pound as fire funnels through my lungs in a hard growl.
“Roarrrr!”
Though the police released Perez late last night, LeAnna consumes my mind.
The old, dank building I own has a small haze of light coming into the restroom. In front of a cracked mirror, my chest expands and retracts, with each hard breath. I stalk past a pee-stained commode and out of the room. To the left is where I complete my ritual. I head down the corridor to the right. At the stainless-steel doors, I yank hard.
It’s déjà vu. Rats scurry. Soft, hopeless sobs come from the pitch darkness of the room. I stalk inside, flashlight in hand. A soft ray of light lands on Angelica.
“You’re not a gordita anymore.” I smile, crouching down to her. I pull the duct tape from her lips.
“Why did you bring me back here, El Santo?” she inquires between sniffles. “We’re friends.”
“Sí, dos amigos.” My fingertips glide across the puddle of tears on her cheek. Suddenly, my vision shatters into a thousand facets of Angelica. What I was looking for in LeAnna, I found in her.
“You are loyal, Angelica.”
“I’ll always be loyal to you.” Her bottom lip trembles.
“The others were loyal too.” I settle down next to her, leaning back against the cement wall. “Yet, I have the faint feeling their allegiance wasn’t pure, Angelica. Just a bid to stay anchored to this bad world for a while longer.”
“They weren’t true to you, not like me.” With her hands bound behind her back, she tilts, placing all her weight onto her shoulder, causing her upper body to slide over. Angelica lands against me. Her head rests on my shoulder.
My fingers run through her hair only to be halted by matted bits. Growling, I yank my fingers through and climb until I’m straddling her waist.
“El—”
“Someone stole my fucking name, Angelica.” She writhes as my fingers lace across her throat. I slam the back of her head into the wall. “I have to get my name back. I have to get my woman! My woman because you aren’t enough. You aren’t pretty. I can’t love an ugly puta like you.”
Gurgling and tiny smacking sounds resurrect the vigor in my bones. My arms move rapidly, slamming her back. The blubbering fades into oblivion. The smacking hollows. Warm, stickiness sprinkles across my face. A fragment of skull nicks at my brow.
Mush. Mush. Mush. Squish.
I remove my hands from her neck. Angelica’s corpse slumps to the side. A line of blood arches in its wake. The blunt force in the center is muddled by brain matter and strands of her hair.
“You could never satisfy me!” I point an accusatory finger at Angelica. “Fuck, this did nothing for me.”
Deprived of gratification, I clamor to my feet, toss a foot into her gut, and exit the room.
In the main room, I pick through a duffle bag I’d packed when leaving Dominic’s home for the last time. After using a few baby wipes to clean up and changing into a thermal and jeans, I remove my laptop to check in on LeAnna.