by Amarie Avant
“Actually, I think we must resurrect the ‘you cannot call me by my nickname’ clause.”
I rub the back of my neck. “Okay, uthando lwami—”
Without watching, she shoves a spoon into the breadfruit porridge–most possibly the only thing she did not like on the entire table–and shoves it into her mouth, then almost gags before swallowing it all down.
“You’re wearing me down,” I warn. “You want to bring up old clauses? Go ahead, and I’ll just take you over my fucking knee, pull off my belt, and beat some sense into you. That was another rule of ours, too. Should we abide by it, as well?”
She chortles. “I wish you would.”
I glance around. If we weren’t in a room full of people she didn’t know, Mikayla would be eating those words as I spank her ass. I slam a hand down onto the table. The side conversations and laughter stop. In a discreet but harsh tone, I tell her, “Mikayla, after your parents death, your uncle sold off much of your family’s land, the south eastern portion for tourism. What the fuck does that tell you?”
“I’m ready to leave, Jagger. Get the check.” Mikayla stands up and starts toward the door.
I pull out my wallet as Ghanda returns to the table. She asks, “The princess is a little different, isn’t she?”
I nod.
“MamLalumi is very interested in Mikayla coming to visit with her. I have heard about Abayomi, and I know you are a good man,” she clasps her hand over her cross pendant. Yeah, Ghanda is one of the Navieans who was persuaded to convert, but even when my mother stopped talking to me, Ghanda would harp about Jesus being the only one who could judge and that my mother ‘needed time.’ “Jagger, Mikayla doesn’t have much time to seek out MamLalumi.”
“Why?”
“The spirits,” she huffs. “I believe in God, first and foremost, but the spirits have asked much of Mikayla when she was a child. I don’t know what Mikayla did to close herself from the spirits, but there is only so much praying and interception that MamLalumi can do for Mikayla. Trust me, the princess is not weak at all. This desire to keep the spirits away from her is no weakness.” She offers a shocked laugh. “One must be very strong… to deny our ancestors.”
I rub the back of my neck, unsure what Ghanda means. I notice my wallet is still in my hand and open it.
She places her hand over mine. “No, please.”
“But you fed us so much.”
“For my future queen? It was an honor. I am still from Nivean, Jagger. Get Mikayla to MamLalumi as soon as possible.”
***
Outside, Mikayla is seated inside the vehicle with the belt across her chest. We’re supposed to get groceries and clothing, yet I want to slap some sense into this woman.
Not sure how to proceed, I decide that we should go sightseeing now. A crazy drive will help me think of how to get through to Mikayla. Her feelings were hurt last night, but this is bigger than her. This is about revenge against Qaaim Mthembu.
Almost thirty minutes later, I’ve traded in the beach city for the wildlife reserve.
Mikayla watched in awe while we pass a group of warthogs in a fight. It doesn’t take long for her shoulders to ease from their tension, and she points. “What is that!”
I glance through the thicket to see wiry horns. “A kudu, species of antelope. He’s hiding from the hogs.”
Though Mikayla shows interest, I continue to navigate silently in search of what I really want her to see.
Out in the savanna, we see most of the big five game animals, elephant, rhinoceros, and cape buffalo. It takes a while to spot a pride of African lions.
“What are you doing?” Mikayla’s voice becomes high pitched.
Continuing to move closer, I tell her, “Just relax, that’s what I built this damn thing for. Close encounters.”
She reaches a hand out, and places it over mine. “N-no…They will kill us!”
As she yanks at my bicep I continue toward the animals. There are nine of them lounging around together. I head toward the king. A lioness is prancing around him, begging for attention, just as Mikayla is begging me to turn around.
“There’s no windows on this thing, Jag. They can get us.”
“Yeah, they could probably leap between the bars of this...go cart is what you called it…and have a good meal of us,” I smile, while cruising closer to the leader of the pack.
Close enough to see that the king of the jungle is tracking us with his eyes.
I can see his muscles begin to shift, and switch in reverse just as he lunges.
Mikayla screams at the top of her lungs, while I gun the Ferrari engine. Her thick curly hair whips into her face as we jet backward.
Mikayla
We’re at the top of the bluff, but on a protruded plane. Above is his house, below is what I can only assume is a hotel. I get out of the killer contraption that Jagger drove us in. The lions eyes were a beautiful amber, before he bared teeth longer than butcher knives. Jagger whipped the heap of junk around fast and speed off.
My shoulders tremor as I giggle. The laughter bubbles out of me until it grows and grows and tears are running down my cheeks.
“I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you, Kayla,” Jagger is at my side, petting my cheek. He was amused at first, now he’s worried.
I wipe the happy tears away. “That was about the scariest thing I’ve ever done. You actually take the cake for all the scariest moments in my life, but…. I-can only assume that the only other people who’ve come so close to a lion have either died or are missing limbs if they’ve lived to tell about it.”
I reach up and hug him tightly. You are more than my scariest moments. My best moments in life all come from you…
As he lets me go, I sigh heavily at the sight of the ocean below us.
“A girl could get use to this,” I murmur the cliché line, with a dreamy look in my eyes. With Jagger at my side, I probably could grow accustomed to any environment, good or bad. “How do we get down there without doing some sort of daredevil act, and without the use of one of your modified vehicles?”
The grin on my face wavers as I glance up at Jagger. So far, today has been one for the books. You could’ve asked me while growing up ‘what was the perfect date?’ And this by far exceeds my imagination–lion included. But what’s with him, we’ve been having the greatest time, and now he shoves his hands in his pockets, hardly glancing at the vast sea.
“My grandfather owned about thirty miles, up and down the coast,” he nudges his head. His beautiful blue eyes mirror the ocean, yet he seems to be looking through it. “Before he died, he sold off much of the land.”
I consider Ghanda’s words, and then ask, “He owned The Blue Cove, that resort south of us, didn’t he?”
“Yup, gave it all away and then offed himself.”
The air is knocked out of me in a harsh gasp.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I reach up to stroke his chiseled jaw. My other hand touches his chest. Though his heartbeat is strong, everything else about him is on guard.
Jagger chuckles sardonically. “Kayla, no reason to be sorry. My grandfather was a sorry motherfucker. My grandmother died of cancer. He unhooked his rowboat from the side of his yacht, a few miles down the way,” he points, “filled up the boat with rocks, and rowed his sorry as out into the sea.”
My mouth opens as Jagger tells me about how his grandfather placed the rocks into his pockets and sunk himself.
“That fucker murdered himself.”
I take Jagger’s hands into mine and search his face until I can feel that he’s nowhere else but here, in this present moment, looking at me, too. “Your grandfather,” I begin, words slow and measured for his full understanding, “died of a broken heart.”
Our eyes stay connected for a moment, and then Jagger hugs me closely.
***
The next couple of days are just Jagger and I, unless you take into account the personal assistant he hardly uses who dropped by with provisions and clot
hing for me on the first afternoon.
We’ve traveled through the desert, and I’ve even taken the wheel of Jagger’s crazy go-kart contraption. Morning sex, self-defense, followed by evening sex encompasses the routine we have fallen into, which is more than welcoming.
Jagger and I go for an evening run on a trail that leads parallel to the cliff and overlooking the ocean. I recall Ghanda’s words about Jagger building his mansion purposefully above the resort. Off in the distance, people are enjoying a swim and drinks along the coast. But as we jog along the trail, I notice that there seems to be some sort of imaginary line.
Jagger soars past me, pivots on the heels of his tennis shoes and runs backward. I almost gasp. There’s no railing and he’s about a yard from falling over the side of the cliff. He asks the very words that are lodged down my throat, “What are you doing?”
“Jogging, endurance training, right?”
He stops abruptly, forcing me to rush against his steel, hard frame. I brace my forearms against his solid chest. “Jag, damn, I told you the other day that running so close to the edge is scary.”
He shrugs. “I told you to stop being so afraid.”
Rising to my tippy toes I start to brush a kiss on his lips when Jagger grabs my cheeks, puckering my mouth.
“We’re supposed to be training, Kayla.”
He lets up enough for me to retort, “Aren’t we?”
“Then turn around,” he nudges his jaw.
My fingertip travels over the sinew of his rock-hard chest. “I thought a longer run would suffice.”
“Not in this direction.”
I let out a huff. Yesterday, Jagger finally mentioned the woman from when I passed out in Trick’s place. Only, her name isn’t Sinclair, it’s Ava Sinclair, and she’s got a problem with me for reasons that are beyond me. But I love our hard afternoons of training, because to me it’s more than a workout. It’s ‘our’ time. And Jagger is probably no less angry at his grandfather for committing suicide years ago than he is now. So I move to the right, closer to the incline and away from the edge, in order to continue in the direction of my run.
“Let’s run a little longer today, Jag. My endurance is increasing,” I give a wink, continuing to head in the direction of the resort. Before I’ve ran a few steps, his arm has clasped around me and lifting me up into the air. Although, Jagger holds me against him, I catch a slight case of vertigo as I look down.
He orders, “I said not that direction.”
“Pp-put me down!” I stutter. At any second, he could lose balance and we’d plummet over the rocks.
“No games. I’m not always going to be there to keep you safe, Mikayla,” he shouts.
The words rock me to my core. First, I wasn’t playing with Jagger, only trying to learn more about him. But the brute force of his tone hurts, and so does how his diaphragm expands, crushing his abdomen to my chest.
“What if I like it here, Jagger? What if this could be our world, and we grew comfortable? You could drive past the land your grandfather owned and not be angry because there’s so much more important things in the world now.”
He barks. “Like what!”
“Us?”
He sets me down on my feet.
“And your parents, Mikayla? What of them? What of Cree and his friends?”
My shoulders slump. “You said you had an idea…”
His sweaty gold-plated muscles glisten in the sun. “You weren’t ready to hear it a few days ago? Are you ready now?”
I tell him the truth. “Yes, I’m ready because I’d rather stand beside you than return to my old life, without you, Jagger. We’ve been through a lot together.”
He shoves his hair back. “Uthando lwami, the people I killed in Long Beach… shooting at your boyfriend, that isn’t even the tip of the iceberg.”
I rub a hand over my face.
Jagger leans back against the incline. “Are you still in love with your boyfriend, Mikayla?”
The intensity that he stares at me with leaves my emotions raw. Can’t Jagger realize that the last couple have days were everything. “And if I say that the love I have for him doesn’t touch the smallest, most insignificant feeling I have for you, would you let me in? Could we walk down by the beach, hand in hand.” I gulp the lump in my throat. “Jagger, I am falling in love with you.”
The simplest act of me holding out my hand sends sheer terror down my spine. I’m more in fear now than I’ve ever been in any of my past dreams. I could give it all away. The elite education. The logic. Saving lives. Not my family of course, Jagger said he can ‘fix’ that, and I trust him. But in order to stay in this world that I’ve been thrust into, I’d strip myself bare, and it feels like I have as I wait for his touch. “We can overcome our fears together.”
Jagger’s large callused hand takes hold of mine, and my lungs fill with fresh oxygen.
“Mikayla, you want to walk along the beach?” As tall and strong as Jagger is, there’s a sense of vulnerability that ribbons from him to me as he shrugs. “You mean more to me than that fucking resort, the land my family once owned, and the home I’ve made for myself above.”
He continues to clasp my hand, and the moment goes from intimate to serious. “In my world, you cannot be afraid, Mikayla. You’ll learn to shoot a gun for me?”
I nod vigorously.
“Alright, then,” he says, “we’ll add marksmanship and combat to your training, when you’re ready, you’ll take on your first mission.”
“Okay,” I reply with confidence.
“Now, which way down,” he leads us closer to the edge. “We could jump or follow the path that you were so hard headedly set on continuing?”
Now, I’m gripping his hand tighter, while moving my feet closer to the edge. The gravel is lose. A small pebble loosens from beneath the ridges in my left shoe and falls.
“We can jump?” I cock a brow. Did I just present that as an inquiry or a statement of fact.
“That’s what I wanted to hear.” Jagger takes a few steps back with me in tow and we’re running full force before it penetrates in my psyche just what we’re doing.
It’s total chaos, invigorating. I scream as we fall. In a fraction of an instant, I recall falling in pitch blackness in all of my dreams and how afraid I’d be. But Jagger’s holding my hand. The cool water welcomes me from my toenails to my hair follicles as we submerge into the sea. Colorful fish jet away, and once my face breaks the edge of the water, I suck in a breath.
Jagger grabs me against him and kisses me hard on the lips. “I could get use to this,” he says.
I giggle between kisses. “Once was enough.”
“You just agreed to obey me for all time, Mikayla.”
My legs wrap around his waist, and I pull his hard body closer. This love is a drug, and so much better than being numb….
Jagger
It’s been a week since Mikayla and I took the plunge into the ocean. She’s not quite ready for my Magnum, and she still trembles when holding it, due to her awareness of the kick back it has. But she’s efficient with a .38 special, a lightweight revolver. When she’s ready, she’ll know that Qaaim Mthembu is to be her first mark.
I get up from the bed that we share and do what I’ve grown accustomed to…kiss her softly on her forehead, before checking for an email from Trick. He agreed to ‘look into’ the X Member profiles for Ava Sinclair’s latest location.
It’s been almost two weeks since she placed that false kill-head over me, much too long in between her missions. She’s addicted to murder.
I click onto his latest email and sigh heavily. Damn, she’s finally back in action. According to Trick, she’s headed to Sri Lanka to murder a political activist. Would be the perfect chance for me to intercept her, shit, I could even do it before she completes the mission and put that bitch down once in for all. But today, I’m making good on the statement I told Mikayla. I may not have been ready to declare my love but when I mentioned that she means more t
o me than my land, the statement wasn’t made lightly. I’m meeting with an associate of mine in an hour.
I dress in one of Trick’s specials. An impenetrable Armani suit, and leave my Magnums on the dresser for Mikayla, although she’s harped about all the locations I have guns hidden around my house, while complaining that it took us almost two hours to find each one of them. Her fingerprints are able to unlock any gun storage in my home now.
I pick up a pen and pad and write a short note.
Uthando lwami,
Eat breakfast. Practice for an hour and save the target paper for my approval. NO slacking off. I’ll be back by noon.
Jag.
***
I’m in the driver seat of my truck when I get a call. I press the radio button to accept while opening the garage.
“Well, ‘ello, mate!” Trick comes through the speakers loud and clear. “What’s this tosh I hear about you not going after Sinclair, today? You know the saying about loose ends, eh?”
“Tie them up quickly, Trick, I’m not a kid.” I start onto the road, and glance at the rearview window as the glass garage automatically descends behind me. “I have a meeting to attend, it’s of the utmost importance. Are you able to keep tabs on Ava even if she doesn’t take another assignment right after?”
“Bugger me, why even ask of my capabilities. Of course, I’ll watch the mark, he’s at a rally for some sort of animal going extinct. The moment he’s expired, she’ll be on the grid. I’ll have satellite follow her until she makes it to her private jet. Once that’s done, I can tag the damn thing, and we’ll know where she is at all times, until you’re ready to put down your girlfriend.”
“That bitch isn’t my girlfriend.”
“That’s not what Ava says.” He laughs and we hang up.
***
The white pillar building I pull up in front of, houses the government that pays the salaries of the kings and queens in South Africa. The leaders are symbolic figureheads in the country, and although they don’t have much political power, they handle local disputes and have advisory roles in the government. But Qaaim is the least beloved of the National House of Traditional Leaders.