Black Queen, Dark Knight II

by Avant, Amarie

  Click.

  The door opens. The remote in Jagger’s hand falls to the ground. The entire scene that transpires feels like it’s moving in slow motion because I don’t have a seed of power. It’s as if I made a deal with the devil and am attempting to take it back.

  “You love this prince?” His voice is uncanny, inhumanely angry. “You love the Prince Fari? Say it to my fucking face, Mikayla.”

  My arms tremble. Anathi is attempting to get me to stay staring forward, to keep a crass façade. With all the willpower I have, I turn to him. My mouth is ready to do the thing I should’ve done at the beginning.

  I should’ve told Jagger Johansson on day one what was going on. Should’ve made him aware.

  So that he’d know that this black magic bitch is speaking through me. A voice that sounds just like mine while staring him in the eye says, “I am in love with Prince Fari.”

  Jagger grabs the back of my neck and drags me out of the car. He yanks until I’m over his shoulder.

  “Stop, please.” I scream, now this is me.

  There’s laughter in my ear. “The prince will allow you to keep him, Mikayla. Enjoy yourself today, and when you return to Nivean, marry the prince. Keep him. I’m a fan of pain and sex.”

  Jagger’s hand slams onto my ass so hard my bones jolt. I stare down at the ground with him stomping back into the house.

  “Jag, stop.” I beg, tears streaming down my cheeks.

  He’s in that dark place.

  The one that I always associated with Trick. Jag, on the other hand, he never struck me as a man who cared enough about someone in the past to . . . to bestow this level of hurt.

  We enter a bedroom on the third floor. The room is dark, spanning across the entire floor. What I see fills me with dread. He drops me onto my feet. With no strength in my bones, I fall.

  He lets me.

  Then Jagger grips at my shirt and tears it to shreds. My jeans, he snatches those off too as I shout, “Please, please, we need to talk—”

  Anathi doesn’t stop me from begging.

  She knew when the light switched inside of him.

  Then I cower naked before Jagger. I . . . I think I had better not continue with this because Jagger loved me. And this—it’s more than I can bare—let alone tell.

  40

  Jagger

  Saturday Morning

  Greed wove through my veins the moment I learned that my grandfather owned what’s now The Blue Cove Resort. I, with rich Johansson blood flowing through my veins, grew up poor, living with other South African’s next to the church my parents worked at. I made friends with the people whose lives we changed and came to respect them, but I hated being so poor. I hated my grandfather for killing himself when my grandmother died of cancer.

  That hate dug root in me, and the moment I made connections with the X-Member organization, the morality I did have crashed and burned.

  I didn’t need it.

  I worked my way up to a million-dollar hit capacity. Then the multimillion-dollar price range. The money I’m sitting on rivals that of what Blue Cove is worth, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop to bury my parents in a nicer place. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the prize of compensation long enough to care.

  Mikayla changed that.

  I felt like murdering her. Not painfully, just offing her nice and easy, so that I could selfishly recall the woman who revived my heart. Remember her as good and not the bitch who’s on the contraption in my attic.

  Shit, when she saw it, her brown skin paled.

  We were to work our way up to the bondage table. It was supposed to be something of joy and released inhibitions for a queen who cared so much about others. I never gave a fuck about too many people and loving her lets me know that it’s hard as hell to actually give a damn about more than one person. And here she is, on the bondage table now, and it’s not even taboo or something for her to slowly come to delight in.

  She’s cold, alone, naked, with limbs wide and tied apart. And I was okay with that until I thought about expiring her. The moment I thought of her dead, I cried for the first time since skinning my knee as a kid.

  Can’t kill her.

  Can’t let her go.

  Grabbing another bottle of whiskey, I trail back up the stairs and run a hand through my dirty hair. Shit fucking itches, but I’ll bathe in whiskey before I stop torturing Mikayla with my drunken words of sorrow. Yesterday’s jeans are crumpled, hanging low against my muscular frame. Though I did brush my teeth this morning with toothpaste, I guzzled down more whiskey. I reek of alcohol.

  Liquid courage. Enough to make me whine like a bitch, to tell her all the bullshit I shouldn’t say aloud like how much she meant to me, how much it hurts. But not enough to stop the pain for either of us.

  Inside the room, the sun beams in from a 360-degree angle. There’s not a speck of dust in the attic. I glance toward the table where Mikayla’s limbs are spread wide. I glance over the perfect view of her pussy, not feeling aroused as I should. Her body is readily accessible, and I am a blubbering mess. I glance down, noticing that I’m holding the two-hundred-year-old whiskey against my chest, embracing it. Like it somehow offers me comfort. Truth be told, it’s the only bottle left.

  She rouses awake. I stare away from her, too much of a coward to glance into those morbid eyes. I’d gagged her, so there’s that too.

  I sit in the chair across from her, magnum in my hand. The weight of it doesn’t feel right. Nothing in this world will ever feel right.

  She loves another man.

  Is this how Ava felt? Why she acted a plumb fool because I didn’t love her? Okay, stop being a bitch, Jag.

  My tattered heart begins to harden. Treat Mikayla like a mark, like she’s nothing, not human. Treat her like her only worth is the number of zeros on the benefactor’s check. I guzzle down more whiskey. It doesn’t even burn anymore. I push my legs out, and a few more expensive bottles go clattering. Damn, now I’m wishing for a few shots of horilka, that vodka would’ve done me in good.

  I fist my magnum again. Shit used to be so beautiful to me—steel, pearl handle. Women have their own jewelers. I have my own gun designer. I glare at the gun. “You mean nothing.”

  I can feel Mikayla’s eyes on me as she mumbles something inaudible. I glare at her, and even with the ball gag in her mouth, she hitches in fear.

  Swiveling the pistol around in my hand, I growl. “That prince fuck that you’re so head over heels for, maybe I’ll have Trick go get him. Bring him to us. Let you watch him die.”

  Her silent cries do something to me.

  Harder.

  Angrier.

  I could . . . fuck! I cannot kill her.

  “I see, just the mention of his death brings tears to your eyes, Mikayla.” I stand up. My cell phone buzzes. That damn Zane has been calling me nonstop.

  “I never told a woman I loved her, Kayla.” This time I blatantly press the ignore button, shoving it back into my jean pocket. “I called you Uthando Lwami, because you didn’t know Xhosa, and I didn’t know how much I fucking loved you at the time. But I loved you, only you—never told that shit to anyone else!”

  I press the gun to her head and cock the hammer back. I close my eyes and squeeze the trigger, ready for the pain to end. To return to some semblance of me. The greedy fuck who loves his Magnums and any exotic piece of ass would do, determined only by which country I so happen to be wreaking havoc in.

  41

  Jagger

  Sunday Morning. . .

  I stumble down the stairs. The world tosses sideways like I’m venturing onto an imaginary rollercoaster. I get up only to fall back down and hurl the food we had yesterday. Was it yesterday? Doesn’t matter, I’ve finished off the scotch, and I have a few boxes of celebratory champagne from Italy. I guess it does matter because I didn’t eat enough, so it feels like I’m about to vomit my fucking organs. My limbs weigh a thousand pounds. I get up with a grunt, this time making it to the bar.

/>   Pop. The champagne soars across the room, spraying over marble, fur rugs, and bile. I start drinking it even with the bubbles sloshing down over my jaw and hair. Why the fuck do I have such a high tolerance to alcohol?

  I glance around me and sit down on the ground to calm the pulsing of my brain. Then I black out, only to be reminded of that one weird, yet emotional time Trick mentioned his wife.

  We were at the airport in Las Vegas, and I couldn’t get out of the country, couldn’t get to Mikayla.

  “I take a mark for a king's ransom, or I take one for peanuts because it places me in the most danger, Jagger. I go to see my niece every month to remind me of what it’s like to be alive, around friends. And then before I get on that plane to return to my life of isolation, I torture myself further by visiting the site where my wife died. I’m waiting for the day someone bests me. And so, when you came into my establishment with a woman.”

  I thought the guy was a friggen idiot. There were too many beautiful women in the world, too much money to be had to take a shitty, cheap assignment, let alone give a fuck about one of them. I’d told myself that I was obligated to save Mikayla. Of course, I was addicted to another taste and still could be satiated.

  “Bollocks, Jagger, have you never broken a woman’s heart? My wife,” he managed to get the word out, “used to ask if I thought a certain woman was beautiful or gorgeous when I talked to them too long. She was playful but easily jealous. If I could go back and tell her I became blind the moment she came into my life, I would. Ava’s played a childish game with you. Like dangling a hot piece of ass before your face to see if you’re faithful.”

  I was baffled. “I’ve never given that bitch a sign that anything with us was more than sex.”

  “It takes marriage to learn what and how women think. And, dash it, I still don’t know it all.”

  Rousing out of that dream, I get up from the floor. “Shit, I don’t think we’ll ever know how women think. Doesn’t matter.” Gripping tufts of my hair, I growl at myself for carrying on a conversation alone.

  My cellphone buzzes in my pants again.

  Zane.

  For the first time, I answer. “Mikayla won’t be fraternizing with you and the wife for tea anytime soon, Solarin.”

  “Jag—”

  I press the off button and shut the thing down because why do I need it? The only call I ever wait for . . . time for more alcohol. I head up to my bedroom, shower, and dress. Should I let Mikayla down so that she can use the restroom before heading to the bar? I think not. She can hold it, just like I held in my emotions for weeks on end until I could see her again.

  Callous.

  Do I give a fuck? Well, I did try to feed her last night. She refused. So there’s that.

  42

  Mikayla

  The last two days have been a nightmare. Anathi hasn’t said a peep, allowing me to wallow in my own presence. The cheese sandwich that Jagger brought to me last night is on a stand next to this creepy ass contraption, and I glance around. I thought I heard an engine a while back, although I’ve fallen in and out of morbid, meaningless dreams.

  My nipples stand erect. Though my wrists and ankles are confined at the least restrictive link, offering some slack, and there are soft leather inserts, I hate the position I’m in. The vulnerability of it all. The room adjusted to my core temperature late last night when Jagger left, and I began to sneeze.

  Half of me is torn between sympathizing with the psychotic asshole and shock that he’d treat me like shit.

  Tears swell before my gaze as I notice it’s most likely Sunday, and the man that I thought loved me put a gun to my head, scaring the daylights out of me. Sleep claims me again.

  “You have visitors, Mikayla,” the smart house automated tone says.

  I rouse awake, try to bite down, but my achy jaw won’t cut me any slack.

  I press my tongue against the ball. It doesn’t move. “Fuuuuugrmmmmmm.”

  No matter how much I’d prefer to breakdown crying again, cursing the day I met Jagger, I don’t. The automated tone asks, “Would you like me to let them in?”

  I focus on providing a coherent response. “Ye—yeeeeeee.”

  “I am unable to understand you. Jagger will be notified telephonically to confirm. Thank you.” The brisk tone promptly breaks connection.

  My eyebrows pull together. Where is he? He must’ve left the house.

  43

  Jagger

  It’s a struggle, getting out of my truck, hugging a large brown paper bag filled with eighty-year-old whiskey, the oldest, and all the bottles that the cigar and whiskey shop down the street had to offer. I haven’t the slightest idea why I don’t just set the bag down and unlock the door, especially coupled with disequilibrium. One second, I’m sliding out of the seat, the next, my palm is clutching the dirt floor, falling for the sake of saving the bag.

  Then as if by some alternate universes’ design, a cream colored semi-luxurious car is parked next to me. I didn’t hear the engine stop. But when I look up, a man in a suit is peering through the window of my home, so I know that I’m just disoriented enough not to have noticed a three-thousand-pound vehicle. Though, not too shit-faced enough to recognize that I’m glowering at the back of Zane Solarin’s head.

  I drunkenly slur, “What the fuck are you doing?”

  He turns around quickly.

  Clutching the bag, I complete a very difficult feat, getting up off the ground again.

  The passenger door, which is a few feet from me opens slowly. “Mr. Johansson.” Zora moves with grace out of the seat of their car, offering a hand. “You look like you could use some help—”

  “Nah, I’m good.” I pat my new treasure, standing upright on an imaginary ship.

  “We were wondering if . . .” She licks her lips pensively.

  Zane comes around standing next to her. “Where is Mikayla?”

  “With her prince.” I snigger. Fuck, if I plan on killing the royal she’s fallen for, it’s probably not a good idea to tell a government official that I’m privy of their relationship.

  “Oh, honey, she’s in love with you.” Zora pats my shoulder softly.

  “No. No, she isn’t.”

  “Jagger,” Zane barks. “She left a note on our gate Friday evening that she needs tea, and she’d be here this weekend.”

  Turning toward the door, I call over my shoulder, “She doesn’t deserve tea and frilly parties, thank you very much.”

  “You simply don’t understand, Jagger.” Zora follows after me. “If you will let us in, we can explain it—”

  “Explain what?” I bark, not realizing that Mrs. Solarin was so close when I whip around, her shoulders jolt. Damn, I scared her. Unable to glance into her eyes, I speak to the top of the nice woman’s head. “I’m in love with her, and she-she . . .”

  This is when it gets shameful for me. You might have thought it was when I brushed my teeth in whiskey this morning—was that this morning? Well, I’ve done that before. Shedding tears over a woman other than the circumstances surrounding my mother’s death, well that’s a first. Telling yet another woman that the last left me broken hearted that was bullshit. Unfathomable. Now true.

  At some point in my blubbering, I black out—

  * * *

  I groan, coming into a seated position on the couch. I pull at my wrists, but they’re cuffed behind me.

  “Mrs. Solarin, you hit me,” I utter. No anger, all shock, having always treated her with fairness and respect.

  “Zane,” she calls out. “He’s awake. Jagger, I’m sorry. It had to be done. I will tell you exactly why Mikayla requires the tea, but you must tell us where she is. This is a mansion and all the doors won’t open,” she scoffs, “not without your fingerprints—as we were told by some computer voice. We also weren’t able to get you up the stairs.”

  It dawns on me. I was violated. They used my fingerprint to help get us inside. Glancing around, I don’t see the brown paper bag anywhere. �
�Did you drink my—”

  “Jagger.” Zora pats my shoulder. “We’re discussing Mikayla, the love of your life. You don’t need any more alcohol. Please, where is she?”

  My scalp itches. Instinctively, I attempt to reach up and scratch it but the handcuffs. I glare at her. “Mrs. Solarin, for years I have always been cordial. I have a headache. I need one drink.”

  Unaware of the safety risk, she sits next to me. “Jagger, I have always treated you cordially as well, even when half the Cape has talked about you behind your back.”

  “Don’t care. Where’s the bag?”

  Her thick lips tense for a fraction of a second. “I hope you’re coherent enough to fathom that there is a witch inside of Mikayla, Jagger, and the longer she inhabits the queen, the more your Mikayla will become dormant. Do you understand!”

  Witch? Mikayla. Where is the key to drowning myself in my own sorrows. “No!”

  “She is not in love with anyone else except for you, you numbskull!”

  “Jagger.” Zane enters the room, hands in the pockets of his suit.

  Though I only gathered a few of his wife’s manipulations, I say, “This is low, even for you, Solarin. Finally lose those last few morals, fraternizing with Pierce—oh, he did this? He put you up to this for—” Damn, almost mentioned Totsi’s death.

  “Hello,” Zora shouts. “This is about Mikayla. She loves you.”

  “She does not!” I growl.

  Ms. Solarin stands up and walks away.

  “Where is Mikayla, Jagger. Under any other circumstances, I would have called the authorities and had you taken down to the station. But these are trying times. There is a witch compelling Mikayla toward the Zihula prince—whom we both are adamant she does not love.”

  “She told me herself.” I am before Zane in seconds, holding the unrestricted handcuffs in one hand. “Your wife, I won’t hurt. You, on the other hand, I’ll forget you’ve gotten me out of a bind a time or two. Hand over my bag of goodies and hit the fucking road.”