by Julia Derek
When the shame had peaked, a strong sense of relief and gratefulness took over the next day. Dante was mine and only mine. It had lasted for the next two days, then worry had set in and I began to wonder when I’d hear from him again. I tried not to be selfish, expecting him to be texting me, when he had his hands full with work and making sure Jose was all right. From what Dante had told me the next day in our text exchanges, Jose had almost died from all the blows he’d suffered during the beating.
As he finally called me four days later and asked me if I wanted to see him for dinner the following day, I’d become ecstatic. I was still feeling high I was so happy to see him again as I got myself ready for our date. Nina came over to help me fix my hair with a curling iron and helped me pick out the perfect outfit. I wanted to be sure I looked my very best and Nina had a much better fashion sense than I had.
While waiting for Dante to pick me up, I was pacing my place. I wished Nina was still here to keep me company, help me control the sudden attack of nerves that had come over me. I kept telling myself that there was no reason for me to be so nervous; all I was about to do was have a date with my boyfriend, the hottest, sweetest, toughest man I’d ever known. Instead I should be smiling big and be grateful that this heroic, incredible guy was about to take me out for a dinner that surely would be fantastic.
A knock on the door made me jerk and I went over to open it. Dante was standing outside, as handsome as always. He grinned big at the sight of me, his dark eyes widening a touch.
“Wow, you look gorgeous,” he said and kissed me on the cheek. “Are you ready to leave?’
Dante rode slowly to the restaurant, mostly so my hair wouldn’t turn into a huge, ratty bird’s nest. I refused to wear a helmet after all the work Nina had done.
We got seated almost right away at our table and Dante ordered a bottle of champagne for us. An expensive one.
I raised a brow at him. “Are we celebrating something special?”
He smiled. “Yes. I met with Ms. Donaldson today. She told me the judge for my case approved her recommendation to have my probation shortened because of how Crunch’s corporate board has treated me. So, as of next week, I’m a free man. I didn’t want to tell you earlier it was in play for fear of jinxing myself.”
I stared at Dante, hardly able to believe the words that had come out of his mouth. He’d told them in such a matter-of-fact way. It was not the way I’d expect someone sharing such great news would do.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked.
He laughed and poured some champagne for me. “I would never kid about something so important. It’s all true. Not only am I free man, but the judge agreed to clear my record, too. That was part of the deal from the beginning, since I never actually pleaded guilty to the burglary. In other words, I don’t have to worry about a criminal background popping up if I ever apply for a corporate job somewhere. Not that I think I will since I’ll be opening my own gym.”
“Oh, my God, Dante. That’s great! You must be so happy.” I looked at him, smiling big. Why isn’t he smiling as much as I am? I wondered. It was really amazing news. Judging from the way he was looking at me now, you’d think he just told me he got a two-dollar hourly wage raise or something else fairly meaningless.
“I am. I guess it just hasn’t sunk all the way in yet.” He held up his glass of champagne. “To the future.” I clinked my glass to his.
“So what does this mean?” I asked after having a sip of my champagne. “Will you still be working at Crunch?”
“Yeah, for a while longer. Until I have enough savings to open my own place. I’m projecting that to happen in maybe another three months. But I’ll be transferring to their other location in Century City.”
My mouth dropped open. “Really? Why?”
He shrugged. “It’s just better.”
“Oh.” He didn’t seem to want to expand on what he’d just said, so I decided to keep my natural curiosity in check until he did. Instead I asked him if he knew what was good to eat at this restaurant.
Almost two hours later we rode back to my place. When Dante stopped me in front of my apartment building instead of following me inside as I expected him to do, I knew something was wrong. Seriously wrong.
He turned me around to face him and took both my hands in his, gazing at me with sadness.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I burst out.
He cleared his voice. “I won’t be seeing you any more, Ricki.”
I stared at him, sure that I must have misheard him. He could not have just said what I thought I’d heard. It was impossible.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“I can’t see you anymore,” he repeated.
He might as well have kicked me in the stomach it hurt so much when I realized I’d heard every word correctly the first time. I didn’t understand anything. Was this some kind of a bad, very vivid nightmare? Why was he breaking up with me all of a sudden? Granted, our dinner had not felt as natural as it used to; still, I felt completely blindsided.
“Why…?” I managed to get out finally when I no longer doubted it was really happening.
“Because if I keep seeing you, you’ll die.” Then he leaned forward and kissed me with more passion than I could remember him ever having done before. Automatically, I parted my lips and met his hot tongue with mine, let him devour me to the point that the hair on my arms stood up there was so much electricity flowing between us.
As suddenly as he’d started kissing me, he pulled away.
“Good-bye, Ricki. Remember that I will always love you.” With those words, he turned around, walked to his Harley and took off.
I remained standing there, speechless as I watched him leave. Feeling like a zombie, I got my keys out of my purse and walked into my apartment. I collapsed face first on my bed, my mind surprisingly lucid and calm after the blow it had just been dealt. Lying there, I tried to make sense of what had happened. Why Dante had suddenly broken up with me.
Why he’d claimed I would die if he kept seeing me.
I flipped over on my back as I tried to figure out what that meant. Why would I die? He was no longer part of the gang and as far as I understood, no one had ever learned that he’d helped Jose prepare for his jump out. Unless Dante had been lying about that, there was no reason for us to worry that someone from the Devils had a beef with Dante. A beef that included taking his girlfriend’s life. Dante had himself assured me we wouldn’t have to worry about any retaliation from the men who’d tried to rape me. According to people he knew in his old hood, none of them had recognized Dante; it had been too dark out and the baseball cap had obscured his face. The darkness and the fact that it had all gone so fast made it extremely unlikely that any of them remembered what I looked like, which meant I had nothing to fear, either. That made sense because I could barely remember what they looked like. And I would definitely not go down to that neighborhood again, unless someone made me.
So then why would I die if I kept seeing Dante?
Suddenly, my head started hurting from all the thinking and I felt exhausted. The reality of the situation was really very simple. There was no point in me mulling it over for even one more second. Dante was just another of the series of troubled men attracted to me—and I to them. I’d waste my time trying to figure him out. Who knew what the hell was wrong with this one? The sooner I accepted the truth about myself and my destiny, I was much better off.
I was simply love cursed.
Dante
Jose sat up in his hospital bed. “You’ve go—go—gotta be fuckin’ with me, man,” he told me. He looked at me with his one good eye like I was the stupidest shit he’d ever laid his… eye on. He’d just asked me when he was going to get to meet Ricki, so I told him that I’d broken up with her and why. Even though almost two weeks had passed since the jump out, Jose was still not discharged. The doctors had wanted to keep him under observation to make sure his stuttering didn’t get worse, which would indicate t
hat the extreme emotional trauma he’d suffered wasn’t going away. But finally it looked like it was and Jose only stuttered when he got very excited—like right now.
“No, I’m not kidding,” I replied, a little pissed. “It’s for the best. She will eventually die if I keep seeing her. Think about it: What are the chances the same thing would happen to Ricki that happened to Lara? Three Devils wanted to rape and kill Ricki, just the way they did with… with Lara. Women should stay away from me. Anyone who I ever love dies. I’m fuckin’ cursed and that’s it.”
“If you were cursed, Ricki would have died,” Jose said, crossing his arms over his chest. “But she didn’t. Why didn’t she die that night? Are you tellin’ me you do--do--don’t love this chick then?”
I looked away. “No, I do love her. That’s why I have to save her.”
“Well, you did, man. You fu--fu--fuckin’ saved her. So consider that curse broken now. The girl you love survived. She wasn’t even raped by those dicks.”
I raised my head and looked at Jose. It was true; I hadn’t been able to save Lara from being raped by three of my fellow gang members—a captain and two of his brothers. They’d jumped on top of her when I left her alone to go to the bathroom during the party, taken her outside on the street. Before I’d been able to intervene—I would have killed them with my own hands if I’d gotten the chance—a rival gang drove by and shot them all to death, including Lara. They hadn’t seen me, which was how I’d survived. Killed by drive-by shooters or not, the captain and his brothers would have killed her themselves when they’d been done with her and I hadn’t seen them.
The only good thing about all of it was that I didn’t think the three Devils got very far with Lara before the rival gang came and shot them.
I forced the horrible memories out of my mind.
“That is a good point,” I said to Jose, rubbing my chin and taking him in. “A very good point. I did save her…” Why hadn’t I considered that fact? It did change things, didn’t it? Yes, it did, I concluded. As soon as these thoughts had sunk all the way into my head, I got to my feet. I could feel that there was the beginning of a smile on my face.
I walked to the door that led out to the hospital corridor. I turned to face Jose before I opened it.
Jose looked at me, taken aback. “Where are you goin’, man? You only just got here.”
I smiled at him. “Would you rather I stay here and keep shootin’ the shit with you or go talk to Ricki?”
He grinned at me. “Get the fuck out of here, man.”
It was five o’clock and a Sunday. Where could Ricki be? Where had she usually been at this time on a weekend? Knowing what a homebody she was, I thought my best bet would be to try her house first.
I rode my Harley toward West L.A. much faster than I could remember having driven it in a long time. But I needed to see Ricki as soon as possible.
She was leaving her apartment building just as I was pulling onto her street. She froze at the sight of me stopping my bike in front of her. The expression on her face as she contemplated me was hard to read. She didn’t look angry, nor did she look happy. I couldn’t blame her.
I dismounted my bike.
“Hi Ricki,” I said as I approached her slowly.
She looked around as if searching for something, using very obvious gestures, then turned back to me, her chin raised. “Should I be worried that I’m about to die?”
I stopped before her. “You won’t ever die as long as I’m around to stop it. And I’m planning on being around for a long time.”
She seemed unconvinced. “Really? And what made you all of a sudden conclude that? And what makes you think I want you to be around for a long time?”
A smile began tugging at the corners of her lips, contradicting the harshness of her statement. I could tell that she was doing her best to kill it, but also that it was a losing battle.
“I’m really sorry I said that,” I said when she didn’t say anything. “I was just freaking out after what happened with you and those guys down in my old hood. I thought it meant I was cursed. That every woman I love is destined to die. But I don’t think so anymore.” I grinned. “Jose opened my eyes to what an idiot I was being.”
She gazed at me earnestly for a moment. Then she let that smile that she’d wanted to kill burst forth. “I know exactly what you mean by being cursed…”
I put my arms around her. “Does that mean I’ll get another chance to be your boyfriend?”
She screwed up her adorable face, as if considering this, which made funny things happen to my gut. Finally, she nodded. “Fine. Just don’t freak out on me like that again. I don’t think I can take it one more time.”
I grinned at her. “I swear, as long as you give me another chance, this was the last time.”
“Well, I am giving you another chance, so I guess we’re good.”
“Really?” I wasn’t sure I believed her.
She rolled her eyes. “I know your hearing isn’t perfect any longer, but how many times do I have to tell you?”
I laughed. Then I bent down and kissed her so hard I thought I might kill her by choking her.
EPILOGUE
“May all the criminals in the world watch out!” I said and raised my wine glass in a toast to Gabi. She had just completed her training to become a cop at the Los Angeles Police Academy. She, I, Dante, Jose, Nina, Dylan and his sister Elle, Nixon and Aidan had gotten together at a restaurant in West Hollywood to celebrate this occasion.
She clinked her glass to mine and smiled. Everyone stood up to clink their glasses. “Thank you, Ricki,” Gabi said and sat again. “I’m very excited to be done finally. The only bad part is that I can’t train you any longer.”
“Yeah, it does kinda suck,” I said. “But maybe I can try and work out on my own for a while.”
“And with me,” Dante said, nudging me. “Now that I’m not working like a maniac, I’ll have more time at the gym to do my own thing.”
He had decided to stay at the Crunch where I was until he had enough money saved up for his own gym.
I smiled at him. “Good idea, babe. I do want to learn how to box, now that I think about it. It could be a good skill to have.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “You know, just in case you get out of line again.”
“Oooohhh,” Dylan said, laughing. “You better watch out, man!”
“Yeah, I know,” Dante said, grinning his toothpaste model smile. “This girl is dangerous. Trust me, I won’t ever step out of line with her again.” Everyone laughed.
The servers came with our main courses then, and I took the opportunity to eye Aidan and Nixon, who were sitting at the opposite corner from me. So far, the two of them had been out on four dates and it seemed like they were really hitting it off. I was pleased with the situation, especially for Nixon’s sake. He hadn’t mentioned Simon once since he and Aidan began going out, which suggested that he must be over him finally. Well, on his way to getting over him at least. About time, I thought. Actually, as I thought about it some more, I realized that I was pleased for both of them equally. Aidan wasn’t a bad guy, just someone who used to be very confused.
And I had helped him straighten himself out. It made me feel good.
Our eyes met then. He smiled at me. I smiled back and raised my glass to him in a toast.
THE END
About the Author
Julia Derek grew up in Sweden but always knew she was meant to live in America, more specifically, in New York City. A former stand-up comic, she has been writing stories for as long as she can remember. When she doesn’t write or read, she spends her time whipping people into shape as a fitness trainer. If you liked LOVE CURSED, check out the first book in the L.A. Girls Romance Series, TRIGGER.
Julia loves to hear from her readers. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter or by visiting her website: JuliaDerek.com
Thank you for reading LOVE CURSED. The third book in the L.A. Girls Romance Series will be about Gabi, who will m
eet her love match when she goes undercover. It will be released in August. If you enjoyed LOVE CURSED, please help other readers find out about the book:
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Table of Contents
Ricki
Dante
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