Deadly Love

by Yvonne Bennett

  "Please stop using his name...please." she looked away from him, focusing her attention on Milio.

  Andres watched her intently, his heart going out to her. Agostino had ruined this woman, and it was evident. Not only did she have to see his face in her child's eyes every day, but his name also sent her running for the hills. Andres sighed gently, then nodded.

  "Emilio reminds me of my cousin when he was small before he became aware and conscious of his mother's abuse. Of that innocence, he had before my aunt Sophia's death. Can I...can I hold him?" Andres asked, his face showing he was sincere.

  Bobbie eyed him up and down, then looked at Emilio, who was nibbling on his fingers, eyes glued to the TV.

  "I...Okay." Bobbie handed Emilio to Andres and watched as the tan Latino beamed in happiness.

  "Hola mi sobrino guapo. Eres tan grande y fuerte Parece que tu madre te ha estado cuidando mucho." Andres gushed in Spanish, tears lining his eyes.

  Bobbie felt her chest tighten at the sight for unknown reasons. "So, how much does Gomez remember?" She cleared her throat and crossed her arms.

  "Not much, he believes he saw you on vacation in Ecuador, and that's about it. He did, however, keep mentioning how beautiful he thought you were and good you might be in bed, but that's typical of that dog Gomez. He gets a hard-on for anyone except his wife." Andres replied bored.

  Bobbie visibly frowned in disgust and rolled her eyes.

  "But enough about Gomez, what I have to discuss with you is more important than that serial cheater." Bobbie's ears perked up.

  "W-what?" Bobbie questioned, anxiety filling her stomach.

  "Ana's dead, Bobbie." Andres relayed, causing Bobbie's eyes to grow wide.

  ****

  "How? When?" Bobbie treaded the carpet of her bedroom, eyes planted on Andres as he sat on the side of her bed.

  As if sensing the change of energy in the room after Andres exposed that Ana was dead, Emilio started crying, and Bobbie decided it was time for bed, plus she needed to talk to Andres alone, one on one with no interruptions.

  "Last year, after you 'ran' away. Ago- My cousin gunned her and her father down when she claimed to have killed you and the baby." Andres gave her a look.

  "So, you really have known all this time? And you haven't told him? Why?" Bobbie gazed at him with squinted eyes.

  "Yes, Bobbie, I have. I've known ever since the day my cousin killed Ana and Rich. My cousin had his security detail, and I search the house right after shooting them, and I found the documents pertaining to your new bank account and identity and kept it a secret. Security found a video of your last few hours in Ana's mansion, and since there was no footage of you ever coming out of her safe room, it helped to create the illusion that she really did kill you in my cousin's eyes. I kept it a secret because anyone 500 hundred miles away and blind could see that you were miserable, Bobbie. You hated my cousin, and for good reason. Agostino's…" Andres slipped up and watched Bobbie cringe.

  "My cousin's method of showing his love and care are sub-par because he's never seen what love could really be like fostered in a caring and nurturing environment. He only got to experience it for a few years before the abuse started, and he ended up killing my aunt. So, I knew, without even needing the rundown on your relationship, that my cousin was abusing you and you were tired of it, Bobbie. That's all my cousin knows because that's all he's seen." Andres explained, and Bobbie began laughing.

  It started out as a slow, amused rumble, then turned into full-blown cackling. The fact that Andres even thought his cousin was capable of love was laughable. And the notion that he thought his cousin loved her was even more of a riot! Bobbie had known countless people that had grown up in abusive households, and yet, they didn't turn out to be abusers, so Andres' explanation was B.S. His cousin beat on her not because he didn't know how to express his actual love language, but because he could. Because he felt like he had that power. The power to beat her into submission just because he wanted control over her.

  "Andres, please don't make me rethink and regret letting you into my home with your asinine reasoning. Your cousin beat on me because he could, not because he loved me. He even said, verbatim, that he'd never love me, not that I ever wanted his love. I was kidnapped, abused, and impregnated without my consent, and you think that's love, Andres!? I…" Bobbie paused as she felt hot tears growing in her eyes, causing her to get angry.

  Every time she thought of her abuse and how Emilio came to be, she grew furious. To know that her precious child was a manifestation of every single crude thing she was subjected to a year and three months ago, was a hard pill to swallow.

  "I look at my son every day and see every single thing I went through with her cousin, Andres. Things I did nothing to receive. You… you'll never understand. Even though I'm away from him now, I still have to look over my shoulder every second, every minute, every day in fear he'll return to keep his promise of killing me." Bobbie shook her head as she clenched her fists.

  "You don't have to worry about that, Bobbie. I told you, I found all of Ana's files, my cousin knows nothing about them. And even with Ana being gone, you won't have to worry about money running out of the bank account. I have everything covered. You can trust me, Bobbie. I mean it." Andres promised.

  Bobbie rubbed her lips together and nodded. She honestly had no good reason to not trust Andres. If he were playing her, he wouldn't have even told her about Ana's death.

  "Give me your phone," Andres ordered as he stood from the bed.

  Bobbie eyed his outstretched hand for a few seconds before pulling her phone from her back pocket and placing it into his palm.

  "I want you to call this international number whenever you need anything. And I do mean anything, Bobbie. You and Milio are family, and you're going to be taken care of like family." Andres told her in a serious fashion as he typed in his secondary number.

  Handing her the phone back, Andres looked Bobbie over with the same silly grin he wore when they first met, then pulled her into a tight hug.

  "You can trust me, Bobbie." He whispered into her short locks.

  Bobbie didn't know why, but she began to get emotional. Tears welled in her eyes, and her heart started thumping erratically. She wrapped her arms around Andres, returning the hug.

  "Tha-Thank you!" She cried softly, feeling the intense loneliness she had been dealing with for the past couple of days, loosen up.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "Bienvenido de nuevo, señor." Andres smiled at his housekeeper's greeting as he walked through the front door of his mansion.

  He slipped out of his jacket as he came to his stairs, throwing it over his elbow. Ascending the stairs slowly, thoughts of Bobbie and Emilio plagued him.

  Emilio.

  God, he looked just like Agostino when he was a baby.

  Seeing the little tot just brought back memories of Andres' childhood with Agostino. A time when Agostino's heart wasn't filled with rage. Coming to the top of the staircase, Andres turned down the hall, heading for his office. When he pushed the door open, he was immediately hit with the strong scent of cigar smoke.

  'What the fuck is he doing here?', Andres thought silently.

  Hitting the light, he scanned his lavishly furnished office until his eyes landed on Carmine, who was gazing at him with a raised brow and lit cigar dangling from his fingers. Gone was the bare-faced, short, dark, haired crime Lord from a year ago. In his place was a long-haired, trimmed goatee wearing, mad man. After everything with Ana and Bobbie last year, Andres had watched his cousin morph into something even more sinister than his former self, and that let Andres know losing Bobbie, and the baby hurt more than Agostino could say. Andres would even say the illusion of Bobbie's death hurt Agostino more than killing his mother.

  "Well, hello, cousin. It's fancy seeing you here." Andres greeted sarcastically as he ventured to his desk, plopping down with a sigh.

  Agostino said nothing, just took a long drag of his cigar. He expelled the smo
ke with his green, squinted eyes set on his cousin.

  "The meeting in France fell through." He replied after a while, his tone dark.

  "Let me guess, the Frenchmen are dead? What exactly happened?" Andres flicked his nose and huffed softly.

  "Those hijo de putas thought they were going to dangle their fucking coke in my face in exchange for guns, so I made it an easy decision for myself. You and every-fucking-body else know that I don't play that gift exchange b.s when it comes to my ammo. I have a set price for my guns, depending on the make, model, and where they're created. I'm not trading my shit for low-grade blow that looks like crumbled drywall." Andres stared at his cousin with wide eyes.

  He should be used to this by now, but he wasn't. Agostino had a short fuse now, and when he felt like he was being fucked with, he pulled out his gun and used it without hesitation. That was why he had been so careful with concealing the info he had on Bobbie's whereabouts. If Agostino even thought he was keeping something from him concerning Bobbie, Andres knew he'd get a hot one to the head.

  "How was your trip to The Keys?" Agostino asked, causing Andres to freeze up.

  Fuck! How did he know?!

  "Why so shocked, cousin? Did you not go to Alissa's 18th birthday over the weekend?" Agostino held up a pink envelope Andres had seen just a week prior.

  It was an invite to Alissa's party that had been sitting on his desk. A bit of his fear eased away, but he still stayed alert.

  "It was quite enjoyable, aside from Gomez leering at every woman within an inch." Andres sighed in disgust.

  "Is old Gomez still with Lydia?" Agostino asked with a raised brow.

  "Yep and the bitch has had so much work done on her face and boobs that they are almost touching each other." Andres twisted up his face, making Agostino laugh lowly.

  Lydia was going to wind up looking like a melted, plastic figurine if she didn't stop getting all that fucking work done to appease David.

  He liked young pussy anyway.

  "Is that all you came here for, Agostino? To ask about Gomez's party?" He smirked at his cousin's questioning, leaning over to put out his cigar.

  "Is it wrong for me to engage in a little chit chat with my favorite cousin?" Agostino shrugged, causing Andres to gaze at him bored.

  "I'm your only cousin. Cut to the chase." He relaxed in his chair and crossed his hands over his stomach.

  "There's been some strange activity going on at my compound." Agostino relayed, which made Andres hum.

  "What type of strange activity?" He inquired curiously.

  "These." His cousin pulled a small stack of what looked to be CDs from inside of his suit jacket.

  "They showed up before my flight to France, and I've been receiving one a day since then," Agostino explained, and Andres stood and rounded his desk.

  "How have you been receiving them?" He implored.

  "Through the mail. I traced the address, and it led back to a P.O box at the local mail courier. I had a few men do a sting after I got back, and they found the guy it belonged to checking the P.O box. They brought him in, and I questioned him. He claimed he was never told what the discs contained or who it was really being sent to. He was only told that if he sent all the discs on certain days, he'd receive a payment. Kid said he only did it so he'd be able to take care of his grandmother." Agostino continued his story.

  "Did he tell you who sent him? Have you looked at what's on the discs?" Andres queried.

  "A man named Gabriel Vasquez. Had my men run a sweep on his name, and not much came up. I did a check into the kid as well, and his story checked out, so I let him go. And, the only thing on these fucking discs are pictures of flowers." Agostino finished, shoving the discs into Andres' hands.

  "Flowers? Are you kidding me?" Andres frowned, confused at the info he was just told.

  "Did I not say this shit was strange?" Agostino grunted out, reaching for his cigar and lighting it.

  Andres peered down at the discs in bewilderment before standing and rounding his desk. Taking a seat, he powered on his desktop and loaded one of the discs into the drive. An image of a Daisy popped up, and Andres looked from the computer to his cousin, who was perforating him with his deep, green eyes.

  "You weren't lying." Andres peered back at the photo.

  What the fuck was this?

  ****

  "It's an encrypted photo." Agostino circled his cousin's desk for the third time, brow furrowed in confusion.

  "Can you decrypt it?" He inquired as he crossed his arms.

  "I can, but it'll take a good while since I have to figure out the password that was used to encrypt the photos. This isn't amateur tech, Agostino. Whoever encrypted these photos had to work in Tech software or be familiar with the latest advances in encryption because this is Silicone valley level type encryption." Andres replied, typing something into his computer.

  He got another error message and cursed. A knock sounded on Andres' office door, then it opened, revealing Agostino's right-hand man, Johnny.

  "Hey, boss, I brought the file on Gabriel Vasquez." He entered the room and handed Agostino a dark-colored folder.

  Agostino nodded as he accepted the file then passed it to his cousin. Andres paused his work on the computer and flipped open the file. His eyes grew big as he gazed back up at his cousin.

  "How could Gabriel Vasquez have sent the kid when he's dead?" He questioned in disbelief.

  "The kid said Gabriel Vasquez saw him entering the post office and offered him $500 if he sent the first disc. After the first one was sent, the kid said he was promised more money after all the discs were sent out, but Vasquez never got in touch with him after that." Agostino stated in annoyance.

  "And the kid checked out, you said?" Andres raised a brow.

  "From front to back. Every detail he gave me was right on his background check." Agostino replied, leaning against his cousin's desk.

  Andres frowned deeply as he sat the file down. The only way to understand what was going on was to decrypt these images and see what they held. Andres went to work, typing in different sequences and passwords, hoping to unlock the encryption. Yet, none worked. He looked at the photo of the blooming, black rose on his desktop as he stroked his chin.

  Rose.

  Rose in Spanish was Rosa.

  Black.

  Black in Spanish translated to negro in English.

  Andres' quickly sat up and typed in 'La Rosa Negro' and got yet another error code. Stroking his lip, he looked over the picture again. Flowers were seen as feminine and were primarily gifted to women.

  Maybe….

  Typing in 'La Rosa Negra', the photo transformed right before his eyes. The pixels that had made up the image of the black rose faded into the image of a woman and a child, a woman and a child Andres had seen mere hours before.

  "The fuc-..." Andres whirled around, noticing his cousin peering over his shoulder.

  Agostino looked at the image with blank eyes, yet his face held all his emotions. His eyebrows were drawn down, and he had a huge frown set on his lips. He couldn't believe what he was looking at.

  It...it was Bobbie. She was living. Breathing. She was...alive. And so was his child. She also looked different. Although she had lost weight, she still had her curves and natural beauty. How… could this... be?

  That bitch Ana lied to him? Anger replaced his stunned features, his eyes still glued to the image of his wife carrying their son into what looked like a toy store. There was no way in hell Bobbie had escaped Ana by herself while pregnant a year ago. She had help. And Agostino was willing to bet it was that bitch Ana who had helped her. His anger grew and grew until it turned into hot rage. That little bitch!

  When Anna had told him a year ago that she had killed Bobby, Agostino felt like someone had stabbed him in the heart and threw salt on his open muscle. He was sick. His wife and ninito were gone. He would never get to hold Bobbie in the late hours of the night again. Smell her faint, vanilla scent. Run his hands through he
r thick, tight curls. Rub her full belly as his son kicked. Or so he thought.

  He spent months brooding over their supposed deaths, going through Ana's documents to try and see where she had disposed of the bodies, and sitting in his son's nursery. Wishing... he had been more transparent when it came to his feelings for Bobbie. Regretting that he never came right out and simply said, 'I love you'. But seeing her prancing around-wherever the fuck she was- set him off. His heart had been crushed with the thought of her and his child's murder when this bitch was in cahoots with Ana the whole fucking time! Agostino eyed the little boy in her arms. He looked no more than 10-11 months. He had his dark-colored hair and green eyes, but everything else was Bobbie. The skin tone, facial features, and thick curls all were contributions from his mother.