The Brute & The Blogger

Davonshire House Publishing

PO Box 9716

Augusta, GA 30916

This book is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s vivid imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely a coincidence.

© 2015 Olivia Gaines, Cheryl Aaron Corbin

Copy Editor: Rachel Bishop, MA

Cover: koou-graphics

Olivia Gaines Make Up and Photograph by Latasla Gardner Photography

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means whatsoever.  For information address, Davonshire House Publishing, PO Box 9716, Augusta, GA 30916.

Printed in the United States of America

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First Pink Door Publishing February 2015

Davonshire House Publishing April 2015

The Brute & the Blogger

T
he Brute & the Blogger

Dedication

For every woman that loves a good story.

––––––––

R
un
.

Ebony Miller knew her car was close by, but right now it seemed miles away.  She quickened her footsteps to hasten her distance from the door of the restaurant to where she had parked her nine year old Chevy.  It was still not close enough. The faster she walked the faster he walked
.  Think Ebony. Think.

Tonight was not the best night to be in stupid five inch heels, especially when you were about to be mugged on a dark street by a man twice your size.
Think Ebony
. 
Purse.  What is in your purse? Keys. Poke him in the eye with your keys
. Ebony was nobody’s victim and she was not about to be one tonight.  If this dude was going to make on move on her, he would have his hands full.  She would not go down without a fight.

She turned to face her assailant, “I don’t have any money!  I am on my period and HIV positive.  You touch me, you are in a world of hurt!” In the dark shadows of the dimly lit street, she could still see the surprise on his face.

Ebony was almost disappointed when she saw the man who was about to make her his victim.  He wasn’t twice her size but exactly two inches taller than she was and thin.  Meth addict thin. Her imagination had made her see the worse, and in a knock down drag out fight, she could probably take this skinny, rail thin man. He stared at her with crazed eyes as he began to stutter, “Give me yyoooouuurr...mo...money...Bitc...”

He never got the last word out before Ebony reached behind her with a balled up fist and with everything in her, swung and socked him in the nose. The man groaned loudly as she lifted her high heeled Manolo Blahnik and kicked him first in the shin and then in the crown jewels.  Or at least she tried as he caught her by the foot and lifted her leg high, depositing her backside on the wet pavement.

“Oh no you didn’t!” She yelled at him as she scrambled to her feet and started swinging her purse at him. The contents went flying left, right and in the air.  Her car keys flew right at him and the man caught them easily. “Great!  A meth head with dexterity!”  Ebony stood there stunned as Meth Man pressed the alarm and her car, which she had not been able to find before, lit up as it answered the call from the key fob.
Traitor
.

The slim man tried to get past her, but Ebony jumped on his back and began to yell “Fire!  Fire!  Fire!”  She saw the headlights barreling down on them, the driver blowing his horn. Her assailant turned quickly, shaking her off like a wet dog ridding his fur of excess water sending Ebony flying in the air, landing in the wet street, only a few inches from the bumper of her arriving rescuer. The Meth head climbed in her car, started the engine and drove off.

“Seriously?  Seriously??” She yelled at her taillights, which were speeding off down the street.

“Miss, are you alright?” Her rescuer asked as he began to pick her strewn belongings up from the sidewalk.

Ebony turned to thank the person who had saved her only to come face to face with him! “Tino Boehner?”

“Oh God, you!”  He said with his mouth downturned as if he had just eaten something sour, smelly and indigestible.

Her immediate reaction was to start yelling expletives, but she tried to control her temper.  Tino, on the other hand was not as nice.

He told her, as he shoved her belongings at her, “If I had known it was you, I would have taken my time and let him beat your ass first.”

Ebony gave as good as she got, “And if I had known that you would be the person who would rescue me, I would have asked my father to leave my mother alone before I was even conceived!”

They stood on the sidewalk in the sprinkling rain in a Mexican standoff. There was no love between Tino and Ebony. 

Tino Boehner was a real estate developer.  Well, not just any real estate developer, but one of the biggest in the state of North Carolina.  He was well known for redeveloping slum and low income areas often displacing well established neighborhood communities.  Most of all of the areas were black, Hispanic or predominantly Asian neighborhoods.

Ebony was a community activist and a blogger that often broke more stories than the local news.  Several of her stories had made the national news and shined an unwelcome light on Tino’s businesses. In her blog postings, she had labeled him as a land hungry brute than often rode ram shod over the little guys as he performed his own version of ethnic cleansing.  His entrepreneurship, although revitalizing too many areas, increased the tax base, and created housing that many could no longer afford. Those moving into the newly developed communities no longer wanted the former residents to be a part of the bright new Meccas that Tino was creating.

Before another word could be said between them, a loud crash erupted down the street in the direction the Meth Head had driven her car. “No...no...no...this cannot be happening to me.”  As Ebony bent to pick up the remains of her belongings, her heeled snapped into. Her head hung low and there was just no way her evening could get any worse.

Tino removed his jacket and placed about her shoulders, “Your dress is torn.”

Ebony began to turn like a dog chasing its tail trying to see the extent of the damage. “No...no...no...” she kept repeating when she realized the back end of her dress was missing and her butt was hanging out of the ripped hole.

“I’m not the complete brute you labeled me to be.  Get in, let me give you a lift home,” he told her.

She could now feel the draft of the winds of change blowing up her keester.  “I need to call the police...file a report...”

“Do you want to do all of that with your ass hanging out?”  He asked her in a matter of fact tone.

“I guess not,” she said, almost sounding defeated. 

Tino opened the passenger door for her and helped her inside.  He could not help but notice her long, well defined legs, full lips, and large doe like eyes.  His physical response to her was somewhat off putting to him as he closed her door and walked around to the driver side of the vehicle.

No words were uttered as he slipped into the driver seat of the low slung vehicle that probably cost more than she made in two years. The cologne he wore permeated everything in the car and wearing his jacket didn’t help much. This was the closest she had ever been to the man. And he was fine. The photos did not do him justice.

Something else that seemed to evade the halls of justice was her car.  As they drove past the scene of the accident, it was truly her vehicle.  It was now an ornament for the telegraph pole it was crookedly wrapped around.  Tino pulled the car to the side and stepped out to check the driver.  He was still alive.  The police had begun to arrive and he held up his hand for Ebony to stay in the car. He spoke with the officers, handed both his card, pointed at her in the car.  Whatever he told them, they were okay with it as he made his way back to the car.

He moved like a predator. 

Ebony suddenly began to feel like his prey.