Savage Mafia Kings

Chapter 10 Angel

Angel

Inever thought that I would like someone sleeping in my bed, but there was definitely something to having the weight and warmth of another body beside me. In all my years, I hadn’t slept so well. This morning, though, I woke up wrapped around that weight and heat.

Somehow, in her sleep, Emma had wiggled back so that her back was pressed against my side, and I had curled around her.

I looked down at her; it was surprising to see her so relaxed.

When she was awake, there was always tension in her face and in her eyes, but now all that tension was gone.

She seemed younger like this — and even more beautiful.

I brushed my lips against her shoulder. She sighed in her sleep, and it would be so easy to wake her up and roll her beneath me. I kissed her shoulder again. The nape of her neck —

My cell phone, plugged in on the bedside table, buzzed.

Goddamnit. I reached for the phone and checked the message.

It was Esteban. The shipment was here, and I needed to meet them in the storage facility to go through it.

I glanced back at Emma, who was still sleeping deeply. Let her sleep, I told myself.

I slipped out of bed and quietly gathered my clothes.

I had grabbed a pair of jeans when it hit me that I never had to make myself small for anyone else, outside of my father, and I slammed the dresser drawer.

Emma jerked and sat up, eyes a touch wide.

“What’s happening?” she asked, trying to blink the sleep from her eyes.

“I have work to do,” I said and started pulling on my clothes.

She looked at me, irritated now. “Okay…?”

“What?” I snapped at her.

Emma sighed. Her eyes closed for a second, and she took a deep breath. “Is there anything you need me to do?” she asked.

“No.”

Her eyes cracked open. “Then, could I maybe go back to sleep?”

I sneered. “Do what you want, mi esposa.”

I headed for the door and heard her mutter something akin to fat chance of that, but I pressed on. There was a bubble in my gut: she had done nothing to provoke my ire, so why had I done that? What was the point?

There was no time to worry about it now. Esteban was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. “Have you seen the shipment?” I asked as we started walking to the storage facility.

“The men were unloading it, jefe,” he said. His tone told me all that I needed to know about the shipment: it was light.

“The delivery crew hasn’t left yet,” I said, and it wasn’t a question. I trusted Este with my life; he wouldn’t allow those cheating the Castillo family to get away easily.

“No, jefe,” he said. “Though, I have to wonder if these are Vitali’s men.”

I didn’t bother explaining that Lorenzo probably hired out for such things to avoid any interest directed toward him. “Why is that?”

“They aren’t Italian.”

“That could mean anything.”

“They sound Irish.”

Fuck. “Where are they?” And what were the Irish doing here.

“We’ve made them very comfortable; they’re waiting for you.”

I nodded once. “Good man.”

The storage facility wasn’t large — Padre didn’t want it to draw too much attention to itself — and it was designed to look like a drydock for boats. Inside there was a small office, and it was here that our guests of honor were being held.

The men were grim-faced, but I looked past them to Jorge, another of my most loyal men. “How light were we?”

Jorge glanced at the clipboard in his hands. “Two crates, jefe,” he said.

Padre was going to be livid. “Don’t tell me,” I said, addressing the men now, “the crates fell off the boat, right?”

One of the men, younger than the other two, winced. “Mr. Castillo —” There was no hiding the man’s Irish brogue.

I held out my hand, and Jorge dropped a pair of brass knuckles into my palm. I made a show of slipping them on. “I would suggest swallowing any excuse that you’re about to make,” I said. “Where is the rest of my order?”

Silence was my answer, and I went cold. I swung and crushed the first man’s cheek. The brass knuckles shredded his skin, and he howled in pain. I hit him again and again until his face was unrecognizable.

I looked at the second man. “Do you have anything to say? Or should I call Lorenzo Vitali about this?” When he still didn’t say anything, I narrowed my eyes. “Or, should that call go to Cillian O’Connelly?”

The man started breathing heavily, fear squeezing his lungs. “Le do thoil — “ I slid off the brass knuckles, threw them back to Jorge, and reached for the gun holstered behind my back. I put a bullet between the sniveling man’s eyes before he could stammer out anymore useless pleas.

“Angel.”

Emma was in the doorway. She had chosen a blue and white sundress for the day, and her hair was piled on top of her head, highlighting the elegant sweep of her neck.

Her blue eyes were wide with terror, and somehow, that made her even more painfully beautiful.

I glanced at Esteban. “Call Lorenzo and tell him about this. I’m sure he’ll be very interested to know that his shipment has been intercepted.

” I also needed to know why the Irish were making deliveries to my island.

“Check every crate. Count everything, look for trackers, loose wires, anything out of the ordinary. Make sure we aren’t missing anything else. ”

“Si, jefe.”

I turned back to Emma. “You shouldn’t be out here, mi esposa,” I said, my tone neutral.

“Did you need something?” If she was going to insist on interrupting me, then I had no intention of shielding her from what was happening.

She needed to see this side of me. To know who she was married to and to never forget who I am and what I’m capable of doing.

Emma blinked a few times. I thought she might be in shock. But then, she said, “I was coming to ask if you wanted something specific for breakfast.”

“Anything you want for breakfast is fine,” I said. “Just please get my coffee ready.”

She started to back out of the room, and then stopped. Her eyes flicked to the two bodies on the floor. “Angel.”

“Mi esposa?”

“Could you —?” I watched her chest rise and fall with her breathing. “Could you spare the last man? As a wedding gift to me?”

I cocked my head to the side. “Why do you care about him?”

Emma shrugged. “I don’t,” she said, though her voice was tight.

“But unless this man is solely responsible for the delivery issue, then maybe he doesn’t need to die for it.

” I wasn’t surprised that she had overheard everything.

“Don’t you need someone to take a message back to whoever sent them?

” She gestured to the man among the corpses of his friends.

“Do they honestly care about them, if they were sent without any kind of bodyguards?”

Surprisingly poignant. “Well spoken,” I praised. “Jorge, do you agree with my wife? Should we send Cillian O’Connelly a message?”

Jorge dipped his head in affirmation. “It’s a very smart suggestion, jefe.”

I noticed that Jorge didn’t look at Emma.

Good man, I thought. He knew better than to look at what’s mine.

“I agree.” I glanced at Emma; she was wary, and she should have been.

I gestured for Jorge and Esteban to grab the man, and they dragged him out of the small office into the larger storage room.

Jorge and Esteban held the man between them.

“Remember this. You are alive because my wife has a kind heart. When you’re recovering,” I told the man, who was shivering but admirably stone-faced, “tell your boss that if he keeps messing with my shipments, , Lorenzo Vitali and I will deal with him directly. Sí?”

The man stared at me, dead-eyed, for a moment, and then his head dropped into a nod. “Yes.”

I met Esteban’s eyes and nodded, and with a sickening crack, Esteban and Jorge forced the man’s elbows the wrong way, and the man let out an ungodly shriek before slumping in their grip. “Put him back on the boat,” I said, “and get him the hell off my island.”

I turned and Emma was nowhere in sight. I didn’t know how much of that she watched, but as I walked back to the house, she was nowhere to be seen. I took my phone out of my pocket and called Padre. “Did the shipment come in from New York, mijo?”

“It did, Padre,” I said. “But the men weren’t Vitali’s, and we had two crates missing.”

“Do we know who they belong to?”

“O’Connelly. The men seemed to think that they’d be able to fool us.”

There was a stillness on the other end of the line. “How was it handled?”

“I left one man alive to send a message to the Irish bastard. He’s going home with dislocated elbows.”

My father paused on the other end of the line, and then he chuckled warmly.

“You’ve handled things well, mijo,” he praised.

It was almost…alarming to hear my father sound so fond of me.

Our usual rapport hovered somewhere around civil contempt.

“How are things with your new bride?” he asked, and my surprise soured.

He didn’t care about my marriage. This was just an attempt to renew the humiliation in marrying her. “We’re adapting to one another,” I replied. Unbidden, the image of Emma curled into my side this morning came to mind.

Padre tsked, disappointed by my answer. “Is she seeing to her duties as your wife?”

“Padre, are you asking —?” My father had never once cared about any of his children’s sex lives, so long as we weren’t putting the family at risk. “Why are you asking?”

“Having an heir of your own is your priority when it comes to her,” my father explained. “If she’s refusing, you’ve done your duty by marrying her; the men have seen you uphold your life debt. Making her disappear now could be easily pinned on someone else.”

His words settled in the pit of my stomach like iron bars. He was offering to get rid of Emma after forcing me to marry her. His attempt at humiliating me didn’t quite work the way he wanted to, so now it didn’t matter if she lived or died.

Rage ate at my gut, and I had to bite down on my tongue until I tasted blood to keep my tone neutral. How dare he try and threaten what was mine? “Emma is mine, Padre,” I said. “My responsibility.”

“So long as you remember what comes first.” His warm tone cooled drastically and held a bit of a threat, an edge.

“Of course, Padre,” I said. “Our family will always come first.”

It was what he wanted to hear, and I could only hope that I delivered the words in an acceptable fashion. “Enjoy the rest of your honeymoon,” Padre said, and the call disconnected.

I thrust the phone back into my pocket before I could throw it. Enjoy my honeymoon, I thought. Fat fucking chance of that after Emma saw what she did. My anger carried me the rest of the way to the house and up the first flight of stairs.

The smell of bacon greeted me as I came through the door. “Emma?” I called.

“In the kitchen,” came her reply. I found her at the stove, eggs in one pan and bacon in the other. Coffee was brewing. “You said you didn’t want anything specific,” she said, “so I went basic. I hope over-easy eggs are okay.”

They weren’t my favorite, but I had told her that I didn’t care. “It’s fine,” I said and slid into one of the stools tucked beneath the island’s counter. I studied her face, looking for the panic or the anger that I had expected from her.

Instead, Emma was calm as she poked at the bacon in the pan. “Are you a crispy bacon person?” she asked, barely looking my way. “Or do you like it a little more rare than that?”

“Crispy,” I said, and the corner of her lip curled upward in approval. “You don’t have anything to say about what happened outside?” I asked.

Emma started pulling the first helping of bacon out of the pan and laying them on folded paper towels to drain. “I didn’t think you’d want me to ask,” she said with a shrug that was a little forced. She was trying to be casual and was nearly successful.

I reached out and snagged a piece of bacon. The salty savory flavor burst across my tongue, and I held back a sigh of contentment. “In general, it would be better if you didn’t ask,” I agreed, “but for today, you can ask me any question that you like. Within reason.”