Chapter 28 Omar
Omar
“They’re going to kill me.”
I reached for Lyse’s hand, threading our fingers together even as I stiffened in the front seat of the SUV. I’d never feared the Castillo compound before, but today was a first. “They won’t.”
Lyse wasn’t listening. She was terrified, trying to sink down and disappear into the seat. “You can’t promise that.” It was a repeat of the words she’d said last night.
I brought her hand up to my mouth, brushing a kiss against her knuckles. “I can promise whatever I want, remember?”
“Sure,” she said, eyes never leaving the glaring men beyond the windshield. “But it doesn’t mean they have to listen.”
Lyse wasn’t entirely wrong about that. If Angel ordered them to shoot her on sight, they would, regardless of what I said, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. “It’s going to be okay. Let’s go talk to Angel.”
When I’d told her this morning that we would be returning to Miami, she’d agreed but then clung to me in the shower, shaking the entire time.
She’d climbed onto the boat and held on for dear life as I sped us to the mainland: her fear of being abandoned outweighed her fear of the water and my brother.
I’ll protect you, I’d promised her, and I would show her how much I meant it.
I got out of the SUV and went around to open her door. Lyse stepped out, and I immediately tucked her behind me. “Just stay with me, conejita,” I said and smiled at the guards.
“Hola, primo,” I greeted, but both men stared at me as if they’d never seen me before. This was not good. I half-expected them to stop us from going inside, but they stood still as stone as we skirted past.
As we walked into the foyer, Lyse looked around. “Doesn’t look too different from home,” she said. “Similar decorator?”
I smiled and put my arm around her: I appreciated her attempt at humor. “I’m sure there’s only so many that cater to families like ours,” I agreed. “But this house hasn’t changed much since my madre died.”
“My mother isn’t dead, but ours still looks like this. Chic, but somewhat trapped in the ’90s.” She motioned to the white marble floors that had a sandy vein running through them.
“I have …never thought of that before.” The beach house was all white and bright, very timeless, but the compound had been decorated to my mother’s tastes…which had been in the ’90s. No one had thought to change anything since then.
“Maybe your brother’s wife would like to update.”
I swung her into the kitchen, where Emma was elbow deep in a mixing bowl. She looked frazzled. “Speaking of my sister-in-law,” I said, getting her attention. “Lyse, this is Emma.”
Emma looked at me and then at Lyse. “Have you seriously been with a woman this whole time?” she asked. “Because I had to talk Angel out of dragging you home by himself.”
I cleared my throat a little. “Let me do this again. Emma, this is Lyse Rojas.”
Her eyes went round. “Are you absolutely out of your mind?”
Lyse actually laughed at that, and Emma cut her piercing blue eyes to her. “Sorry,” Lyse said, sobering.
“No, I’d like to know what’s so funny.”
Lyse was scared again. “I’ve wondered probably a couple dozen times in the last few weeks if Omar is completely crazy,” she said. “I’m glad that I’m not the only one.”
Emma stared at her for a moment, and then the corner of her mouth curled upward. When she glanced at me, her expression had returned to fondness. I grinned. “You know you can’t stay mad at me.”
“I might not be able to.” She jerked her head in the vague direction of the office. “But you know Angel’s not so soft on you. She can stay with me; you go talk to your brother.”
Lyse looked up at me, panicked. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
I cupped her cheek. “You’re safe here,” I said. “Emma’s the least scary out of all of us.”
She had gone back to her mixing bowl. “Only because I’m the newest,” she said. “You’re lucky that it’s me here and not Lili. She’d tear you both into chunks before you ever got to Angel.”
I pressed a kiss into the space between Lyse’s eyebrows. “I won’t be gone long, conejita.” I looked at Emma, who was trying not to study us with too much interest. “Look after my girl for a second?”
Emma let out a breath. “El cielo te ayude.” She motioned for Lyse to join her. “Do you know how to make golfeados?”
Lyse shook her head. “I like to eat them, though.”
Emma smiled. “Come shred the cheese for me, and I’ll make sure you get the first one out of the oven.”
I watched them for a moment, enjoying the picture of the two of them together, before I headed for the office. There was no use putting this off anymore…and as much as I trusted Emma, I didn’t want to leave Lyse on her own for too long.
Angel was behind the desk when I walked into his office, and for a split-second, it was like Padre was still there.
Their expressions, when pissed off, were the same.
He wasn’t looking at me; whatever was on his desk was far too important.
So I stood and waited. Padre once kept me waiting for four hours, and I’m sure Angel was remembering that now.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Angel finally asked, still not looking at me.
This man is not my older brother, I told myself. If we were just Angel and Omar, I would be sarcastic. I would shoot my mouth off…but this was Angel the Head of the Castillo Family, and I couldn’t rely on humor now. “I’m your enforcer, hermano.”
Angel looked at me, and a chill shot down my spine.
If anyone else looked at me like that, I would have already put a hole through their skull.
But it was Angel, and even if my hands twitched, I didn’t reach for the gun at the small of my back.
He noticed the movement, of course, and he sneered. “Are you?” he demanded.
My jaw clenched. “I have always been loyal to you, Angel,” I said, and my wording was deliberate. Toward the end of my father’s reign as head of our family, I had sided with Angel when our Padre sent the Rojas thugs after Emma. I chose my brother and stood beside him as he took over.
“Have you?” He threw a file at my feet, and I picked it up.
It was security footage from the night of Lyse’s engagement party.
I flicked through the images: full-color images of me bringing down some of the deadliest men in the Rojas family.
The final image was of Lyse standing between the Rojas boys and me.
“You knew that I went there,” I said, looking through the images. “I wasn’t hiding that from you.”
“I wouldn’t have cared if you killed a thousand of those bastards,” Angel said. “But why are there pictures, Omar?”
I bowed my head. “I forgot the optics,” I admitted. “I didn’t even look for cameras.”
Angel threw another folder at me. “You forgot the cameras in another place too, cabrón.” I didn’t want to pick up the folder; I knew what would be in it.
“Pick it up,” Angel ordered through his teeth.
My hands shook as I bent to pick up the folder.
“Look at it,” he added when I simply held the folder for too long.
I opened the folder and saw myself holding a pillow over my father’s face. I closed the folder again. “What do you want me to say?” I asked when Angel didn’t speak. “He set you up and put you in a coma. He nearly got Emma killed.”
Angel held up his hand. “I’m not angry that he’s dead,” he said.
“I wanted him dead. I sent him to that place to die alone.” He shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe just how stupid I was.
“Do you have any idea what would happen to you if these pictures got out? There would be no protecting you!”
“You don’t think I know that?” Anger exploded in my gut.
“I killed our father,” I hissed, lowering my voice just enough.
“I did that. There’s no going back from it.
” I motioned for him to keep talking, completely forgetting my own pep talk about not being sarcastic.
It was too hard to remain polite when I was shaking with this much anger.
“Come on, hermano, read me the rest of my sins. I know you want to.”
Angel wasn’t amused. “Read your sins? That’s what you want?
Okay, I told you to come home; you ignored me for days.
I told you to leave the Rojas family alone, and you tried negotiating with Luis for territory.
Kidnapping Luis Rojas’s daughter, and then bringing her here.
” My stomach dropped, but I kept my face neutral. “Does that about cover it, Omar?”
I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “That covers it.”
“How could you bring her here? After everything her family has done?”
“Lyse isn’t—”
“Isn’t a part of her family? Is she a victim of her father’s?” Angel scoffed. “When has that ever mattered? She’s a Rojas, and she’ll bear the weight of their crimes as much as any other member of her family.”
It was the same mindset I’d had not too long ago. “Lyse is so much more than that,” I insisted. I looked down at my hands, unable to stand the intensity of my brother’s stare. “She matters to me.”
Angel laughed; it was a cruel sound. “She matters to you? ?Qué demonios significa eso?” When I couldn’t answer, he demanded, “Do you love her?”
“I’m sorry, hermano.” It didn’t answer his question. I wasn’t sure myself what the answer would be, but it was the best I could do. “I’ve made this mess, and I will do whatever you want me to do in order to fix it. My loyalty has always been with you.”
“Shut up, pendejo.” My jaw clicked as it closed. “Go get the woman.”
“What?”
“The Rojas woman,” Angel said. “The one you left alone in the kitchen with my pregnant wife.” The words came out as a growl. “Go. Get. Her.”
“Angel.”
He blinked, and it struck me again how much he looked like Padre. “Are you defying me, Omar?”
I shivered. It was the exact kind of question that Padre would ask that would end in a beating. “No,” I said. “No, of course not.”
I left the office as straight-backed as I could; I didn’t want Angel to think that I was running from him.
I snaked my way through the house to the kitchen, and for a moment, my heart warmed again.
Emma was showing Lyse how to roll the golfeados so that the person eating it could see the layers. I paused for a moment, watching them.
“You know, Omar’s never brought a woman around like this,” Emma said lightly, her eyes on her work, though I could almost feel her curiosity burning a hole through the counter.
Lyse snorted. “I find that hard to believe.”
Emma chuckled. “Let’s not pretend he’s a saint. But I’ve certainly never been introduced to any of them.”
A wry smile caught Lyse’s mouth. “Why am I not surprised that Omar would keep that part of his life separate? That sounds exactly like something he would do.”
Emma hummed. “That’s why this is so different.” She caught Lyse’s eye. “You’re different.”
A blush stained Lyse’s cheeks and I wanted nothing more than to run my thumbs along the color and pull her in for a kiss. “Because I’m the only daughter of the enemy cartel?” she muttered.
Emma stopped fiddling with the golfeados. “Well, yes. There’s certainly that. But Omar seems to think you’re worth the risk.”
“You think he’s an idiot,” Lyse said quietly, “for being with me?”
“I often think Omar is an idiot,” Emma said. The fact that she said it with such fondness made me smile. “But I think there is a different measure of tolerance where the heart is concerned. We don’t pick the people we fall for. It just sort of happens.”
I knew she was talking about Angel as much as she was referring to me and Lyse.
“You being here says a lot,” Emma noted.
“I don’t think Omar really had much choice in the matter. We couldn’t hide away forever.”
“If Omar didn’t want you to be here, meeting his family, then you wouldn’t be,” Emma said, laying her hand on her baby bump. “Never doubt how much that means.”
My blood ran cold. Emma was right. I’d wanted my family to meet Lyse. I’d wanted them to see what I saw. To feel the way I did about her. But Angel was proving that might not be possible. “Conejita,” I called softly.
Lyse looked up, and a smile stretched her face, like she could think of nothing better than seeing me. “That didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would,” she said.
Emma’s smile, however, vanished. “How did it go?” Her tone was wary.
“Angel wants to see you,” I said, eyes only on Lyse.
Her dark eyes clouded with fear, and mine probably weren’t much better. I had no way to comfort her. She and I both knew that this was not going to be good. She turned and looked at Emma, offering her a watery smile. “Thank you for teaching me about golfeados. I really wanted to taste one.”
Emma shook her head. “I’ll have one on a plate for you when you’re done,” she promised and, impulsively, tugged her in for a hug.
“Come on,” I said and held out my hand. “We can’t keep him waiting.”