Chapter 32 Omar
Omar
“You shouldn’t be here, Omar. Jefe gave you a time limit to be gone.” One of the guards, a third or fourth cousin whose name I couldn’t be bothered to remember, tried to put his hand on my chest to stop me from getting inside.
I grabbed his hand and bent it backward, on the edge of snapping his wrist. “It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet, primo,” I snarled at him and put more pressure on his wrist until the man whimpered to be let go.
“Who trained you?” I spat. “Tell me that I didn’t.
I wouldn’t put anyone in a security detail who had this little spine. ”
He didn’t answer. He was looking a little gray, and when he made a gagging sound, I let him go and stepped back so that when he threw up, it didn’t get on my shoes.
Fucking pathetic. While he was busy emptying his stomach over a little bit of pain, I stepped past him and entered the house.
I’d only just left, but it felt different now, like it wasn’t my home anymore.
I pushed past that feeling and forced myself to walk to Angel’s office.
My older brother was in the same spot that I left him, bent over papers at his desk, but this time, he didn’t make me wait for him to say something. “What the hell are you doing here? Why would you come back?”
“I’ve been your second our whole lives.”
Angel scoffed. “Things change.”
I shook my head. “Not this. I have always been loyal to you.”
Anger flashed across his face. “Until today, I would have said the same, but you chose that woman over your family.”
“If Emma had been in her place?”
Angel made an ugly, almost animal sound. “Don’t bring my wife into this.”
The urge to smash my fist into something was great; I clenched my hands into fists, digging my nails into my palms. “Padre went after Emma, and you staged a fucking coup, hermano,” I reminded him. “I stood by you through that.”
“Emma wasn’t the enemy.”
I scoffed. “Name one thing that Lyse has done to you.”
“The Rojas.”
“I’m not talking about her family,” I interrupted, emboldened by my rising anger. “I’m talking about her. What has she done to you or anyone else in our family?”
“You can’t separate her from her family.”
It was a repeat of the conversation that we had before.
“Then you can’t separate us either, right?
Your crimes are my crimes, and vice versa.
” Angel’s face twisted with an emotion that I could almost call guilt if it wasn’t for the anger in his eyes.
“My crimes are my own,” I said after letting him marinate in the thought.
“I’ve slaughtered dozens of people. I killed my own father.
I did that, and it shouldn’t reflect on you. ”
“Okay, you’ve made your point…but it doesn’t change anything. You’ve defied me again and again, and I can’t let it slide. Not now.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s why I came back. If the Tíos knew that you’d let me walk away after everything I’ve done, they would turn on you.”
Angel’s anger broke then, and he looked unbearably tired. “What do you want me to do, Omar?” he asked. “I can’t kill you. We both know that.”
It was the first time he’d said it out loud, and I felt my shoulders relax. I hadn’t known that he wouldn’t kill me. I’d hoped. “Punish me,” I told him. “Make a show of it like Padre would have.”
“You want me to hit you?” He shook his head, and I stared, a little in wonder, as he blushed for the first time ever in my presence. He was actually embarrassed. “I’m too weak. It would be more humiliating for me than for you.”
“So, call someone in,” I said. “Everyone knows that you’re recovering.
It would make sense that you would bring someone else in to do what you can’t at the moment.
” There would also be no way of pulling the punches, I thought.
No one would be able to accuse Angel of going easy on me.
“You have to do this. If you don’t, you’ll look weak. ”
“I don’t understand why you would bother coming back,” Angel repeated his sentiment from before. “You knew this would happen.”
I nodded. “It has to happen.”
“This doesn’t fix everything,” Angel said after staring at me for a long while.
I knew that too. My brother had never been the easiest when it came to forgiveness, and my transgressions would have gotten me killed if I mattered less in his eyes. “It’s a start,” I said.
He nodded once, and then with a few taps on his phone, called in one of the guards, a big man named Mauricio. He wasn’t a cousin of ours, but we’d grown up together. Our fathers were close, and Padre had offered Mauricio a place on our security team when he turned eighteen. I’d trained him.
He was looking at me now with such an intense hatred that it was almost unnerving. “My brother has come seeking my forgiveness, Mauricio,” Angel said.
“He doesn’t deserve it, jefe.” The words came out in a tight wheeze, as if he were having difficulty holding himself back.
“I’ll decide that,” Angel snapped at him.
He was all detached coolness now: he was the head of the Castillo family, not my brother.
I’d seen this a handful of times since Padre had been displaced, and it never ceased to terrify me how easily my brother turned into a man who was so nearly identical.
Angel shifted his gaze to me, and a chill ran through me.
“I think there might be some redemption here…but it won’t come cheap. ”
Mauricio grinned, obviously thrilled, and it was then that I remembered I had recently suffered a blow to the head. My body was still aching from the sneak attack. Fuck. “Want me to leave his face?” he asked my brother. “Or can I crush it?”
Angel hummed softly, as if debating. “You don’t have to spare him,” he said, “but nothing permanent. My enforcer still needs to be functional.”
Mauricio looked offended. “He shouldn’t get to be your enforcer after what he’s done, jefe.”
I chuckled before I could stop myself, and when Angel glared at me, I held my hands up in supplication.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to laugh.
I just find it funny that he seems to think he can replace me.
” I looked at Mauricio. “Know that the only reason you’re going to be able to beat me is because I’m allowing it to happen.
This is my penance, and I am accepting it. ”
I didn’t have a mirror, so I wasn’t sure what my expression looked like, but Mauricio suddenly looked less confident than he did previously. “Shut up, Omar.”
I looked at my brother, serious once more. “Si, jefe.”
“Do you need someone to hold your arms?” Angel asked.
I shook my head. “I won’t fight.”
Angel considered me for a moment before he nodded. “Mauricio.” It was only his name, but it was the go-ahead that the man needed.
I didn’t have time to brace myself for the first punch.
It landed on my jaw with a force that rocked me on my feet, but I bit back a groan.
Showing any sign of pain would only make him hit me harder.
The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth, and I spat it out, spewing bright red across the tiled floor.
Mauricio reared back and hit me again, this time in the gut.
I doubled over; the air was knocked from my lungs.
Before I could catch my breath, he began raining blows down on me.
He largely stayed away from my face after getting that first crack in, but nowhere else was safe.
His fists landed with meaty thuds. It sounds like drumming.
My mind started drifting in the way that it would when Padre would do this; it was a way to escape the pain and endure for as long as necessary.
A vicious blow to my side cracked a rib, and I hit my knees, unable to keep my feet. I felt Mauricio shift, as if he were going to kick me, and I braced for it. “Stop,” Angel said. I could tell that he didn’t want to, but Mauricio obediently stepped back. “Get up.”
I wasn’t sure if I could: everything was hazy. I tried to take a deep breath, to use it to push myself up, but my right side felt like it was bursting into flames. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to my feet, nearly toppling over as my head swam, but I managed to keep my balance.
Angel stared at me with total disinterest. Maybe he goes somewhere in his head too. “Return to the island,” he said. “Stay there until I call you. If you leave, make sure you go somewhere far enough away that I won’t find you.”
It was a test: I foresaw a lot of those in my future. “Sí.” I turned away from him, hissing slightly.
“Have Lili help clean you up before you go,” Angel said to my back. “Then someone will drive you to the marina. And whatever you do, don’t let anything happen to those fucking guns.”
It was a kindness masked with indifference, but it gave me enough strength to walk from the room without toppling over.
I didn’t know if I’d be able to find our sister, but Angel must have called her in anticipation of this because she was standing outside the office.
“Come on,” she said, putting an arm around my shoulders.
Lili helped me limp to the nearest bathroom where, with much argument, she helped to patch me up enough so I could return safely to the island.
While I was rinsing my mouth out — Mauricio had split my cheek on the inside with that first punch — she texted on her phone.
“Someone important?” I asked, spitting out water pinked with blood.
She looked at me. “I do have friends, you know.”
“Like Matteo Rojas?”
Her hand shot out, slapping my shoulder on instinct, and when I groaned in real pain, she winced. “Sorry.”
“I’m fine,” I lied.
“Stop talking about Matteo, okay? I don’t know Matteo Rojas.”
She was lying, and we both knew it. Lili had always been terrible at keeping secrets.
But the genuine pain and panic on her face made me not want to push.
Whatever happened between her and the Rojas heir was significant…
but she would never tell me if I tried to pry it out of her. “Okay,” I said. “Lo siento.”
She waved me off. “Just…drop it, okay? That’s enough.
” Her phone buzzed again, and she snorted when she read the message.
“Our brother is asking if you’re going to live or not.
” I tried to grab her phone, moving too quickly, and I nearly doubled over as my ribs felt like they were splintering into my organs.
“Would you stop it?” Lili snapped, easing me down so that I was seated on the closed toilet lid. “Mauricio did a number on you.”
“It wasn’t all him.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “How many fights have you gotten into recently, idiota?”
“Fuck off.”
Lili crossed her arms over her chest. “Tell me again why I should be nice to you?”
“I never said you had to, cabrona.” Oddly enough, it felt good to be sniping with her again. If my relationship with Angel was forever changed, it was good to know that Lili and I would be the same as ever. Another buzzing text from Angel came through, and she frowned. “Time for me to go?”
She nodded. “He’s really not going to let this go, is he?”
“He can’t,” I said, slowly getting to my feet. “Like you said, if he appears weak right now, he’s a sitting duck.”
“But he’s still sending you away.”
“Only to the island. I’m close enough that I’ll be here if he needs me.”
“But—”
“It’s the best-case scenario,” I said. “I can survive exile. It won’t be forever.”
She nodded and quickly shoved the bandages and gauze tape into the med kit that belonged under the sink. “What about Lyse?” she asked. “What will you do about her?”
My heart squeezed in my chest. “She’s safe,” I said. “That’s all that matters.”
“Where is she? Why didn’t she come back with you?”
I put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m not going to tell you that,” I said. “It’s better for all of us if we forget about Lyse Rojas, okay?”
Except…how could I ever forget her? The pain in my body had nothing on what it was like to put her on that train. She’d taken something vital from me with her.
Lili frowned, and I could tell that she wanted to ask, but she and I both understood mutually assured destruction. If she asked about Lyse, I’d press about Matteo. “Come on, idiota.” She held up her phone. “I’m your ride to the marina.”