Chapter 20 Angel
Angel
“What were you thinking, mijo?” Padre demanded. He hadn’t spoken for the entire ride to the treatment center. While we were checking in, he had to play the part of a normal man, and so it wasn’t until after the nurse had left us alone that he spoke to me directly. “That show of disrespect?”
If we were standing in his office, surrounded by the men who were sworn to do his every bidding, my nerves might still be as bad as they were when I walked out of the restaurant. But seeing my father seated in a hospital chair, hooked up to the bright red bag of chemo, Padre looked old and frail.
It would be easier if you died, I thought. I toyed with the idea of holding a pillow over his face. How long would it take the nurses to come running? Long enough for me to finish the job and run away? Probably not.
“The Rojas family is dangerous,” I said. “They’ve shown us time and time again that they want us dead. Why would Luis suddenly turn over a lucrative part of his own business? That doesn’t make any sense, and I refuse to put our family in danger.”
“You refuse?” Padre asked. “?Te he oído bien?”
Punching him might not kill him, but feeling his nose crunch under my fist would be so satisfying. “See some sense, Padre, por favor,” I said. “Luis will betray us. It’s a guarantee.”
“Luis is a kicked dog,” Padre argued. “He’ll cow to our demands if we apply the right kind of force. We could take over all of their business in one fell swoop.”
So that was my father’s angle: let Rojas think we’ve agreed to peace, and then sweep in and take it all. “And what if he has the same idea?” I countered. “To try and take what’s ours?”
My father clearly thought this was the most ridiculous thing that he’d ever heard. “Luis had to hire a man to get the jump on you. His men couldn’t stand against ours if it came down to a fight.”
The six dead men from the attack on Elíseo wouldn’t agree with him.
“Padre, we don’t need the Rojas’s business,” I said.
“We’re building a partnership with the Cosa Nostra, which opens up even more markets both in and outside the US for us.
” His expression didn’t change, and I had to bite back a growl of frustration.
“I’ve secured us a direct line to resources in Venezuela.
No more going through suppliers. Then, we’re going to work our way into international markets where we can charge triple the price for our product.
Nothing the Rojas have will be worth a quarter of what we could get. ”
I would never be sure if I actually impressed the man, or if the chemo was slowing his reaction time, but he stared at me, just blinking, for the next two minutes. “You have big aspirations, mijo,” he said finally. “But I don’t want you to hook yourself into wax wings and fly into the sun.”
“The allyship with the Vitalis isn’t based on this project. So if the deal with Miguel and Ademir falls through, we aren’t in a worse spot. None of them want Miami for themselves; they all have their own kingdoms to hold onto. If we lose to the Rojas, we’ll lose everything.”
“Luis Rojas could not take what is mine,” Padre said with conviction. It came off as unhinged, like he wasn’t entirely in his right mind.
“Padre,” I said. “It’s foolhardy to get involved with the Rojas, and I won’t.”
“Angel —” He was turning red. It had been years since I’d been this defiant to my father, but he wasn’t swarming in guards right now. It was just me and him, and he was going to listen to me.
“No,” I said, putting some force behind my words, “Padre, I won’t be involved with the Rojas or with trafficking.”
My father’s eyes narrowed. “So that’s the problem!” he crowed, as if he’d discovered something.
“It’s not the whole problem,” I argued, “but it is part of it.”
“It’s a little late to be having issues of morality, mijo,” he said.
I shook my head. “I’m not worried about my morality, Padre,” I said.
“But it’s not an avenue I’m interested in pursuing.
I don’t think it would benefit the family, and it would bring a lot more trouble to us.
Drugs and weapons are easy; they don’t fight back.
They don’t have families. They don’t try to escape. ”
Padre was quiet for a long while. I thought he’d fallen asleep, but then he said, “That woman has made you soft.”
I scoffed. “What are you talking about?”
“You think I haven’t noticed how you stare at her? You think we all haven’t heard the sounds that come from your rooms?” he asked, tone challenging. “Whenever you’re in the same room with her, your brain isn’t on our business.”
“Emma isn’t to blame for this,” I said. “She’s been nothing but accommodating since we’ve gotten married.”
“She’s made mistakes,” Padre said, as if the handful of small errors were unforgivable. “She’s weak.”
“If you believe that,” I said, trying and failing to hide my anger, “why did you want me to marry her? I could have sent her away; I could have a protection detail on her 24/7. I could have done a hundred different things to keep her safe and fulfill my life debt, but you decided marriage was the best option.” I wanted him to say, outright, that marrying Emma had been a punishment.
It would give me great pleasure to remind him how much that plan backfired.
Padre seemed to puff up in his anger. “I thought marriage would be good for you,” he said instead. “You need to secure your legacy as I did mine.”
“It’s only a matter of time before Emma gets pregnant,” I said. “But why can’t I enjoy myself with her? Why can’t I —?”
My father looked absolutely vicious. “You love her, don’t you?” he asked and almost sounded gleeful. The suddenly joyous tone crawled up my back like spiders.
“I don’t see how that’s important,” I said.
He sneered. “You can’t even lie about it, can you?”
I sighed. “Whether I love Emma or not isn’t important,” I said. “I’m in this marriage because you ordered me to marry her. I’m making the best of it.”
His disgusted look only deepened. I had seen my father enjoy women before.
He never brought anyone back to the compound, of course, but he wined and dined for years.
“You’re letting her get to your head, mijo,” he reiterated.
“She’s going to ruin you. You know your Tíos have been urging me to give the business to Omar. Maybe they’re right. Omar is –”
A nurse knocked on the door, halting the same diatribe I’d heard every time I managed to disappoint my father. “How are we doing?” the woman asked cheerily as she began to poke and prod at the various things they had hooked to my father.
“Ready to head home,” my father replied gruffly, side-eyeing me. He was planning retribution, I knew. I was fairly certain he wasn’t actively planning to kill me, but if I escaped what waited for me with a few broken ribs, I would count myself as lucky.
“You’re just about done,” the nurse said. “Remember, this ‘Red Devil’ cocktail that we’ve got you on is nasty, so you’ll probably want to spend the rest of the evening and, probably, most of tomorrow in bed.” She looked at me. “Can I count on you to get him to relax?”
She absolutely couldn’t, but I smiled and agreed regardless. “I’ll make sure he takes it easy,” I promised.
“He should expect —”
“Don’t speak about me as if I am not here,” my father snapped. “I am not incompetent.” The nurse blushed; she was a pretty thing. Had it not been for Emma, I might have asked for her number. My father must have noticed my stare. “My son finds you attractive. Would you like him to take you out?”
The nurse’s eyes widened. “Oh,” she said, “uh —”
I held up my hands in an “unarmed” gesture. “I’m married, Miss,” I said. “Please accept my apologies. Padre and I are having a disagreement, and he’s trying to make a point.”
Her blush deepened, and I was sure she was sick of our shit. “Your father is going to get sick in the next few hours. He won’t be able to hold down food, and he’ll probably develop a massive headache. Do your best to keep him hydrated.”
I nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” When she started removing his IV, I asked, “Can I take him home then?”
“Dr. Spalding wanted to speak with you,” she said, eyes on her work. “If you’ll give him a moment, and then I’m sure you’ll be discharged to go.”
She breezed out of the room, and I whirled on my father. “You’re propositioning women for me now?” My voice came out far too loud; we were both shocked.
“Yelling?” Padre asked. “You’re yelling now?”
There was no way for me to respond. I could apologize, but we both knew that I would be lying, and my father couldn’t stand liars. “Let’s just talk to your doctor, Padre,” I said with a sigh. “We can discuss the rest at home.”
My father had murder in his eyes. “Yes,” he agreed. “We will.”
It took Dr. Spalding another twenty minutes to arrive, flustered and with a manila folder tucked under his arm, and Padre and I sat in silence that entire time.
I stood and shook the doctor’s hand. “I’m glad Gustavo brought some support this time,” Dr. Spalding said. “You must be one of his children.”
“Angel,” I said in answer. “The oldest.” I glanced at my father, and that pitiful, fragile look was back. It was like he shrunk in the face of his doctor. “What’s going on with my father? Is all of this helping?” I gestured to the empty chemo bag hanging from the IV pole.
The doctor took a breath and walked over to the lightbox that was hung on the wall.
Pulling a film out of the folder, he put it up on the lightbox and turned the light on.
For the next five minutes, he walked me through my father’s prognosis, and it was bleak.
My father’s liver was shutting down, and his cancer appeared to be spreading into his small intestines.
He was using medical jargon that I couldn’t follow, but I got the gist of what he was saying: Padre didn’t have long left, and it would be for the best if we made our arrangements sooner rather than later. “What can we do?” I asked. “More chemo? Is there surgery?”
Dr. Spalding put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently.
“Gustavo and I have discussed this at length. The chemo can give him more time, but it’s not a cure-all.
The fact that there are new growths in different parts of the body shows us that the chemo isn’t doing what we’d hoped.
” He looked at my Padre, who had stubbornly remained quiet and passive.
Like if he ignored the doctor, the news would somehow be different.
“I’m sorry to you both, but there’s not much else to be done.
Continuing the chemo is your choice, of course, but you’d be subjecting yourself to torture for very little outcome. ”
“Are physicians allowed to just…give up like this?” Padre asked, still refusing to look at the doctor. “I thought the oath said, ‘do no harm’?”
Dr. Spalding nodded. “It does, which is why I’m suggesting that you cease treatments because all you are going to accomplish is making your final months miserable.
” He handed me a stack of papers. “Everything we’ve talked about is in there,” he said.
“Your family should sit down and discuss next steps.”
When he was gone, my father pushed himself to his feet.
“Throw that out,” he said. “It’s not going back to the compound.
” If there was a way to hide it, I would have snuck it out, but under his watchful gaze, I tore the pages up and tossed them into the trash can.
“Come,” he said. “We’ve a lot to discuss at home. ”
There was no point in arguing, and I doubted he would talk about what Dr. Spalding had just told us. But the whole drive home, I imagined what six months from this point would look like. Padre’s life was spiraling downward. Home plate was in sight, so to speak.