Chapter 25
Angel
“Miguel,” I said by way of greeting. “How’s the facility coming along?”
The man made a humming sound, and it crackled over the phone. “We’ve broken ground,” he said. “With the funds provided by you and the Vitalis, we should be operational within the next two months.”
Two months, I mused. “Emma and I might travel down for the opening,” I said. “She’s never traveled outside of the US.”
“Wonderful!” Miguel said. “I would love to host you and your charming wife; she will fall in love with the countryside.”
“So tell me about —”
My door burst open, and David came through followed by Lili, who was begging him to stop and think about what you’re doing. “Jefe, I need to speak with you,” David said, despite my trying to wave them out.
“Miguel, perdón, but an emergency just walked into my office.” We scheduled our next call, and I hung up.
“You better have a good reason for interrupting me,” I said, eyes on David.
The man had been on Emma’s detail for a while now, and while she never had anything good or bad to say about him, he came across as flighty to me.
I might need to rotate him out more, I thought, watching the man stumble over his words.
“Spit it out, David. I have other calls to make.”
“Dona Emma is pregnant,” he said, “and she’s planning on leaving.”
I heard the man’s words, but they didn’t make any sense. “What did you just say?” I looked at my sister, whose eyes were large and wet with tears. “Liliana? What is he talking about?”
“Angel —”
“I heard them talking at lunch,” David said, cutting his eyes at Lili. “I’m sorry, jefe, but I didn’t —”
“Get. Out.” David didn’t hesitate to flee. Maybe he was smarter than I gave him credit for. “Tell me what she said, Lili. Now.”
Lili hadn’t been afraid of me since she was thirteen years old and learned to shoot. Now, she seemed absolutely terrified. “Emma is pregnant,” she said. “She found out the day Tío Andre attacked her.”
A memory of Emma in our room, her hand pressed to her belly, as if she were protecting it, came to mind, and I went hot all over. I’m going to be a father, I thought and almost smiled…but then the rest of what David said hit me. “She’s leaving?”
Lili sniffled and wiped at her face. “She’s scared,” she said. “She’s not thinking clearly.”
Something dark crushed my chest. Rage made my vision hazy. “Did she say that she wanted to leave?” I asked slowly and carefully, like the words didn’t fit in my mouth.
Hesitantly, Lili’s head dipped in a nod. “But she didn’t mean it!” she said. “Emma’s just —”
I was on my feet and moving before I realized it. I rushed past her, ignoring her calls for me to stop and think about what I was doing. I didn’t know what I was doing; everything was rimmed in red, and there was a ringing in my ears.
Emma was in the kitchen, pulling out pots and pans, as if she was going to make another meal for the family.
It would have been a welcome sight, but it only stoked my anger further.
She turned, and the sight of her face pushed me over the edge.
I stalked across the kitchen and grabbed her by the arm, yanking her to follow me.
“Angel, that hurts,” she said, trying to pull herself out of my grasp, but I tightened my grip. I could almost feel the bones of her wrist rubbing together. “What are you doing?”
I couldn’t speak. There weren’t words for what I was feeling.
I could hear her struggling behind me, to keep up with my pace, to free herself, but I didn’t look back.
I couldn’t. I half-dragged her through the house, through doors that she must have remembered going through because her breathing became tight and panicked.
“Angel, please,” she tried again; her voice was pained.
I’m sure that if I looked down at where I held her wrist, I’d see the beginnings of bruises.
I wasn’t sure that I cared. We stopped outside of the room that had been hers when she first came to the compound; we both knew that it locked from the outside with a keypad.
Once she was in, she wasn’t coming back out until I let her out.
Emma’s eyes were wide with terror. “Don’t do this,” she begged. “Please don’t do this.”
With one hand, I opened the door and shoved her inside. Before she could round on me, I pulled the door shut and keyed in the pin. I heard the lock fit into place. Only then, when I knew that Emma wasn’t going anywhere, did the anger drain out of me.
I could hear Emma crying and begging from behind the door. She asked over and over what she had done wrong, and I scoffed. She knew exactly what she’d done. She was trying to manipulate me into letting her go. Fat fucking chance of that. She wasn’t going anywhere.
I walked away from her cries, back down the row of rooms that we’d outfitted as holding cells; I had calls to make.
I needed to check with Ademir about his European connections.
By the time I reached my office, Emma was almost entirely out of my head…
until I saw Lili standing by my office door.
Her mouth was twisted in a bitter frown.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said. “You could have talked to her; it wasn’t like you found her packing a bag. She was making you dinner!”
Irritation and bile rose in my throat. “Métete en lo tuyo.” I walked past her, shutting the door behind me.
Even through the monitor, I could see Emma’s agitation. She was pacing; she had been since she woke up this morning. If I wanted to, I could zoom the camera in and get a proper look at her face, but I resisted the urge.
I rang for Lara, and a few moments later, she appeared at my office door. “It’s time for her breakfast. Send it in with Lili.”
Lara sighed. “Can’t she come to the dining room, at least? It’s been three days.”
“No.” I hadn’t so much as said a word to Emma since putting her away, and I wasn’t planning on it now. The only people that were allowed anywhere near her was Lili and Lara, and they were on strict instruction to keep conversations brief.
“You’re torturing her,” Lara said, tone brittle. I looked up, and it was almost a shock to not see the warm smile that I associated with the older woman. Instead, there was a deep frown cut across her face. “You keep her penned in like a dog and wonder why she would ever want to leave.”
I gritted my teeth. “She wasn’t going to tell me.”
“How do you know?” Lara shot back. “You didn’t give her a chance to explain anything. You took what David said as gospel and locked her away without even telling her why.”
“She knows,” I said, eyes going back to the computer monitor. Emma had stopped pacing; she was sitting on the bed again, head in her hands.
Lara made a sound like a sob, and when I glanced back at her, the older woman had tears in her eyes. “You are not the boy I helped to raise,” she said.
I stood, squaring my shoulders. “Send Lili in with Emma’s breakfast,” I commanded. “Her lunch goes in at noon.”
Her lip curled, disgusted with me. “I know the schedule, jefe,” she said and left.
There was an inventory for the clubs that I needed to approve, and Padre had a doctor’s appointment that I was meant to attend this afternoon, but everything was pushed to the back of my thoughts. My eyes kept dragging to the monitor.
I saw when Lili opened the door and brought in Emma’s breakfast tray. Although I didn’t keep the sound on that often, I reached over and switched on the volume. “Emma, please, I didn’t —”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Emma replied. Her voice was ragged in a way that I hadn’t heard before, not even when I was threatening her life when we first met. “Just drop the tray and get out.”
“No, you have to listen to me,” Lili said.
Emma laughed, and it was an ugly sound. I was fascinated by this side of her; I had seen her annoyed, even angry, before, but this was another level that I had never experienced before. “I don’t have to do anything,” she sneered. “Run back to your brother, Lili, just like you did before.”
Lili slammed the tray onto the dresser and turned away; Emma didn’t move from her spot on the bed. As soon as I heard the door slam shut, a high-pitched whine leaked from her throat, and I snapped off the volume. I didn’t want to listen to her sobs.
My office door opened; I didn’t look to see who it was. “I’m busy.”
“Mijo, your father —” Just by his voice, I knew that it was Tío Jose — another one of the handsy uncles. The ones I should have done a better job warning Emma about.
“Padre has an appointment at four, I know,” I said. “I’m busy until then. Get out.”
Tío Jose clicked his teeth. “When did you become so impertinent, huh? That little wife of yours —”
Calmly, I opened the top drawer of my desk and retrieved my 9mm and clicked off the safety. There was a bullet in the chamber already; I kept it that way on purpose. Tío Jose’s eyes went wide when I lifted the gun and aimed it at him. “Get. Out.”
“Angel, this is ridiculous —”
I squeezed the trigger. The bullet buried itself in the wall just over his shoulder. “I didn’t hit you out of respect,” I said. “The next shot won’t miss.”
Tío Jose finally seemed to get the message because he fled, his proverbial tail tucked between his legs.
Fucking pathetic, I thought. I checked my email, confirmed Padre’s appointment with his oncologist, and then looked at the monitor again.
Emma was finished with her breakfast; she was currently scrolling through Netflix, but her eyes kept darting up to the camera, as if she knew that I was watching.
“Angel, you’re being obsessive.”
I glared at Omar, who was standing in the exact spot that Tío Jose had been in only moments before. “What is it going to take for you all to leave me alone today?” I grunted. “I’m busy.”
“If I don’t leave, are you going to shoot me too?” Omar asked.
I wouldn’t, and we both knew it. Omar and I might beat the shit out of each other, usually on Padre’s command, but neither of us would do anything that might lead to permanent damage.
He was my right hand; he would be my second when Padre was gone.
“What do you need?” I asked, breathing through the anger that was pushing against my ribs.
“Manny wants to speak with the both of us,” he said. “I thought we could take him to lunch.”
“I can’t —”
“You can stop staring at your wife for an hour, Angel. She’s not going anywhere, and you need to get some air so that you don’t kill the people who actually care about you.”
Tío Jose couldn’t care less about me; he would put cyanide in my coffee tomorrow if he thought he could get away with it…but I did see his point. “Fine.”
Manny pushed through the door. “Thanks, Angel!” He was grinning from ear to ear…and something in me snapped.
“Get that fucking smile off your face.” Manny had the same problem that I did at his age: he was baby-faced, and when he smiled, it only made it more apparent.
Padre would howl at me to stop smiling when I started shadowing him.
He wanted me to look and act like a man.
If that was what Manny wanted…then I was going to give it to him.
Manny stared at me, shocked, before the corners of his mouth drooped into something more serious.
He rolled his shoulders back and stood straighter.
“Si, jefe,” he said with a nod. My gut burned.
I didn’t want this for Manny, not yet. Let him look and act like a fourteen-year-old boy for a little while longer.
But…it didn’t seem like I was going to get my way.
“Lunch?” Omar asked.
I glanced back at the screen, at Emma lying on the bed, and sighed. “Lunch.”