Page 50 of Vicious Heir

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. “Ididn’thit 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 grinned from ear to ear, and the reprimand to get the smile off of his face was on the tip of my tongue. 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.

I bit my tongue. I didn’t want that for Manny. Let him look and act like a fourteen-year-old boy for a little while longer.

CHAPTER26

Emma

Four thousand, eight hundred, and thirty-seven…four thousand, eight hundred, and thirty-eight… It was official. I was cracking up. I had been counting the ceiling fan rotations for hours. Before that, it was heartbeats. My throat hurt from the crying and begging that I’d done in the last few days.

Lara had come with lunch and kind words. She’d patted my face and told me to stay strong, but for what? Angel hadn’t said a word to me before locking me away, and he hadn’t come to see me. He made sure I was fed, and like when I was in this room before, the bathroom was stocked with supplies, and the dresser had plenty of too-big clothes. Lara had taken the hamper of dirty clothes with her, and I imagined that I would get them back at breakfast tomorrow.

Angel could keep me in here for years.

When I heard the beeping of the keypad, my head snapped to the doorway. Lara wasn’t due back until five for dinner. Angel stepped into the room, and lead settled in the pit of my stomach. His face was twisted with anger and something that could resemble sadness.Join the fucking club, I thought, but no matter how fierce the thought, how hot the anger, the haunted look on Angel’s face stopped me from telling him to fuck off or any of the other vile things that I’d said to Lili over the last few days.

“Omar and I had lunch with Manny,” Angel said. His voice was flat, but not entirely without emotion.

I swallowed hard. “Okay?”

“He dropped out of school,” he said. “He’s going to start shadowing Omar so that he can become an enforcer.”

The words penetrated the deep confusion I found myself in. “He’s fourteen,” I said. “That can’t be legal.”

“Technically, his mother has unenrolled him so that he can be homeschooled,” Angel explained. “I’m sure she’ll keep teaching him math or whatever bullshit the state makes her, but he’ll spend most of his days training with Omar.”

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