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I turned and Emma was nowhere in sight. I didn’t know how much of that she watched, but as I walked back to the house, she was nowhere to be seen. I took my phone out of my pocket and called Padre. “Did the shipment come in,mijo?”
“It did, Padre,” I said. “It was short.”
There was a stillness on the other end of the line. “How was it handled?”
“I left one man alive to send a message to the suppliers. He’s going home with dislocated elbows.”
My father paused on the other end of the line, and then he chuckled warmly. “You’ve handled things well,mijo,” he praised. It was almost…alarming to hear my father sound so fond of me. Our usual rapport hovered somewhere around civil contempt. “How are things with your new bride?” he asked.
The question threw me off. Why would he care about my marriage? He’d demanded it, at least in part, to punish me for the incident at Eliseo; it wasn’t like my happiness was high on his priority list anyway. “We’re adapting to one another,” I replied. Unbidden, the image of Emma curled into my side this morning came to mind.
Padretsked. “Is she seeing to her duties as your wife?”
“Padre, are you asking —?” My father had never once cared about any of his children’s sex lives, so long as we weren’t putting the family at risk. “Whyare you asking?”
“Having an heir of your own is your priority when it comes to her,” my father explained. “If she’s refusing, you’ve done your duty by marrying her; the men have seen you uphold your life debt. Making her disappear now could be easily pinned on someone else.”
His words settled in the pit of my stomach like iron bars. He was offering to get rid of Emma after forcing me to marry her. Rage ate at my gut, and I had to bite down on my tongue until I tasted blood to keep my tone neutral. Howdarehe try and threaten what was mine? “Emma is mine, Padre,” I said. “My responsibility.”
“So long as you remember what comes first.” His warm tone cooled drastically and held a bit of a threat, an edge.
“Of course, Padre,” I said. “Our family will always come first.”
It was what he wanted to hear, and I could only hope that I delivered the words in an acceptable fashion. “Enjoy the rest of your honeymoon,” Padre said, and the call disconnected.
I thrust the phone back into my pocket before I could throw it.Enjoy my honeymoon, I thought. Fat fucking chance of that after Emma saw what she did. My anger carried me the rest of the way to the house and up the first flight of stairs.
The smell of bacon greeted me as I came through the door. “Emma?” I called.
“In the kitchen,” came her reply. I found her at the stove, eggs in one pan and bacon in the other. Coffee was brewing. “You said you didn’t want anything specific,” she said, “so I went basic. I hope over-easy eggs are okay.”
They weren’t my favorite, but I had told her that I didn’t care. “It’s fine,” I said and slid into one of the stools tucked beneath the island’s counter. I studied her face, looking for the panic or the anger that I had expected from her.
Instead, Emma was calm as she poked at the bacon in the pan. “Are you a crispy bacon person?” she asked, barely looking my way. “Or do you like it a little more rare than that?”
“Crispy,” I said, and the corner of her lip curled upward in approval. “You don’t have anything to say about what happened outside?” I asked.
Emma started pulling the first helping of bacon out of the pan and laying them on folded paper towels to drain. “I didn’t think you’d want me to ask,” she said with a shrug that was a little forced. She was trying to be casual and was nearly successful.
I reached out and snagged a piece of bacon. The salty savory flavor burst across my tongue, and I held back a sigh of contentment. “In general, it would be better if you didn’t ask,” I agreed, “but for today, you can ask me any question that you like. Within reason.”
CHAPTER11
Emma
Angel’s offer to tell me whatever I wanted to know felt like a trap. Instead of asking the first thing that popped into my head, I dished up our breakfast and set a plate in front of him. “Eat while it’s hot,” I said and came around to sit beside him.
We sat and ate in silence, and I tried to figure out what the hell was going on in my head. Was I scared of Angel? Absolutely. He was a terrifying man, and the cold, dead look in his eyes when he shot those men made my skin crawl. But that fierceness also made me feel hot on the inside, and I hated myself for it. How could I want his hands on me after seeing what he was capable of?
“You have no questions,mi esposa?” he asked. “Truly?”
What was his endgame for asking me? He’d barely shown any desire to speak with me since the moment we took our vows at the courthouse. “Does it bother you? To kill someone like that?”
He seemed surprised by the question. He popped a piece of bacon into his mouth and chewed on it, thinking. “It used to,” he said. “The first time my father had me take another man’s life, my hands shook, and I made a mess of it.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask just how old he was when that happened, but I decided that I didn’t want to know. It would only upset me, I was sure. “And now?” I asked instead.
Angel’s eyes met mine. “I feel nothing,” he said. “I don’t kill for the pleasure of it. When I have to kill anyone, it’s for my family and for my business. It’s strategic.”
