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Crying made my headache worse, but I couldn’t stop. I had been such a fool to think that I was safe here, that I could trust someone like Angel to care enough about me to keep me safe. I knew that he didn’t love me, but I…cared about him. And I thought he cared about me too. At least enough to not yell at me for being assaulted.
That man is going to be the father of your child. The thought hit me like a bullet, and my tears petered to a stop. I touched my stomach, a mirror image of what I’d done in the bathroom earlier, and I closed my eyes, picturing that child again. What kind of life could I offer a baby here? Where he had to watch out for certain family members because they might get violent.
“I’m going to protect you,” I promised the little life that had taken root inside me. “I’ll make sure that you’re safe and cared for…even if that means we can’t be here.” The idea of leaving made my stomach clench. Not only would the Rojas kill me if they found out and could track me down, but Angel also wouldn’t hesitate if I betrayed him. He’d said as much this morning…but it wasn’t just about me anymore.
CHAPTER23
Angel
Looking through emails was doingnothingfor my mood. “I think if you press on the keyboard any harder, you will break it,” Omar observed casually.
“¡Vete a la mierda!”
Omar laughed. “What could have possibly put my big brother in such a mood, huh?”
“I’m planning Tío Andre’s death,” I muttered.
“Why? What did the old drunk do now?”
I looked at my brother. “He had Emma pinned outside the powder room on the northside.”
Omar made a face. “What was she doing there? She should know better than to go near the tios’ rooms.”
I slapped my desk and pointed at him. “Thatis what I said!”
“I mean,” Omar added, “it’s not like you wouldn’t warn her about Tío Andre and Tío Jose. They can’t be trusted around anyone who looks good in a skirt. Liliana doesn’t go near them if she doesn’t have to, and she’s blood.”
My anger pulled back like a wave going back out to sea. It would come back — it always did — but for now, I felt deflated. “I told her to keep her nose out of places that didn’t concern her,” I said, and Omar frowned.
“That’s a little different than saying that the tios are perverts and to stay away from them,” he pointed out.
“Iknowthat.”
Omar put his hands up in a “surrender” gesture. “Why don’t we go to the gun range?” he asked.
I ground my teeth, feeling that ache in my jaw from clenching it together too tightly. “I’ve got to go through this business plan.”
My brother put a hand on my shoulder. “Spare me a few hours,” he said, “before you break something expensive or start a fistfight.”
I didn’t want to admit that Omar was right, but I shut down my computer and stood. “Let me go change,” I said. “Maybe we can hit the gym on the way back.”
“Good idea, brother.”
* * *
For the first twenty minutes, Omar and I were blissfully alone at the range. Omar put targets at twenty-five, fifty, and seventy-five feet as I loaded all of the magazines for the 9mm Smith & Wessons that Lili gifted us last Christmas. “Feel like having a little competition?” my brother asked, already grinning like he did when he was a kid, and Padre would bring us to the range.
I agreed; we usually ended up seeing who was the better shot when we came here, and I was primed for it. I handed Omar a loaded clip, and we racked them into our guns. I grabbed the earmuffs and settled it over my ears, muffling the world around me. My focus became the targets in front of me.
Vaguely, I heard Omar take his first shot, but I didn’t glance to see where on the target he hit. Instead, I zeroed in on the paper figure twenty-five feet in front of me. Sighting down, I took a breath and squeezed the trigger. A hole appeared dead-center of the target.
“Damn it,” Omar swore, and now I looked over. While he had hit the target, it was just to the left of the center.
I scoffed. “You haven’t been practicing enough.”
“Su puta madre,” Omar snapped at me.
“We shared a mother,” I reminded him and sighted down on the target that was at fifty feet. Another breath, another squeeze of the trigger, and another hole appeared perfectly in the center. Omar hit the target again, but he was high. Either he was having a bad shooting day, or he was humoring me to make me feel better. “You’re jerking too much with the recoil,” I called to him; it was the same thing he’d told me time and time again.
