Vicious Angel: A Dark Mafia Romance (Criminal Sins Book 2)

by Sasha Leone

  “I know...” I haven’t forgotten about our son. A little whirlwind of shame crosses my soul as I think about how Angel and I just wasted this time fucking when we should have been racing back to Oscar. He’ll be alone for a little longer now because of our selfish desires.

  No, not selfish, I tell myself. Necessary.

  Angel and I now know where we stand. Everything may have changed since the last time we fucked, but our feelings haven’t. He’s pounded away the last bits of resentment I had for him for not coming sooner. Sure, some of it’s still there, but it’s nothing compared to what it was even just yesterday. My doubt has been cut in half; my hope has been doubled—and all it took was a hard fuck in a dirty alleyway.

  “Are you sure it’s this one?” I ask, not recognizing the door—though, to be fair, down here, they all look the same.

  “It doesn’t hurt to try.” Angel knocks three times on the door tucked into the side of the underground tunnel. We both wait with bated breath. I have little doubt that Oscar is safe—I trust Juan and Lady more than anybody—but it’s been so long since I’ve been allowed to see my baby boy. The same thing happens every time I come visit; the closer I get, the more my absence hurts.

  Like a dream, three soft knocks come from the other side of the door. My shoulders slink in relief. I rush by Angel just as he responds with two soft knocks of his own.

  The door rattles open and I burst inside. “Catalina!” Lady’s voice is filled with shock. I let my hand fall on her shoulder as I scan the room for my baby boy. I spot him in his booster chair.

  “Mama!”

  My heart busts.

  “Ozzy!” He’s in my arms and against my cheek before I dare take another breath. His happy gurgles fill me with joy; I smother him in kisses.

  “Mama! Mama!” he begs, squirming under my tight grip.

  “I’m back.” And I’m never leaving again. I don’t stay that last part out loud. After all I’ve been through, I know not to make promises like that, not to someone as innocent as my Oscar. I only make promises I know I can keep. Mommy promises she will always love you. Mommy promises that she never stops thinking of you. Those are things I can control, but I don’t dare promise what I can’t control. Even with Angel’s return, and the city at his back, I’ve been through enough hell to know that freedom and success is never guaranteed.

  I give Oscar a reprieve from my smooches and instead hold him in a vice grip of motherly love. His innocent scent wafts into my nostrils and puts my mind at ease—then I feel Angel’s strong presence on my back and I can’t help but tighten back up.

  I’ve never thought about how this would work—us, as parents. Can I even share my baby boy with anyone?

  “Boo-boo,” Oscar calls, reaching between Angel and I, towards the kitchen fridge. I turn around and flip him over in my arms. “Boo-boo,” he calls out again. His green eyes are fixed on Angel.

  “It sounds like he wants you to fetch him dinner,” I half-laugh.

  “I guess he thinks I’m his butler,” Angel smirks.

  “That’s a good enough start.”

  Angel nods and heads for the kitchen. Ozzy and I float over to the ratty couch by the old-fashioned antenna-television in the corner of the little underground hideaway. Before I can blink, Angel’s collapsed down on the sofa beside me.

  It almost feels like we’re a family.

  Almost...

  Oscar wriggles under my grip, reaching over to Angel and his bottle of formula. “Come here, buddy,” Angel calls. He reaches over, groaning as he shifts on the couch. I can hardly imagine how sore he must be from all of his fighting. I probably would be sore, too, if I could feel anything—but despite being with the two people I’ve yearned after most for the past two years, I feel numb.

  Oscar squirms free from my grip and makes his way over to Angel. He doesn’t get far before Angel picks him up and whisks the little boy onto his lap. Oscar laughs with amusement—he may be small, but neither Lady or I have the strength to roughhouse with him like that; he seems to like it. Hell, he seems to like Angel.

  ... I guess that makes two of us.

  “Come on, drink,” Angel insists, putting the bottle up to Oscar’s lips, but the stubborn boy isn’t having it. To me, it’s clear what he wants, but Angel doesn’t seem to catch onto it. So, I push him in the right direction.

  “He wants you to lift him up again,” I say, resting my cheek against my palm. I watch my two boys, exhausted, but wearily content, as their eyes both light up at the same time.

  Angel lifts Oscar above his head and Oscar screeches with glee. It’s funny, whenever I think of my son, I picture him as this fragile little seed, but in Angel’s hands, he looks anything but fragile—though, he does look even smaller than usual. Oscar might grow to be big someday, but right now, his daddy’s hands are long enough to wrap around him nearly twice over.

  An unwelcome prick of dread pinches my heart at the thought of Oscar growing up. What kind of world are we creating for him? Is Angel serious about this revolution business, or was he just doing it to get me? What’s next? Will we even last that long?

  I don’t ask any of those questions out loud, not yet. Instead, I just watch the two most important boys in my life as they make each other happy. The genuine smile on Angel’s rugged face is like nothing I’ve ever seen from him before.

  His dimples are back in full force and sharper than I’ve ever seen. My heart flutters and butterflies flap around so hard in my stomach that I wonder if it was them who caused the hurricane-like winds at the wedding.

  No, it couldn’t have been my butterflies. I didn’t know Angel was coming. My belly was filled only with dread, and nothing else.

  I try not to think about the horror of what I just came from, or the terror of what’s to come. Right now, the three of us are safe. Right now, we’re a family.

  17

  Angel

  I wake up on the couch with my head on Catalina’s lap and a baby boy in my arms—but he’s not just any baby boy; he’s my baby boy. Oscar Luis Alzate-Montoya. Future king.

  His soft breaths lull me back to sleep, but before I can drift into dreamland a buzz comes from my pocket. I sigh, knowing that I can’t ignore the outside world for much longer, not if I want to preserve this slice of domestic bliss.

  Cat shifts under my head and the memory of that night all those years ago, when I walked in on her cooking at my condo, hits me like a tidal wave. What I smelled wasn’t spaghetti sauce or pasta, I realize, it was this.

  My phone doesn’t stop ringing for long enough to let me relax again. It keeps buzzing and I tighten my grip around Oscar, before slowly sitting up on the couch. I hand him to his half-asleep mother and she unconsciously cuddles him in her arms.

  Lady’s resting over by a cot near the kitchen. I don’t want to wake anybody, so I step out into the dark dank tunnel to take my call.

  “Where have you been!?” Juan immediately asks. His voice isn’t panicked, but it definitely isn’t calm either.

  “With my family,” I respond.

  That eases my advisor a little bit. “Good,” he sighs. “You’re all safe and unharmed?”

  “Yeah.” I pinch the bridge of my nose and let out a yawn. My muscles are sore, but the wounds on my hands seem to be healing well and my head is mostly clear, if not a little drowsy. “How’s everything with you?”

  “Things are getting hectic, Angel,” Juan’s voice breaks just enough to snap me fully awake. This is serious. Juan isn’t easily shaken.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what do I mean’?” he replies. “Dante escaped the wedding, unharmed and absolutely furious. The fucking army was called in and it tore up Capital street with a fucking tank. Your revolutionaries sustained heavy casualties. I’m already worried about morale, but not nearly as worried as Dante’s retribution. For the first time ever, I was actually in the room when he spoke to this Enzo Barella fucker. He’s prodding Dante for a big response... a
very violent show of power.”

  My fists clench and my heart slows. “What’s he going to do?” I knew Dante wouldn’t take this lying down, but I guess I allowed myself to get lost in another world for a little bit—now, reality is coming back to kick me in the ass.

  “I don’t know yet, but I’m supposed to help plan it,” Juan responds. “I’ll keep you updated, obviously, but shit is going to clamp down for the foreseeable future. It’s obvious the location of the wedding was leaked, and ‘we’ are desperately looking for the perpetrator. I’ll try to hold them off as long as possible, but our communications are going to have to be kept to the bare essentials for the next little while, okay?”

  “Yeah, I understand.” Juan seems to pick up on the hesitancy in my voice.

  “What’s the matter?” he asks.

  I sigh and slink further away from the door that leads back to my tiny slice of domestic bliss. Before I turn down the first corner, I look back and my heart kicks. “We should get Cat and Oscar out of the city first, before shit hits the fan.”

  Juan grumbles on the other end of the line. “There’s no escaping this, Angel, you know that. Either we win, or we all die.”

  Juan’s words are no surprise, but still, hearing the truth said out loud like that cuts through me like a switchblade. “How’s your family?” I ask, maybe a little more aggressively than I should have. There’s no doubt in my mind that Juan knows what it’s like to want to protect your family at all costs, but I feel like I need to remind him that, as far as I know, his family is safe, while mine isn’t. Would he be making the same decisions if his family were still in the line of fire?

  A tense pause follows. “I’d rather we not talk about that over the phone... but they’re fine.”

  “Good.” I’m truly happy for my friend, but I won’t be happy until I can say the same for my family. “Formulate a plan to get Cat and Oscar out of here. I’ll stay if I have to, but some things are more important than countries and empires.”

  “This isn’t about empires,” Juan argues. Water drips from the tunnel ceiling as I pace back and forth in the darkness. “This is about change. If I could have gotten Cat and Oscar out of the city before you ever even showed up, I would have, but it was impossible then and it’s impossible now.”

  I sneer in frustration but I’ve had enough conflict for the day. There’s no point in arguing with Juan. He may disagree with me, but I know he’s just trying to do what he thinks is right. Well, so am I.

  “I have to go,” Juan says, and I let him off the hook. “We should be happy for today. Despite the carnage, it was a success. You have Cat back and we’re all alive to keep fighting.”

  “You’re right,” I grumble, pinching the bridge of my nose. The humid air outside seems to build in pressure under these tunnels. There’s a mighty headache lingering just behind my forehead—I do my best to push the pain away. There’s so much to do, but right now, I just need to concentrate on one thing: keeping my family safe.

  Juan and I hang up and I take the long way back to the underground bunker. My mind whirls with contradicting plans and hopes and desires. Fury rips through my pounding head at the thought of Dante ever getting his hands back on Cat, and I nearly explode from the thought of anything ever happening to Oscar. Juan is right; there’s no way to sneak out of this mess. Dante has the city on lockdown, and it’s a miracle I even managed to get in—getting two people out would be next to impossible... but that doesn’t mean I can’t try.

  My success as a revolutionary seems secondary to the health and happiness of my family. Still, I have to fight to remind myself that they’re inextricably linked.

  But that doesn’t mean that Cat and Oscar have to do any fighting. I can carry that burden for the three of us. With them safe, I would be free to throw myself fully into this war that I’ve started for them. With them safe, I could die knowing that it was for my family... but how could I die before knowing that they were taken care of?

  As long as they’re in the city—hell, in the country—I can’t take the necessary risks I might need to take in order to bring Dante to his knees. I built my original empire without having to worry about the death or pain of others, everything had already been taken from me—well, almost everything. Sure, I had to fight to keep my brother out of it all, but no one ever came after him. I was the only target my enemies would ever take aim at, and that was fine with me. Now, though, everything has changed, and I’m not so sure I can do what needs to be done while my family is forced to hide under the nose of the very devil I’m trying to destroy.

  Cat’s awake by the time I return. Her hands are in the sink as she quietly cleans dishes in the kitchen, careful not to wake up Lady or Oscar. “What’s wrong?” she whispers, when our gazes meet.

  She must be able to see the worry in my eyes; the conflict raging in my soul. “Nothing, everything went as planned today,” I grumble, wrapping my arms around her tight little body from behind.

  She sighs as I plant a kiss against the most tender part of her neck. Her ass pushes into my crotch and I pin her against the kitchen counter. “Not here,” she says, and I agree. Oscar gurgles from his nearby crib and I’m satisfied just holding the woman I’ve fought so hard to get back.

  “Your arms,” I point out, as my fingers trace invisible lines across her skin. Cat has changed out of her wedding dress and into baggy sweatpants and a long t-shirt—they don’t smell like her and I imagine they belong to Lady, but the short sleeves expose the marks left on her tender arms.

  At first, I’m gentle and sympathetic—my baby has been hurt—but then the thought of how she got hurt fills me with a fury that tightens my grip around the woman I’ve sworn to protect.

  Dante...

  “Angel, you’re hurting me,” Cat’s whisper snaps me back from the fire’s edge.

  “Sorry,” I mumble. “What happened to your arms?” I almost don’t want to hear it. Dante had her under his grip for so long, and I remember what he used to do to his girls...

  “It was my own fault,” Cat insists.

  I don’t like the sound of that. “What? You spoke back when you shouldn’t have? You tried to escape? Don’t ever blame yourself for what happened—”

  “No,” Cat interrupts. “It’s nothing like that. I’d never blame myself for something that monster did to me. I got these cuts on my own accord, running back to my cage like a scared house cat...”

  It’s still there, that guilt in her voice. Cat isn’t the one who should feel guilty. I heard what she had to go through to make sure she could keep visiting Oscar. “You were smart and brave,” I tell her. She leans backwards, into me, and I can feel a lightness come over her body. Though I’m sure she’ll never admit it, I know that being absolved means the world to her. I can’t imagine the weight that she’s had to carry while I’ve been away. Now, it’s my turn to take that weight from her.

  I support Cat’s body as we gently rock back and forth in the tiny underground kitchen. Then, my eyes fall on something else. “The ring...”

  Cat lifts her hand up and the jewel shimmers faintly under the dim lighting. “He let you keep it?” I ask, surprised.

  “No,” Cat responds, as though her thoughts are a million miles away. “It was one of the first things he took from me... but then, when he told me we were getting married, it was the only thing he gave back.”

  “The cheap bastard,” I growl, hating that thoughts of Dante are ruining my moment with Cat. That ring should only carry happy memories, even if I originally gave it to her with a cold, calculating motive.

  “It’s funny,” Cat whispers, her gaze wandering over the shining diamonds. “At first, I was terrified that he wanted me for more... primal reasons, but after the battle at your old compound, something changed in him. It was like I instantly became more of a burden than a prize. He seemed to detest me, but he also didn’t have enough time to punish me for it. His soul almost seemed to be just as trapped as my body was...”

  A hea
vy sigh escapes my lips. Dante is the last person I want to think about now, but I’m not about to change the subject. A morbid curiosity has me wanting to know every last detail of Cat’s confinement—even if I don’t know if I can take it all.

  Juan has already filled me in on how he helped her escape for the final four months of her pregnancy, when her baby bump became too big to hide. They stashed her down here and then had her give birth in secret, but to keep Oscar safe, Cat had to quickly return to Dante. Juan made up some story to explain Cat’s absence, and it seemed to satiate my idiot brother’s dull curiosity. He stopped his relentless search for her and Oscar was left alone. It was the only way, Juan told me. There was no safe path out of the city, and according to him, there still isn’t.

  But I’ll find a way. I have to.

  “I don’t think he realized how much responsibility came with being king,” I tell Catalina, trying not to think about her time as a prisoner. I can use that anger during battle, but now is no time for fury. “He never really had to work for a living and now that he does, I bet he’s more envious of his old life than he used to be of me. But there’s no going back now. Everything has changed, forever.”

  Cat nuzzles her cheek against my bicep. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t sympathize with the man...” she whispers, “but I guess what I’m saying is that you shouldn’t have to worry about what I went through. That’s over now, and I’m not going to lie, it was awful, but the scars on my skin aren’t from Dante; they’re battle marks I got for Oscar’s sake, for the sake of our son.”

  A swell or pride fills up my tired chest. I knew I fell for this girl for a good reason. She’s tougher than anyone has any right to be, and if it weren’t for that, for her, then I might never have gotten a chance to meet my son, to start a family, to change.

  18

  Catalina