Angel (Made Men 5)

Death had never scared him. It only scared those who had something to lose.

“Get up,” Lucca hissed.

What the …?

He quickly stood, throwing on some clothes.

“Come, sit down,” Lucca commanded, pulling a Zippo out of his pocket.

While Angel took a seat across from Lucca at the small table with two chairs, Sal came in, flipping over objects and going through the room and his shit.

Fuck, she told.

Making sure to keep his cool, his brain began to rack with ways to get out of this.

“You’re not gonna ask why we’re here?”

Angel stared back, unafraid of the incriminating look Lucca gave him. “I was waiting for you to tell me.”

“What did you do today, Angel?”

“I did what I’ve done every day so far. I wake up, and then Tom and I pick up Adalyn. We go to the school, drop her back off, and then we come back here. I’ve been in my room since I got back.”

When his mattress was flung to the ground and with how thoroughly it was being looked through, he began to understand something had happened.

“What’s going on?”

Lucca’s eyes didn’t waiver from his as he put a cigarette to his lips and flicked open his lighter, not wanting to miss a single expression on Angel’s face. “Tom was found in the back alley with a bullet between his eyes.”

Fuck.

“And, as far as we know, you were the last one to see him alive.”

This was different than stealing a fucking ring. This was the murder of a trusted, respected, and well-loved family member. Hell, even he didn’t have a problem with Tom.

Angel was an outsider, someone who didn’t belong here, a member of a family whose hatred for the Carusos ran deep. This was some colossal deep shit that had spewed on him, one that could make the Lucianos cease to exist after what Lucifer had done. Their trust hadn’t been given yet, and the bridge between them hadn’t even been built yet.

Angel squeezed the bridge of his nose, beginning to recollect the events of this afternoon, feeling the weight of his family on his shoulders.

“He dropped me off in the parking garage. When I left him there, he was alive …” Looking into Lucca’s eyes, he let him in, hoping he could see the truth. “I swear to God, he was alive when I left him.”

“You sure about that?” Lucca blew smoke into the room.

“Yes. Why the fuck would I kill the man you assigned to watch me?” Angel shut his eyes off to him, having let him see enough. “You’re not stupid, Lucca. I know you’ve figured me out. You know I’m smarter than that. That if I were to kill a Caruso, I wouldn’t have picked Tom or dropped him on your doorstep. And we both know I wouldn’t have done it with a fucking bullet.”

“No, I guess not.” Lucca had known guns weren’t his style. “But Dominic could have, couldn’t he? Went straight through the back of his head and exited out the front. It was one hell of a shot with a pistol.” He lifted a finger to point right between Angel’s eyes. “One I’ve seen only one man pull off from a hundred yards away.”

“Dominic didn’t do it,” Angel assured.

“How do you know if you weren’t there?”

Angel smiled. “Because he would have shot him from the front.”

Tapping ashes to the ground of the hotel room, Lucca took a long, hard hit, making more of the cigarette turn to ash. “Who do you think did it, then?”

“I should be asking you that question. If anyone would know, it would be you. I’ve seen you”—he paused, remembering an old memory—“on the opposite side of the tracks, watching us. You’ve been watching us for years, before you were the underboss, before you became the boogieman.”

That comment had Sal pausing from going through Angel’s clothes to listen.

“You’re good, Lucca. I wouldn’t have seen you if you hadn’t let me.”

He curved one end of his lips; it then disappeared almost before it had appeared. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

There was silence in the room for only a moment before Sal’s voice broke it.

“He’s clean. I can’t find anything.”

“Be sure to check my phone. I don’t want you to miss anything,” Angel told them, wanting them to know he had nothing to hide.

Sal gave him a big smile. “I did before I even walked in the room.”

“Of course, you did, Salvatore.” Angel dragged out his name as he looked at his half-brother, the only son of Lucifer to come out sane. Ironic for the one who had been raised on the streets and taken under Dante’s wing. It was poetic, really. The son his father had never wanted had ended up becoming the son he always wanted by the hands of his enemy. Angel wondered if Sal knew who his father was and that he was staring right at his own brother’s face.