Angel (Made Men 5)

The son of the devil and the Italian beauty.

She had finally found her own version of love that she had desperately craved. My own match made in Heaven and Hell.

Thirty-Seven

The Nightmares He Had Endured

Waking up in the middle of the night, Adalyn felt the bed beside her, finding it empty. “Angel?” Her voice echoed in the vacant space.

When no reply came, she sat up, trying to open her eyes and see through the darkness. She didn’t find him anywhere upstairs.

As memories of him leaving her haunted her, she got out of bed and went down the steps. She walked through the apartment, finding it empty.

Please, God, not again. Her heart stopped, knowing it had all been too good to be true.

Adalyn paced the empty floors of the house, hoping and praying it wasn’t what she thought, trying to stop herself from jumping to conclusions. That was when she heard heavy breathing coming from a closet. She stopped in her tracks.

She walked to the door and turned the knob, holding her breath for what she would see behind it. What she found tore her heart in two.

A sleeping Angel on the cold, hard floor. Tears flooded her chocolate depths.

“Angel,” she softly whispered, not wanting to scare him awake as she bent down and placed a hand on his arm.

He jumped awake the moment she touched him, and she quickly pulled her hand back.

The second he realized it was her, the fight in his gray eyes calmed.

Adalyn immediately regretted waking him up instead of just going back upstairs and pretending she hadn’t caught him sleeping in a closet. It didn’t seem like something he would want to talk about, let alone for her to know.

“I’m sorry.” She went to leave him, but he reached out and stopped her.

Not saying a word, Angel pulled her into the confined space, making her sit down then laying his head in her lap.

Her heart somehow broke a little more as she stared down at him while trailing her fingers through his hair. She didn’t expect him to give her an explanation; nor did she need one. The dark circles under his eyes and the nightmares she could see in his gray depths told her all she needed to know for now.

The longer she sat there, running her fingers through his hair, the more she realized he might never tell her why, and that was okay with her. For a man as proud as Angel to let her see this meant he must really care about her. Knowing that few people on this earth, if any, knew this secret, she was content.

Very few times in a person’s life there were moments sincerely precious, and this was one of hers.

Out of all the Lucianos, Lucca picked him.

Whatever Angel had gone through, she could now feel exactly how much of a survivor he really was, and she felt honored to be in his presence.

Continuing to smooth her fingers over him as he fell back asleep, she thought about the day that might be years and years down the road, when he would tell her about the nightmares he had endured.

“I can wait. I’m not going anywhere, Angel.”

Thirty-Eight

A Monster Had Created Him

He thought the returning memories would get better after being with Adalyn, but they hadn’t. She helped soothe them, but they always somehow managed to come back, taking him in the middle of the night.

Staring at the demon behind the desk, it was time Angel moved on. And I’ve come to do exactly that.

“I know he’s alive.”

Lucca’s blue-green eyes glowed. “Who?”

“You know precisely who,” he said, wanting him to cut the shit. “If I know the boogieman, which I think I do, then I know you’ve kept him breathing.”

“What is it you want, Angel?” Lucca asked, not denying anything.

An evil smile appeared on his lips. “I want you to take me to see him.”

The blindfold was taken off his face after he had been led into an old, damp building at an unknown location. He looked around, seeing a huge, metal sliding door in front of him. He walked up to it and placed his hand on the cold metal. He could feel what he wanted behind the door.

Before he could open it, Lucca warned, “If you so much as think about fucking killing him, everything I did to him … I’ll do to you.”

I don’t doubt it.

Gripping the handle, he slid the heavy door open, and with every inch it moved, light poured into the dark room until it reached the back wall, highlighting the frail body that was curled up in the corner.

Angel stepped into the room, moving toward it, when the bright fluorescent lights were turned on, lighting the space with intensity before the door was slammed shut behind him.

The frail man covered his eyes, protecting them from the bright lights, while he quickly rose up the dingy wall behind him. It looked like he was cowering away from the intruder, but then his eyes finally adjusted, and he blinked several times before he realized who it was, and a maniac laugh escaped his throat.