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“I’m not upset,” he rushed to assure me.
“Well, that makes one of us.”
I tried again to walk away, but he growled impatiently and tugged me down onto his lap. I was facing him with nowhere to rest my hands but on his shoulder. “You shouldn’t have read the book.” I squirmed to get away, but he simply tightened his hold. “You would be dead if my family had caught you.”
“What happened to you being their God?”
I could hear the humor in his grunt. “I got lucky.”
“You wouldn’t have let them hurt me.”
“It wouldn’t have been up to me,” he warned unconvincingly. We both know Angel would have forsaken his crown to kill them for hurting me.
It was the very reason I didn’t understand Angel bending to a dead man’s rules now. It was clear he no longer agreed with them. Maybe he never did. “Augustine doesn’t care about Alexander’s rules. Why do you?”
Angel’s hands squeezed my hips as he leaned forward. His voice menacing as he whispered, “Did you just use another man to emasculate me?”
“I don’t think that’s possible.” I waited until his hold loosened and he sat back to say, “But you aren’t their King, Angel. You’re their prisoner.”
“Maybe. But I’ll wear their chains as long as it keeps you safe.”
“Don’t say things like that.” I closed my eyes to block out the look in his eyes. It felt a lot like love.
“Why not?” I didn’t answer him. How did I put into words how much I loved and hated him? I felt his lips on me and released a blissful sigh.
“Why did Art kill my mother?” He paused from trailing kisses down the column of my neck and sighed.
“She wanted to be with him, and when he wouldn’t leave my mother, she threatened to expose them.”
“So he chose to kill her rather than face the consequences?” I pushed against his shoulders and stood to my feet. “I was practically an orphan because of him.” With my mother dead and my father avoiding me, there had been no one but Angel. He was the closest thing to family I’ve had since my mother was murdered. “How did she die?”
He shook his head and stood up. I didn’t know what I would do if he walked away from me.
But then he held out his hand to me. “Come on.”
“No.” His hand dropped. “I’m not going anywhere with you until I have answers.”
“The answers you need can’t come from me because I don’t have them.”
“Then who does?”* * *ANGEL HADN’T SPOKEN since we left Attica. The drive to Chicago had been long and uncomfortable, which he spent smoking. When we sat down across from my father, the tension only multiplied.
“You know how to make your old man’s day,” Theo greeted. The growth covering the lower half of his face hadn’t been there the last time I saw him. His hair had also grown into a greasy shag. Suddenly, I felt all-consuming guilt. Two months ago, I came here asking him to help me steal from the most dangerous man in Chicago and then fell off the grid with no word.
I took his hands in mine. I’ve missed their strength and warmth. “Daddy, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you I was okay.”
“It’s fine, baby girl. You’re here now.” I’d believe that if his hands didn’t tremble.
“What have you been doing to yourself? You don’t look well.”
“It doesn’t matter now.” His attention shifted to Angel. “What brings you by?”
I didn’t want to say the words because saying them meant never being able to take them back. “I—I know about my mother’s death.” Daddy’s eyes flew back to me. “I know Art had her killed because of their affair.”
He turned his accusing eyes on Angel again. “You told her?”
“She found the truth in the book.” They seemed to have some silent conversation that ended with Angel shaking his head and Theo nodding.
“Baby girl, please understand why I didn’t tell you. Her death was hard enough on you.”
“And you, but yet I never lied to you.” When he hung his head, I grabbed his chin and lifted until I could see his eyes.
“How did she die?”
“I don’t think—”
“No,” I ordered before he could deny me. “No more lies. No more secrets. I have a right to know.”
He once again turned his attention to Angel, who said nothing, did nothing but wait for my father to prove he was the man I held in my heart. “Victor suffocated her while she slept.” His voice was pained as his eyes glistened with unshed tears. I felt pain—not the torpid pain that eventually came because time was sometimes merciful—but the agonizing pain that immediately came because death was sometimes unmerciful.
I didn’t lose my mother. She was taken from me.
I pulled my hands away and took a deep breath. “And my marriage to Angel?”
