Making Angel (Mariani Crime Family Book 1)
Read Making Angel (Mariani Crime Family Book 1) Online
Authors: Amanda Washington
By
Copyright © 2015 by Amanda Washington
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States
For Aunt Cindy,
The most courageous humanitarian adrenaline-junkie I’ve ever known.
I miss you every day.
PROLOGUE
Angel
T
HE MORNING OF my twelfth birthday I arose with feelings of anxiety and anticipation. I’d finally reached it: the day that would begin my right of passage into adulthood. I’d be honored as a man of the family, allowed to sit at the adult table, and trusted with family conversations. As I threw back the covers and climbed out of bed, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and paused.
Who am I? Where do I fit in?
Today, I’d have my answers. I grinned and flexed at my reflection before padding downstairs to find my father sitting at the breakfast nook, eyeing his electronic tablet. He lowered the tablet and flashed me a smile.
“There he is. The birthday boy’s become a man now. Cappuccino?”
It was the first time he’d ever offered me coffee, and I eagerly accepted it.
Father started up the machine, filling the kitchen with whirring sounds and heady scents. Moments later he handed me a mug so big I couldn’t even get my fingers around it. I gripped the cup and followed him across the tile kitchen floor out onto the cobblestone patio. We sat on custom-built furniture and sipped our drinks. The cappuccino scalded my tongue and I winced, but when the old man eyed me I ignored the pain and took another sip.
“Careful, Angel. It burns. It’s bitter at first, but you get used to it. Soon, you’ll grow to enjoy the taste. That’s the way most things in life are.” He set his cup on the table, looked me square in the eyes and asked, “Speaking of life, have you given any thought to what you want to be when you grow up?”
I was supposed to be the one asking the questions, but he’d beaten me to the punch. Unprepared and feeling the weight of his inquiry, I squinted into the rising summer sun. Last week I had built my first website and imported a couple of how-to videos on customizing tablets. A commenter told me about a new, local tech school accepting middle school students, and I’d been hoping for an opening to discuss it with the old man. But before I could seize the opportunity, Father cleared his throat.
“As the first-born son, you’re expected to take on the family business, you know?” he asked, watching me with such expectancy and pride that I swallowed back my plans and studied him. Olive skin, dark hair and features, and broad shoulders, he towered over everyone I knew. People said I looked like a younger version of him—a younger, scrawnier version—but I lacked his presence. When the old man entered a room, everyone stopped what they were doing to acknowledge him, whereas I had a gift for blending into the background. I idolized him, but sometimes I felt like I didn’t know him at all.
“What’s the matter, Angel?”
“I don’t know what your job is.” Heat crept up my cheeks at the admission.
“It’s okay,” he assured me. “My profession is complicated. I do a lot of things.”
I looked away, discouraged by his vague answer. If he wouldn’t even trust me with the details of his job, none of my other questions had a chance of getting answered.
The old man leaned across the table and laid a finger on my chin, directing my gaze back to him. “Look at me when I talk to you, Son.”
“Yes sir,” I replied, this time holding eye contact.
“There.” His dark, all-seeing pupils seemed to drink me in. He smiled in fond approval, deepening the lines around his mouth and eyes. Pride lingered in his gaze, and I sat straighter, trying to be worthy of it. “What do you think I do?”
I started to look down, but stopped myself. Vicious rumors floated around my school, but I didn’t believe them. There was no way my father deserved the names they called him, the reasons they gave for not coming to my parties. “I don’t know.”
He frowned. “But you’ve heard whispers, haven’t you? What have you heard, Angel?”
I’d never lied to my father, and I wasn’t about to start. “They say you… you do things.”
“What sort of things do they say I do?”
The intensity of his gaze dried my throat. I took another sip of coffee.
“Angel?”
The accusations were too heinous to voice. I honed in on the one term I didn’t understand. Hoping for an explanation, I replied, “They say you do wet work.”
“Wet work, huh?” Father cocked his head to the side while color flooded his neck, creeping up his cheeks. Anger radiated from him, threatening to drown me in its wake. “Like I’m some sort of hired thug? I don’t follow anyone’s orders, you hear me?”
“Yes sir.”
Tense, silent moments passed. Finally, he let out a deep sigh. “Petty, small people will always speak out of jealousy, Angel. They talk and talk, but the world has never been changed by talkers. You really want to know what I do?”
I nodded, increasingly uncertain.
“I build empires. I write legislature and elect officials to enforce it. I keep the economy from collapsing, and the people from rioting. I enforce justice and keep Vegas from falling to gang wars and chaos. The people I work with… we are the government, the economic stimulus, and the peacekeepers.”
I breathed his words in, letting them clear my mind. The old man sounded like a superhero. He was brave and strong, shining with god-like power. Caught up in the moment, I abandoned my dreams and blurted, “I want to do what you do!”
“You make my heart proud.” He patted me on the head and stood.
As he walked back into the house, I replayed his speech in my mind knowing I’d missed something important. He was great and powerful and the anticipation of being just like him made my chest swell. No more blending into the background. Only I still didn’t know what he did.
Uncertainty drained the joy from my birthday as I thought about the other rumors. Kids shunned me, insisting that my father was a murderer and bully. And I still had no clue what wet work was or why the term had upset him so much. I stared at the cappuccino I no longer wanted, now dreading the changes it represented. I wasn’t ready to know the truth, wasn’t ready to become a man. But when Father returned carrying two pistols, I knew I was past the point of no return.
CHAPTER ONE
Angel
Eleven years later
T
HE DAY BEFORE Halloween I sat blissfully alone, researching ways to widen the radius of an electromagnetic pulse blast without increasing the pocket-sized dimensions. I palmed the device, estimating the weight, before being interrupted by an annoying tap on my shoulder.
“Angel, we’re gonna be late,” Bones nagged.
My best friend, bodyguard, and schedule keeper stood just under six feet tall, inches shorter than me, but his build dissuaded muggers and his scowl made hardened criminals drop their gaze and cross to the other side of the street. His suit screamed funeral director, or some other occupation paid to put people six feet under. His real name was Franco Leone, but I’d nicknamed him Bones in fourth grade when he shattered the wrist of an aspiring bully who shoved me against my locker. The nickname stuck, and so did our friendship.