Desert Angel (Family Justice Book 2)

by Suzanne Halliday

  Seriously. It was a wonder that Alex didn’t come thundering down the path right behind her. Aunt Wendy would call how the men around here acted as being in cahoots. Angie wasn’t sure of the origin of the word, but it sure did express a certain cowboy flair that fit perfectly.

  Throwing Ben some humorous side shade, she snarked, “Do you have to fingerprint me or tag me with a GPS before I can take the leash off?”

  He had the look of a man wishing he could be anywhere but there with her having this conversation. She was a Marquez, after all, and saying no to her or butting into her personal business was hard for him.

  “Aw, come on, Miss Angie. That’s not fair. You know all he cares about is your safety. We all do,” he added with a nod at Gus.

  They were cute, but she didn’t have time for any of this. She had something to do. “Relax, Ben. I’m just yanking your chain.” Seeing that Gus was standing beside the open driver door to a large white Explorer, she walked up to him and put out her hand. “Key, please.”

  The two men exchanged a silent look, but she stood her ground and waited them out—her hand hanging in the air, palm up, waiting.

  Four minutes later, she was pulling up to the business center where the employee apartments were. So far, so good. Now for the fun part. Flipping the visor down, she peered into the mirror. Smartly remembering to bring along a lipstick, she pulled it from her pocket, checked the color, and immediately laughed. It was called No Mercy. How appropriate!

  Applying the vibrant red color until her mouth rivaled the most perfect Hollywood pout, she winked at her reflection, muttered, “Showtime,” and pushed open the car door with her booted foot. Desert Angel was on the scene and ready to fuck shit up.

  Stomping angrily up the stairs to the second level, she made sure to make as much noise as humanly possible on her way to the apartment at the end. That was all the warning she was giving.

  At the door, she stopped, made sure she had a plan, and then went for it. Swiftly pushing, she barged straight in as the wood slammed heavily against the inner wall with a loud thud.

  Hehehe. Sound effects were so awesome sometimes! Angry boots, slamming doors. And she was just getting started.

  When she burst into the room, Aldo jumped up from the sofa with a startled yelp. Seeing her coming at him, he started speaking rapidly in Spanish, but she didn’t bother to listen. Finding him on his cell phone had been a stroke of pure luck. While he yelled and waved his arms, she made straight for the phone, snatching it out of his hand before he could stop her.

  Though he’d disconnected the call, the screen hadn’t timed out yet, essentially giving her an unrestricted all access pass to his sordid little life. When he tried to grab the phone back, she deflected the attempt with a vicious slap, turning away and quickly putting half the room and all the furniture between them.

  First, she checked his call log. Call after call after call, all to the same number, filled the screen. Baby mama? Probably. Or maybe the fuckwad was cheating on her, as well. Wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.

  Then, for shits ‘n’ grins, she started scrolling through his photos, and holy crap, what a goldmine of douchebaggery was on display there. There were dozens of photos of him with countless women, all in seriously questionable circumstances, including a couple that told Angie he found someone willing to whip his sorry ass. Ewwwww.

  But the absolute best part? The sleazy little fucker easily had a hundred truly captivating shots of what’s called a Dick Pic. Jackpot! In seconds, she’d forwarded two dozen or so of the most incriminatingly embarrassing photos to her email for safe keeping. Damage control. She wanted to laugh but knew she couldn’t. It would ruin the kickass performance she was putting on.

  “Querida, I can explain.”

  Was he still talking? Sheesh. You’d think there was somebody wanting to listen to his sorry shit, but that person wasn’t her.

  Ignoring him completely after throwing the big iPhone at his head and secretly hoping the screen cracked, she stormed into the bedroom and went in search of his bags.

  While Aldo ranted and raved, alternating between lame threats and pathetic whining, she gathered his crap and stuffed everything into a suitcase. In the bathroom, she used a sweeping arm gesture that she remembered seeing in a movie once to dramatically force his toiletries into a travel case. Was all sorts of fun, especially with him getting more frantic and crazier by the minute.

  It was abundantly clear to Angie that he knew damn well the jig was up the minute she burst in on him. What a dick.

  Lugging his big bag and the four or five smaller ones he traveled with to the door, she kept right on going, grunting and chugging as she dragged the heavy cases along the outside balcony to the steps, and from there, with much banging, she pulled everything down the stairs to the waiting car.

  Throwing everything into the SUV almost wiped her out until she spied that rat bastard gawking at her from the top of the stairs and an instant spike of anger fueled adrenaline raced through her system.

  “Get your ass down here, Aldo. If you’re not in this car when I pull away, I’ll have the local authorities arrest you for stalking and harassment and don’t think for a second that I won’t do just that.”

  He stood still, a stunned expression on his face. Whatever. She had better shit to do. He either heeded the threat or forced her to follow through. His choice.

  Whirling away from him, she marched to the driver’s door and yanked it open. Glaring back at a man she now realized she never knew at all, Angie barked, “What’s it going to be? The car or handcuffs?”

  After a second of hesitation, the car won out. Trudging grumpily down the stairs, he glowered at her as he went to the passenger door.

  “Oh, bite me,” she bit out, climbing into the big car and strapping in. Ignition on and the car in gear, she drove away from the Villa as she told him derisively, “Buck up, Daddy. You’ve got a plane to catch.”

  “ALL RIGHT, KIDS.” MEGHAN LAUGHED. “That was Betty on the phone. Even though it’s Sunday, she was in the office taking care of some time-sensitive thing she said you knew about,” she told a bemused looking Alex who nodded his awareness.

  Parker just sat there looking like he couldn’t form coherent sentences if he tried.

  “Anyway, she heard a scuffle and went to check it out. The way she tells it, Angie kicked open Esperanza’s door and then yelling started in Spanish. Not long after, your sister,” she mugged comically at the Major, “hulked her way through dragging a bunch of suitcases to a car. There was more yelling and she thought maybe she heard something about catching a plane.”

  “Whaaaat?” Parker growled as he jumped to his feet.

  Oh, so he actually was still alive. Well, finally! Meghan had begun to wonder if he’d lost it completely because she’d never seen him look so absent and confused.

  “All right,” Alex muttered darkly. “I’ve had enough. Hand me my phone, babe,” he told her.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked after handing it over.

  He started tapping then lifted the phone to his ear. “Whatever the hell this is, it started with a phone call from Sophie. I’m going to the source to find out what’s really going on.”

  Watching him march away, she swore there was smoke coming from his exit. Alex didn’t like messes. They fucked with the natural order of things. Serving under him must have been challenging for the dramatically inclined. He had no time for divas. Especially when they drew bullshit like a magnet.

  Leaving her to deal with Parker, she looked him over and wondered how she could help. He looked so unlike the dynamic guy she’d come to know. Meghan wondered if this was how Alex was after she’d returned to Boston.

  “Did you two have a fight?” she asked softly.

  Swinging a pained expression her way, he shook his head. “No, it’s not like that.”

  “Oh, good,” she stammered. “So . . . did you . . .”

  He cut her off so fast, she got verb
al whiplash.

  “It wasn’t me who . . .” He scowled. “Ugh. Forget it.”

  Reading the tea leaves wasn’t all that difficult. Knowing Angie as she did and understanding Parker’s idiosyncrasies, due in no small measure to how similar he and Alex were, Meghan had a pretty good idea what was causing the lawyer’s funk.

  Not specifically but she wasn’t blind. Parker showed all the signs of a disgruntled alpha after being forced to jump through some relationship hoops.

  Nice work, sis.

  They turned together toward the archway when Alex’s voice became louder the closer he got.

  “Drae. Sorry for the Sunday interruption but I’ve got a mess on my hands up here and I need your help.”

  Meghan rubbed a hand over Parker’s back to comfort him when he groaned.

  “Who do we have at the main airport? Anyone?”

  Alex glanced at them as he made his way into the kitchen, heading straight for a covered platter stacked with shortbread chunks. She’d converted him, converted all of Family Justice, into an appreciation of the buttery cookie masquerading as a pastry. Ria couldn’t make enough to satisfy the demand.

  Alternating between stuffing his mouth while crumbs fell onto his shirt and grumbling into the phone, she listened as he told Drae exactly what to do. From what she could gather, he wanted someone to run interference at the airport when Angie arrived.

  And why was Angie at the airport? The tension radiating off Parker’s torso indicated he had the same question.

  Thank god Alex started explaining before the disconnect button got pushed. “According to Soph, little sister is, and I quote, taking the trash out.”

  Meghan chuckled at the expression. This was going to be a great story one day.

  Furiously scrolling, swiping, and tapping on Meghan’s iPad as he talked, Alex frowned so hard his face looked like a mask on fright night. “Ah, here we go,” he was muttering followed seconds later by a tersely ground out, “Asshole.”

  Shoving the device under Parker’s nose, he grunted, “Get a load of this. It’s started to gather moss all over the internet.”

  His reaction to whatever Alex showed him was instantaneous. “Motherfucker.”

  Parker repeatedly shook his head like he was trying to unscramble his thoughts, and Alex just growled. Meghan could almost smell the testosterone pumping in the air around them as she quickly scanned the blind item from a gossip site that made her wince. Oh, poor Ang.

  Watching the two men side-by-side, while obvious indignation fueled their reaction, was enlightening.

  “I’m going after her,” Parker mumbled, but he didn’t even get a chance to rise from his seat before Alex stopped him with a firm hand on his shoulder.

  “Sorry, bud but that’s a no. Let Angie take care of this. She knows what she’s doing.”

  “But . . .” Parker protested.

  He could say whatever he wanted. It wasn’t going to make the Major budge. She knew that look. He was in Big Daddy mode and his word was his command. Period.

  “Look, if you need a distraction, imagine what you know damn well she’s putting that fucker through. Think about it, man. What she’s doing is one hundred percent pure Grade-A top shelf Angelina. He crossed a line, fucked with her family, pissed her crazy, unpredictable ass off and what did she do? Immediately go rogue, commandeer a vehicle, clear his presence from the compound, and turbo-charge a drive to the airport. Bet she pulls in, kicks his ass to the drop-off curb, and leaves him coughing inside a cloud of desert dust.”

  His summary of probabilities was so funny and sardonic that Meghan snickered loudly as she imagined all the things Alex described. Desert Angel was not to be messed with.

  “If he starts anything, I’ll . . .”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Alex scoffed. “Get in line, man. Me first, and if there’s anything left after I’m finished and my father kicks his ass, you’re welcome to his sniveling ass.”

  In a perfectly synchronized pantomime, each of them noted the time. Meghan glanced at the clock on the microwave, Alex pulled up his wrist and consulted his watch, and Parker craned his neck to see what the big kitchen clock said.

  “Luckily, we trained some of the airport security teams and Draegyn was able to get in touch with whoever is on duty now. When Angie gets there, she’ll be met by security who will ensure that she makes a clean getaway. Once she’s out of the mix, Ronald Esperanza will be put on blast. A little reminder not to fuck with her or Justice if he wants to keep his manhood attached.”

  “I want to know when she’s clear,” Parker growled.

  Alex winked at Meghan then smirked at his friend. He was needling the man and she had to chew on her tongue to keep from laughing.

  “Again, dude. Get the fuck in line. I’m responsible for my sister. Not you.”

  Parker looked like he wanted to strangle Alex. Being told he had no standing where Angie was concerned was a genius move on the Major’s part. In Meghan’s neck of the woods back in Boston, this maneuver would be described as a classic, Shit or get off the pot, move.

  The atmosphere in the car during the long drive swung between tense silences and heated exchanges in a battle of wills that Angie won before the drive even began. Not that it mattered. In actuality, she was pretty much over all of it anyway.

  Amazingly, she wasn’t even mad. In order for that, she’d have to care and she didn’t, beyond stressing over the cringe-worthy attention the family would endure once the salacious story hit the internet. But more than that? Nah.

  When she’d railed at Aldo about being a snot, her outrage had been insincere. He’d always been that way—she just chose not to acknowledge it while they were together.

  My bad.

  Viewed in that light, she really had no one to blame for her part in his messy drama except herself. Lesson learned? Check.

  It also saddened her that this lame excuse for a man was running off at the mouth, covering all his bases over and over, without ever once taking responsibility for the unalterable fact that there was a child in the middle of it all. Ugh. Aldo and his baby mama were going to make awesome parents.

  Her plan was to pull into the airport, find the international terminal, push him out of the car, and drive off without a word or glance. Trash. Meet curb. Now get the fuck outta my life. She’d deal with what came next during the three-hour trip back to the Villa when, with only her thoughts for company, she could pick it all apart, decide how she wanted to continue, and then get on with it.

  Used to the presence of heavy security at the international airports, Angie noted several large, black SUVs idling on the access road leading to departures and wouldn’t have thought any more of them if one hadn’t immediately slid into the slow moving line of traffic directly behind her.

  That was odd, she thought. Checking briefly in the rearview mirror, she saw one person behind the wheel, talking. To who? He was alone. When he turned slightly to the side, she saw the telltale earpiece and microphone used by security for two-way communication.

  Ooookay.

  Aldo was freaking out big time now that he finally got it into his thick head that this was really happening. You’d think the endless drive would have clued him in. Nobody drove almost two hundred miles for no reason.

  “Why are you doing this? Don’t you see that I’m the victim here? Losing you made me do dumb things but I can change. You are worth changing for, querida,” he finished in an oily, smarmy sounding tone.

  Creeping along through the congested travel gridlock, she spied Air France up ahead and started merging to the curb. Good enough.

  Pulling swiftly into a spot being vacated by a taxi, she braked hurriedly bringing the vehicle to a jerking stop.

  “Get out,” she commanded. Unsnapping her seatbelt, she retracted it with a snap, pushed open her car door, and slid out. Stomping for emphasis, Angie moved swiftly to the rear lift gate so she could dump his shit on the pavement and be done.

  It was while she was hauling his
pretentious and probably fake designer bags out of the car when she noted that the black security SUV had pulled in directly behind them and the driver was still speaking to some unseen person, while looking directly at her. Feeling uneasy for half a second, she all of a sudden knew that her brother had something to do with this guy. The reach of Alex’s protective arm was mind-boggling. And strangely comforting.

  Aldo finally made his way to the back of the car, gesturing wildly and scolding her for tossing his precious Vuitton travel cases on the filthy ground.

  Pussy. She snickered. The vulgar expression perfectly described the man she was seeing.

  With his crazy unleashed, he was distracted enough that Angie had no problem reaching inside his jacket to grab his phone one last time. When he reached for it back, she jeered at him and did an impromptu version of a cowgirl drop and grind by slamming her booted foot, essentially the drop, onto his handmade Italian loafers and giving the heel a vicious grind that got exactly the reaction she wanted. Yelping in distress, he frantically backed away from her, forgetting the phone now that she’d mangled his foot.

  Now Parker, mmm. There was a man who would definitely appreciate her take on the cowgirl maneuver which, in her active imagination, consisted of straddling a brawny cowboy with huge muscles and an even bigger dick. Who, in this case, would be Parker. Then dropping onto his challenging staff and furiously grinding them, western style, to a thundering climax. Ride ’em cowgirl!

  Whew. She got all hot and bothered just thinking about it. That was a thing, right? The drop and grind? God, she hoped so. If it wasn’t, she really needed to own that bitch. Maybe rename it Angel Descending. The delicious thought made her shiver with excitement.

  With heat pouring into her center, she used his phone for the ultimate in fuck you’s, holding it high and snapping an outrageous selfie showing most of her outfit as she smirked into the camera and flipped him off. For extra giggles, she kept pressing the camera button taking hundreds of meaningless, blurred shots of nothing. Ha! He was going to spend quite some time cleaning all that up. Jerk.