Chapter 46: Just for a Moment
The foil crown sat atop Angel’s curls for three days before it disintegrated into a sad, gray wad of damp foil. He’d cried silently when it fell apart during a card game, big tears plopping onto the table, until Rafael had silently produced a new one from his bunk, crafted with even more intricate, interlocking links. This one had a single, tiny green chip-bag jewel glued to the front with contraband paste. Angel had worn it ever since, a fragile symbol of his tiny kingdom.
Today, it glinted under the weak, late-morning sun as Dominic carried him across the yard.
Angel was draped over Dominic’s left hip, his legs hooked around the Alpha’s waist, his arms looped loosely around his neck. He was small enough, at four-foot-seven, for Dominic to carry him without strain. It was a familiar sight, one that drew glances but never comments. The Reaper moved with a steady, ground-eating stride past clusters of inmates huddled for warmth against the creeping autumn chill. His right hand was splayed firmly across Angel’s lower back, holding him secure. Angel rested his head on Dominic’s shoulder, his fingers occasionally tracing the tattooed script that curled over the Alpha’s collarbone. His own clean, floral scent—a product of the conditioner he now tolerated without complaint—clung to him, a fragile bubble of sweetness in the yard’s stale aroma of cold concrete, ozone from the fence, and male sweat.
Dominic was heading for the old oak. It wasn’t a tree for shade; its gnarled branches were too stunted. It was a territorial marker. Beneath its skeletal limbs, a group of five men stood in a loose circle, passing a single, hand-rolled cigarette between them. Their conversation, carried on the brittle air, reached Dominic well before he did.
“...like a stuck pig, right? He’s thrashin’,” a voice, rough as gravel, was saying. It was Hawk, a bull-necked man with a spiderweb tattoo covering one side of his shaved head. “And I’m just standing there, waiting for him to finish. Let the adrenaline do the work.”
Fletcher, lean and sinewy with a face like a hatchet, chuckled. It was a dry, clicking sound. “Patience. Always with the patience. Me, I preferred the conversation. Make ‘em understand why. That moment of clarity in their eyes… better than any drug.”
“Sentimental,” rumbled Lorenzo, his massive arms crossed over a barrel chest. “Noise is unnecessary. A wire, a quiet corner, done.”
Dimitri, the smallest of them but with eyes that never stopped moving, added, “You all talk too much. A clean in, a clean out. No philosophy. Just business.”
Hawthorne, the oldest, with silver threading through his dark beard, simply smoked silently, listening. His eyes, pale and assessing, lifted and locked onto Dominic’s approach. A subtle shift went through the group. The cigarette was pinched out and pocketed. They didn’t stiffen, but their focus redirected, a pack noting the approach of its leader.
Dominic stopped a few feet from them, Angel’s weight a comfortable, living pressure against his side. Angel had perked up, peering at the men from the safety of Dominic’s neck.
“Reaper,” Hawk nodded, his eyes flicking to Angel and back, a question unasked.
“Gentlemen,” Dominic said, his voice flat. “I need a favor.”
“Name it,” Lorenzo said instantly.
Dominic adjusted his grip on Angel. “Rafael’s in the library tracking a ledger discrepancy. Silas is in the shop. Doc’s got a clinic full of morons with the flu. I’ve got a summons from the warden. Can’t bring him.” He jerked his chin slightly towards Angel.
The five men looked at Angel. Really looked. Today, his hair was parted into two messy, platinum pigtails tied with frayed threads from a blanket. The foil crown, slightly lopsided, sat between them like a crooked tiara. He had the thumb of his right hand tucked firmly in his mouth, his dark blue eyes blinking slowly at them from over Dominic’s shoulder. In his clean, oversized jumpsuit, with his delicate features and the utterly trusting way he clung to Dominic, he looked like a child misplaced in a nightmare.
Hawk’s brow furrowed. “You want us to… what, Reap? Watch him?”
“For ten minutes. Fifteen, tops.” Dominic’s tone brooked no argument, but there was an underlying thread of something else—a paternal necessity. “He’ll sit. He won’t wander. Just… keep him company.”
Fletcher exchanged a glance with Dimitri, who gave a minute, almost imperceptible shrug. “Sure,” Fletcher said. “We can do that.”
Dominic didn’t smile, but the tension around his eyes eased a fraction. He walked to a relatively clean patch of concrete by the base of the oak tree, away from the dirt and the lurking shadows of the fence. With a gentle, lowering motion, he detached Angel from his hip and set him down on his feet. Angel’s hand immediately came up, gripping the fabric of Dominic’s sleeve.
“Daddy?”
“I have to go see the warden, little heart. You wait here with Uncle Hawk and the others.” Dominic knelt, bringing himself to Angel’s eye level. His large, tattooed hands came up to frame Angel’s face, thumbs stroking his cheekbones. “You be good. You sit right here. Listen to what they say. Can you do that for me?”
Angel’s thumb popped out of his mouth. His lower lip had a slight tremble. “You come back?”
“Always,” Dominic said, the word absolute. He leaned in and pressed a firm, lingering kiss to Angel’s forehead. Then, to the silent astonishment of the five hardened killers watching, he placed another kiss on the top of the foil crown. “Guard your kingdom. I’ll return for my prince.”
Angel nodded, a serious, wobbling motion. He slowly sank down to sit cross-legged on the concrete, pulling his knees to his chest. He wrapped his arms around his shins and placed his thumb back in his mouth, watching Dominic with wide, solemn eyes.
Dominic stood up, his joints cracking. He turned to the men. His expression was no longer soft. It was the Reaper’s face, all hard lines and implicit threat. “He stays here. He comes to no harm. A single scratch, a moment of distress… and we will have a problem that cannot be buried in this yard. Understood?”
It wasn’t a question. It was a decree.
Hawk met his gaze, unflinching. “He’s safe with us, Dom. You know that.”
Dominic held the look for a beat longer, then gave a single, curt nod. He turned and walked away, his strides long and purposeful, not looking back. His form receded towards the heavy steel door leading to the administration block.
The five men were left standing in a loose semicircle. Angel sat perfectly still between them and the tree, a small, silent anomaly. He blinked up at them, his eyes traveling from face to face.
The yard noise seemed to swell in the wake of Dominic’s departure—shouted arguments from a basketball game, the clang of weights from the iron pile, the ever-present hum of the perimeter lights. The group stood in an awkward, unfamiliar silence.
Hawk cleared his throat. He shifted his weight, looking down at Angel. Angel gazed back, sucking his thumb.
“So,” Hawk began, his voice artificially light. “You, uh… you like it out here, kid?”
Angel just stared.
Fletcher let out a short breath, almost a laugh. “He’s not gonna answer you, Hawk. He’s in his own world.”
“He’s supposed to listen,” Lorenzo muttered, studying Angel with a kind of clinical curiosity, as if he were a strange, small animal. “Dom said listen.”
“He’s listening,” Hawthorne said quietly, his eyes on Angel. His was the only gaze that held no perplexity, just a deep, unnerving calm. “He’s taking your measure. All of us.”
Dimitri crouched down, about five feet from Angel, trying to appear less intimidating. He offered a tight, attempting smile. “Hey, Angel. You remember me? Dimitri. I gave you that candy bar last month. The one with the almonds.”
Angel’s eyes shifted to Dimitri. He gave a slow, single nod. The thumb remained in his mouth.
“Good. That’s good.” Dimitri stood back up, the smile vanishing. He looked at the others. “Now what?”
“We stand here,” Hawk said, shrugging. “We talk. He listens. Dom said fifteen minutes.”
“Talk about what?” Lorenzo grumbled. “The weather?”
Fletcher pulled out the pinched cigarette, relit it, took a long drag. He exhaled a plume of smoke towards the wire. “We were talking before he got here. Before the… interruption.” His eyes slid to Angel, then back to the group. “I was telling you about the accountant. The one with the villa in Sicily.”
Hawk’s interest reignited. “Right, the one who was cooking the books for the Salvatores. You made him understand why.”
“I did,” Fletcher said, his voice dropping back into its storytelling rhythm. He kept his language vague, but the implications were clear. “He thought he was clever, hiding money in digital clouds. I showed him the reality is always physical. Always blood and bone.” He glanced at Angel. The boy was still watching, his expression unchanged, a placid, blue-eyed doll. “I took him to his own wine cellar. Cool, dark. Romantic, almost.”
Lorenzo nodded in appreciation. “Good environment. Controlled.”
“He started talking then,” Fletcher continued, a grim smile touching his lips. “Oh, he talked. Offered triple what he stole. Offered his wife, his daughter.” His voice was conversational, as if discussing a business deal. “I let him talk. Let him hope. Then I showed him the tool I’d brought. A simple corkscrew. But a large one. Antique. Heavy.”
Dimitri chuckled softly. “Poetic.”
Angel blinked slowly. He pulled his thumb from his mouth with a soft pop. His lips were pink and slightly wet. “A corkscrew?” he asked, his voice soft, melding with the yard’s ambient noise.
The men froze. All five heads turned to look at him.
Fletcher recovered first, a strange light in his eyes. “Yeah, kid. A corkscrew. You know what that is?”
Angel nodded. “For the wine. You open the bottle.” He said it with the simple certainty of a child reciting a fact.
A beat of silence passed. Then Hawk let out a gruff, surprised bark of laughter. “Hell. He is listening.”
Fletcher crouched down now, mirroring Dimitri’s earlier pose, but his intensity was different. This wasn’t to placate; it was to engage. “That’s right. For opening things. This one was for opening… a new perspective.” He kept his voice low, measured. “He understood, finally, when it was pressed against his eye. The fragility of it all. The bone of the socket, the liquid behind it. He understood his numbers wouldn’t save him.”
Angel listened, his head tilted. He didn’t look scared or repulsed. He looked… interested. “Did it go pop?” he asked, his tone curiously flat.
Fletcher stared at him. The other men exchanged glances. This wasn’t the reaction of a child hearing a scary story. This was clinical inquiry.
“It did,” Fletcher said, his voice barely a whisper now. “A soft, wet pop. Then a lot of red.”
Angel’s gaze drifted away from Fletcher, out across the yard. He was quiet for a moment, thinking. Then he said, softly, to no one in particular, “Red is my favorite.”
A profound silence descended on the group. The sounds of the yard seemed to recede. Hawthorne, who had been silent, let out a long, slow breath. “Told you,” he murmured. “He was taking your measure.”
Hawk rubbed the back of his neck. “Christ, Fletcher. You’re telling that story in front of Dom’s kid?”
“Dom said he should listen!” Fletcher protested, standing up. “He didn’t say to censor.”
“He’s a baby,” Lorenzo said, though his voice lacked conviction as he looked at Angel’s calm, accepting face.
“He’s not,” Hawthorne stated, his pale eyes fixed on Angel. “He’s a goddamn cannibal.”
The statement hung in the cold air. It was known, of course. In this place, everyone’s sins were public record. But it was rarely spoken aloud, especially not in front of Angel. It was an unspoken agreement, a courtesy to Dominic.
Angel’s eyes swung back to Hawthorne. There was no shame, no anger, no recognition of trauma in that look. It was just… acknowledgment. He nodded once, as if Hawthorne had remarked on the color of the sky.
“I don’t remember who,” Angel said, his voice still soft, gentled by the thumb that had recently been in it. “But they were bad. They made the room dark. Daddy says it’s okay. He says I was hungry.”
The casual, horrific confession, delivered with that innocent, matter-of-fact cadence, left the five Alphas speechless. They were men who had carved fear into the world, who spoke of torture and murder with the casual ease of mechanics discussing an engine. But this—this unvarnished, childish grotesquerie—it scratched a different, colder part of the soul.
Dimitri was the first to move. He slowly sat down on the concrete a respectful distance from Angel, not facing him directly, but at an angle. “What… what did it taste like, Angel?” he asked, his voice devoid of its usual cynical edge, replaced by a genuine, almost anthropological curiosity.
Angel considered the question, his brow furrowing slightly. He looked down at his own small, clean hands, turning them over as if inspecting them. “Like… like when you bite your cheek by accident. But more. Salty. Warm.” He looked up at Dimitri, his eyes clear. “It’s better warm. Daddy says don’t talk about it to other people. It’s our secret.”
“But you just told us,” Lorenzo pointed out, his massive arms still crossed, his stance defensive.
Angel shrugged a tiny shoulder. “You’re not people. You’re Daddy’s friends.” He said it with utter, devastating simplicity. In his world, there were two categories: Dominic, and everyone else. Dominic’s friends were an extension of Dominic. Therefore, rules could bend.
Hawthorne made a sound deep in his throat, something between a sigh and a grunt of understanding. “The logic of a pack. Of a child.”
Fletcher had gone pale beneath his weathered skin. The storyteller had been out-narrated by the subject. He lit another cigarette with slightly trembling hands.
Hawk knelt down now, joining Dimitri. He looked at Angel not with fear, but with a newfound, grim respect. “Your daddy… he takes good care of you, huh?”
A brilliant, transformative smile broke across Angel’s face. It was like the sun piercing through prison concrete. He nodded vigorously, his pigtails bouncing, the foil crown catching the light. “He’s the best. He washes my hair and makes the bad dreams go away and he gives me crowns.” He reached up and carefully touched the foil circlet. “This one is from Uncle Rafi. It has a jewel.”
The juxtaposition was dizzying. The crown, the pigtails, the tales of