CHAPTER TWO

ATLAS

I tried not to let Jasiel sleep. He didn't seem to care that the way the prison bus turned on its side, or how he'd hit his head could've left him with concussion. All he cared about was squeezing himself as tight and close to my body as possible.

For months, we'd been trying to get him out of that prison. We knew there was only one clear way out, and that was through the transport system. My two associates, Midas, who I'd trained with and knew for years. He was partially blind in one eye and deaf in one ear. He'd been the one who went to pick Jasiel up. Trojan, he was Midas's protege. Technologically trained, he kept us on the inside of the prison system and knew if there was anything new on Jasiel.

We were first on the scene when we got the notice of the transfer. Although, we couldn't celebrate that one accomplishment until he was with us.

Our current safe house was in South Miami Heights. A tenement building in a poor area. There wasn't a single ounce of cold air. It wasn't anywhere you wanted to find yourself in summer. Some people didn't have a choice but to live there, so we made it bearable by hacking the buildings electricity meters and giving everyone free air conditioning use.

Nobody had followed us from the scene, and nobody had seen our faces. My face needed to be hidden. I was still presumed dead.

"Are we home?" Jasiel asked through a groggy sleepy voice.

The SUV came to a stop at the light. "Almost," I told him, on guard, looking around. "I'm glad you're back with me, baby."

"Daddy—" he said, pausing and looking at the two men in the front. "Who are they?"

"Friends," I said. "They're helping."

Trojan turned. "Hey!" he said, holding a hand to Jasiel. "Name's Trojan. I'm the reason we could get all those letters in. You were on a no letter notice for a while." Trojan was a wild card, I had to admit. I'd originally sought Midas out after the shooting, and Trojan was there with him. He pulled out a gun on me, a mistake he'd never do again. "I've heard so much about you."

Jasiel's heated gaze stared up at me before looking at Trojan. "Who did those tattoos?"

"Looking to get some ink?" he asked, enthused to discuss the tattoos on his neck and contoured to the side of his chin. "Well, I've got the hookup with this great guy near Miami Beach."

"No," he grumbled. "I want to know so I can avoid them, at all costs."

I'd missed Jasiel's sass and dry delivery. Even Midas chuckled from the driver's seat.

"Don't take it personally," I said, stroking my hand on Jasiel's forehead. "He just got out of prison."

"I mean it though," Jasiel grumbled. He looked up at me and smile before burrowing his head back on my lap, searching for my cock like some type of truffle pig.

We parked up outside the old, crumbly building. Our favors for the people inside had gone a long way in buying their trust and silence. We'd been here for nearly two months already, and we should've been thinking of moving onto another. We had options; a safe house in Cutler Bay, and another in Palmetto Bay.

Putting my mask on and a blanket over Jasiel to leave the car, I carried him inside. He wrapped his legs around me like a koala. And by the time we reached the apartment, he was asleep and snoring with his head on my shoulder.

I allowed him to sleep this time. Lowering him on the bed and cranking up the air-con. His humor was there, so I saw little danger in letting him rest for a while. I'd never been in prison like that. I'd been a prisoner, and I knew how difficult it could be to find peace and sleep sometimes.

All the windows in the apartment were boarded up from the inside. We were on the fourth floor with a view of the parking lot outside which we could see from small moving slats in the wood. It kept things cooler without the sun shining in, and these days, everyone and their mother was spying with drone technology.

Trojan and Midas were in the kitchen. Midas stroked a finger at Trojan's neck and tattooed skin. "Did he mean it?" Trojan asked, pouting at Midas.

"Yes," I said, plainly. "He'll say whatever is on his mind, and he'll get away with it. But how could he not get away with?" I asked as a rhetorical question. Jasiel was cute, sassy, and sometimes even bratty, but I'd let him do that and much more if it made him happy. "Plus, if you think I'm a little crazy, then he's—he's the crazy energy that charges me."

Midas raised a brow. "We saw the security footage of him with that knife," he said, tilting his head. "You said he had a past in a circus, right?"

"For a few years, sure. Fire blowing, knife throwing, walking on stilts, flexibility, but he can't contort, so don't bring that up," I said, watching their faces glaze over in both shock and excitement. They were lucky he was on our side. "Anyway, he's gonna have a lot of questions, just don't be intimidated, because he will act like he's going to stab you at any moment. Just know that he won't. Probably won't."

"Probably won't?" Trojan asked, grabbing Midas's shoulder. "What do you mean by that?"

"We're in this together, stabbing you—or you, would be a bad move," I said. "And Midas has already earned his favor getting him out, even if there was the whole turned over bus. Just hope he doesn't blame that on you."

"He won't, right?" Midas asked. "I don't want to hurt your boy, Atlas."

A snicker shot from the back of my throat. "Guys, relax. Don't be silly. And don't think like that," I said, still smiling. "I wouldn't let you touch him. Don't even think like that. We've all got one aim in this. Wipe the Coronado family off the map."

They both nodded. It was cute of them to think I'd let them harm Jasiel, or to think they could harm him. Trojan was upset because of something Jasiel had said, and he'd need to get over that fast.

"And don't take anything he says personally. It a defense mechanism," I told them. Stuffing a hand into my pocket, I pulled out the silver metal lighter. "Plus, when he gets his hands on this, you'll see just what my boy can do."

As the two of them left the apartment for food, I cuddled up in bed beside my boy. For about twenty minutes, he didn't notice, and then he rolled over on top of me and put a hand to my throat. I countered it, grabbing his throat in return and letting my thumb linger over his carotid artery. He smiled, letting go.

"I forgot," he grumbled, resting on my chest. He wiggled around.

Kissing his forehead, I reassured him everything was going to be fine. Or at least it would be fine once we got what we'd come for. We could've left Miami, the State, even the country and found somewhere else. We tried to take that easy way out, but they wanted bloodshed. They wanted ours, and I gave them a little bit when I was shot in my arm, I think they assumed it had been my chest, but I'd taken a shot before on purpose, better hurt for a little while than dead forever.

"I've missed you," he said, planting lots of kisses on my face. Sitting on my abdomen, he unzipped the onesie down to his waist. He wore a white vest under it, and I got to see more of his beautiful olive skin.

I rubbed a hand on his chest. He'd grown a little hair on it in the time we'd been apart. "I thought you liked everything smooth?"

"I do," he huffed. "But who was I going to be shaving for in prison?"

I suppose he had a point there.

He leaned on me once more. "You know what I've missed more than everything else in the entire world." He slipped his hands down the front of my jeans, pulling them out almost immediately. "You have it!" He revealed the lighter up in the small stream of light coming into the bedroom.

"Is that all you've missed?" I asked, stroking a finger down the side of his face.

Jasiel clicked the top of the lighter, pulling the lid. A spark popped and the flame appeared. "So pretty." He clicked it shut again and looked down at himself for a pocket. "Ugh, tell me I have some clothes here." His brows knitted together as he glared. "Well, do I?"

"Yes, yes, yes. I have all your things here," I told him, trying to cut anything before it happened. Jasiel hadn't napped properly, and soon he'd be threatening to burn the place.

The apartment door opened and in with it came the smell of fast food, more importantly, Jasiel's favorite fast food.

"Food," he said, rolling off me. "For me?"

"For all of us," I said, enamored by the way he looked in the light. I hadn't seen, smelled, or touched him in so long. It was almost a dream had come true for me to feel him beside me. I reached out, but he ran off.

In the living area, Midas and Trojan were opening the takeout boxes on the small coffee table. Jasiel watched over them, his hands itching to grab a paper plate.

Fried chicken was takeout of the day. Jasiel loved fried chicken, off the bone, in a burger, he was one of the skinniest people I'd known, and he could eat his entire weight in food without putting on a pound.

We sat on the couches and ate while Trojan flicked through the TV channels until a familiar setting appeared. The highway road we'd been on, and the prison bus still turned on its side.

"They're gonna be looking for me," he said. "Can I dye my hair like you?" He ran his greasy fingers through my hair.

"Jasi, don't do that," I said.

"Why not?" he asked. "I can do whatever I want to you, or don't you want me to touch you?" He pouted and let out a sniffle. "It's ok if you don't want me to touch you, I'll just—" he let out another fake sniffle. "Just touch myself."

I grabbed his hand and kissed the back of it. "You're mine. I'm yours. Of course, you can do whatever you want to me," I said. "But that goes both ways, baby."

"Fuck, they have his picture up," Midas grumbled.

Jasiel snatched his hand away from me and grabbed another piece of fried chicken. "Don't worry," he said. "If they think about coming near me, I'll kill them like—like real good."

Midas and Trojan watched with wide eyes.

"He's dangerous, but he's not going to be doing anything too dangerous," I told them. "Not when I've just got him back. Isn't that right?"

Jasiel looked up at me with his mouth full of food and greasy lips. He swallowed. "The only dangerous thing I can think about right now is getting my back blown out," he said. "I haven't had sex in a year." He wiped his mouth with arm sleeve from the prison jumpsuit like it was a stiff napkin. "Wait. You haven't had sex with anyone, right?"

"No," I said, immediately. "The last thing on my mind was fucking anyone."

He smiled wickedly. "Good. I didn't want to have to cut it off."

I pressed my face closer to his. "The only way it's coming off, is if it gets stuck inside that tight pretty hole," I whispered. "Now, eat your food, get some energy, because that ass is mine, and I'm going to do whatever I want with it."

Jasiel looked at me, wiggling his brows at me. "Yes, Daddy."

"Uh—yeah," Midas began. "So, let us know when you two—you know, and we'll head out for a bit."

I looked over at Trojan's face, staring at us with a little jealousy. "But why do they get to, and we don't?" he asked.

Snickering, I shook my head. "I told you, you could, but not near me," I said. "And now that Jasi's back, I don't care." I cupped a hand under Jasiel's chin and guided it toward my pursed lips. Giving him a large greasy-lipped kiss on his cheek. He immediately tried extending his tongue to lick at the kiss. He couldn't.

Midas stood with his paper plate of food. "Give us a text when you're finished, we have work to do, remember?"

He called it work. We called it revenge.

And we were ready, we just needed to reconnect and recalibrate our bodies.