Shifting his weight to his right foot after standing there for so long, he checked his watch to see how much longer he had to endure this torture. Fuck, this is boring.

A buzzing noise had him reaching for his phone in the back pocket of his jeans.

“Do you mind?” he asked the man beside him, who had been watching him like a hawk all day. Tom was supposed to be showing him the ropes, and even though the Caruso was trying his best to hide the fact that he was watching his every move, it was obvious to a man like Angel.

“Sure.” Tom nodded, giving him the go-ahead.

Walking a bit of distance away to keep his conversation private, he answered the phone with a “Yes?”

“How is it?” a voice similar to his asked.

“Slow.”

“I wouldn’t say that. You’re at a college, surrounded by hot girls. You were always the lucky bastard between us.”

Angel’s voice went low. “You mean lucky enough to be the one chosen?”

“Yeah, well, there is no fooling Lucca Caruso. Your name might be Angel, and out of the two of us, others might think you are one, but we both know you’re the evil twin.”

Angel smiled, knowing his twin brother Matthias was right. They’d had their fun ever since they were born, letting everyone think Matthias was the strongest, smartest, and meanest one, but in reality, it was him.

Growing up the way they did, it wasn’t easy, to say the least, so making everyone think they shouldn’t mess with Matthias while they always ignored or underestimated Angel had protected them. It was their armor. Over the span of their lives, very few had found out the truth about them, and when they had, they’d realized too late.

Until Lucca.

“Did you get it yet?” Matthias asked, getting to the real reason of the phone call.

Feeling the heavy weight of the ring deep in his pocket, he was able to tell him what he had been unable to yesterday. “I did.”

“Then it must have gone successfully.”

“Well, not exactly.” The image of the troublesome little brunette filled his mind. “I didn’t realize I had an audience.”

“Who?” A hint of worry appeared in Matthias’s voice.

“A Caruso girl.”

The wariness in his brother’s voice turned dark. “Will she be a problem?”

“I’ll take care of her,” he put simply, without a hint of remorse.

“Good.” Matthias paused. Knowing Angel would do whatever it took, he then gave his brother a final warning with the dark tone still present, “Be careful, Angel. Remember, no matter how much time you spend with them, you are and always will be a Luciano, never a Caruso.”

Angel looked at Tom, who remained down the hall, as he put his hand deep in his pocket. Seeing Tom’s muscles tighten and his eyes slightly narrow, becoming trained on what Angel was about to pull out of his pocket, revealed to Angel all he needed to know.

Rubbing his thumb over the ring, he thought about who it belonged to and why he had stolen it back. For family.

“I know, brother,” was all he said before he hung up and headed back to the spot he had come from.

When he finally pulled his hand out of his pocket, coming up clean, he saw Tom ease again. He had to refrain from rolling his eyes to the back of his head. Stupid fucker.

No, there was no fooling Angel, who knew every trick in the book when it came to watching someone. He had become an expert at it, and had gone undetected due to the act he played. Not only that, but the reason he had learned how to have a watchful eye in the first place was because he had felt what it was like to be watched from a very young age. Feeling the judgmental eyes of others was something he could and always would feel. It never failed to make his skin crawl …

…“You can each pick one thing,” his older brother, Dominic, had told them when they’d walked into the busy gas station.

Angel couldn’t help noticing the stares they got the second they walked in; not only from the customers, but the cashier, too. He wasn’t sure why they were looking at them that way. He wondered if it was because of the dirty, dingy clothes they wore, or if it was because their thirteen-year-old brother was taking care of his eight-year-old twin brothers.

“Ooo … I want this.” Matthias grabbed a bag of gummies from off the shelf.

“No.” Their older brother snatched the gummies out of his hand, putting it back. “It’s breakfast; pick doughnuts or something. Just hurry up or we’re going to be even later for school.”

It was hard for Angel to concentrate on picking something when the cashier came out from behind the counter to watch them closer. Therefore, he just grabbed a pack of powdered doughnuts, not wanting to make his brother any later.

Dominic took them to their elementary school every morning before he went to his classes at the middle school, which always caused him to be late. The school was going to fail his older brother if he continued with his tardiness.

“You better be paying for those, boy, and I want to check all your backpacks before you leave. You little shits are sneaky nowadays,” the foul-looking cashier spat at Dominic.

Now Angel understood why everyone was staring at them.

Looking down at his dirty clothes, he figured it didn’t look like they had enough money to afford a pack of gum.

“We have money,” a young Dominic growled back as he picked up a honey bun for himself.

The cashier laughed in their faces. “Yeah, I bet you do.”

A flash appeared behind his brother’s eyes. Even though he was only thirteen, his height and stature made him look older.

Taking a step toward the man, Dominic growled once more, pulling out a twenty-dollar bill their father had thrown at them earlier, “I. Said. We. Got. Money.”

Sure, they weren’t rich, but money was never the issue. With their father being who he was, people would give him their life savings if they thought he wanted it badly enough. The issue was parenting.

Turning his back to them, the cashier headed toward his spot behind the register. “Good, then pay for your shit and get outta here.”

“Do you know who our father is?” Dominic asked so coldly that the obese man stopped in his tracks. Then a simple whisper revealed a name that had the customers scurrying to leave. “Lucifer.”

The eyes that had stared at Angel in suspicion now held fear. In that moment, he would never forget how it felt like thousands of dung beetles covered his body as their tiny legs skated across his skin.

The old man began to stutter, about to piss himself. “I-I-I didn’t know. I-I’m s-sorry.”

“Matthias, get the candy you wanted,” Dominic ordered his little brother without taking his eyes off the cashier.

Matthias wasted no time obeying, grabbing the gummies he had originally picked up and holding them with his second choice of plain doughnuts.

Putting the twenty back in his pocket, Dominic grinned as they all began to leave. “If you’d like, I’ll have my dad come by to pay you back?”

All the cashier did was violently shake his head from side to side.

“Thought so.” Dominic spat on the floor before leaving.

It was everything Angel could do not to run from the eyes and the whispers that had travelled through the air, but he hadn’t. Instead, he had chosen to walk steadily beside his proud older brother while making a silent promise to himself that he would do whatever it took not to have the beetles crawl over his skin again …

…The doors he stood beside flew open as students started to file out. He waited until it seemed like no one was left when the door flew open again, two giggling girls coming out. The tall brunette already belonged to a Caruso, but the short one was the one who had already gotten under his skin.

Following behind them with Tom, he whispered over to him, “Exactly who did Lucca assign me to watch?”

When his question was answered with a single smile, Angel’s eyes went back to the short, troublesome brunette.

Adalyn.

It was a nice name … for an unfortunate girl.