Page 26 of The One

“No.” He brushes his thumb across my lips.

“It could be about me,” I remind him. There is shit going on with my brother and God knows what with my father. I know I’ll have to face it sooner or later, but it’s been nice getting lost in Abel. To forget about the rest of the world and my messed-up family.

“All right.” He sighs, rolling over to sit up and grab his phone. I get up to snag his shirt off the floor to pull on.

“I’ll make us something to eat.”

“That would be great.” He stands. “Need to step into my office.”

“All right.” I head toward the kitchen. “I’ll make you a cup of coffee,” I tell him. “The real stuff.”

I start breakfast as his coffee brews. When it’s done, I take it to him. I pause outside the door when I hear my name being said. I know I shouldn’t listen, but something inside of me tells me to.

“It’s Angel’s father. The fuck you want here?” Abel sounds pissed, but he kind of does most of the time when he’s talking to other people. He’s direct and always to the point. It’s only with me that I’ve gotten him to open up more. He knows I need to hear his words, so he gives them to me.

“I didn’t kill him.” My hand that is holding the warm coffee cup tightens. How could he have killed him? He’s been with me. Has my father been found dead or possibly missing? Shit. Would my brother kill our own father? “He’s still got all his fingers.” Abel pauses. “I didn’t say his toes too.” I take a step back. What the hell did that mean? “It didn’t take much for me to get him to talk. He’s a fucking rat.”

A few things start to click together in my mind, but I don’t want to believe them. I take a few more steps back, putting space between me and the office door. Abel told me it’s his job to extract information from people. Has he been extracting it from my father? I turn, rushing back to the kitchen.

“Angel.” I jump, Abel’s voice startling me. I drop the coffee cup, but Abel is quick, and he snags me around the waist from behind, lifting me from my feet and stepping back as the cup hits the floor and shatters. None of the hot coffee hits my bare legs. “Fuck, I’m sorry.” He sets me down on the kitchen island, leaning down to inspect my legs to make sure they are okay.

“Nothing got on me,” I tell him. My Abel kisses my knee sweetly as he stands. How is this the same man that was talking about removing someone's toes only moments ago?

“Stay put until I get this cleaned up. Your feet are bare.”

I nod, my mind a whirl of thoughts that I can’t organize no matter how hard I try. I watch as he quickly cleans up the mess before focusing his attention back on me.

“Hey.” Abel takes my chin, guiding me to look up at him as he steps between my thighs. “You all right?”

“Yeah.”

His brows pull together, and I don’t think he believes me.

“I have to go handle something real quick. Will you be okay for a few minutes?”

“I’ll finish breakfast.”

“It’s late afternoon.” Abel gives me a half smile that makes me forget about everything in that moment. I never get smiles. I reach up and stroke his cheek.

“You make me forget about the rest of the world.”

“I want to forget the rest of the world.” Abel presses a kiss to my forehead. “Riley and Nikolai are going to come by.”

The mention of Riley makes me wonder how much she knows about what’s going on and about Abel. I think it’s more than she told me the other day. She dodged a few of my questions, and a few of her comments are starting to make more sense. I’m not upset with her because she’s in a weird predicament. Her loyalty is to Nikolai.

“Okay.” I don’t know what to make of all of this, but I don’t want to jump to conclusions either. Each time I’ve done that before, when it came to Abel, I've been wrong. “Can I ask you something before you go?”

“You can always ask me anything, Angel.”

“My father didn’t hire you?” He’s been saying the whole time that he took me to keep me safe, but he hasn’t said under whose orders. It was because of my friendship with Riley that my family was dug into.

“No.”

“You took me because of what happened with Riley?” Had she wanted to keep me safe?

“I took you becauseIwanted to keep you safe.”

“It’s not the only reason?” Abel shakes his head no. “Are you going to tell me?”

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