Angel and the Assassin 3: Sins of the Father

floor, pissed, and
    Fyn Alexander | Sins of the Father
    81

    threw up. And then you did it all over again! I’ve cleaned up three lots of vomit so far.
    If I’d had a fucking nappy, I’d have put it on you to contain the piss.”
    “Sorry, Sir,” he mumbled.
    “You were only quiet the last couple of hours. What did you take?”
    “I don’t know. It was a pill.” Angel lay down with relief. His body felt like it had
    been run over with one of those big roller things people used to flatten their lawn. His
    stomach was growling empty, but he was certain if he ate anything, he would bring it
    up.
    Daddy looked up at him from the floor. “Genius. Fucking genius.”
    Angel’s tears began to flow again. “Yeah, well, when you called me an idiot the
    other night, I guess you were right.”
    “You are not an idiot. But you certainly acted like one last night. There’s a
    difference. If you were a full-time idiot, you wouldn’t be my boy.”
    “Daddy, how did you find me?”
    “Jack was worried about you. He took your phone out of your pocket to get my
    number. He said you didn’t even notice because you were too busy chatting up the turd
    who tried to rape you in the toilets.”
    “Jack said that?” Jack would never drop him in it like that.
    “No. What he actually said was, ‘Mr. Saunders there’s this really creepy dude
    trying to get Angel to go into the loo with him and Angel just took a tablet and I don’t
    know what it is or what to do. Please come and rescue him.’ He was scared stiff for you.
    He’s got more sense than I gave him credit for. He did exactly the right thing. By the
    time I got there, you were already in the cubicle with the creep.”
    Finishing the cleanup job, Daddy carted away the garbage and then returned to
    open the windows. A cold wind from the river blew in, chilling Angel’s body, still
    naked from the shower. “Sir, it’s cold.”
    Dragging on his jeans and a T-shirt, Daddy said, “And it stinks in here.”
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    Daddy pulled the duvet up over Angel’s shoulders. “Go to sleep.” With that he
    walked out and closed the door. After a minute, Angel got up unsteadily and crossed
    the bare, polished wood floor to the closet. Feeling around on the top shelf, he made
    contact with the soft, well-worn flannelette of his blankie. For several minutes, he stood
    pressing it to his cheek while watching the door. He had told Daddy he didn’t need it
    anymore, and he didn’t want him to catch him with it. He was determined to give it up.
    Shoving it back on the shelf, he padded back to bed and lay down. After watching the
    closet door for another minute, he got up and tiptoed back, grabbed his blanket, and got
    back into bed with it. He pushed most of it under his pillow, leaving just a handful
    visible and pressed it against his face.
    What a mess. Now he hates me.
    With tears running down his cheeks, he fell into a troubled sleep.
    Fyn Alexander | Sins of the Father
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    Chapter Six
    With his diary in his hand, Kael took a slug of whisky and threw himself down on
    the couch. He picked up the beautiful silver Parker pen he always used to write about
    his past. The diary had long since gone in strange directions, going back and forth
    between his childhood and young adulthood. Perhaps he would organize it and publish
    it anonymously: The Life and Times of an MI6 Assassin . The whole purpose had been to
    leave it for his mum in case he just disappeared one day like Misha, whose family was
    never told what happened to her. His mum would never go through that pain.

    The last summer Freddie and I spent together was between our final year of
    College Grange and our first year of university. He was going to Durham in the
    northeast, and I was off to Cambridge outside London. We were going to keep in
    touch and see each other in the holidays, but when the new term began, I spent all
    my free time either studying or going to gay clubs to look for men to have sex with.
    Fourteen years went by before we saw each other again, but that summer Freddie
    followed me around the bars and clubs of London. Shy and self-conscious about his
    weight, he had some sex here and there, but not with one stranger after the next like I
    did.
    I was eighteen when I walked into my very first leather bar with Freddie behind
    me, and if one of the men, an older bloke who called himself Sir Killian, had not
    offered to buy us a beer, we would have been thrown out for