Angel and the Assassin 3: Sins of the Father

Father
    139

    The man never took his eyes off Kael, looking at him in a way that was sometimes
    sexual and other times merely curious. “If you were my son, I’d have named you
    Arkadiy, after me.”
    “Why don’t you go to sleep,” Kael said.
    “I won’t sleep for hours yet, but I have some work to do.”
    An ornate antique desk stood in the window. Romodanovsky sat at the desk,
    switched on the lamp, and focused on his work the way Kael always focused on his. No
    matter what the distraction, nothing ever kept him from work, either when he was at
    school or training with SIS. The man’s life had been threatened. He could have died,
    and yet he was completely unperturbed as he focused calmly on his work for the next
    hour or so.
    A light tap on the door brought Kael to his feet. Stepping out into the landing, he
    found Angel waiting for him, looking pale and drawn. Kael looked up and down to
    ascertain that no one but Thornton could see them. She was outside Dmitri’s door
    fifteen feet away. “You should have used your PTT,” Kael said, pulling him into a quick
    hug.
    “Sorry, Sir. I keep forgetting I’m wearing it. I’m really wiped.” His voice sounded
    a bit whiny, the way it always did when Angel was overtired.
    “I showed you where the room is. Get some sleep and keep your PTT on.”
    “Thank you, Daddy,” Angel whispered and kissed him lightly on the lips before
    hurrying off.
    A small humph behind him made Kael turn to see the door open a crack and
    Romodanovsky watching him. He closed the door when their gazes met.
    Christ! That was stupid . He had told Angel not to call him Daddy. Not to look at
    him with anything but professional interest, and then he was the one who had broken
    his own rule. He looked at Mattie, who rose to approach him. “Give Angel four hours,
    then wake him and swap places.”
    Fyn Alexander | Sins of the Father
    140

    “Yes, sir. What about you?”
    “Don’t worry about me.”
    “You know, that really was weird, sir,” Mattie said.
    “What?” Kael looked down at her.
    “What the Met commissioner said about you looking like Mr. Romodanovsky.
    Thinking you were his son and all that. You look more like him than Dmitri. You could
    be his son.”
    Taking a sharp breath to control the inexplicable anger that surged within him,
    Kael said through gritted teeth, “No, I could not.”
    God only knew how his face looked in that moment, because Mattie’s registered
    extreme uneasiness. Kael realized he had leaned down into her face when he said it. He
    backed off at once.
    “Sir, I’m sorry.”
    After that overreaction, he didn’t want to risk speaking again and went back into
    Romodanovsky’s bedroom to find the Russian sitting comfortably in a chair as if
    waiting for him. He held a glass of whisky in his hand and had placed another beside
    the chair where Kael had stationed himself in the corner of the room. Kael sat but
    ignored the whisky. He shouldn’t have had the first one.
    “So that’s what you like. Sweet, innocent, pretty boys? Is that why you refused
    me? Too old?”
    “I refused you because I never fuck on the job.” The knowing smile on the man’s
    face was making Kael hate him. “And you’re right. I don’t fancy you.”
    “Do you live with that boy?”
    “I don’t do anything with him. He’s a new trainee, and I’m looking out for him,
    that’s all.”
    Romodanovsky laughed in a way that made Kael want to hit him. Like he knew it
    was all a lie. “Like a father? You hugged and kissed him?”
    Fyn Alexander | Sins of the Father
    141

    “Go to bed, old man.” If he showed any emotion, this man would see it as a
    weakness. Romodanovsky was getting to him in a way he never let anyone but Angel
    get to him. All the emotions and normal human responses that he had slowly
    suppressed over the years, starting after that summer with Shawn, had come back since
    Angel had been in his life. He was opening up, becoming human again. But allowing
    his emotions to surface so that he could love Angel the way the boy deserved to be
    loved had left him open to other emotions as well.
    “You could be my son, Kael. I wish you were.”
    Across the room, an ornate gold carriage clock sat under a glass dome. Kael
    focused on the second hand and went into the zone. Not a muscle moved, he barely
    blinked, and his breathing settled into a steady rhythm of deep, slow breaths. For a long
    time, Romodanovsky watched him. Kael was neither disturbed nor