Angel and the Assassin 3: Sins of the Father

girls climbed into his lap,
    and he finished the story. Only when he felt their tiny bodies in his arms did it dawn on
    him how fragile they were, how breakable and easily hurt. He felt like a piece of shit.
    Carefully he stood, still holding the girls, one on each arm, their heads resting on
    his shoulders, and he rocked them until they fell fast asleep. “Good work, Daddy,”
    Angel whispered.
    With immense care, Angel helped him get them into bed without waking them.
    Ducking under the canopies was the hardest part. For a moment, they stood looking
    with relief at the two sleeping children, one dark-haired, the other blonde, until Kael
    mouthed, Let’s go . They crept out of the room, leaving on a night-light.
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    In the living room, Kael poured another whisky and drank it in one gulp. “Now
    they hate me.”

    * * * *
    Miserable for the last couple of hours, Kael was sitting on the couch with Angel

    sprawled beside him resting on his shoulder when Freddie and Adam arrived home a
    little after ten thirty. Freddie, jolly and effusive as ever, poured them more drinks. “Is
    Angel allowed a wee dram of firewater?” he asked Kael.
    “No, he’s fine. He had a beer,” Kael told him.
    Freddie and Adam talked for twenty minutes or so about the girls’ teachers and
    how well they were doing in school before asking how it went.
    “They hate me.”
    Kael had said the same thing repeatedly over the last couple of hours while Angel
    comforted him. “They don’t, Daddy. They love you.” When he persisted, Angel had finally
    ordered impatiently, "Stop beating yourself up. They’ll be fine.”
    “What happened?” Freddie asked, his face awash in sympathy. “The girls adore
    you, Kael.”
    “I raised my voice, and I scared them. I didn’t mean it, but they were screaming
    their heads off and I was getting agitated. I’m not very good at this sort of thing.”
    Freddie looked at Adam, and they both burst out laughing.
    Kael glared at them. “Why is that funny?”
    “You’re such a big old ogre,” Freddie joked.
    “I don’t want to be an ogre. They were crying. I felt like shit.”
    “I don’t think they were really all that traumatized.” Angel pulled his iPhone from
    his pocket and began to flip through the pictures.
    “You took a picture?” Kael was instantly annoyed.
    Angel was already on his feet, crossing the rug to show his phone to Freddie,
    whose chubby face broke at once into a rosy-cheeked smile. “I’ll delete it. And I don’t
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    see why we can’t take a few pictures. People see you on the street all the time. There’s
    CCTV everywhere in this country.”
    With his forefinger waving in the air, ready to tell Angel off for being cheeky, Kael
    was completely ignored by all three.
    “Awww, look at that!” Freddie burst out. “Adam, look.” Adam got up from his
    seat and sat on the arm of Freddie’s chair. “Awww,” he repeated. “Show Kael.”
    Throwing himself down beside Kael again, Angel showed him a picture he had
    snapped of him rocking the girls to sleep. They looked so little in his arms, heads
    resting on his shoulders. It was very sweet, and he couldn’t help but smile. Then a
    brilliant thought popped into his head. “I know. We’ll get them more Barbies. Then
    they’ll love me again.” Perplexed when all three of them began to chuckle once more,
    Kael said again, “Why is that funny?”
    Freddie piped up. “Because you’ve never in your life cared who liked you, and
    here you are desperate to get into the good graces of a couple of kids.”
    No wonder Freddie was laughing at him. If he had any sense of humor, he would
    laugh at himself. The other night, he had killed a random stranger, and now he was
    near to having an anxiety attack because he had made the children cry.
    “Delete the picture,” he told Angel—who obeyed at once.
    “What’s the deal with no pictures?” Adam asked.
    “I’m in security. It’s safer all round,” he said.
    “I saw you going into the MI6 building in the city a few months ago,” Freddie said
    quietly. “Do you work for them?”
    “If he told you, he’d have to kill you,” Angel said.
    “And what’s our Angel going to do next? You’ll get your A levels this year,
    right?” Freddie smiled at Angel.
    “Yes, sir. We’ve already applied to three universities for me.”
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    “You don’t look too