The One (Untouchables Mafia Series Book 3)

I wake up in bed alone. “Lights up,” I tell the computer system thingy. I don’t know what it is called, but Abel had programmed it to listen to my voice as well. I pull myself from the bed, wondering where he might have gone. I wrap the sheet around my naked body to go in search of him. I see light coming from one of the doors that Riley and I tried to open the other day. It’s cracked partly open today.

“Abel,” I call when I start to open it more, wanting to give him a bit of warning. I’m not sure what is in the room, but he must keep it locked for a reason. I hear the sound of clicking, and a few monitors click off when I get the door open. He spins around in his chair to fully face me. It is an office.

“Come here, Angel.” He spreads his thighs, motioning for me to come to him. Abel pulls me down into his lap. His mouth goes to my neck to place kisses there, his beard that grew overnight tickling my skin, making me laugh.

“What are you doing?” I ask, leaning into him more.

“Going over some things.”

“Things you don’t want to tell me about?” He grunts a response. His lack of words used to bother me, but not anymore. “What’s the reason you don’t want to tell me things? Is it because you do work for the Cattaneos?”

“Does it bother you that I do work for them?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “Maybe?” I mean, based on this place and the way that Riley spoke about Abel, or Church as they refer to him, I’m guessing what he does isn’t on the up and up.

“I’d stop. All you’d have to do is ask.”

“Really?” I turn in his lap to straddle him. His words surprise me. I could never imagine my father even offering to step back from his job because it was having a negative effect on me. My opinion didn’t matter. But that’s not surprising since my father is the most self-centered person to walk this earth. Yet this man that I met mere days ago is willing to do whatever to make me feel safe and happy.

Abel slips one of his hands under the sheet to rest on my back. ‘Yes,’ he says, his fingers stroking me.

“I don’t want to tell you what to do. I always hated that my father did such shady things. Weird people coming and going from the house.”

“No one you wouldn’t know will come and go from our place, wherever we live.” I nod. I believe that. I also take note that he’s talking about us living together as a foregone conclusion.

“I don’t think I’d have to worry about that really. When I’m with you, I feel safe. I didn’t get that same feeling with my father.”

“He’s not a good man.”

“I know. Are you?”

“I don’t know, Angel. It depends on your belief system. But according to the government, no, I’m not a good man.”

“What do you do for the Cattaneo family? Riley joked that you had a certain set of skills.” Abel looks away from me, and I know Riley was correct in that.

“Hey.” I brush my hand against his cheek, wanting his eyes to return to me. “You told me how you grew up.” It broke my heart to think of Abel on the streets as a young boy, doing what he had to. Often the streets proved to be a safer place for Abel than the foster homes he was placed in. He’d even mentioned the state putting him into a few psychiatric wards and drugging him up. “I’m sure that led you into whatever this is you’re doing with the Cattaneos.”

“Kind of. I don’t only work for them. I’m more freelance, but lately I’ve been sticking around.”

Interesting. I wonder if he’s stayed because the Cattaneos bear some resemblance to a family. Something he’s never had before. On some level, he’s a part of that. Whether he realizes it or not, he and Nikolai are actual friends. Neither one of them would admit it, but I can tell just from seeing them together that there’s a certain level of care and respect there.

“Riley is a good person, and I don’t think she would be around the Cattaneos if they were so bad.”

“One of the reasons I stick around Matteo is because he isn’t on some sort of bloodthirsty, power high. He does what he has to to keep the seedy parts of the city under control.”

“And he doesn’t pretend to be something he’s not,” I add. My father does that.

“He doesn’t,” Abel agrees.

“Okay, so then.” I wiggle in closer, wanting him to know I’m not going anywhere. “What do you do for them?” I ask again.

“I get information for them.” That doesn’t sound so bad, but it can’t be that. Not with how he is being evasive about it.

“What kind? Like you keep up on the gossip?” I tease with a laugh, but Abel’s face remains unreadable.

‘If someone needs information, I extract it for them.’ My brows rise.

“You extract it for them,” I repeat. He nods. “As in, if I knew something and you wanted to know that something, you could get it from me?”

“Generally.”

“How?”

“You know how, Angel.” I’m pretty sure I do.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“What am I supposed to say to that?”

“I didn’t think you’d still be on my lap.”

“I’m not supposed to run from you.” I slide my hands up his chest and around his neck. My thumb goes over the scar there. It’s hard for me to picture Abel doing such things, but maybe that’s not Abel. That’s Church.

“And that’s what I mean, Angel. I have no idea what I’m capable of, but the thought of you running from me or leaving pushes me toward the edge.”

“You won’t hurt me.” I can’t believe that. I won’t.

“I told you that first day I didn’t want to hurt you.” I recall that moment. Why does it feel like it was months ago?

“That you’d never physically hurt me.”

“I wouldn’t. But I also won’t let you go.”

“Even if I ask?”

“Even if you asked.”

I lay my head on his shoulder. That should scare me, but for some reason, it doesn’t. In fact, it makes me fall a little more for him. Maybe I’m not right in the head, either.

“I’m not asking you to,” I tell him, pressing a kiss over the scar on his neck.

I want to be the center of Abel’s world, because he’s quickly becoming mine.