Chapter Twelve
Abbott
This man is evil.
What I don’t understand is why I keep being surprised by it.
From the moment we met, there has been no denying who he is—what he is—so why do I keep expecting something more? Something better?
I follow Rian into the kitchen, but when we arrive, he points to one of the kitchen chairs and says, “Sit.”
“Despite the collar on my ankle, I’m not a dog, and I thought you weren’t cuffing me again?”
“I’m not. I’m making breakfast.” He ignores my comment about the collar he has me in—though I’m grateful it’s not around my neck—and points to one of the chairs again.
“You can only use one arm, and you’re still healing from being shot. Maybe I should be the one to cook.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be so stubborn and should just sit the fuck down.”
“I’m the stubborn one?” What in the hell is wrong with this man? I’m not the one insisting on doing things I have no business doing.
“Would you be satisfied sitting around and not doing anything for yourself if the situation were reversed?”
I open my mouth to reply, but don’t because, no. I absolutely wouldn’t. I’d be going stir-crazy too. It’s one of the reasons I work so much, but that’s beside the point.
“That’s what I thought,” Rian continues, as though he knows me well enough to understand this about me. Somehow, he does know it, though.
“We’re not alike.” Maybe that’s not what I should be focusing on, but I feel the need to say it. I can’t be anything like this man, even if it’s in the smallest of ways.
“Oh, hit a nerve, did I?” he asks, a smirk on his lips. It’s almost…playful, which doesn’t make sense at all. That hasn’t been who he’s shown me he is, and there is nothing to be playful about right now.
“Fuck you.”
“Language, Doc. Now sit down before I tie you to the fucking chair.”
I growl in response, but do as he says.
“Do you like scrambled eggs?” His question reminds me of how he’d also asked about my food allergies before.
“Yes. Sometimes you don’t make any sense.”
He shrugs as if he has no thoughts about it, one way or the other. Does he get off on sometimes being nice to someone he plans to kill?
I watch as he uses one hand to get a bowl from the cabinet, sets it down, then grabs the eggs from the fridge. He pulls one out, then looks at it and his hand, an unexpected chuckle falling from my lips. “It might be a little hard to crack the eggs with one hand.”
“Fuck off,” Rian replies.
“Or, you know, I can crack the eggs for you before you go back to being a macho man who doesn’t need any help.”
He sighs, looks at the eggs again, and says, “Fuck off,” a second time.
“Yes, Rian. I’d be happy to help you.”
He steps aside, leaning against the counter. “How many do you want?”
“Three.” He grabs a skillet as I crack enough eggs for both of us into a bowl.
Rian nudges me out of the way, but instead of going back to the chair, I sit on the counter as he pours a little bit of milk into the bowl.
“Have you always been…a criminal?” I ask, not sure how else to word it.
“Are you trying to be my friend now?”
“No. I’m trying to at least have someone to hold a conversation with before I die. Your friend was…not receptive.”
Rian chuckles. “He’s very particular about who he lets in and who he trusts, but once you’re in, there’s nothing he won’t do for you. I would trust him with my life.”
“Seems dangerous to trust a killer with your life.”
Rian begins whipping the eggs. “That’s because you don’t understand us. You see only one part of who we are. Conan’s a good man.”
Conan. So that’s what his name is.
“But you’re not?” I ask. He told me he wasn’t not very long ago.
“Not particularly. We’re not talking about me, though.”
Still, he’s on my mind. Why does Rian think the cold man who left earlier is good, but he isn’t?
“How long have you known him?” I find myself asking, as Rian pours the eggs into the skillet, then drops bread into the toaster before using his good hand to cook.
“Most of my life. I get that you see the world in black and white, Abbott, but that’s not the world I live in.
Yes, he would do things that are unforgivable to you, but he’s the kind of man who has loved the same woman for as long as I’ve known him, even though she doesn’t feel the same.
And any time she needs him, he is always there.
He treats her children like his own, despite the fact that had my brother known when he was alive, he would have been killed for it. ”
“Your brother? Jesus. He would have been angry at him for helping his own kids?”
“Yes,” I reply simply. “It’s how we were raised.”
How they were raised. Is Rian the same? “What about you? Is that how you raised your son? Or kids, if you have more than one?” He mentioned a son when I called him a homophobe on the first day.
“Just my son.” I’m surprised he’s answered honestly, and I find that I want to know more.
Something about him has me curious, like I want to gobble up any bits of information about him that I can.
It will be good to share with the police—when or if I get out of here.
That’s what I tell myself, but really, I just want a fuller picture of this man who has turned my world upside down and plans to end my life.
“I raised him the way I needed to. And his mother…well, she was incredible. We were lucky to have her.”
He’s still got his back to me while he stands at the stove, stirring the eggs. I see his spine stiffen, though, feel the air in the room thicken with what tastes like pain.
The was in his sentence echoes between us.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I say, but Rian doesn’t answer. “I know how it feels to lose a mom, and I’m sorry your son had to go through that. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
“So, you wouldn’t wish it on me?” he asks, turning around.
This time, I’m the one who doesn’t respond. I’m not sure what I would even say. I hate him. I wish I had never met him. But I don’t want him to hurt. I don’t want anyone to hurt.
“Are you close with him?” I find myself asking. “Your son?” Whoever the kid is, I hope he at least has a father who loved him after losing his mom.
Rian sighs. “I haven’t been a good father to him—not after…well, not after,” he says again. “But I love my son. There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do for him…which is why I won’t die…or go to prison. You can’t kill me, Abbott, remember that. Not when I have unfinished business with my son.”
There is nothing taunting about what he just said. He isn’t telling me that to get under my skin. It’s like he wants me to understand why all of this is happening, why there’s nothing he won’t do to get out of the situation we’re in, even though that means me dying.
And even though I still refuse to let that happen, refuse to give up, there’s a part of me that respects him for it—that can feel the love he has for his son, even though I don’t want to think of him being the kind of man who can love someone at all. It’s easier that way.
“He’s lucky…your son. Not everyone has that.”
Rian frowns, the lines in his forehead that are somehow already familiar forming when his brows crease. “You didn’t?”
I probably should lie, but I don’t have it in me.
My head is a mess, like my whole being is on edge as I try to adjust to this situation I’ve found myself in.
“No. My father doesn’t love anyone but himself…
but that doesn’t change the fact that he would do anything to find me, to bring me home.
” Even if that’s only so he can look like a hero, so he can capitalize on my kidnapping, and what people will think of him when he brings me home.
“I didn’t either,” Rian finally says. “My father was…horrible, if I’m being honest. I won’t let that be the legacy I give my son. He’s a better man than any of us.”
With those final words, Rian turns around, grabbing two plates from the cabinet, just as the scent of burnt bread hits my nose. “I think your toaster is broken,” I say as he pops it manually, and four black pieces jump out.
“How observant of you.”
“Stop being an asshole.” I leap down, grab the bag, and pull more bread out. “You scoop the eggs. I’ll be in charge of the toast this time.”
Rian turns to me, head cocked slightly, emerald eyes holding me tightly. “Okay,” he finally says, and then we finish making breakfast together as though we’re friends, rather than kidnapper and victim…as though Rian doesn’t plan to kill me the second he doesn’t need me anymore.