Behind Closed Doors (Behind Closed Doors #1)(78)

The elevator doors open and we’re about to step inside when we hear, “Jason! Skye!”

We turn to greet Abel, who’s grinning ear to ear, and not supposed to join us until dinner in a couple of hours. He hugs me the minute he’s in range, and glances at Jason. “I can’t believe she kept you.”

Jason laughs. “Me either, man. She even agreed to move in with me.” He motions Abel forward. “Come on up.”

“Nah, man. I’m too early for dinner. I was in the hotel negotiating an event for a client, and happened to see you.”

“Seriously,” Jason says. “Come on up.”

It doesn’t take much arm twisting before Abel is in our apartment with us, and we’re all sitting around talking, the guys drinking beer while I sip wine. Abel’s phone keeps ringing as he deals with a problem client, and he steps into the office off the living room. Davie calls Jason, trying to talk about his contract, and wants to come up.

Jason tells him, “I’ll come down,” and kisses me. “I’ll be right back.”

I head to the kitchen to pour some more wine but opt for coffee instead, brewing a cup and returning to the living room to discover Abel still in the office with the door shut. I’ve just sat down when I hear the front door open.

“Jason!”

At the sound of Daniel’s voice, I stand. He appears almost instantly, and for the first time since I’ve met him, his tie is loose and his hair disheveled. “How’d you get up here?”

“I had a key made while you were gone,” he says. “Where’s Jason?”

“He went downstairs. What’s wrong?”

He holds up a folder. “This is what’s wrong. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

“What is it?”

“Jack found out who was working with Stephanie, and it’s going to shred Jason.”

“Who?”

“Me.”

I look up to find Abel in the doorway, a gun in his hand. “What are you doing, Abel?” I ask, gripping my cup tighter.

“Put down the gun, Abel,” Daniel orders.

The front door opens and I shout, “Stay back, Jason!”

In a blink, Abel has moved closer to me and is now pointing the gun at my head. I don’t know how or why, but I’m calm, the adrenaline pumping through my body controlled. “Don’t do this,” I say softly. “Abel, we’re friends. Whatever went wrong—”

“What the hell are you doing, Abel?” Jason demands, and he’s walking this way quickly.

“I’ll kill her!” Abel shouts. “I will kill her, Jason.”

Daniel catches Jason’s arm. “He’s the other blackmailer,” he warns. “We don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“Why, Abel?” Jason demands, his fists balled by his side. “If you needed money—”

“I did need money. I gambled and I lost. I lost big. Stephanie came to me with some plan to throw off your game, and I bet against you. But you kept f*cking winning, and my debt got bigger and bigger. I keep doing things to fix it. I keep doing things I don’t want to do, to make this go away.”

Jason jerks his arm from Daniel’s grip, holding up his hands. “I’ll help you. I’ll pay off your debt.”

“It’s too much. It’s too late,” Abel sobs, and I feel the depth of his torment clear to my soul. “I got desperate,” he confesses, his voice quaking. “I got really f*cking desperate.”

Suddenly he steps away from me, holding the gun at his own head, like my father did once in a drunken stupor, and everything goes into slow motion. I flash back to that childhood moment, my mother screaming “no!” and throwing a beer bottle at my father’s head—and I throw my coffee mug at Abel with all my force.

It hits him in the chest, hot coffee flying everywhere. He groans and I gasp from the fiery impact of the coffee. Jason is there with me in an instant, pulling me to him, and I get a glimpse of Daniel holding the gun.

“Are you okay?” Jason asks, cupping my face. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I am.”

Abel moans, and we turn to find him on the floor, Daniel’s foot on his chest while he talks to 911.

“It worked,” I whisper. Just like it did for my mother.

Our doorbell rings and knocking follows. Jason and I rush to the hallway and let security inside. The next hour is a whirlwind. The police come and Abel is taken to a hospital for help. There are questions. There is paperwork. There’s the cancellation of the tournament. And finally Jason and I alone, standing in the living room where it all went down.

“What will happen to him?”

“He has no family but me,” he says. “I’ll pay off his debts and get him help, but he’s out of our lives. I can’t have a man who held a gun to your head in our lives.” He cups my face. “Let’s go home, back to San Francisco.”

“I would like that very much.”

? ? ?

HOURS LATER WE WALK into the front door of Jason’s apartment, our apartment, and he’s barely turned on the lights when he drops our bags and presses me against the door, fingers laced in my hair. “I thought I was going to lose you tonight. You wonder why I never got serious with anyone? Because my father went MIA during wartime, and I saw how his capture destroyed my mother before he was rescued. I didn’t want to love that much, to hurt that much. But now, I do. I love you that much.”