Page 81 of Surprise Baby for the Enemy

Exactly like mum.

She decided to take on mum’s last name since she didn’t want to be known as a Warwick.

She hears the click of my shoes across the tile and her head snaps up. “Are you ready for this?” she demands, without preamble. “I need you to be absolutely incapable of failure this time.”

I didn’t come into this room to argue with her, but the insinuation that I’veeverfailed to do her dirty work properly riles my already threadbare temper.

“We have more pressing issues than a formality that hasn’t been enforced since-”

“Their tithe isn’t just aformality,” she says, like I’m the dimmest person she’s ever spoken to in her life. “It’s anecessity, Achilles. Fuck- how many times do I have to tell you this? The accounts are drying up! My good for nothing father left this place a fucking ruin just to spite me, I swear to god.”

I put my hands on the back of her chair, gripping it like I would her neck. Sometimes I wonder if our relationship would be so strained if I hadn’t turned her down the first time she asked me to help her stage a bloody coup against the Warwicks. Would my daughter be happier if we weren’t perched like a goddamn cuckoo in a nest that isn’t ours?

If the Ashwoods had minded their goddamn business-

If Fantasia hadn’t been raised on delusions of grandeur by our mother-

If my Madeleine hadn’t died, leaving me a single father with only a fraying cord connecting me to reality-

If, if, if. Pointless now. We killed the Warwicks and we stole their nest. Now we have to wear their skins and do their dance, and pray no one comes sniffing around our lies.

The Warwicks across the pond are an easy target, really. They lost contact with London almost three decades ago- after Thomas Sr. and his brother Marcus fell out over whether or not Marcus should marry a young widow named Veronica Ashwood.

If only Mr. Marcus had listened to his brother. Maybe if the Warwicks hadn’t been weakened by that schism, the Ashwoods would’ve faced a tougher fight last year.

From what little we know about the remaining Warwicks, most of the ones that knew who was living in Wesley Hall are all dead themselves. I’ve never met Thomas Warwick, but better yet, he’s never met me. He’ll have no idea that I’m not a blood Warwick, not even a loyal adopted Warwick.

He’ll have no idea I put a bullet in the head of his uncle. My stepfather.

Still, I hate subterfuge. It’s my least favorite way to do business.

My jaw clenches against the words, but they come out anyway. “Maybe if you stopped pouring all our remaining resources into huntinghimdown-”

“That’s not possible,” Fantasia interrupts savagely, turning to pace away from me across the room. “I’m going to find him, Achilles. I have to know he’s dead, or this whole thing falls apart.”

I sigh. This will get us nowhere, not when she’s determined to be pissed. You’d think killing her own shitty father and usurpinghis empire would improve her mood somewhat, but no. “I’m going now,” I say. “Any last orders, my lady?”

She turns on me, glaring me up and down. Her eyes are piercing as any arrow. “Make them pay, Achilles. In blood, if you have to.”

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