Page 13 of Twins for the Mafia Heir

My heart is not functioning properly right now.

Neither is my vision.

I blink, and I’m in a hospital room, Madeleine’s hand in mine. The machine’s arrhythmic beep becomes an endless drone. I scream for the doctors. People flood the room. I’m pulled away from the bed, from her-

“Get away from my daughter,” I hear myself say from leagues away. “Now.”

Raleigh steps back immediately, backing up until she hits the wall. The path between Sidony and me is clear, but I still feel frozen in place. My ears must be failing too, because all I hear is the drone of that machine.

Sidony gets to her feet, her eyes wide. “Daddy!” she cries, and runs toward me. I should be running toward her, but I still can’t move. My daughter grabs onto my leg, clinging hard enough to cut off circulation, but that’s fine. The pressure wakes me up at last.

I bend down and snatch her up into my arms, Lilac penguin plush and all. As soon as her weight settles against me, I feel likeI can breathe again. She presses a messy kiss against my cheek, and I cup the back of her head with my hand.

“Welcome home, Daddy,” she mumbles into my shoulder.

I try to tell her thank you, that I love her, that I missed her, but I can’t decide which words to use. “Hello, little princess,” I manage to say. “Hello. You didn’t wait up for me, did you?”

“The scary men came again,” Sidony confesses, and I nod. Another nightmare. I can usually tell if she’s had one at just the sight of Lilac in her arms.

“Did this woman say anything to you, dove?” I ask. With a huge effort, I suppress the fury I feel when I look at Raleigh.

Sidony straightens in my arms, and to my surprise, she’s beaming. “She says she can make her hair blue!” Sidony announces. “With ink. And- she says her name is Raleigh!”

That… all sounds fairly innocuous. But what’s even more strange is that Sidony isn’t trying to hide in my shoulder or keep completely silent. I’ve tried many times to introduce her to children her own age. When that failed I tried to introduce her to anyone atall. Aside from Mrs. Garrow and the occasional stray cat that wanders across the property, Sidony doesn’t socialize with anyone.

So what the hell did Raleigh do to make her instantly able to smile?

I stare in warning at the woman in question. Raleigh hasn’t moved from the wall, and has even pressed both her palms against it on either side of her to show she holds nothing. She meets my eyes for only a moment before looking away.

“What else did she say?” I ask Sidony, who considers carefully.

“That my name isawesome,” she concludes.

Leaving Sidony again after that feels like tearing my own teeth out, but I have to find somewhere to put Raleigh for the night. Besides, my four-year-old is up so far past her bedtime she might as well get up for tomorrow. I need to put her to bed properly or she won’t get another wink of sleep, and I’m not doing that in front of Raleigh.

Sidony’s room is attached to mine by two private doors with a tiny linen closet between them- from back when husbands and wives couldn’t undress in the same room without their attendants being offended. Having this suite was one of several conditions I had when Fantasia demanded I move into Wesley Hall to be closer to her. If I had to be here, then Sidony had to be close to me. Sidony’s door usually stays locked when I’m not home, and she can come and go through my door with my permission.

While this arrangement has proven to be relatively secure- I’ll be having a very stern word with Mrs. Garrow about why Sidony’s door wasn’t locked tonight- it haunts me always that it is almost certainly a contributor to my daughter’s loneliness, and that it feeds her anxieties.

After I’ve set Sidony in her bed and promised her five times I’ll be back in just a moment, I guide Raleigh through the doors to my own room. It’s not ideal, but now that she’s not only slipped her restraints and lock picked her way out of her temporary cell… this is where she’ll have to stay the night.

The few hours left of it.

Thankfully, it seems like Mrs. Garrow is better at tending fireplaces than she is at locking doors. Mine is already roaring, and the room is more comfortable than the hall.

“What were you trying to do to my daughter?” I demand the second the door closes behind me.

Raleigh turns back to me, her eyes looking unusually flat and grim. “Nothing, Achilles. I was looking for a way to escape and I opened her door. What am I supposed to think when I find a child in this place?”

“That this is her home and she belongs here?” I ask incredulously.

“And this is a good, safe place for a little girl to be?” she shoots back. “Because I grew up in a house like-” She cuts herself off, sucking in a breath to steady her trembling words. “I was worried about her and I wanted to make sure she was okay. I wanted to make sure she wasn’t anotherprisoner.”

That’s a slap, and I refuse to let myself feel its sting. What I’m terrified of, what’s making my hands shake and my vision red, is that she could’ve easily used my child, my helpless four-year-old, as a hostage-

Just like I’m using Raleigh.

Raleigh takes another calming breath. “I would never hurt a child, Achilles. Never. Even to save myself.”

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