Page 14 of Twins for the Mafia Heir

I want to argue with her. I could shout if I didn’t think Sidony would hear. But Sidony’s own words- her smile- they tell me the truth.

That Raleigh was kind to my daughter. Despite everything, she managed to charm her.

It’s possible there’s an agenda there, but what? Raleigh had the chance to grab Sidony when I first entered the room, and instead, she calmly backed away, understanding and respecting my concern.

“How did you get out of the tower?” I ask her instead. I’m not ready to relax about Sidony yet, but I need to think on what’s happened. Arguing more about it will get me nowhere.

For the first time Raleigh drops my gaze. “I learned how to pick locks from one of the men on the estate,” she says.

“And what did you use to pick the lock?”

She hesitates, and I sense she’s trying to come up with a lie. I don’t give her the chance.

Stepping closer, I put my hands on her hips. Instantly, she tries to jerk away, but I hold her firmly.

“What are you-?!”

“Searching you, since you won’t tell me the truth,” I say curtly, and drag my hands up and down her body. She hisses and stiffens when I plunge them into the back pockets of her jeans, then the front, and I’m careful not to react. All I find is lint, so I continue. Kneeling before her, I cup her thighs in between my hands, her calves. I roll up the hems of her jeans and feel around the tops of her sneakers. When I pull off the shoes and shake them out, I net myself only a few tiny bits of gravel.

Standing again, I find Raleigh’s face and neck beet red. This is somehow more intimate than her sitting in my lap on the plane. I feel under her arms, the back of my palm brushing against her small breasts, then down her arms to her wrists.

The second before I find what it is I’m looking for, Raleigh shies. I tighten my grip and feel her galloping pulse under my left hand- and something hard under my right. Shoving up her sleeve, I find the wire bracelet and tug it off. Raleigh’s jaw tightens as I hold it up between us, examining the way one end of the stiff bracelet looks a little worse for wear, like the pattern has been undone and redone before.

I should have noticed this on the plane. Just another thing I missed from being too goddamn shaken up.

“What exactly was your plan?” I ask her.

Raleigh jerks back from me, and this time I let her. “What the hell else?” she snaps, tugging her sleeve back into place. “You shot my friend, abducted me, and showed me your crazy sisterwho either wants to kill me or force me to marry you. What doyouthink my plan was?”

She hasn’t been this visibly upset all day, I realize. Up until this point, she’s kept a veneer of calm over her distress, but now that mask is cracking.

“I think that even if you made it off the property, I’d find you before the sun rose,” I tell her bluntly. “The Warwicks own this city, Raleigh. Everything you do inside it, we know about. Don’t forget that again.”

Raleigh’s jaw tightens. “You’d be surprised how good I am at disappearing.”

Interesting. Thomas’s sister truly is getting more fascinating by the hour.

And Fantasia really will kill her if I refuse to marry her.

“It was my intention to keep you alive until your brother starts making payments,” I tell Raleigh. “And it is my intention still. Unfortunately for both of us, Fantasia’s got her own ideas in her head now.”

Raleigh’s anger flickers, revealing the fear behind it. I’m not trying to frighten her, but maybe that will encourage her to accept this proposal, even after this escape attempt.

I step closer, lowering my voice. “You told Fantasia you’d be willing to marry me to give us legal claim to your part of your family’s fortune. If you are still willing to do that now…” I suck in a breath, my chest clenching. “Then so am I.”

Raleigh blanches. She steps away from me again, but she doesn’t realize how close she is to the fireplace. I snatch her by the hips and pull her back just before her heel hits the flames, accidentally bringing our bodies flush. Quickly I step back myself, putting a few respectable inches between us again.

“I promised I wouldn’t let you come to harm,” I tell her, ignoring how her face is even redder than it was when I wasfeeling her up. “Hopefully this proves that I wasn’t lying to you about that.”

Raleigh looks away, her lips pressed tight. “What it tells me,” she says after a moment, “is that you’ll do whatever it takes to get my family’s money.”

Well. At least she’s more pragmatic than I thought this morning when she threw herself in front of my gun. That will raise her chances of survival all on its own.

Raleigh’s jaw jumps. “But you’d really marry your… cousin?” she asks, with no small amount of disgust.

I sigh through my nose. If Fantasia is angry at me for letting this slip, it’s her own goddamn fault. “Fantasia and I are only half siblings,” I tell her. “We share a mother, but I don’t possess a drop of Warwick blood. This entire situation is not ideal, but at the very least, it’s not incestuous.”

Raleigh huffs out a sigh and looks back up at me. “I don’t want to die,” she says frankly. “So if marrying you is how I avoid that for now, then I’ll do it.”

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