Page 31 of Twins for the Mafia Heir

I mean, of course. He’s tall, roguishly gorgeous, and dressed in a perfectly tailored garnet red suit. I’d be perfectly happy to disappear into his shadow- except that after the incident with those two brutes in the hedge maze, Sidony has decided she’d prefer to walk with one hand holding Achilles’s, and one hand holding mine.

“There’s a pub here that has good specials on the weekends,” Achilles tells me as he guides us down the crowded cobbled streets, in between shops filled with color and tourists bursting with bags. “We’ll grab brunch there.”

“A pub?” I ask, a little startled. Achilles looks at me questioningly, and I glance down at Sidony between us.

“I have an errand there,” he says cryptically, but I immediately understand.

He hasbusinessthere.

We slip into a smaller street and suddenly I’m standing in front of the darkly painted door of a pub. My eyes catch on the red and gold sign above my head. It tells me we’re walking into The Cooper’s Arms.

For a second, I lose track of where I am. I’m walking into a bar to do mob business, but it’s a different bar in a different country. Instead of packed shops and cobbled streets around me, I’m leaving behind a cracked parking lot on the corner of Hackney Street and Cock Lane. My face is hidden in the shadows of a drawn-up hood and a cloth face mask. I’m here to prove myself to people who would be all too happy to laugh in my face. I’m here to carve out a place for myself in the world.

Is it pure coincidence that The Cooper’s Arms, a mafia business in London, and Cooper’s Bar in America, neutral territory where mafia families could peacefully negotiate, share the same name? Could Thomas Sr. have had the bar rebranded to match a place he knew from his homeland-

“Raleigh.”

I blink and shake my head, coming back to myself. Achilles is holding the door open, and Sidony is lightly tugging on my hand.

“Oh- sorry,” I stammer, and follow them quickly inside.

Just like its exterior, the interior of The Cooper’s Arms is nothing like its American counterpart. It’s dark and moody in here, but the mood is bustling and cheerful. Warm lanterns hang over tables where couples eat steak and potatoes and drink pints of beer. Achilles leads us straight to the bar, where the bartender nods in instant recognition.

“It’s in the usual spot, boss,” he tells Achilles, then smiles with gusto and winks at Sidony. She must like this man, because she doesn’t shrink away like she did with Fantasia’s men.

“Hi uncle Freddie,” she says.

“The usual for the little miss?” he asks, and she nods, finally releasing mine and her father’s hands so she can climb into a barstool.

“Wait here for me,” Achilles says. The way he orders it, and the way he holds my gaze, tells me he knows all too well I was trying to escape the estate when I ran into him in the mist. I swallow and nod, but he doesn’t step away.

“I’ll wait here,” I lie.

“We’ll wait here, daddy!” Sidony pipes up. The bartender has handed her a beer glass full of chocolate milk, and there’s a filmy mustache over her upper lip.

Achilles looks between the two of us, hesitating just a moment longer before striding into the depths of the bar. I watch him disappear into a door in the back that I would think led to some bathrooms, but that he had to unlock himself. And as soon as the door closes, I begin to plot.

I’m outside the estate. Achilles is in another room for a few minutes at least. I could pretend I’m getting a phone call and just stepping outside to hear better. People will see me leave, but they might not sound an alarm right away. And if I melt into the crowd of holiday shoppers outside, they won’t have a direction to point Achilles in when he finds me missing.

This is my best chance.

I’m watching the door, bracing myself to make my move. Suddenly, from the stool beside me, Sidony reaches out and takes my hand in her tiny one again.

I blink, and my concentration is shattered.

“Are you scared?” she asks plainly.

I can’t fathom how to answer that. Did she somehow intuit I was planning to run?

“Scared of what?” I ask cautiously.

“Clothes shopping,” she says. “I get scared doing it sometimes. There’s a lot of people, and sometimes I can’t see daddy. But with me and daddy here, you don’t have to be scared.”

Is… is she saying thatshesees herself as the person that’s looking out forme?

When we were in the hedge maze and the two men cornered us on either side, she moved in front of me and I put my arms around her like it was the most natural thing in the world. I thought I was trying to keep her close, ready to grab and move her at a moment’s notice. But did she also think she was acting as my shield?

My chest aches. My eyes sting. I swallow and blink quickly, choking on sudden emotion.

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