Page 67 of Twins for the Mafia Heir

I nod. “She was never really trained to rule the family. Her mother was using her for petty revenge and her father neglected her. Only Achilles-” No, I don’t want to share something soclose to Achilles’s heart. I adjust my wording to something less emotionally vulnerable. “Only Achilles really supported her.”

“Is that a connection that we can take advantage of?” one of Thomas’s generals asks. The question repulses me, but I don’t let it show.

“No need,” I say instead. “Fantasia eventually turned on him too. Achilles never killed Piers, and Fantasia eventually decided that he’d disobeyed her deliberately and could no longer be trusted. He also… he also didn’t approve of the way she let her men have the run of the place. He tried to return to his residence at Ashwood House, but Fantasia raided the place and he was forced to go to a safe house he maintained in Scotland. In Edinburgh. That’s… where he let me go.”

I don’t want to mention Sidony, that her safety was the crux of the dissolution between Fantasia and Achilles. She shouldn’t have any part in this. And as much as I don’t want to mention my… my… well, the entanglement between Achilles and I, I do need to make these people understand that he’s a sympathetic party in all this, despite also being the one to show up and hold some of us at gunpoint.

“He let you go?” Iris demands.

I nod, my throat tightening so bad I have to clear it to speak again. “He was… kind to me, despite everything. He stepped in when Fantasia wanted to hurt me, and he brought me with him when he quit Wesley Hall, even though I was technically his sister’s hostage. And when Fantasia raided Ashwood House, he could’ve left me behind then too, but he didn’t. He was… committed to my safety.”

What a lame way to describe what happened between us. But I can’t bear to expose any more of my heart, even to people whose motivations I trust.

Raleigh is watching me too closely from across the table. So is Thomas. I ignore both of their searching gazes. “A-Anyway,after we reached Edinburgh, he bought me a plane ticket and sent me back here. There wasn’t any point in me staying, after all, since Fantasia was the one who cared so much about getting funds from you. Achilles doesn’t mean us any harm, and doesn’t care about a tithe from us. He’s more than provided for by the Ashwood fortune his grandfather left him, which Fantasia was explicitly left out of.”

The table is quiet at that, considering. I push forward, my heart beating so hard I imagine the whole table can hear it. “We should take this chance to remove Fantasia from power. If Achilles is reestablished as the head of the Ashwood family and the London Warwicks are allowed to die out, we won’t have to worry about a threat from them ever again-”

Before I’m even finished speaking, Thomas is shaking his head. “From what you’ve told us about Fantasia, it sounds like she has very little real control over the people in her employment. And if she’s low on funds and their loyalty is to her money, she’ll be eaten alive soon enough. It seems Achilles was the man keeping the entire exhibition running. To be frank, I doubt we have anything to fear from them now that he’s no longer in her employ. I see no point in going back across the ocean to speed things along.”

I open my mouth. Close it. My thoughts spin and panic.

No, no,no, I have to help Achilles. I have to stop Fantasia. I have to go back. But I can’t do it alone.

Still, how the hell do I explain my urgency without tearing my heart out and holding it out on a silver platter? Thomas doesn’t operate based on emotion, not like Achilles. Even if I told him I loved Achilles and was determined to help him, it wouldn’t convince him to use his own resources to help me.

Thomas’s generals have been taking notes this whole time, but at the dismissal in their boss’s voice, they start straightening their papers and preparing for the end of the meeting. Thomassips his coffee, his focus already turned forward, toward the rest of his day.

That’s it, then. I failed.

Chapter 36

Emma

My stomach is turning itself inside out as I walk out of the meeting room. Raleigh’s hand touches my shoulder. She wants to get my attention, but I’m fighting just to keep breathing properly.

That was my last chance to see Achilles again.

I didn’t realize I thought that until Thomas told me we wouldn’t be interfering. I had a fantasy set up in my mind, of flying back to England and reclaiming Ashwood House for him, removing Fantasia from power and leaving Wesley Hall to rot, showing up on the doorstep of his Edinburgh safe house and telling him I love him and I want to stay his. That insane dream is swirling down the drain now, leaving me dizzy.

“Emma, hey.”

I look up. Raleigh’s standing in front of me, holding both my shoulders. Behind her, Derrick is rocking Roman in his arms, cooing to his little boy. I tear my eyes off of them and focus on Raleigh. “I’m sorry- what did you say?” I stammer.

Raleigh frowns, her hazel-green eyes clear and hard as gems. “I said we’re eating breakfast together,” she declares.

It’s not a request or an invitation. It’s an order. And I’m too numb to turn her down.

Raleigh sets us up on the large table on the back porch and asks the housekeeper to bring us out some breakfast. I can’t imagine how I’m going to eat a bite of anything, but the breakfast is clearly just a ruse, because as soon as the older housekeeper is back inside the house and we’re alone, Raleigh plants her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands and says, “So. Tell me whatactuallyhappened.”

I swallow hard. Open my mouth.

And it all comes pouring out.

I tell her how terrified I was for her and for Paul when Achilles first arrived at the estate. How I didn’t actually have a plan when I offered myself as a hostage, just that it was the only thing I could think of to do. I tell her about the plane ride with Achilles, including my mad idea to seduce him into letting me go and my total failure to do it. I tell her about Fantasia threatening to kill me, and then threatening to kill me if I didn’t marry Achilles. I tell her about the rushed, awkward ceremony and the botched paperwork. I even tell her that we consummated the marriage and assure her that Achilles was kind to me through all of it. More than kind.

More than I ever could have wanted.

To her credit, Raleigh doesn’t interrupt at any point. Her face is unnaturally emotionless as she listens to me vomit up all the feelings I’ve endured over the last month. Even as my eyes spill over with tears and my words become more babbling, she doesn’t try to shut me up.

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