Twins for the Mafia Heir (The Warwicks #3)

10. Emma

Chapter 10

Emma

I ’m almost grateful for the sleeping pills Achilles had me take the night before. I feel strangely lightheaded and fuzzy as we go to the dining hall for our wedding dinner, but at least I’m not dead on my feet from jetlag. And the lightheadedness could just be nerves.

The only members of this household I’ve met thus far are Fantasia, Sidony, and, of course, my new husband Achilles. But there are at least a hundred other people living on Thomas’s estate who help run things. I’m not living in a private family home, I’m living in a swarming nest. And now I’m going to be introduced to more of the worker ants.

I wonder how many of them hate me just because I’m here, and how many more won’t be afraid to act on that hatred.

As contrary as it might seem- since he’s one of the people who’s trapped me here- I find myself walking closer and closer to Achilles as we approach the yawning double doors leading into the dining hall. It’s a beautiful room, with a wall of windows on one side of its length and a massive fireplace on the other. Unfortunately, the view is totally ruined by the fact that the long table is already full.

And all ten men sitting at it stand to give a rowdy cheer.

I can’t tell whether my face wants to go pale with horror or flush with humiliation. There’s a certain tone to the cheering that tells me these men have one thing and one thing alone on their minds right now. Worse, half of them are already drunk enough to be red in the face. Thank god Sidony isn’t here. She’s apparently getting dinner in the kitchen, watched over by Mrs. Garrow.

Still, this is going to be miserable.

Fantasia is here too, seated at the far end of the table with a glass of wine in her hand. She’s looking a little unsteady herself, but when her eyes land on me, there’s a predatory sharpness in them that sends a shiver from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.

“Everyone, welcome our very own newlywed couple!” she calls over the table, raising her glass. The men all hurrah again, pumping their glasses in the air with such force that alcohol splatters over the floor.

Are we in a historic English manor home or a seedy bar? Because it certainly doesn’t look like anyone’s drinking champagne.

Achilles doesn’t acknowledge the applause he’s getting. He storms over to the seat at the opposite end of the table from Fantasia and pulls out the seat to its right for me to take. I don’t like that there’s a huge man to my right and another across the table from me, but there’s nowhere else to go. The table is packed aside from our two seats.

Are all these men Fantasia’s generals? I can’t help but compare them to Thomas’s, a group of ten measured men, ranging from his age to twice that. I’m not high enough on the food chain to sit in on their councils, but whenever I ran into one of them in the house, they were nothing but polite and professional. I don’t feel safe with men as a rule, but at least I didn’t feel the need to run the other way or hide when I saw one of them coming. Considering how I foolishly tried to make myself an enemy of their boss’s sister, they’d be well within their rights to treat me with suspicion and contempt. But Thomas had told them to reserve their judgments about me until I’d either proven myself or failed, and they respect his decision making as much as he respects theirs.

Fantasia, for her part, seems happy to have surrounded herself with the beefiest thugs I’ve ever seen. And that’s saying something when I came from the streets and my father was the meanest brute you can imagine.

I wonder if she actually has control over these men. It’s shocking enough that a woman is the head of a mafia family, but this is her support structure? These are the people she trusts to follow her orders?

No, I realize with a jolt as the table makes another noisy toast around me that I don’t hear. Achilles was the one she sent overseas. Achilles is the one she speaks to in the dark hours of the morning when the rest of the house is asleep.

These men look the part of mafia enforcers. But Achilles might just be the juggler keeping this entire circus up in the air.

“One last warm welcome, gentlemen, for our pretty little Mrs. Ashwood,” Fantasia says, and another round of shouting goes up around the table. She wears red lipstick as well as Morticia Addams, and when she smiles she looks just as crafty. “We’re all thrilled to have you here, darling.”

Mrs… Ashwood. Until now I had completely forgotten what my new surname was going to be. Achilles Ashwood. Emma Ashwood-

No, Raleigh Ashwood. None of this is happening to me, it’s happening to a woman who doesn’t even exist. I have to remember that, no matter what comes.

I’m not sure whether I should pretend to be pleased or melt into oblivion. I find a safe middle ground and try to focus on holding my utensils properly and eating the bloody steak in front of me- even though I’ve never been less hungry in my life.

Unfortunately, this third toast seems to have been the signal to open the floodgates. All the men start talking at once- and every word makes me feel sicker and sicker.

“It’s about time Thomas acknowledged us again,” one of the men says, far too loudly. “It’s his goddamn fault we had to steal away his cute sister.”

Another laughs. “How much you think he’ll pay to get her back?”

“Enough to nab that slippery bastard Piers!”

“Depends what our Achilles does to her tonight, eh?”

That sends up a round of laughter. Despite my horror, I notice the return of Piers’s name. I cling to searching questions so I don’t have to listen to the words flying around me. Who is Piers? Why are these people looking for him? Are they angling for Thomas’s money so they can have the resources to hunt him down?

Achilles’s eyes are black with fury. “This isn’t anyone’s business but mine,” he says, looking directly across the table at Fantasia.

“Oh no need to look so precious about it,” another man chuckles. “We all know what’s happening between you two tonight.”

“Right!” The man directly across from me tries to look me in the eye, but he’s too drunk to see straight. “We gave you an English welcome. But he’s gonna give you an English welcome .”

Another round of cheering and jeering. Achilles’s hand is clutching his knife in a way that would make it very easy to wield as a weapon. His food is untouched. I take a bite of my steak, but taste absolutely nothing.

“She’s a real beauty, Achilles,” one of the men calls out from near Fantasia’s end of the table, “but she’s tiny where it matters most.” To my horror, he looks directly at me. Directly at my unimpressive chest.

I want to disappear. It feels like worms are crawling around under my skin.

“Which one will break first, you think?” another says with a chuckle. “The woman or the bed?”

“If you can get her pregnant in one go, that’ll be best. Then Thomas will shell out-”

“We’ll be retiring now,” Achilles says, standing swiftly from the table.

Fantasia’s smile vanishes instantly. “What- you’ve hardly eaten.”

“I’ve never been less hungry in my life,” Achilles bites out.

I’m half afraid he’ll outrun me out of the room, or worse, leave me here alone. But as I push out my chair, he holds out his hand for me. Relieved, I take it, and he tucks my arm firmly into his and sweeps me out of the dining hall.

The men misinterpret our fleeing, of course. They think we’re too eager to get the wedding night started to finish our meal. One last bawdy cheer follows us all the way across the house to the stairs.

“Fucking pigs,” he hisses under his breath. “Fantasia eggs them on and eggs them on, and now they might as well be base fucking animals performing for treats.”

I wish I could take in that morsel of information logically, but my stomach is churning too hard and my limbs are shaking. Those men down there think of me as nothing more than meat about to be devoured, and they like me that way.

This is why I always dressed up as a man before putting myself in a room full of men. When I was Silver, wearing a mask and a hood and a baggy jacket, with inserts in my shoes to make me taller and padding in my shoulders to make me bigger- I didn’t have to worry about being the target of this sort of treatment. But now I’m a blushing bride and all they want to talk about is what will be done with me tonight, and how they’ll report on it in the most scandalous way possible.

Achilles is angry for other reasons, and I should be paying attention to those. But when we arrive at the door to his bedroom, my legs lock up, and my arm tears out of his grip, and finally he stops and turns to me.

I don’t know what is on my face, but I can’t control it right now. I can sign paperwork with someone else’s name, but I can’t leave my body behind on my own wedding night. Achilles’s dark eyes search my expression. He sees my too-quick breath and my too-wide eyes.

He sees every bit of my fear, and looks away for a moment before looking back, his own anger cooled.

“I apologize, Raleigh,” he says quietly. “That was barbaric behavior. I should have removed us both sooner, but upsetting Fantasia is… unwise. I underestimated how much she would revel in your embarrassment, much less my own. If it reassures you, Fantasia’s generals don’t often stay in the Hall. They won’t be here for more than a few days.”

He takes a step toward me. “Even if we’ve been trapped together like this, I need you to understand that I won’t ever treat you like a tool to be used. We don’t have to do anything tonight, or any night, ever. If you told me never to touch you, I would respect that.”

I blink up at him, astonished. For the first time, I feel like he’s speaking to me without distaste. Even if this man hates being stuck with me, he’s willing to reassure me when he sees that I’m truly afraid.

My stomach starts to settle. But I’ve been quiet too long. He’s waiting for some verbal acknowledgment of his words, and I have no idea what to say.

“I’m… I’ve never had sex before,” I blurt, my voice so small I can barely hear it.

Achilles doesn’t seem surprised by that. “How old are you?”

I lie, just as I always do when asked my age, but this time it’s because I’m Raleigh. “Twenty-five.”

He raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t say if he believes me or not. Instead, his hand finds my chin, tilting my face up so I can’t look away. “Twenty-five, hm?” His thumb brushes along my jawline, steady and possessive. “I thought I had the world all figured out in my twenties.” His eyes flicker down, as if weighing his thoughts, before he releases my chin, though he doesn’t move back. “I assumed you’d… it would be… traditional for you to be a virgin.”

I suck in a tight breath. “It would… also be traditional to lose that virginity now that I’m married.”

“Is that right?” He watches me intently, his gaze dark and commanding, and every nerve in my body lights up under his attention.

“Traditional, maybe,” he says, voice cool and steady. “But not necessary. The paperwork is signed. That’s all that matters.”

He pushed me away on the plane, refusing to take advantage of what I was offering him. Achilles has honor. I certainly can’t say that about any of the other men in the dining room below us.

Would he push me away again, if I told him this might be my only chance to have sex with a guy who truly wants nothing from me? I’d prefer that to a man who wants too much.

“This is the rest of my life now,” I tell him, my voice a little weak. “I… I don’t really want to be a virgin forever.”

He nods very slowly, his eyes searching my face. “That would be unfair to you,” he says, like the words are being pulled out of him.

I blink, nausea suddenly churning in my stomach. I’m not trying to guilt him into anything. “If you don’t want to-” I say quickly, but he raises a hand, silencing me.

“What I want ,” he says firmly, “is not to be responsible for completely destroying your life. But that ship has sailed, hasn’t it?” He pauses, his eyes softening. “The least I can do is give you what you’re asking for on your wedding night.”

A flush rises over my face as he speaks, his tone controlled and steady. He accepted my request so simply, like sex with me means nothing to him. Probably because it does. That’s how it should be, naturally.

But it’s still kind that he agrees.

And as he holds his hand out to me again, I take it.