Twins for the Mafia Heir (The Warwicks #3)

16. Emma

Chapter 16

Emma

I feel like I can breathe easier as soon as we leave the estate behind. The streets of London are packed for another weekend of holiday shopping, and I long to join them. Not to spend money, but to vanish into the churning sea of their bodies.

Our limo drops us off outside a shopping district swarming with people. Covent Garden, I have to assume. As soon as we step out of the car, Achilles is a magnet for every gaze on the street.

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 has business there.

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 that she sees herself as the person that’s looking out for me ?

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.

People don’t look out for me. No one has ever told me that I don’t have to be scared because they’re watching my back. But here is this four year old girl looking up with clear eyes and telling me that she’s here for me.

It’s so absurd, and so absurdly sweet that I can’t find adequate words to say in reply. I give her tiny hand a kiss and manage a simple, “Thank you, Sidony.”

Achilles is gone for nearly ten minutes. That’s more than enough time to get out of the building and be carried blocks away by the flow of the crowd. But Sidony’s hand is an anchor in mine, and I don’t try to fight it. It feels… too beautiful and fragile to let go of.

We eat a delicious brunch at the bar of The Cooper’s Arms, and then Achilles leads us back out into the noonday streets for some shopping. I have no idea what to expect from this. I’ve never shopped for clothes myself, only ever lifted anything that would fit me out of run down thrift stores when whatever I was wearing got too small or fell apart.

Sure enough, the first shop Achilles takes us into immediately stops me in my tracks. It’s filled with golden light and racks upon racks of brand new garments. Sleek black mannequins show off costumes and accessories fit for a first lady, and women who are already well-dressed roam the aisles, shadowed by store attendants that are also well dressed.

Oh god. I might actually faint in here. It’s too bright, too beautiful. There’s already an attendant approaching us with a broad smile on her wide-eyed face.

At the last moment, Achilles waves her away.

I pull in a shaky breath of relief.

“Show me one thing you like,” Achilles says casually. “I’ll do the rest.”

I’m not surprised he could build a wardrobe for me off a single piece. Aside from the moment when he rushed into Sidony’s room with a missing suit jacket and splatters of wine on his shirt- and that forbidden time when he came out of the bathroom in nothing but pajama pants- I’ve never seen him looking less than perfectly dressed.

Unfortunately for him, there’s nothing in this store that I would be caught dead in. The cuts are revealing, the colors are rich and flashy, and the fabrics are frilly and thin. All I need is three pairs of the same kind of jeans, and a few dark sweaters thicker than the one I’m wearing now. A thick jacket, some thick socks, a scarf, and I’m done.

Unfortunately for me , there’s nothing resembling jeans in this entire store.

I reach out to a black blouse that looks like it’s wrapped around itself, with a plunging neckline and wispy cap sleeves made of red lace. The fabric between my fingers is so soft it feels like water running over my skin.

“Do they have anything a little more… practical?”

Achilles’s eyebrows shoot up. He looks like I’ve just dropped a worm on his shoe. “We’re not here for practical . We’re here for the wardrobe of a mafia princess. Thomas might have let you dress like a street urchin your whole life, but that is not going to continue now that you’re a part of our estate.”

I blanch, shocked at my own stupidity. A street urchin .

Well… he’s right about that.

Achilles’s brow furrows, and I realize I’ve let him see my horror. Luckily, he’s completely misinterpreted it too.

“I hardly blame you,” he says. “You clearly haven’t been allowed to dress in a way that compliments your body and coloring.”

That’s true too, but not for the reasons he thinks. I use clothes to hide. I use them to hide how small I am, my femininity. Clothes are my armor, not decorations.

“Oh, this one’s so pretty Raleigh!”

Sidony is further down the main aisle, pointing excitedly at a mannequin dressed in a long-sleeved piece that’s anything but subtle. The dress is a rich burgundy, fitted at the waist, with a skirt that flares out and stops daringly at mid-thigh. The deep color is striking, but the collar is tied with a huge silk pink bow.

I’m about to open my mouth to protest, but Sidony’s eyes are sparkling with excitement, and Achilles is eyeing it thoughtfully.

“It would suit the undertones of your skin nicely,” he agrees. “It would help keep your hair from totally washing you out.”

All right, all right! I get it, I know nothing. I can’t be too irritated or hurt though, because Sidony looks so thrilled to be in this beautiful store. And Achilles seems to know exactly what he’s talking about. Surely they can make up for everything I lack.

“I guess I can try it on,” I hedge.

“Don’t be too troubled about the fit,” Achilles says. “We’ll take everything to the tailor after this.”

Wait, is he saying these clothes will essentially be made just for me? “H-How much will all this cost?” I ask, before I catch myself. Raleigh the mafia princess wouldn’t care about the price, and she’d expect nothing but the best quality.

Achilles looks down his nose at me like I’ve just spit on his shoe. “Excuse me?”

I swallow and quickly add, “I mean, it’s a nice gesture, really, ” letting my eyes trail down his fine suit to keep up the act. I’ve only caught the barest glimpse of the inside of his closet back at Wesley Hall, but I should’ve taken it to heart.

Fantasia might need to squeeze money out of others, but Achilles has more than enough to spare. And he doesn’t appreciate being accused of anything else.

I wonder why he doesn’t bother giving any of that money to his sister for her purposes. Is that another thing they regularly argue about?

Is that another thing that I can exploit?

“I’ll try it on,” I say again, with more confidence. Sidony claps for me, and Achilles looks down at her, his usual coldness fading, just slightly, into something warmer.

I find myself fascinated by this glimpse under his stiff exterior, a weakness he shows only to his daughter. I wonder if he’ll ever show me that side of him- of a man I might finally begin to understand.