Twins for the Mafia Heir (The Warwicks #3)

41. Achilles

Chapter 41

Achilles

W esley Hall isn’t my first stop when I return to London, but it is the one I’m dreading most. The house itself looks more lonely and dilapidated than ever before, and the grounds are swarming with men I don’t recognize but who seem to be hired muscle. I can only hope the visits I made before I walked through the doors of this old manor will serve me later.

Otherwise, I’ve come in here without a plan at all.

I’m not surprised that Fantasia is happy to see me, even after sending men to raid my house and turning London inside out looking for me. And she’s not just pleased that I’ve been found. When two of her new mercs lead me into the drawing room to show her I’ve turned myself in, there’s genuine relief on her face.

She’s been drinking. From the look of her wan face and hollow eyes, she’s been drinking more than she’s been sleeping. It seems she’s keeping more men around the premises. There’s one in each corner of the room, guarding her from god knows what, and three at my back, none of whom I recognize.

For a moment, Fantasia’s arms open, like she’s going to hug me, but she pulls back just in time.

“You came back!” she gasps. “You really…” Her words fade away, her unsteady gaze finally picking up on the coldness of my expression. Her own smile crumples. “You’re not here to stay, are you? Please- don’t leave me again, Achilles. Not again!”

As relieved as she looked a minute ago, now she just seems afraid. But of what? I would have thought she feared me now, but even after everything, she considers me her savior. That knowledge twists in my stomach. I ignore it.

“I’m here to take back control of the Ashwood family,” I tell her frankly.

Her glassy eyes widen. “What?! No! You can’t do that- you gave it to me .”

“Does the title of Ashwood boss even mean anything when you have it?” I ask, finding her deepest, most painful wound and twisting my knife into it. “You say that you’ve merged the families, but you want us all to call ourselves Warwicks. You didn’t even try to stop the majority of the Ashwoods from leaving London. Instead, you just replaced them with brutes whose only loyalty is to your money, which is disappearing far too fast. Since you don’t care enough to manage them properly, you can return the Ashwood businesses back to me, and I’ll handle them-”

Fantasia isn’t looking at me anymore. Her eyes are jumping nervously between the other men in the room with us. Is she worried I’m making her look weak in front of them, or is she nervous at the mention of her disappearing fortune, which she’s clearly been using to pay these men? And for what? Again, I wonder what she’s so afraid of… and if, at this point, it isn’t herself.

“Stop it,” she begs. “You’re lying!”

“If I am, prove it,” I say. If only she could understand that this is hurting me as much as it hurts her, but I think she’s too drunk, too paranoid, too far gone. “Order your people back. Remind them who their boss really is and see if they even bother to listen.”

Her eyes are huge, her lower lip trembling. She doesn’t want to do what I say, not anymore. But if she refuses, it’ll look bad to the mercs in the room and all the ones they tell this incident to. Hell, I’m sure they already see the cracks in her walls, and are just trying to get as much money out of her as possible before her empire rots entirely away.

There’s a part of me that wants her to rise to this occasion. I want my sister to succeed, truly. I always have, and no matter what happens, a part of me always will.

But whether I want her to succeed and whether I think she can are two very different things.

Fantasia’s jaw hardens, and I don’t know whether I’m pleased or hurt when she says, “We’ll see who they follow when I’m up here and you’re locked in a cell.”

She gestures for her men to take me away. The two that led me into the room hesitate, and I see her resolution fracture into fear. But after a moment, they take me by the arms and haul me to the detention rooms below the house. I let them, using the walk downstairs to replay that moment of charged uncertainty again and again behind my eyes.

Marcus Warwick called the space below the house the detention rooms, but it’s far more like a medieval dungeon than a modern day prison. The bars of each open cell are cold iron sealed inside musty stone floors, and even though there’s modern lighting installed in the ceiling, it’s nothing more than bare bulbs hung along a track, thick black insulated wiring visible down its length.

Needless to say, this is just another part of the house that didn’t have a chance to be remodeled before the coup. I’m not looking forward to spending an extended amount of time in here, but I did come here with only half a vague plan, so it’ll serve me right if I do. My guards deposit me in one of the cells along the left wall, and leave me to myself without looking back.

I have the patience to wait in this silent, dingy cell. Fantasia, as I assumed, does not.

I’m retrieved only a few hours later and brought to the dining room for dinner. The room is only set for two, but the entire room is lined with guards on every wall. Who the fuck does Fantasia think is coming for her? Me? Piers? Her father’s ghost? I don’t know, but it makes my visits before my capture feel inadequate now.

Fantasia waits for me on the far end of the table, smiling a little painfully. She’s still tipsy, but I watch as she pours herself a very full glass of white wine and leaves the bottle beside her placemat so she can pour more later. I take a seat opposite her, where the second plate of food awaits. The table between us feels impossibly long, an uncrossable distance.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Fantasia tells me with a little hiccup. “I was… just surprised to see you. And surprised that you would be so rude in front of my men.”

I bark a laugh. “You lost the high ground of civility years ago, Fantasia. Don’t try to claw your way back up there now. Besides, these people don’t care whether I talk badly about you, not even to your face. They care about being paid . Isn’t that right?” I raise my last words, let them echo through the dining room.

Some of the men around us sneer. Some shift, unsure how to respond to this blatant insult. Others do nothing at all, bored and uninterested in pretending otherwise.

Fantasia looks around with darting eyes, just like she did earlier, her throat working as she swallows. Interesting. Is this her usual paranoia, or does she have reason not to trust the men she’s surrounded herself so completely with?

Perhaps my sister isn’t as drunk as I think, because instead of picking a fight with me, she has me promptly returned to my cell. I didn’t have a chance to eat a bite, but that’s just fine. I don’t know if I’ll ever have an appetite again.

The next night, Fantasia has me brought to dinner again. It goes just as poorly as it did before, except that this time Fantasia tries to argue my points and spills her wine over the tablecloth. I’m taken away from the table after another bitter stalemate. This happens again the next night, and the night after that, and the night after that as well.

The fifth night, a few familiar faces have joined us at the table. I don’t know if I’m more astonished to see my great uncles Robert and Carlisle Ashwood eating at my sister’s table, or if they are to see me clearly in her custody. Fantasia is obviously pleased with herself over this victory, but is instantly not pleased when I ask Robert and Carlisle,

“How are you finding the place?”

And they have to struggle to come up with words that don’t touch on Wesley Hall’s downtrodden look, the alarming amount of mercs wandering the property, and the unsteadiness in my sister’s walk.

The next night, more of the Ashwood family is in residence. Three distant cousins and a great aunt that Fantasia has never bothered to get to know, but who all know me well. It’s painful to rehash my same old arguments with Fantasia, but this time in front of an audience. We’ve made it such a sport over the last few years that it almost feels like we’re in it together, performing roles that we’ve rehearsed to perfection. But no, unfortunately, this is the painful reality of our family. Fantasia throws everything and the kitchen sink into her accusations, and I reply calmly and logically.

The only thing my sister refuses to mention is Piers- Piers who is supposed to be dead but is only missing- because his escape is the thing she most resents me for as well as her own biggest weakness.

One week rolls into another. The Ashwoods who were first approached by me and then by Fantasia have assembled in Wesley Hall. Every night they and Fantasia’s mercs play witness to our mean-spirited debates over who should be the ruler of the Ashwood businesses, and more than once Fantasia suggests that the argument would be moot if I come back into her fold.

The audacity of that almost makes my temper slip.

Still, I’m exhausted but feeling hopeful. Sooner or later, something will give. Either Fantasia’s mercs will turn on her, like rats fleeing a sinking ship, or the Ashwoods who have never truly respected her will put their support behind me for the sake of their own pride and bottom lines. We’ve all buried our heads in the sand for too long, and now that an empire is collapsing, we all need to decide who will get most of the meat off its bones.

If only the beast being put down wasn’t my own sister. But she’s made her choices. And now I’ve finally made mine.

On the twelfth day, my uncle Robert visits me in my cell. His face is grim as he takes in my sorry living quarters and the dimness of the light, not to mention the chill air.

“You really had us doubting you these past few years,” he murmurs through my bars. “You were always the one ready to take bullets for Marcus’s girl. But something’s clearly put the air back under your wings. If you’re ready to move, we’ll move with you.”

My second week as a prisoner in Wesley Hall is coming to a close, but I’m determined that it will be my last. I’ve gotten a few more midnight visits from the Ashwoods staying here, informing me about guard movements and devising plans in bits and pieces. We’re outnumbered by the mercs, but they’re less organized.

In fact, it seems they’re barely organized at all. According to my co conspirators, the men don’t seem to be taking orders from Fantasia anymore. There are several surrounding her at all times, but they seem less like bodyguards and more like… keepers. At one point, she apparently ordered them to leave her alone, but they wouldn’t budge, and she broke down in tears.

The image makes me furious and grim in equal measure. Fantasia brought this entire situation on herself, but I could’ve kept her out of it if I’d stayed.

How long will I hold myself responsible for my sister, even after she’s betrayed me so thoroughly?

Regardless, with luck and a plan, we Ashwoods can make a move against the lot of them. And I’m thinking if we don’t do it soon, something terrible will happen.

That night’s dinner, I’m preparing to be passed notes by Cousin Harper, but when I’m brought to the table, it seems the seating arrangements have been changed up. Has our ruse been discovered? No, all the invited Ashwoods are still here and appear uninjured. Fantasia, too, is in her place at the end of the table. The spot that has been left open is on her right, and while no one is sitting in the chair, the place is clearly set for someone. I raise my eyebrows at Fantasia, who looks more subdued than before.

In fact, she looks like she’s been crying.

“I should’ve known, Achilles,” she says, before I’ve even fully sat. “You were always going to turn your back on me someday. You were always going to find someone you loved more.”

The Ashwoods around the table look awkward, and more than a few of the mercs seem bemused or irritated. This display can’t be a ploy for sympathy, surely. It’s a product of the drink, or her lack of sleep.

“Since my being your brother hasn’t kept you from turning on me, I don’t know why you expect the opposite to be true,” I tell her coolly.

Fantasia shakes her head. “You’re right. You won’t stay here without the proper incentive. I wish you would, just for me. But I think I’ve found what you’d rather have instead.”

She gestures toward the doors behind me. Confusion and dread coalescing in my stomach, I turn in my chair to see the dining room doors open and two mercs come in with a woman between them.

My heart stops hard in my chest. Every muscle in my body jolts with shock.

It’s Emma.