Page 4

Chapter 4

Piers

L eaving Fantasia’s room doesn’t help me breathe any easier. The stairs feel like they’re moving under my feet, and I’m threatening to burst right out of my skin.

Incredible. I didn’t even kiss Fantasia on the mouth, and my body is acting like I just had three hours of hard sex with her.

Fuck, I shouldn’t be visualizing that right now, because I almost miss a step and tumble to my death.

There’s a voice in the back of my head that’s trying to tell me all of this was a big mistake- and I’m having a harder and harder time ignoring it. I came here to reconcile my relationship with Fantasia, to tell her that she’s forgiven if we can just… start again. I’d wanted to bring her home, sooner rather than later, once all of our misunderstandings had been cleared up.

But she refuses to be in my presence, and even when she allows me closer she isn’t even sure I’m real.

I’ve been punished for my own hubris more than once in my life, but the stakes were usually much lower than this. When I was five I tried to hold and pet a feral cat, only for it to scratch at my face so brutally I almost lost an eye. When I was seven I tried to make myself and the other kids in the orphanage breakfast without adult supervision, and nearly burned the building down. When I was fifteen I tried to get away with shoplifting an entire Thanksgiving turkey, only for a cop to catch me and pop me in the mouth when I backtalked him.

I like to think that so long as my will is strong enough, I’m untouchable. Even when my actions bounce back on me, as long as I can laugh in the face of the pain, I consider myself a winner.

But I can’t laugh at Fantasia, not after she’s asked me if I even exist.

Barnes and Armstrong seem to have left off unpacking for now, or perhaps they’re already finished, because I find them downstairs in the kitchen. I don’t have the patience for small talk right now, even though I excel at small talk.

“What did Achilles say?” I ask, bracing myself.

Barnes and Armstrong both look at me with raised eyebrows, and I stare back at them.

“Have you contacted him?” I press. “About the men at the airport?”

“Oh… no,” Barnes says. “We were collecting our thoughts about the whole thing first.”

They were right there and saw what happened firsthand, unlike me who only caught glimpses of the men and snatches of their words. “So? What happened back there?”

Armstrong meets my eyes a little too fixedly, as if daring me to look away. I don’t care for it. “We saw two men coming through the crowd, and to both of us it looked like they were in a hurry, and going straight for Fantasia. We intercepted them, and they were immediately hostile. One of them shoved at Barnes. I showed them my gun, and they immediately pulled on us.”

Barnes nods his bushy head. “I fired two shots. They were warnings and hit the tile right at their feet, but it might have been better if I took out one of their knees. They’d pulled first, but I think they did it for show, because as soon as I fired they backed off. At that point the damage was done though.”

Yes it was. I’m still waiting for a knock at the door from the police, and wondering what the hell I’ll do when it comes.

“Did you recognize either of them?” I ask.

“They weren’t on our flight,” Armstrong confirms. “We hadn’t seen them before they came out of the crowd, and it didn’t seem like they were moving from the direction of any gate.”

“Are they American then?” I ask, more confused than ever. Why the fuck would Americans be furious at Fantasia? Then I remember she had Achilles fly all the way here to take a hostage from another mafia family and reconsider my doubts. The woman actually has quite the talent for angering people on a global scale.

“Nah, not American,” Barnes says with a headshake. “They were wearing the colors of the Crowes.” At my blink, he gestures to his empty breast pocket. “They all keep handkerchiefs here, white with a stripe of gold in the middle. They’re an old Irish family.”

“What the hell did Fantasia do to make them mad enough to chase her all the way here?” I ask, morbidly fascinated.

Disappointingly, Barnes and Armstrong both shrug. “No idea,” Barnes says. “To my knowledge, they keep to themselves. They rarely leave Dublin, much less maintain connections outside Ireland. I can’t imagine how or why she would have any dealings with them.”

I notice then that both Barnes and Armstrong avoid saying Fantasia’s name. I suppose she does outrank them on a technicality, even if she is in exile, so they wouldn’t refer to her by her first name. Perhaps they're having a hard time calling her Miss Warwick since I'm technically Mr. Warwick. It probably feels too much like we're married. Not that it matters. Not that I’ve thought about it.

Or maybe it’s a show of contempt, considering she was very recently their enemy.

Achilles assured me he picked men for this long term assignment who were interested in emigration to the States, who had no strong personal ties in England, and who also had very mild personalities. But I imagine the most even-tempered person would still find Fantasia’s abrasiveness difficult to stomach over time.

Despite the fact that this job is a temporary one, it could take Fantasia more than a year to complete the rehabilitation program Achilles has arranged for her. Who knows how long it will take before she even accepts speaking to a therapist, much less improves enough to be left on her own without fear of relapsing or… otherwise hurting herself.

I flash back to Fantasia’s bedroom, the heat of her body and the disappearing inches between us. I tried to move too fast. She’s only just arrived in the country she’s been exiled to, and she’s already been the target of an attack by strangers. As much as I want to shut the two of us in a room until we’ve worked through every one of our issues, I need to remember how stubborn, and at the same time, how brittle Fantasia is.

If I push too hard, she will break, and the week she spent feverish and raving in Wesley Hall will look like a tea party.

I sigh heavily and run a hand through my hair. “I’ll call Achilles and tell him about this,” I say. I should be the one to let him know where I am anyway. He won’t be happy, about the attack or my presence in Raleigh, but I need to at least try to talk him through it.

I can only hope it will take the police time to discover Armstrong and Barnes’s real identities when reviewing the camera footage from the airport. There were dozens of witnesses who’ll be able to describe their appearance, and they’ll be traced back to their flight and country of origin easily enough. But as members of the Ashwood mafia family, and with a boss as competent and thorough as Achilles, there are layers of protections that keep these men from having to follow the same rules as ordinary citizens. It’s how they were able to board our plane fully armed to begin with.

It’s entirely possible the police will discover their identities only to realize their hands are fully tied. Then they’ll hopefully turn their attention to the men who started this whole thing in the first place.

To the mysterious Crowes.