Page 41

Chapter 41

Fantasia

T he hotel room is too quiet, too still, despite the low hum of the city beyond the window. The lights of passing cars flicker across the ceiling, shadows stretching and shifting, but they do nothing to stop the restless, buzzing panic building beneath my skin.

Achilles’s phone sits on the nightstand, untouched for the last hour. No messages. No calls.

No update from Piers.

I can’t stop moving. Every step I take feels like it’s one step further away from sanity, and yet I can’t stop. I pace the length of Achilles’s hotel room, feeling the walls close in on me. My feet are sore, my thoughts too jumbled to make sense of. I’ve been walking in tight circles for hours, just waiting. Waiting for any sign that my daughter is safe, that Piers is alive, that we’re going to get through this.

My arms are crossed tight and I can feel a layer of grime on my skin. Days in that cell left an acrid stench clinging to me like smoke, but I haven’t taken the time to scrub it away. I should. I should shower, change, try to reclaim some part of myself- but I can’t.

He should’ve called by now. Should’ve told me they were out, that they were alright, that my daughter- our daughter- was in his arms. Every second that passes without word sends another spike of panic through my veins.

Achilles might as well be a ghost in the room, haunting me with his silence. He’s sitting at the small table, watching me, his eyes filled with a kind of hesitation that makes me feel like a stranger. He’s tried to talk to me a few times, asking how I’ve been, what my life has been like.

But the words are meaningless. There’s no point in explaining what’s happened, what I’ve done, what I’ve lost. Not when everything feels like it’s slipping further out of my control with every passing minute.

I can feel his eyes flicking toward me with every step I take, like he’s trying to work up the courage to say something but knows there’s nothing he can say to make it better.

“You could sit down, you know,” Achilles says, his voice gentle but tinged with frustration.

I glance at him, but I don’t sit. “I can’t,” I mutter, my voice strained.

Being back in front of my brother- the man who exiled me, who cast me out like I was nothing- is hard enough. It’s like wearing a pair of shoes that don’t fit- uncomfortable, rubbing raw against wounds that never fully healed. But it’s nothing compared to the storm raging inside me.

My daughter is out there. In danger.

And so is Piers.

The man I’ve spent two years trying to forget. The one who’s haunted my dreams, who I’ve imagined holding again more times than I’ll admit- only to shove the thought away before it could take root. I told myself I hated him, convinced myself he was better off without me. That I was better off without him.

But no amount of anger, no amount of distance, can change the fact that right now, my heart is lodged in my throat, because if something happens to him- if he doesn’t make it back?—

I stop at the window, pressing my forehead against the cool glass, eyes unfocused on the street below. Come on, Piers. Where are you?

I hold my breath, listening- waiting for the buzz of Achilles’s phone, the knock at the door, anything. But there’s nothing. I push away from the glass and start pacing again..

Achilles clears his throat. “You’re just going to wear a hole in the carpet.”

I don’t answer. His voice barely registers beneath the storm of thoughts crashing through my head.

A sigh, heavy and resigned. “Fantasia.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t pretend like this is normal,” I snap, turning to look at him. My arms stay locked around myself, nails biting into my skin. “Like we’re just two siblings catching up after all this time.”

His jaw tightens. “I didn’t say that.”

“But you were about to, weren’t you?” I shake my head, pressing my lips together before something sharp slips out. I don’t have the energy to fight- not now.

Achilles exhales slowly and rubs a hand over his face. “I just…” He hesitates, shifts in his seat like he’s trying to get comfortable in a conversation that will never be. “I don’t know how to talk to you anymore.”

I scoff, the sound bitter and unsteady. “Then don’t.”

The silence that follows is thick, wrapping around us like smoke.

His gaze flicks toward the untouched phone, his fingers tapping idly against the table. We’re both thinking the same thing.

Piers should have called by now.

Achilles clears his throat again. “Have you been safe?”

I hesitate. It’s a simple question, but there’s nothing simple about the answer. I could lie, could give him something easy to swallow. But my life hasn’t been easy, and Achilles, whether he likes it or not, is part of the reason why.

I don’t look at him as I answer. “Safe is relative.”

His fingers still. “That’s not an answer.”

“No,” I say, voice quieter now. “It’s not.”

Another pause. Then, softer, like he’s not sure he wants the answer, “Did you ever… have anyone looking out for you?”

For a brief, fleeting second, an image of Piers flashes in my mind—his arms around me, his voice in my ear, the way he used to steady me when the world felt too sharp. But that was a long time ago. And it doesn’t matter now.

I swallow hard. “I looked out for myself.”

For a year, I told myself I hated Achilles for what he did. That he betrayed me. That I’d been robbed of the life I was meant to have. But standing here now, with my nerves frayed and my past clawing at the edges of my mind, I can’t drown out the truth any longer.

I wasn’t fit to lead.

I wasn’t prepared for the responsibility. I was a pawn in a game I didn’t understand, playing catch-up to the life I’d been handed. Raised to hate the Warwicks, trained to take them down- my mother’s vendetta was never my own, but it shaped me, molded me into someone who thought vengeance was my birthright. I used every weapon I had- every connection, every ally- to take control, even when I knew the damage it would do.

And for what? Power? Revenge?

I thought taking what was mine would fill the hole inside me, but it never did. It just swallowed me whole, and by the end of it, I barely recognized the woman I’d become.

And Achilles saw it.

I steal a glance at him, sitting there, his fingers loosely interlocked, his brow furrowed in thought. He doesn’t regret exiling me- I can see it in the squared set of his shoulders, the firm press of his mouth. Maybe I was too blinded by my own fury to see it before, but now I do. He did what had to be done.

And now- I know what I have to do.

The words are there, waiting to be said, but I’ve never been good at apologies. But for the first time in a long while, I can’t ignore it anymore. “I was wrong, Achilles.”

His eyes flicker toward me, but he doesn’t interrupt.

“I was reckless. I put everything at risk- our family, the estate, and you. I didn’t see it then, but I see it now. I thought I could force the world to bend to my will, but it only fractured everything I touched. I was wrong to turn on Piers. Wrong to make it all about revenge. And I’m sorry.”

There’s a long pause, but this time, it feels like the air is clearing, just a little.

I don’t know how much time passes, but when a knock at the door cuts through the silence, my heart stops. My breath catches in my throat.

I bolt upright, my pulse hammering. This is it. The only thing that’s mattered since I got here.

Achilles moves to open the door, but I’m already there, yanking it open myself.

Piers stands in the doorway, cradling a small, sleeping form against his chest.

The world tilts.

I barely hear Desmond murmuring something as he steps past, barely feel Achilles hovering behind me. My entire being narrows to the sight in front of me- my daughter, her tiny fingers curled into the fabric of Piers’s jacket, her soft breaths steady and safe.

I reach for her instinctively, and Piers hands her over. And as soon as she’s in my arms, my heart cracks wide open. The warmth of her little body seeps into me the second she’s in my arms, as if I’ve been wandering in the cold for years and just stepped into the sun.

Safe. She’s safe.

I press my face into her curls, breathing her in, my arms tightening around her like I can absorb her back into me. I whisper, “I was so scared I’d lost you… I don’t want to ever lose you again.” The sobs break free, raw and unstoppable, shaking through me as I cling to her. “I’m so sorry,” I choke out, the words tumbling out of me.

My legs go weak, but I force myself to stay upright, to hold on.

And then- I look up.

Piers is still there. Still standing close enough that I can feel the space where his warmth just was. He looks different- rougher, sharper. His face carries new lines, his jaw is set harder, and there’s a cut above his brow that wasn’t there before.

And for the first time in two years, our eyes meet.

Time folds in on itself- all this time, the distance, the pain- collapsing into this single breath where nothing else exists but him. In the dark well of his eyes, I see everything- every unsaid word, every stolen glance, every night spent wanting but never having.

He’s pulling me back to the only place I was ever meant to be. His stare burns, heavy with the life we never lived, and the truth that we were never meant to end.

For two years, I told myself I could forget him, that I could erase the way he made me feel. But now, standing here, I know I never stood a chance. I thought I’d hardened, thought I’d learned to live without him. But one look, and I’m right back where I started.

It’s the look of a man who was robbed of something he never stopped craving. In his eyes, I see recognition. Possession. A love that never had the chance to bloom, now clawing its way back to life.

My breath catches. He looks at me like I belong to him. Like I always have. I’ve been running. Hiding. Trying to forget the way he made me feel the last time we stood this close. But now, I know I never could.

This isn’t just a reunion. It’s a reckoning.

And God help me, but after everything- after all the hurt, all the years, all the war between us- he still feels like home.

Desmond and Achilles slip out without a word, leaving me alone with the one person I never expected to see again- the love of my life and the father of my child.