Chapter 29

TWENTY-NINE

W hen the Range Rover pulled up to the curb in front of the little brick building in Croydon, the night wasn’t exactly quiet. The sun had gone down long ago, and while some of the smaller restaurants had been closed up for the night, most of the street was still alive with the sights and sounds of people out with friends, utterly unaware of the crimes being committed in their presence.

It was flush with diversity—the variety of tiny restaurants alone told me plenty of immigrants lived here right alongside a more moneyed youth that could afford places like the minimalist boulangerie across the street. A center for troubled youth stood next to a day spa. Much like my neighborhoods back home, it was obviously coming up in the larger London ecosystem, but not so much that the business owners could afford to forego security shutters over their windows.

I might have looked around more curiously if I hadn’t been flush with fear and fury. This was, after all, the place where Xavier had been raised for the first sixteen years of his life. The building where his mother’s restaurant had been fit right in among the rows of little brick townhouses and apartment buildings, none of them reaching more than three or so stories high. Xavier’s family’s building was one of the smaller ones, constructed of worn red brick, currently housing a closed Nigerian restaurant on the bottom floor.

“Sure you want to do this?” Ben asked. “The police will be here in a few more minutes. I’d wait for them.”

But Xavier was already staring hard at the second-story window just above the restaurant. “That was Mum’s bedroom. No one lives there now. It’s empty. Just like I kept it.”

“Do you leave a light on when you aren’t there?” I wondered, though I had a feeling I already knew the answer.

Xavier stared even harder at the shine of yellow peeking through the blinds. “No. I don’t.” Then he turned to me. “I’m going up. Ces, stay here with Ben until the coppers arrive.”

It didn’t escape me the way, even within minutes of arriving in his old neighborhood, his south London accent had thickened considerably.

“Absolutely not,” I said. “I’m coming with you.”

“Ces, no?—”

“ Yes ,” I hissed, not wanting to shout in front of Ben. But I was feeling immovable too. “Xavi, that is my little girl up there. There isn’t an army in the world that could stop me from seeing her right now!”

Xavier just continued to shake his head. “It’s too dangerous, Ces. You need to stay here. You and the baby need to stay safe.”

“It’s my mom,” I argued, trying a different tack. “If she’s up there, maybe I can help, all right? Talk her out of whatever idiocy she’s into.”

He opened his mouth to argue again but shut it almost immediately. Apparently, he could see I meant what I said.

I followed him out of the car, then around to the side door of the building, which opened easily. We walked up a set of narrow stairs to another door above the restaurant.

Xavier paused. He looked like he wanted to say something. Then he shook his head, inserted his key into the lock, and opened the door.

“I don’t want to watch any more TV, and I don’t want any of that stinky food! I WANT MY MOMMY!”

“Sofia?” I called as relief flooded through me. I had never been so thrilled to hear the beginnings of an all-out tantrum. Honestly, if I hadn’t needed to see her safe, I might have let Sofia give whoever she was talking to what they deserved.

We stepped into a small sitting room that was, for lack of a better word, humble. Connected to a tiny kitchenette in one corner, it was barely large enough to contain a thread-bare plaid loveseat shoved against one wall, a few oak side tables that would have been at home during the late fifties, and a walnut stand that should have held a television. Faded, rose-colored carpet covered the floors, which were reasonably clean, if somewhat dusty. The walls were painted a dingy cream, including a few art prints hung here and there—one a poster of the Madonna with a Victoria and Albert logo at the bottom, another was a print that looked like Japanese block art.

This was where Xavier had grown up. I would have been entranced with every small detail had I not been completely focused on the theme song of Daniel Tiger that played behind a closed door across the room alongside the familiar shrieks of my five year old in the throes of an all-out tantrum.

“No, Sofia, please don’t go?—”

“Mamamamamamamamamama!”

The door opened, and Sofia careened out of what looked like a bedroom and straight into my arms, allowing me to pick her up and swing her onto my hip. “Where have you been ? Abuela said Elsie got sick at the airport and told her to bring me here to wait for you.”

“I—Elsie did get sick,” I told her as I hugged her more tightly than I ever had, trying to make the tears that were already welling up go away. By some miracle, she seemed mostly unaware of what was going on. All I wanted to do was get her out of there before anything else changed.

“Fucking hell,” Xavier said with relief as he threw his arms around both of us. “You’re safe. Are you all right? Did anyone hurt you?”

“Yesmph.” Sofia’s response was muffled by both sets of arms squeezing her half to death, though she didn’t seem to mind the effect. For a few seconds, anyway, until she was shoving at both of us to let her breathe.

“I thought you’d never get here,” she told us. “Abuela told me to watch TV for hours, and I’m only allowed two shows in a row. I told her, but she didn’t listen! Mama, why are you crying?”

I couldn’t help but laugh in the middle of my tears. “Just—just happy to see you, baby. So freaking happy.”

I hugged her again and probably squeezed her tighter than she liked. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t get her close enough.

“This is kind of a funny house for you, Dad,” Sofia was saying over my shoulder. “It’s a lot smaller than your other places. It’s even smaller than home. Daddy, are you crying too?”

There was a cough, and then I turned to find Xavier giving a grim smile with reddened eyes. “Not at all. Come on, we’re leaving.”

“No!” my mother’s voice screeched through the room.

We both turned to find her standing in the doorway of the bedroom Sofia had come from, looking very tired and even more terrified.

“No, you can’t leave!” she exclaimed with eyes that danced all over the room. “No, please, they’ll?—”

“They’ll what?” I demanded. “Mom, what the hell are you doing here, anyway? How could you even consider taking Sofia like this? How did you even get here on parole? How fucking dare you!”

“Swear jar, Mama,” Sofia whispered, though her little arms around my neck hadn’t stopped squeezing.

Her face reddened even more. Her nose had that pink tinge that told me she was drinking again, and the sallow color of her skin suggested she was using something more. She’d lost a lot of weight since I’d seen her last, and under her eyes, it looked like she hadn’t slept in days.

“I needed the money, Frankie,” she said weakly, not even bothering to answer the question.

I supposed I could fill in the blanks.

“Who did this, then?” Xavier demanded. “Who paid you off? Tell us now .”

“I needed the money, and you did nothing to help me,” she rattled on as she stepped toward us. “What was I supposed to do?”

“How about not kidnap your own granddaughter for ransom?” I snapped. “How about not betray your own flesh and blood?” I closed my eyes and pinched my brow. “You know what? Forget that. We’re not family. We’re not even related as human beings. You’re not worth the sympathy or even questions to answer. Xavi, let’s go.”

We turned to the door, Sofia’s body still ensconced in my arms.

“ Mija , you wouldn’t?—”

I whirled around. “Did you really just call me ‘daughter’? I have never been your mija . You’ve never treated me or any of your kids like your actual children—just means to an end, even if it was to assuage your own conscience! Right now, my only priority is Sofia, so if you don’t want us to throw the absolute book at you, let us go in peace.”

“Why would you throw a book at her, Mama?” Sofia wondered. “She was just picking me up.”

“They’ll do it again!” she cried out just as we turned to the door.

Xavier stopped at the door. “Who?”

“I-I don’t know the name,” she admitted as she sank onto the sofa. “They never told me. I heard one of the men mention a Park House, but that’s all.” She bit her lip. “They promised Sofia would stay safe all right. I wouldn’t have agreed to it otherwise. Even then, I refused to leave when we got here. Not without making sure she was going to be okay.”

“How very generous of you to make sure my daughter’s kidnapping went safely,” I spat. “Jesus Christ , Mom.”

“Kidnap?” Sofia looked at my mother with eyes wide with betrayal. “What’s kidnap?”

“Something that will never happen again,” I assured her. “I’ll explain later.”

I hated that I would have to do that.

“Parkvale,” Xavier muttered. “Fucking Georgina.”

“Swear jar, Dad,” Sofia remarked automatically as she reached out to twiddle a piece of hair that had fallen over Xavier’s brow.

“That bitch ,” I seethed.

“You too, Mama. Jeez.” Her tone, however, sounded a bit more alarmed. Sofia rarely heard me curse.

I sighed. “Sorry, baby. But in very rare cases, that word is warranted.”

Sofia simply burrowed closer into my side with her head on my shoulder. If that hadn’t told her something was very wrong, nothing would.

“Wait!” my mother called to us. “If you’re going to go, take me with you, please. If they come back and see that she’s gone, they’ll blame me and do what they did to that other woman.”

“You mean Elsie?” I said. “Don’t worry, she was only locked in a bathroom for two hours. If you’re lucky, that’s all that will happen to you.”

“Frankie, please. If they come back?—”

She cut herself off when the sound of men’s voices filtered up the stairs through the still-open door. Xavier and I backed into the room so as not to be seen immediately, while he tucked me and Sofia behind him.

“Good God, Barnaby,” said an oddly posh, familiar voice. “Can’t you do anything— oh! ”

They looked up to find a room full of people staring at them.

“Crikey,” said Barnaby in a much deeper voice that sounded like the other man’s but was filtered through a very strong East London accent. “What do we have here, eh?”

I was too busy staring at the first man to answer.

“Jeeves?” I asked as I peeked around Xavier’s shoulder.

“Isn’t that one of the butlers?” Sofia asked. “The mean one at Parkvale?”

Xavier seemed to be equally paralyzed. “Bledsoe, what are you doing here?”

The butler’s beady-eyed gaze bounced between us, as though he wasn’t convinced we were actually there.

“So it was Georgina,” Xavier said to himself. “I knew it.”

“It absolutely was not.” Bledsoe finally found his voice. “The duchess had nothing to do with this little scheme gone awry, and I’ll thank you to keep her out of it!”

“Yeah,” said Barnaby. “It’s just bad luck for you that my brother here’s been in love with the duchess since he was a lad. Would do anything to please her, he would. Even get rid of a duke.”

“For the last time, he’s not a duke , Barnaby!” Bledsoe suddenly sputtered to life. “And this has never been about the duchess! It’s about protecting what’s sacred.” He literally tipped up his nose toward us. “Never in all my years did I imagine I’d have to serve the likes of you, who aren’t worth what’s on the bottom of the duchess’s shoes. You aren’t a gentleman. And you are certainly not a proper duke. Only a bastard, born to this very hovel!”

I waited for the explosion I knew was coming. We’d already heard this once from Georgina, and right now, I had to imagine Xavier was getting tired of his birth status being thrown in his face, incorrectly or not. The fact that I’d already met my limit for those insults before him was enough of a shock. There was no way Xavier would let this go without at least a warning shot.

But to my surprise, he only smirked at the man. “I might be. And I might not. But I don’t care anymore, and that was never for you to decide, you deceitful bit of scum.” He turned to me. “The police should be here soon. Ces, let’s go.”

“Not so fast.” Barnaby stepped forward as he pulled out a shiny silver handgun.

“Oh shit,” I muttered.

“Mama…” Sofia’s whimpers grew more hushed as she kicked her legs and dropped to the floor. “He has a gun.”

“That I do, wee girl. There’s the matter of payment, Your Grace,” Barnaby said with a sneer. “Now, the title, I don’t care about that at all. But I believe there was a sum requested for the return of your daughter.”

“That’s right ,” hissed Bledsoe. “Fifty million pounds, and you will renounce your title. I don’t care what my brother says.”

He jerked forward as he spoke, shoving his finger directly into Xavier’s face.

Which, of course, was his fatal mistake.

With zero hesitation, Xavier grabbed the man’s finger and broke it with a nasty crack. As Bledsoe squealed and fell to the floor, Xavier took advantage of the moment of surprise to swing a hard left punch over the butler and directly into his brother’s face. The gun fell to the floor with a thwack , which I quickly picked up to unload before it could do anyone else harm. Living with Matthew, a former Marine and DA who never left the house armed, had given me at least a few skills of use here.

“Empty,” I said. “My God, you two really are idiots, aren’t you?”

Before they could answer, more footsteps thundered up the stairs, and we were quickly joined by several police officers as well as Xavier’s driver, Ben.

“Thank God,” I murmured. “It’s theirs. And it was empty,” I said as I handed one of them the gun and immediately pulled Sofia to my waist, keeping my girl close.

“Frankie!” my mother called as her hands were cuffed behind her back. “Frankie, please !”

But her cries fell on deaf ears as I huddled with my daughter.

Bledsoe was being read his rights to silence while his brother was being revived for the same purpose. Eventually, all of them were shuffled toward the door, my mother the last to leave.

“We’ll need your statements, Your Grace,” said one of the policemen.

But Xavier just turned to me and extended a hand. “You’ll have to take them at my flat in Mayfair,” he said. “I’ve got to get my family home safe.”