Epilogue Achilles

Every weekday, I like to start my work with an espresso, the morning paper, and an excellent view of Wesley Hall’s gardens from the terrace. The air is biting, the noise of the surrounding London metropolis muted. The ducks in the pond circle in anticipation of a crust of bread.

In relative privacy- aside from the ducks- I can focus my mind and find some semblance of peace.

Today, I can’t have any of that, because I have to pack for a ten hour flight to the States because a distant cousin that I’ve never met refused to answer the phone calls and half a dozen letters.

Instead of savoring my espresso, I down it like a shot on my way through the kitchen, dodging the staff warming our old manor house up for another day. They ignore me, as I’ve ordered them to do. No nods of greeting or even called ‘good morning, sir’s. Just a plate left at the end of the counter for me, piled with breakfast sausage, honeyed fruit, and fresh buttered bread.

Upstairs, I sort the heavy contracts I’ll bring with me into crisp folders and tuck those into my briefcase. Aside from these, I pack my usual: three Italian suits, in burgundy, peacock green, and cream; three Rolexes to match; three sets of glossy black and white wingtips; three sets of Burberry sunglasses; my shaving kit; my cologne. Anything else I can buy on the way.

Eventually, there’s the sound of movement from the room attached to mine, what was once considered the wife’s chambers before the house was restored.

A tiny, sleepy voice calls out for me. “Daddy?”

I grimace, but not at the voice. This is my least favorite part of traveling for work, even though it’s all dreadful. Every time I have to look Sidony in her mother’s blue eyes and tell her I have to leave her here in this house without me… a part of me dies.

Eventually, if my half- sister Fantasia keeps sending me on petty little errands like this, there’ll be nothing left of me but a semi-functional automaton.

Maybe that’s exactly what she’s hoping for.

I bring the plate I took from the kitchens, which I haven’t touched, and cross the room to the door that goes between our suites. Sidony is already sitting up in bed, her penguin plush clutched to her chest. The rest of her stuffed toys lie scattered and abandoned around her. It’s Lilac, her penguin, that brings her the most comfort.

Another nightmare, then.

“Daddy!” she cries, instantly relieved, and reaches up for me. I set her breakfast down on the side table and climb into bed with her, scooping her and Lilac both into my arms. Her other plush try to roll under me, and I kick them callously away. When she’s holding Lilac, the rest of the little buggers become invisible.

“Good morning, my dove,” I say, pressing the traditional three kisses of greeting to her forehead. She doesn’t return them, another sure sign she’s been deeply upset. Her down-soft brown curls tickle my neck as she hides her face in it.

“The scary men were outside my room last night,” she whimpers.

Ah yes, the scary men. I dream about them sometimes too, only my dreams have significantly more blood in them than hers do. I made sure of that.

“Not last night,” I say softly, cupping her head in my hand. “That was last year, little princess. The scary men are all gone now.”

She shakes her head, rubbing her tears and snot off on the shoulder of my linen shirt. “Are you sure, daddy?”

“I pinky-swore on it, didn’t I?” I ask, feigning offense.

She peels one of her arms from around Lilac’s crushed body and holds up her pinky, scarcely half the length of mine. “Swear again,” she demands.

I heave a sigh, like this is the most exhausting chore in all the world. Sidony lets out a giggle, but it’s weak. She’ll be in a fragile mood for the rest of the day, and I won’t be here to make her feel better when the shadows of her nightmare come creeping back in. And worse, I still have to tell her that I’m leaving in just over an hour.

Sometimes, I could strangle Fantasia. She’d look like poor Lilac when I was done with her.

“Very well,” I say. “I, Achilles Warwick, on my honor and that of our family, do solemnly swear this to be true, that our mortal enemies, the scary men, have all been banished from this mortal plane, with all due haste and fury, etc., etc..”

Sidony giggles again. I curl my pinky finger around hers and shake it once. “There it is. Now, eat your breakfast. Daddy has to tell you something.”

She climbs out of my lap and retrieves her plate before hopping back in bed. I’m usually very no-nonsense about eating in bed instead of at the table, but the rules are different on nightmare days. And leaving days. And her mother’s goodbye day.

Sometimes, it seems like we have fewer good days than bad days in this house. Which is not what Fantasia claimed would happen.

That’s a dangerous line of thought, so I push it aside as Sidony cuddles back into my side. She goes for the honeyed fruit first, naturally, and for a long moment I let her eat in silence.

Every time I have to do this, it gets harder.

“Sidony,” I say, and from the change in my tone I think my daughter knows what I’ll say, because her fork stills. “Auntie Tasia has asked me to run a quick errand for her today.”

“Don’t, daddy,” she says, her voice so small I almost don’t hear it.

“I have to.”

She shakes her head, keeping it bowed away from me. She probably won’t look at me again until I’ve come back, which makes my heart wrench.

“I’m sorry, Sidony. It’s just for a couple days.”

She doesn’t respond. I stroke her hair, but still, there’s nothing.

“I love you, little princess,” I tell her, and kiss the top of her head.

“Love you,” she mumbles, but all I hear is sorrow.

I slip out of her room without looking back. If I do, I’ll pull her back into my arms and never leave.

Damn Fantasia.

No, damn Thomas Warwick , I tell myself. That will be a far more helpful mindset when I have to force him to kneel in front of me and sign our contracts with his own blood.

I close up my suitcase and leave it in the hall just outside my door. A member of the household will see that it’s taken to our private jet. In the meantime, Fantasia has requested I meet with her one last time before departing.

I find her in what was once the audience chamber in Wesley Hall’s heyday, sitting in a plush chair as close to the fireplace as she can get without tumbling in. Anyone who didn’t know her would think she was glaring into it, but really, her face is always like that. Since the day she was born, Fantasia Ashwood’s narrow face has worn the expression of a disapproving Mother Superior, and her pale green eyes have squinted at the world like the whole of it stinks.

Exactly like mum.

She decided to take on mum’s last name since she didn’t want to be known as a Warwick.

She hears the click of my shoes across the tile and her head snaps up. “Are you ready for this?” she demands, without preamble. “I need you to be absolutely incapable of failure this time.”

I didn’t come into this room to argue with her, but the insinuation that I’ve ever failed to do her dirty work properly riles my already threadbare temper.

“We have more pressing issues than a formality that hasn’t been enforced since-”

“Their tithe isn’t just a formality ,” she says, like I’m the dimmest person she’s ever spoken to in her life. “It’s a necessity , Achilles. Fuck- how many times do I have to tell you this? The accounts are drying up! My good for nothing father left this place a fucking ruin just to spite me, I swear to god.”

I put my hands on the back of her chair, gripping it like I would her neck. Sometimes I wonder if our relationship would be so strained if I hadn’t turned her down the first time she asked me to help her stage a bloody coup against the Warwicks. Would my daughter be happier if we weren’t perched like a goddamn cuckoo in a nest that isn’t ours?

If the Ashwoods had minded their goddamn business-

If Fantasia hadn’t been raised on delusions of grandeur by our mother-

If my Madeleine hadn’t died, leaving me a single father with only a fraying cord connecting me to reality-

If, if, if. Pointless now. We killed the Warwicks and we stole their nest. Now we have to wear their skins and do their dance, and pray no one comes sniffing around our lies.

The Warwicks across the pond are an easy target, really. They lost contact with London almost three decades ago- after Thomas Sr. and his brother Marcus fell out over whether or not Marcus should marry a young widow named Veronica Ashwood.

If only Mr. Marcus had listened to his brother. Maybe if the Warwicks hadn’t been weakened by that schism, the Ashwoods would’ve faced a tougher fight last year.

From what little we know about the remaining Warwicks, most of the ones that knew who was living in Wesley Hall are all dead themselves. I’ve never met Thomas Warwick, but better yet, he’s never met me. He’ll have no idea that I’m not a blood Warwick, not even a loyal adopted Warwick.

He’ll have no idea I put a bullet in the head of his uncle. My stepfather.

Still, I hate subterfuge. It’s my least favorite way to do business.

My jaw clenches against the words, but they come out anyway. “Maybe if you stopped pouring all our remaining resources into hunting him down-”

“That’s not possible,” Fantasia interrupts savagely, turning to pace away from me across the room. “I’m going to find him, Achilles. I have to know he’s dead, or this whole thing falls apart.”

I sigh. This will get us nowhere, not when she’s determined to be pissed. You’d think killing her own shitty father and usurping his empire would improve her mood somewhat, but no. “I’m going now,” I say. “Any last orders, my lady?”

She turns on me, glaring me up and down. Her eyes are piercing as any arrow. “Make them pay, Achilles. In blood, if you have to.”