Page 23 of Kingpin's Secret Baby

Piers

Icould sit on the bed in a towel until I’m dry, but I pull a change of clothes on over my sodden body the moment I leave the bathroom. Now I’m cold, wet, and forced to come down from the highest high of my life.

Except that I can still taste Fantasia on my tongue. Her gasps and moans are echoing through my head like the sweetest kind of song. I still feel her fingers in my hair, her nails scraping over my scalp and sending shocks down my spine.

Even though we both came, even though we were both panting and trembling at the end, what just happened feels like a preview. My body has become a map of places that she’s touched, and there are too many places unmarked by her fingertips.

I force myself to open my phone and redial my last called number. Despite how badly our last talk went, and despite the fact that I said I would keep my distance and five minutes ago ravished his sister in the shower, I need to have this conversation with Achilles. Things have changed since he told me to stay away. Fantasia has been attacked, the Ashwoods have been compromised, and now we’re on the run. I can’t imagine he’ll be pissed at me for saving his little sister’s life.

So long as I don’t mention that I just had my tongue inside her.

The phone rings several times before Achilles picks up, and when he does he already sounds irritated. Lovely.

“I hope you’re calling to tell me you’re getting on a plane right now.”

“Am I late for a meeting I didn’t know about?” I quip, trying to ignore the way my hackles rise at his tone. “Because I don’t remember agreeing to come back to London the last time we talked.”

“Piers-”

“Icalledyou, so let me talk before you start lecturing me.” I don’t even have to see Achilles’s face to feel the chill of his silence, but I don’t let it distract me. “Those guys you hired to guard Fantasia tried to kill her a few hours ago. They were working for your cousin Harold. Seen him lately?”

“What the fuck- where is Fantasia now? Is she all right?”

“She’s with me,” I say, intentionally ignoring his first question. “She was hurt, but not critically.”

“Howwas she hurt?”

“Cut by a knife in her side. I stitched it.”

“Jesus-”

I hear him suck in a breath and all the ways it shakes as it comes out. It’s enough to make me forget my frustration with him. His little sister is hurt and he’s the kind of guy who’ll tie himself in knots trying to find a way to blame himself. But this isn’t on him. Not unless he could read Armstrong and Barnes’s minds and ignored their murderous plans anyway.

Which reminds me.

“I asked if you’ve seen Harry lately.”

Achilles takes another breath, not any steadier than the first. “Not since the last family meeting a week ago. The one where he… where he urged me to give Fantasia a harsher sentence.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“His brother was just transferred to Cambridge Hospital. I believe he followed him there with our great aunt Mary.”

“Well you’d better drag his ass back and see if he’s sent anyone else after us.”

“Where are Barnes and Armstrong now?”

“Dead.”

“Dead- Did you at least question them?”

“Was a little too busy saving Fantasia’s life,” I say snidely.

Another aggressive inhale. “As grateful as I am that you were there for her, I need you to consider that accusing one of my closest and most influential cousins of committing a mutiny against me hasconsequences-”

I can’t fucking believe this. “You’re worried about politics right now?”

“I’m sorry to inform you of this, but politics is ninety percent of what men in our position need to think about,” Achilles growls. “That’s why my little sister is halfway across the planet in the first place. If there are men that claim they’re loyal to me who are actively betraying me, I need to know as much as possible-”

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