Page 84 of Kingpin's Secret Baby

I loosen my grip just enough to look down at the little girl, brushing a hand over her curls. She’s just watching me. Trusting me.

“We’re going to your mama,” I tell her softly. “I’m taking you to her right now.”

And for the first time since stepping into that house, I believe it.

Chapter 41

Fantasia

The 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.”

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