14. Avery
AVERY
I think I’m going to blow chunks.
The other girls and I walk into a room full of the most powerful men and women in London. This, apparently, is the “meet the friends and colleagues” stage of the process. And Kill’s friends are the London Mafia Syndicate.
A group of the deadliest mafia bosses in London.
It’s a black-tie event, and there’s a sense of us being thrown to the wolves. I’ve spent all week half in disbelief that Kill pushed me against the door of my bedroom, called me his good girl, made me break with pleasure, then tucked me into bed and left.
In the morning, there was the now customary handing out of roses. He gave me a rose second, after Jemma. And since, I’ve been boiling with jealousy and confused. Second. If he didn’t want me, why would he make me come like that?
It’s been a looooonnnnggg week with my own thoughts and insecurities for company.
A dress arrived for me, and it’s as stunning as everything else Kill has selected.
Fits perfectly. But what’s making me miserable is that there’s no private dinner that Kill could take me to after this.
The event is the whole thing, there are so many people, and Sue is lurking like an evil mafia mother.
“It can’t be any worse than when they shot at us,” Jemma, who’s next to me and has been more friendly since the airport incident, mutters.
“It can. They have real guns,” I say under my breath. And it’s true. The men might be in dinner jackets, but there are weapons obviously concealed beneath them.
My eyes immediately find Kill in the crowd, as though I’m drawn to him. He’s magnetic, even amongst a lot of very tall, attractive men. Kill just has something they don’t. It’s like he glows.
“This is really the London Maths Club! I’m so excited!” squeals Violet.
“The what?” I whisper to Jemma.
But there isn’t time to get an answer before we’re noticed.
“These are your ladies, Archway?” One of the impeccably dressed women has approached our little group.
“Well, one of them is,” Kill says, not moving, and his gaze drifts across the others before coming to rest on me.
He gives me a quick wink, so fast I think I imagined it.
But there’s softness in his eyes. His hands are in his pockets, and his tie is loose.
He looks… Gorgeous. And relaxed with these people. His friends.
That makes me all the more jealous.
There’s a whole barrage of introductions, and I probably remember less than half. The women introduce themselves with their first names, and the men just with their territory name. And it’s a scattered map of London and I can’t keep track.
“It’s a surprising way to get a wife, Archway. You’re all competing to marry him?” Callie glances between Kill, the other women, and me. She’s the wife of… I can’t remember, honestly.
“Isn’t that what women have been doing for decades?” I say, my heart beating beneath my flippant comment. “Competing for an eligible bachelor?”
Everyone except Kill laughs. He scowls, and I smile back at him innocently.
“So many potential wives. It’s going to be a huge commitment for him. How is he going to kidnap you all?” Jessa asks lightly. I think she said she’s an interior designer, and Lambeth’s wife.
“I have ways. And a big… car.” Kill’s eyes gleam as he makes the joke, but he’s lost the relaxed vibe when our eyes met across the room.
“Need a people carrier.” Jessa waggles her eyebrows. “Which is perfect, because you can repurpose it afterwards.”
Katy giggles. “A big family! I’ve always wanted lots of children!” She strokes her hand over her hair and looks at Kill with a cute and suggestive expression.
Resentment curdles in my gut.
“Have you got any questions for us?” A man with the posh accent asks, jerking me back to the conversation.
There’s silence, and it’s awkward for a few seconds. No one is going to say anything.
“Westminster, why’d you have to make it like a job interview?” says a man with a Russian accent and I realise he’s Rotherhithe, from the airport ambush.
“What’s the London Maths Club?” I blurt out after some awkward seconds.
“The London Maths Club? Oh, it’s so cute.
You’ll love it,” Jessa says, eyes shining.
“The story is that the kingpin of Canary Wharf, that’s Rhys.
” Jessa points at one of the men from the airport.
“He was pretending to be a CEO and not a mafia boss because his assistant had redesigned his office with an excessive number of plants and spent a fortune on a new carpet.”
“It was not too many plants!” Adi protests.
There’s a snort of laughter from someone, and I meet Kill’s gaze again. Covertly. And there’s a secret between us that hums.
“It was. Is,” Jessa holds up her hands as though to present this absolute fact. “And Rhys was in love, and wanted to trade something with his lovely assistant whose biological clock was ticking loud enough to be heard in the Antarctic.”
“Don’t you mean the Arctic?” Callie tilts her head.
“Definitely not. This was worldwide.” Jessa widens her eyes, laughing softly.
“Oh god, I’m so embarrassed.” Adi hides her face in her hands. “I’m just a meme around here.”
The giggling from one girl escalates.
“Ella is losing it already,” says Callie pointing her thumb at the girl who’s laughing well before the punch line.
“She is.” Jessa shrugs.
“I’m desperate to know!” Katy exclaims.
“Adi wanted to get pregnant,” Jessa says calmly.
A baby. I told Kill I’d have five children with him. My gaze slides to Kill, who has his hands in his pockets and a slight smile on his face. I blush and look away. Adi puts her hands over her bright-red face and groans.
Jessa continues, “And Rhys caught her online, buying—”
“I don’t know if we should retraumatise everyone with this story again?” says Callie, deadpan.
“Turkey baster!” Ella manages to get out between snorts of hysteria.
“What?” Katy asks.
“What’s a turkey baster got to do with it?” I ask quietly.
“I understand the site was called Sperm To Go, with the number two.” Jessa nods meaningfully.
“That’s not true,” Adi holds her hands up. “It was—”
“Hence the need for…” Jessa makes a swooping up motion with her hand that sets Ella off into a fresh round of laughter.
“Turkey baster!” says Ella again, gasping out the word between fits of giggles. She’s laughing so hard she’s almost sobbing with it.
“Why didn’t you use a syringe?” asks Callie, head tipping to the side.
“Oh my god, shh,” Jessa interjects. “Do not ruin any more innocent items for me. I already use a turkey baster once a year—”
Callie’s eyes gleam. “For—”
“For basting a turkey, you mad woman,” she cuts her off.
“Can we stop talking about the most mortifying moment of my life?” Adi says, cringing.
“She wanted a baby, and his deal was that she had to come to events with him because we’re all so unbearable.” Jessa totally ignores Adi’s plea.
“That isn’t what he said,” Adi interjects.
“It was what I meant,” a male voice calls from another part of the room, and everyone laughs. Canary Wharf, from the airport too.
Jessa grins. “But he’d stupidly started telling her the name, and got as far as The London Ma—”
“You know the correct way to say mafia is the Italian way. Mar-fia,” interrupts Violet. “Because the word originates from the Sicilian—”
“Yes, but that ruins the joke because Brits say maff-fia, which almost sounds like the start of the word maths.” Jessa rolls her eyes.
“That’s ridiculous.” Violet gives Jessa a superior look.
“No, what’s ridiculous is that they,” Jessa sweeps an arm to encompass the room, “Went along with it to protect him and help him get his girl.”
“Utterly pointless, of course. I already knew he was a mafia boss.” Adi shrugs happily. “And love him anyway.”
“And that’s why we call this the London Maths Club, and make maths jokes.” Jessa spreads her hands in presentation.
“Those are jokes?” Callie smiles impishly and the tall, silver haired man next to her growls and pulls her to him.
“Most of us can count and add up,” Canary Wharf says dryly. “Except Rotherhithe.”
“I am not the one who shoots first and asks questions later.” The big Russian shakes his head carelessly, seemingly unaffected by the insult. “That’s Angel.”
“What’s Killian like when he’s not with his family?” asks Katy, a bit simpering.
I open my mouth to reply, but quickly shut it again. I’m not supposed to know, am I?
“Archway’s colder than frost on winter grass,” says Rotherhithe.
I blink, and can’t help but slide my gaze over to Kill. That’s not how he’s seemed to me? He always has humour at the edge of his face, and something soft even as his words are harsh.
“Remember that time he carved six-six-six into the chest of the priest Blackfen brought in?” Westminster muses. “Leaning into the whole Devil of Archway thing.”
“Worked on him. Just not as well on you lot,” Kill mutters.
“A priest?” Violet sounds horrified.
“Yes.” And there is something cold in his face now, a fragment of the person he uses to protect his territory, and protect himself, I realise. “He liked that.”
“Oh.” Violet’s expression makes it clear she doesn’t approve, but Kill doesn’t explain.
And I find that I trust that Kill had good reason, but I hate talking about him. I hate Violet being close to him.
“I do like a strong man.” Katy picks some lint from Kill’s sleeve, laughing, and I can’t bring myself to pretend I don’t care.
Anger and jealousy burst up my torso. I want to claw her eyes out for even thinking about getting pregnant by Kill. He’s mine.
I want him. I’m in love with him.
Shock follows the realisation, and conversation continues around me as I try to process it.
I don’t want anyone else marrying Kill. I don’t want anyone else touching him, or kissing him.
If someone is going to do kidnapping, it could easily be me.
If I thought I’d manage it, I’d push him into the back of a car and speed off with him to…
somewhere…and not let him go until he agreed to marry me.
“You okay?” Jemma asks quietly, looking at me with concern, and on the other side of me, Jessa notices too.
“I…” I didn’t mean to make it so obvious.
And, no. I’m not okay. I can’t do this.
“I feel a bit unwell,” I lie. “I might go home.”
“What is it?” Kill didn’t seem to be listening, but suddenly his green eyes are focused on me like a beam of forest light.
“Nothing, I’m—”
“Do you need a doctor?” He reaches for his phone. “I’ll call the medic.”
“No! No, it’s fine. Just… You know.” I make a gesture like, what can you do. I’m not sure what I’m actually alluding to.
“What?” he demands. “An ambulance can be here in a minute.”
“No!” It’s a totally fictional illness to get me away from this situation. “It’s just…” I circle my hand by my stomach and chest, vaguely.
Kill’s brows lower severely. “If you’re ill, I’m not going to sit around—”
“It’s not like that, it’s just…” Uhhh… My brain goes blank.
That I accidentally ate a squirrel? I’m allergic to maths jokes?
I sat on a Lego and maimed myself permanently?
I don’t want a mafia doctor poking me and diagnosing the pathetic truth like “sudden, unexpected heart ache because of inappropriately falling in love with the man who’s technically my boss”.
And more to the point, I’m being an idiot.
Mistaking a game with reality, and it’s not even a game I’m actually in. I’m a fraud.
“Her period,” Jessa says bluntly.
Ahhh. That’s not what I meant. Heat rises in my cheeks.
“Yeah,” I bleat. Because what am I going to say? If I deny it, someone will probably point out I’m going green.
A glance from Kill and there’s one of his men at his side.
“Take Miss Morgan home, please Brandon. Carefully. She’s not well,” he murmurs.
“Yes, Kill.” Brandon dips his head and steps away to talk into his phone.
“Can I get you some pain killers?” Kill asks me gently, drawing me from the room, towards the front of the hotel.
I fight the urge to laugh. Kill is the one who’s causing my pain, but only to my heart. There’s an ironic joke in there somewhere, but I’m too sad and overwhelmed to make it.
“That’s kind, I’m alright. I only need…” I don’t know. To stop being in this room, with people who are so fun, and so out of my league, and to have Kill all to myself. Alone. The irrational panic bubbles in me again. I’m a fraud, I don’t belong here, but I want to. So badly. “Space.”
That’s a lie.
Kill nods seriously as his gaze sweeps over me. “Until next week then.” And there’s something as bleak as I feel in his expression.
Brandon coughs delicately, and I give Kill a tepid little wave as I follow Brandon outside. Kill’s face is etched stone. The sleek black vehicle waiting seems the size of a tank, and I’ve just sat down in the back seat, and am about to close the door, when Kill’s voice rings out.
“Avery!”
I pause. Then Kill is there, and I’m looking up at him, and every instinct is to throw myself into his arms and cling to him. Instead, I press my lips together.
“You forgot this.” A rose in his hand, and concern still making a line between his brows.
“Oh!” I reach for the rose that means I’m still in the competition, and his black ink covered fingers touch my innocent plain ones.
His gaze sweeps down my body and his expression drops to a frown. Then he leans over and clicks the seat belt into place. His hands brush me at every movement. My neck, my waist. The side of my hip. I’m on fire, and I can’t stop thinking about what it was like to have him touch between my legs.
And how much agony I’ll be in when this finishes, and then… I don’t even know what will happen afterwards.
“Take care of yourself,” he says, low and raspy. “Hope you feel better soon.”
I nod stupidly, and whisper my thanks.
“We just have to get through this competition.”
The door thuds closed before my brain can process the comment, and he steps back and watches as the car pulls away. Get through it, yes, but what then?
I crane my neck around to see him, distress all over my face. I’m such an idiot for revealing so much, my gut punched that he’s cool and expressionless.
Then I remember the blacked-out windows.
He can’t see me. And yet, despite his unbothered look, he watches until the car turns the corner and he disappears out of sight.
My poor heart. I’m so incredibly in trouble. I think I’ve fallen in love with Kill. A man who is absolutely not for me. A mafia boss.