I fell against his chest, my ear pressed over his heart—it was racing. Arthur stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on the bedside table and wrapped his arms around me. I could hear the faint sounds of his family in the living room. Of Eric leaving, and the quiet murmurs of Ronnie and Vera as they passed by the bedroom door.
I wanted this. Not my old life. I wanted this family, not the stifling Chelsea social scene. The materialism, the focus on money and how much power you could gain amongst the rich.
“I don’t want it,” I said once I’d caught my breath. Arthur was quiet, listening. “My old life.” I lifted up and braced my arms on his hard torso. “I want to be with you. Not in secret. But proudly by your side.”
A smile tugged on Arthur’s lips and melted my heart. “That’ll cause a motherfucking commotion.”
“I don’t care,” I said vehemently. “Let them think what they want. I’m done with caring what anyone but you and this family thinks of me.”
“And your family’s business?” he said. “Some of the shares will fall to you. Some of the responsibility if you want it.” I’d studied business for years at Oxford. And I was good at it. But …
“I can keep the shares.” I didn’t want to completely sever the ties to my mum’s legacy. “But maybe it’s time for the business to be handed over to someone not so invested.” I thought of my father and how much the business took up his life. Possessed him, until that was all he cared about—not his family or child. I thought of Hugo, and how I now looked back on our relationship and knew, with absolute certainty, that there had never been any romantic love between us; rather, it had been familial. And he had wanted my hand in marriage to secure his place at Harlow Biscuits. My father would never have let me close to running the show. He had been a good man in some ways but thought very little of women in general, and especially in a place of work. He viewed them as disposable. A means to an end. Looking back, I wasn’t even sure he loved my mum at all. I was starting to believe that he loved the business and power her name had brought to him.
It was business that consumed Hugo and Dad—they were cut from the same cloth. And although we knew little about who killed them, we knew why—because they messed up the business somehow and owed a crime syndicate money. They had borrowed money from ruthless men again, and my best friends paid the price for their default.
“The company’s sullied to me now,” I said. “It’s steeped in blood and lies.” Arthur pushed back my wet hair from my face. He understood. I could see that written on his face. I traced over Westminster Bridge on his stomach. “But I’m good with stepping away.” I caught his eye. “I’m smart, Arthur. I’m good with business. I don’t want to live life on the sidelines. I’m not some little woman for you to come home to, barefoot and pregnant. If I’m with you, in this family, I want to help. I want to be a part of what we all do.”
“I have businesses,” he said, and my pulse beat faster at the playful twitch on his lips. “Many of them.” He shrugged. “Most of them are fronts. But I have a few legitimate ones that turn over an okay profit. Enough to keep Scotland Yard off my back and away from my real work.”
Excitement flared inside me. Excitement at what life could look like for us. Arthur championed women in his firm. I could be an asset to him. Leave the life of a socialite that I had never been able to stand anyway.
The smile slipped from Arthur’s face and his expression darkened. I knew it was because all this, this dream we were creating … it would be only that until we found whoever was hunting us. The future we wanted, the one we dreamed of, was all up in smoke if they weren’t discovered. If they weren’t dealt with.
The thought of what Arthur would to do to them when he caught them made me feel sick. Not because of the killing. They’d killed too many people close to us to be exempt from that kind of justice. But because I feared something happening to Arthur. Him being taken from me after we had finally found ourselves in this place.
Together. Happy. In love …
A cave formed inside my stomach when I pictured him being hurt, or worse.
Arthur sat up. “I have to go out, princess. I’ve got a meeting.” I reluctantly got off him and watched him dress. Nothing in this world looked as good as Arthur Adley in a suit. I dressed too and sat on the bed, watching him collect his things. He walked over to me and took hold of my jaw. “One day, you won’t have to stay behind. You can be right by my fucking side.” His lip curled into a smirk. “My queen of darkness.”
I laughed at the heat in his eyes and kissed him, just as someone knocked on the door. “Yeah?” Arthur said against my lips, not bothering to pull away. I closed my eyes, deepening the kiss, but a soft cough interrupted us.
Arthur pulled away, and Vera and Ronnie came into the room. They had their coats on and overnight bags in their hands. “What’s all this?” Arthur asked.
“I have some hacker friends—discreet hacker friends—who owe me a favour,” Ronnie said. “I think they can help me get further into all this. Really help us find out who they are—names, businesses. Everything.” She gestured to the piece of paper in her hand—the one with the information about the encrypted number she’d managed to get a trace on.
Arthur was silent for a few strained seconds, then said. “Off the grid.” He frowned. Then some silent communication passed between Vera, Ronnie and Arthur. Something that looked important danced between them. I wondered if they’d been speaking in private.
Before I could question them on it, Arthur’s phone rang. “I’m on my way,” he said to the caller. Arthur kissed me and left the room. Vera and Ronnie were on his heels, and the three of them left the house.
It was dark, and the wind whistled outside as it thrashed against the old walls of the church. My mind drifted back to what Arthur had told me about Freya’s and Arabella’s funerals.
I should have been there.
I pulled out my phone and, for the first time since they died, I searched their names. My blood curdled when I saw report after report of their deaths. All mentioning my name, suspecting I was dead too. Then I saw an article that covered their funerals. Tears pricked at my eyes when I saw their parents, holding each other up as if they would fall to their knees if left unsupported.
The grief. The pain. It all hit me like a ton of bricks.
Wrapping my oversized cardigan around me, I headed for the churchyard. I needed fresh air. I didn’t care if it was cold. I needed to feel the wind on my face, needed to feel nature on my skin, life flourishing all around me.
I closed my eyes the minute my feet left the back doorstep. The night was clear, and stars were a wash of sparkling diamonds in the sky. The crescent moon illuminated the church’s old graves; it was straight from the pages of a Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale.
I headed toward the rows of headstones, Freya’s and Arabella’s funerals heavy on my mind. I came to the first one. An angel stood high on a marble plinth. Its cherubic face was cracked from years of batterings from the harsh, mercurial English weather. I ran my hands over the name engraved on the stone, but it was too worn and weather-beaten to make out the letters.