"I'm hardly a boy, Reginald."
"To me, you'll always be a boy, insisting that you are following in your father and your uncle's footsteps, running off to play secret spy. They did it for Queen and Country. You did it for them, hoping to avenge them or something. I don't know. Hoping to make them proud. And up until you did this, they would have been proud of you."
Proud of me? I was doing this for them. I wanted to get back in the field to bring the people responsible for their deaths to justice. Why couldn’t he see that? I knocked his arm out of the way, but he didn't move. "Let go of the fridge, old man."
He laughed in my face. Reginald was as tall as me, but he was older, not nearly as muscled as I was.
"I'm going to make her a bloody sandwich."
"Boy, sit your arse down. You will not make that girl a sandwich. You will take her real and proper food with real goddamn utensils.”
“I’m not giving her utensils. Are you fucking mad? She’s already proven too resourceful. She’ll just make a weapon."
"Well, you can feed her then."
Putting me in close enough proximity to bite? "I'm not feeding her. She'll feed herself."
Reginald shook his head. "You sit down."
And much like when I was eleven, I obeyed. Because the only alternative to complying was to fight him, and even I wasn't that far gone. He was basically the only person in the world I would listen to after my uncle died.
"Now, I'm going to feed you, and then I'm going to feed that girl up there. Let her know that someone in this house other than her doesn't think she belongs here."
I frowned at that. "Why are you like this?"
"Because sometimes, boy, you need a father to tell you what's right and what's wrong. You have fucked up."
"I haven't fucked up. Besides, Massimo wants her. How long do you think she's going to survive on her own anyway?"
He laughed in my face then. An actual laugh. One that showed the crinkles around his dark brown eyes. "Oh boy, if I thought for a moment you had brought her here to protect her, I wouldn't be giving you half the guff I am. You brought her here for your own purposes. You're just as bad as he is."
I glowered at him. "No, I'm not. He and his father work for the Syndicate. I gave half my life working for that gob shite of a man to take out members of the Syndicate, to dismantle the whole fucking organization. They killed my father."
"Your uncle should never have told you that, but I can't do anything about it now because he did. And do you think that fool trying to take them down was a good idea? That’s exactly why he isn’t around anymore."
"They took him from you too. He was your best mate. You should want revenge."
He sighed and then put a bowl of stew in front of me. "Do you know what I learned about revenge? All that hate, all it does is bubble up inside you. It eats you alive. The Syndicate is thriving, or maybe not. Maybe someone else has taken them out."
"They are mine to take out."
"You see there, son? Now that is what we call vengeance. When you seek vengeance, you might as well dig two graves. In this case, three, because that girl is going to get hurt."
"I'm doing her a fucking favor. And right now, the ends justify the fucking means."
"That is not what your uncle believed. I know that is not what he taught you. And that is not what your father taught you."
"I was six when my father died."
"I know, boy. I know. And your mum, she hung on for two years, but she had a soft heart. Without him, she couldn't survive. When your uncle took over, I thought that was going to help, but he was missing his brother too. And all he gave you was a set of skills that now you want to use to take down the bad guys. Which I understand. If you wanted to be in the service, be in the service because you want to, not because you're chasing something. Your father was proud of you when you put Legos together, kid. He didn't need anything else. And the kind of people your mother and father were, they wouldn't have wanted this life for you. Kidnapping innocent young women. What the hell is wrong with you? By the time Jasmine and I got you when you were eleven, we tried to carry on what they would have taught you until Her Majesty came calling." He shook his head. “What would Jasmine think if she saw you now?”
I winced at Jasmine's name. She had been the sweetest woman and a mother figure for me. She taught me how to talk to girls, how to be a gentleman, and how women should be treated.
What would she say about you now?
"Don't bring Jasmine into this. She would understand that I had to do what I had to do."
"You would look that woman in the eye and lie to her and tell her you were saving that girl. And maybe that will be the outcome, but that's not what you are doing. You want to use her as bait, hold her here until Massimo comes looking. What you're doing is going to get her killed. I think we don't want any more blood on our hands, yeah?"
"What the fuck do you know?"
The whack that happened on the back side of my head was so sudden my face almost fell into my stew. "You used to hit harder than that,” I muttered in retaliation.
"Boy, I will use the wooden spoon next time. Trust me, your face in the soup will be an improvement on your ugly mug."
I smirked at that. He might not agree with me, but he also wouldn't let her go. Because while I wasn't noble, he was. He would keep her safe and protected here.
And as for Daphne Winslow, she was just going to have to get used to the fact that until I was ready to let her go, she was my property.
14
Daphne
There was a knock on my door. That's how I knew it wasn't Drake. He wouldn't have knocked.
I quickly shoved all the bolts I'd managed to unscrew off the bed, looking for something useful to use as a weapon. I hadn't been able to get all the bolts out though, which made everything basically useless. "Come in."
When the door opened, the same tall, elderly black man walked in. He had skin like burnt leather, but he looked young, like maybe late fifties or early sixties, and he had kind eyes. "Well, love, I know Drake is a bit of a wanker, but I wasn't going to let him just bring you a sandwich. I’ve got some oxtail stew here and a spoon. Sorry, he wouldn't let me give you a knife or fork, so you're going to have to use your fingers if you want to get at this bone."
I gave him a sheepish smile when my stomach grumbled. "It smells good."
"It is. I made it myself from my Jasmine's recipe. She was Jamaican. I did one of those DNA tests once. They said I was Tanzanian and South African."
I smiled at him, trying to endear myself to him anyway I could. "I think with the tests now, you can even find some tribes. But we have to wait until they get even better. But God, if you’re European, you’ll get told down to the exact location."
He chuckled at that. "Right? You’ll get to find out what neanderthal strain you came from."
I laughed. "Yeah."
He placed the tray on the table. "Now, that one downstairs, he might be a bit of a grump and act a bit stern, but he’s not going to hurt you."