Chapter Twenty-Two

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Pimlico

 

 

FOR FORTY-EIGHT HOURS, I did my best to give Elder some space.

I’d found him in his office the next day, but after a stilted, distracted conversation about the weather, I’d left him to drown himself in work.

The rest of the day, I’d relaxed on my balcony and watched the horizon blur into one magical line where tide met sky and sizzled with sunshine.

The next afternoon, I headed up on deck only to find Elder at the bow with binoculars pressed to his eyes, his back rigid, and the faintest outline of another vessel on the horizon.

When I tiptoed beside him and stared at the faraway vessel, my skin prickled from the crackle of energy he gave off. His whole persona was tense and brittle, ready to shatter at any moment. Only, when he shattered, I had an awful feeling he’d take out entire cities with his rage and regret rather than just implode.

I stood beside him for twenty minutes before I got up the nerve to ask if he knew who manned the boat behind us.

He ripped the binoculars away and gave me a look so black and bleak, I struggled to catch a breath.

A moment later, he returned to looking through the magnifying glass only to mumble something about an urgent meeting with his captain then vanish to the bridge.

Something nasty gnawed at him. Something that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with his past.

Chinmoku.

Did he expect them to find us here? Was his worry over going to war or their involvement in the QMB and my fate?

My questions sank to the depths of my belly and made me nauseous.

That night, I ate alone even though he sat beside me. We exchanged salt and pepper, we commented on how fragrant the chicken laksa was, and once again, we shared awkward pleasantries on the weather.

Ever since the botched origami lesson, he barely made eye contact with me. I knew in his mind it was out of respect…to give me time to get used to the idea that his entire wealthy existence was based on a lie, but his lack of friendship left me stranded and chilly.

I was lonely even as I shared dinner with him.

The questions in my stomach curdled until all I wanted to do was hug him and say I didn’t care if his name was fake and his wealth was stolen. All I cared about was him. The man I knew right here, right now. The man who could have nothing and no one and I would still love because I recognised his soul as one that I valued and respected.

When dinner was over and I’d burned more calories in stress than I’d consumed, I tried to ask why the presence of another boat unsettled him so much. His eyes once again blackened with protection and temper, delivering a harsh chuckle designed to sound light-hearted and carefree but was the heaviest blood-icing laugh I’d ever heard.

For the first time, I didn’t find comfort in his presence; I only found frustration from not being allowed to share his burdens.

I stood and said a quiet goodnight, only for him to escort me wordlessly to my room.

And then, after we parted painfully outside my door, I locked the handle for the second time.

I willingly accepted what Elder told me to do and withdrew a little. I locked the door because he told me to. Because he wanted that barrier between us. Well, he’d successfully erected one by cutting me out of his problems.

With my heart raging, I padded onto my balcony and stared at the starry sky. No signs of another boat. No lights on the horizon or billowing sails.

We’d travelled past other yachts and schooners before, especially when we left Morocco. Therefore, I couldn’t understand why Elder had gone from exchanging friendly horn blows to glowering at them through binoculars.

If he truly believed the Chinmoku would attack at sea, why was he worried? He said so himself that the Phantom had more weaponry than it needed.

That night, I didn’t sleep well. Dreams of pirates and kidnapping and men in black masks kept me company. By the time morning came, I was relieved to open my curtains to a bright sun and empty horizon.

Once again, I had breakfast on my own.

My mind returned to the secret Elder had told me. His biggest secret perhaps. If it wasn’t, I didn’t know how I would endure yet more heart felt revelations. If I was any other person, I might judge him for taking a life of financial security from one man and claiming it for himself. If I hadn’t seen how pure he was beneath his temper, I might’ve pulled away.

But I didn’t.

And then Selix found me and told me the parts Elder hadn’t.

After finishing a simple breakfast of muesli and yoghurt, I strolled the deck looking for something to keep me entertained. Looking over the railing, I spotted Elder as he swam in the ocean below, cutting through the tide like a great white shark.

Resting my elbows on the balustrade, I settled to watch the man I loved pummel his frustration and anger out on unsuspecting waves. Selix found me mulling over rights and wrongs and how I could accept some but not others.

He mimicked my position, watching companionly as Elder did his best to outswim his demons. For a few minutes, I tensed, still mildly uncomfortable where Selix was concerned.

What did he want?

I doubted he wanted to talk. He was too loyal to Elder for that. However, it didn’t mean I had to obey such rules.

“You know, don’t you?” I twisted to face him. “Where the money came from?”

His eyebrow rose as he kept his eyes on Elder. “Do you?”

I looked back to the sea where small splashes from Elder’s arms and feet ruined the otherwise marble appearance of the ocean. “He told me.”

“Did he also tell you that crime made him reassess everything? That he went from being a brilliant thief to reformed overnight?”

“Not in so many words.”

Selix fell quiet.

I didn’t know if I should ask what other skeletons rested in Elder’s closet, but Selix gave me a snippet of information that released my heart from the anchor Elder had attached to it.

His voice was low—barely audible over the sea breeze. “Do you also know he’s almost paid back what he stole?”

“What?” My jaw fell open.

“He would never have accepted it if I hadn’t convinced him to look at the money as a loan rather than a heist. He’s referred to his success as a debt ever since.”

“A debt?”

He shrugged. “The crime.”

My eyes widened as his words sank in. “You mean…Elder found the guy and paid him back?” The concept that anyone would do that, and could somehow take one wealth and turn it into double blew my mind.

“He wanted to give it all back, but I talked sense into him.” Selix smirked. “Then he wanted to give most of it and keep a few million for his family. I told him life had given him this break. He could borrow it without issue if he couldn’t outright steal it.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

So that was why Elder worked so hard. Why he sailed the world dealing with ruffians and criminals and created such beautiful floating pieces of art. Not because he had a need to be in the underground world but because he knew that crime paid and he needed pay checks to service a debt.

“I know he’s told you about the Chinmoku, so I’m going to give you a word of advice.” Selix turned to me, looking over his shoulder to make sure Elder was still power swimming around the yacht. “Over the years, he’s built up a fearsome reputation, pissed off people, befriended others, and lied through his goddamn teeth. All he wanted was to go home and live in peace, but that isn’t how revenge works. He’s playing a long game, and the big match is coming.”

Moving away from the rail, he paused as his shoulder brushed mine. “They’re coming. He knows that. I know that. You might as well know that because when they come for him, he’ll need all the fucking help he can get.”

My hand shot out as he moved away, latching around his forearm.

He looked down with a quizzical look as if shocked I’d touched him.

Before he could request I unhand him, I asked, “What can I do? How do I help him?”

“Not for me to say.” He shrugged, his face aloof and slightly cold. “You left because you thought it was the right thing for him. That makes you a good person, and I won’t try to stop him from being with you. But you need to find a way to stop hurting him. He needs to have a clear head when they come. Because they are coming, Tasmin Blythe. Mark my words. And if he’s not ready, he’ll die. And then his family will die. And you will die. And everything he’s fucking created from nothing? It was all be for nothing—he might as well have burned with his father and brother just like his family wanted.”

Removing my hand, he muttered, “He’s lying to you. Don’t take his bullshit and you’ll help him far more than by giving him what he wants.”

My heart grasped at his advice, soaking it in with desperate knowledge-thirst. “Is that what you do?”

“That’s what friends do. And I’m many things, but first and foremost, I’m his friend.”

He strolled away, jamming his hands into his pockets as if we’d never spoken. As if he’d not given me clues on how to seduce the very same man who’d painted himself in the blood of my old master and claimed me.

A gust rose from the sea below, revealing Elder as he completed yet another lap. I wrapped arms around myself as a shiver worked down my spine.

Selix had used my real name.

It hadn’t been comforting or inspiring.

It had been ominous and unsettling and done exactly what his words had failed to do.

The Chinmoku weren’t going to let Elder get away with what he’d done.

And I wouldn’t leave Elder.

Eventually they would enter my life, and I no longer had umpteen time to figure out if Elder could sleep with me safely and finally find a place of peace.

A stopwatch had started.

Ticking fast.

Running toward a finish line that I didn’t know would end in victory or bloodshed.

* * * * *

That night, I woke to calamity.

One moment I was curled beneath warm blankets, the next the door slammed wide, footsteps pounded to my bed, sheets were ripped off, and I was jerked into powerful arms.

My eyes flew wide.

My mind shut down.

Horror and panic drenched me.

I hadn’t locked the door.

I really should have.

My voice did two things at once: it tried to hide and become mute. It tried to scream and become noise.

I settled on a combination. A stuttering caterwaul full of sleep and horror. “Put m-me down!” I screeched and kicked, doing my best to attack my assailant. “No! Stop! Let me go!”

“Pim…it’s me.”

I blinked back terror, latching onto the voice that’d been whispering sweet nothings in my dreams. “Elder?”

What the hell is he doing?

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

Could’ve fooled me.

I bounced painfully over his shoulder as he rushed from my room, down the corridor, and flew down the stairs instead of waiting for the lift. The Phantom was a blur of carpet and sconces, making me sick. “Where are you taking me?”

What the hell had gotten into him? Why was he flying around the Phantom at God knew what time in the morning?

“Almost there. The majority of staff are in position.” Selix appeared from a floor above, chasing us down another flight. “Machine gun ready at your command.”

“What?” I squeaked as Elder shoved his free shoulder through the door blocking a level I’d explored but found boring and discounted, jogging with me slung over him like a sack of sugar.

He ignored Selix entirely.

At the end of the corridor, he slammed to a stop, swung me from horizontal to vertical, and dropped me to my feet. I stumbled in place as my brain sloshed with dizziness.

I swallowed a thick mouthful of nausea.

With a clenched jaw, Elder yanked open the façade of a simple cupboard, revealing a thick bombproof door behind it.

My eyes popped wide as he pummelled the barrier with his fist. “Open up.”

It opened instantly by a girl I recognised from the kitchen staff. Her blonde hair fuzzy like a halo around her head from rubbing on a pillow in sleep. “Roster has been counted. All accounted for minus the staff manning the bridge.”

Elder swiped a hand over the sweat glistening on his forehead. “Keep them here until the all-clear is given.” Shoving me forward, he didn’t touch me, kiss me, or whisper anything kind to me. I was nothing more to him than someone to protect while his mind was in a battle elsewhere. “Keep her with you. Don’t let her out. Do you hear me?”

I bristled. I didn’t appreciate being talked about as if I wasn’t there or had any brain cells to understand simple commands. The head cleaner—an elderly woman with curlers in her hair—took my bicep, tugging me unwillingly into the room. “We’ll take good care of her, sir.”

Elder grunted in acknowledgement, already focusing on another task.

Instead of seeing me as an ally and someone who could help fight with him, he saw me as a liability to remove so he didn’t have to worry.

How dare he?

I knew I’d been weak when we first met. I knew I still had fading bruises from Harold, and I knew I still had other issues to overcome, but how dare he not trust me enough to lean on me?

After everything.

Whatever was happening, I wanted to be with him—not stuffed in some closet and forgotten about.

I grabbed his hand. “El, let me come with you. I need—”

His fingers wrapped around my wrist, tugging my grip away. “I need you to stay here, Pimlico. Got it?”

I eyed the door. Or rather the fortress entrance—it wasn’t lacquered wood like the rest of the Phantom’s entrances. This was utterly bullet-proof with thick hinges, dead bolts, and metal encasing front and back.

Shoving me once again into the hold of the cleaner, he barked, “Keep her here. Understand?”

The woman nodded. “Understood.” Grabbing my elbow again, she pulled me away from Elder.

I yanked my arm against her tugging, locking my knees. “Elder, wait. What’s going on?”

The air of apprehension and concern infected me. Every staff member on the Phantom stood worried behind me.

That could only mean one thing.

Oh, my God, they’re here.

Elder’s black eyes met mine, glowing with remorse, brutal with violence. “Nothing. And for the love of Christ, Pimlico, stay here and do as I say.” With a sharp shake of his head as if fighting the same need I had to touch him and find some sanity in this crazy wake-up scare, he stormed off down the corridor, leaving me entrapped with staff members.

The moment he vanished into the stair-well, the girl with blonde hair shut the door, and I whirled on the woman holding me. “Let me go.”

She unwound her fingers, backing into the room. “Just keeping you safe.”

“Well, don’t. My safety is not your concern.” My eyes followed her. My temper fizzled out as I took in the space. Just like the door wasn’t just a door, this wasn’t just a room. The walls had no windows, there were couches around the perimeter but narrow and uninviting compared to the luxury of other Phantom furniture. A long table to the side with buckled down crates held hundreds of water bottles and packet food ready for a famine, but it was the centre piece that caught my attention.

In the middle of the large space, hidden behind multiple milling people, sat a boat. Not just any boat but one Fort Knoxed with guns and canopies, big enough to hold everyone in the room.

What on earth?

My gaze shot to the back wall where a small slope in the floor disappeared into nowhere. There weren’t windows, but the wall wasn’t just a wall. It was a door—a large exit ramp for the lifeboat.

“What is this place?” I blinked at staff members—some wired and awake, others blurry-eyed and napping on the uncomfortable couches.

A guy I’d seen tending to the helicopter said, “It’s the safe room.”

“Safe from what?”

“Pirates, of course.”

My mouth hung open. “There’s no such thing.”

“Not the typical ones in storybooks, no. But there are many rogue ships that board, rob, rape, and kill. It’s a maritime requirement to have a safe room with enough food and water for all souls on board. Normally, the protocol is to call for help and wait it out, or the pirates take what they want and leave. But Mr. Prest went one step further and ensured we had a way off the yacht in case something catastrophic happens.”

My heart was what turned catastrophic. Bombs detonated inside me, sending shrapnel ripping through my blood.

Why was Elder out there and not in here? Who would protect him and the men on the bridge?

The longer I stood in safety with food and escape at my fingertips, the more I couldn’t stand it. Elder. The captain. They were out there…fighting for us.

What the hell are we doing?

Why were our lives worth more than theirs? Why should we be out of danger when they faced it head on?

I-I can’t stay here.

I needed to be with him. If the Chinmoku were paying a visit, I couldn’t let him face them on his own.

I wouldn’t.

I didn’t care it was stupid to put myself in danger. I didn’t care that Elder would be livid at me for getting in the way.

I literally couldn’t stand here while he was out there facing who knew what.

A loud foghorn shattered the tense murmurings in the room, dragging our eyes to the ceiling. A loudhailer sounded, but the words were warbled and hard to hear.

“Oh, God. We’re being boarded,” the head cleaner said, pacing by the lifeboat.

Staff members forgot about me as another horn sounded—this time vibrating and echoing through the Phantom. The captain had replied with his own thundering call.

Was it a call to war or surrender?

Elder will never surrender.

I still didn’t know all his secrets, but if it was the Chinmoku, then he would kill or be killed. There were only two scenarios available, and I refused to stand here and let him face such terrible choices alone.

Pretending to keep my eyes on the ceiling like everyone else—waiting for another boom of gunfire or horn of retaliation, I inched toward the door. No one paid attention as I fumbled with the locking mechanism and unhooked multiple deadbolts.

Safety did that to people. The knowledge they were untouchable in their special bunker allowed them to focus on the way life had split. Them versus us. The soon-to-be extinct and the ones who would survive.

My hands worked faster at the thought of Elder being hurt.

Please let him be okay…

Another loudhailer bellowed, chopped and incomprehensible. Whatever they were telling Elder and his crew to do, I didn’t think he’d obey. My skin prickled for the first round of gunshots, already picturing carnage and hoping to God my over-active imagination never came true.

With shaking fingers, I finally managed to unlock the door. The damn thing weighed a ton. I struggled to pull it wide enough to slip through. Pushing my leg through first, I angled my hips and slinked past the gap.

At the last second, a young maid spotted me. She opened her mouth to say something, but I shook my head, pressing my fingers to my lips.

This was my decision. Not hers.

If I wanted to risk my life, it was my choice. I’d had far too many choices taken away to let her take that away from me, too.

She scowled but nodded, watching me wriggle my way through the gap.

The staff had to stay here. Their loyalty to their employer worked with service in exchange for money—nothing more, nothing less. My loyalty to Elder was something completely different. I offered my love hopefully in exchange for his. He would never make me face something horrific on my own. Therefore, I wouldn’t let him.

I’ll never forgive myself if I’m not there when—

I cut off those thoughts.

Slipping the final way to freedom, I swallowed my huff of frustration at being so slow and leaned on the massive blockade to slide it back into position.

I knew it was secure when the sound of deadbolts clicking into place echoed in the corridor.

I had no regrets. No second-guesses.

Hoisting up my pale pink nightgown, I took one last look at the safe room then flew down the corridor.

Hair flying.

Heart winging.

I soared up the stairs—up, up, up toward Elder and the Chinmoku.