An Inconvenient Arrangement

Chapter 53: Rafe

"Are you calm now or do you want to continue your tantrum?" The Widow asked with a cheery smile, her arms wrapped in bandages. "I'm sorry, but the bastard ambushed and drugged me. I fought him off best I could, he's thrice my size, and hand-to-hand is not where my specialty lies- I'm damned lucky he left me alive. Bet he's halfway to India by now."

She was likely right, the night he'd escaped had been thick and foggy, a perfect way to get lost in the crowd of the docks without being seen, even with such a distinct appearance.

"For someone who has failed so spectacularly and let a traitor on the loose, you seem awfully cheery," Rafe did not even bother to hide the disdain in his voice.

"Are you accusing me of something right now, Phantom?" She cocked her head to the side, not an ounce of guilt in her expression. "Just because I am not throwing things around and yelling like you are doesn't mean I am not upset or angry. That man knows things about me that I have not told anyone else. That man knows me in ways no one else does- his betrayal makes me angrier than you can ever imagine. Don't start pointing fingers when you're just as much at fault for what happened."

"My fault?" Raphael thundered. "I wasn't even in the city. Don't try to fucking deflect, it's lazy and see-through."

"Precisely! You weren't even here," she gave him a flat look. "Am I to believe that you had nearly this decade-long vendetta on the cusp of being resolved....and you didn't see it through to its end immediately? You went riding off into the sunset with your princess- she's cute as a button, just by the by- and your ward. Happy little family frolicking away, enjoying their domestic bliss! All while your enemy was lying about like a menial chore you were putting off? Perhaps it is you who is in league with the Viper. Perhaps it is you who wished for him to get away. I can't see any other explanation for your behavior."

"The Major wanted to conduct the investigat-"

"Oh, piss off," The Widow snorted. "In what world are you the type to let another keep you from your goals? No, The Phantom I know would have argued and fought his way to be there. I shouldn't have been the one in the interrogation room. He killed your friend, he got you captured at the hands of the French. It should have been you taking blades to his skin, but you were too busy honeymooning."

Rafe snapped his mouth shut, unable to offer a retort to that. His mind scrambled and scurried trying to find a reason that would quell the horror that was dawning on him. Only he could not.

She was right.

He should have been here. He should have been laying this to rest after so long. He had put off his duty, he had put off Thomas' justice, his own justice- to have an excursion with his lover.

Had he gone mad? How had he let himself completely lose sight of his goals like this?

There was no justification. There was no defense.

He had known that he had been in danger of getting lost from the very first, had known it for years and yet he had still let himself get too involved. He had let himself get too close. He had let her become a bloody distraction, he had let pleasing her and bringing her joy become more important than the mission he had lived and breathed for eight years.

He had been so arrogant, considering himself better than the many men who had come before him, considering himself infallible, lying to himself just so that he could keep Sylvie for himself instead of letting another have her. How many men had fallen because they had lost sight of their mission, lost sight of themselves for a woman? How had he let himself believe that he would be any different?

And now he was going to pay the price for his own conceit. Eight years of work, down the damn gutter. If The Viper had set sail for Bombay, Rafe couldn't do a single thing about it. It was hard enough to track The Viper in England, where he stood out amongst Englishmen, but among his countrymen? Rafe didn't have a prayer.

"Widow, stop goading him. If you don't wish to be helpful you're dismissed," The Major snapped at his operative who gave him an impertinent salute and sashayed out of his office. Rafe took a look at his superior, who looked absolutely haggard. His chin was covered in a beard that had clearly not seen a razor in several days, his eyes sunken with dark circles beneath them. The man looked like death. "I didn't believe a damn word out of her mouth."

"Good, I'd bet my life that she was lying," Rafe muttered as he paced the room, unable to muster an ounce of deference for his superior. "What the fuck were you thinking? You said you had it under control."

"I know," The Major snarled. "I know this is on me. He confessed that he'd done it before multiple witnesses, but wouldn't explain why."

"If you couldn't handle it, you should have told me."

"I thought I could. I thought that I could interrogate him just as I would any traitor, any threat to this organization."

"But you went soft," Rafe sneered, glad to have found an outlet for his frustration. "You've lost your edge."

"Yes," The Major's voice held sheer defeat. "I couldn't do it, not to the boy who gave me a reason to live after everyone I cared for was dead. So, when The Widow came in, fuming at his betrayal, asking to lead the interrogation, I ceded to her wishes. It is her area of expertise, after all. And now...I must grapple with the fact that my organization may have had not one, but two traitors in the uppermost ranks."

Rafe could almost feel sorry for him. If he hadn't let The Viper get away because of his weakness.

"I've sent word to our operatives in Bombay and Calcutta but if he's already on a ship bound for India, our letters will reach after he does."

"What if he wasn't?"

"I beg your pardon?" The Major straightened, his brow quirked as his own mind began to draw conclusions. "....Because he killed the informant who gave him Trentham's direction in Scotland. If he wanted to go to India, if Trentham is in India....why kill the informant?"

"There's something we're missing about his time in Scotland, and he did go to Scotland, he took two men with him to Edinburgh but sent them back after they hit a dead end. I can-"

"You won't do anything," Rafe hissed. "I will handle it. You've shown yourself to be too vulnerable, too unreliable where The Viper is concerned. All I need out of you is men to keep my family safe."

If his hunch was true, he needn't try to find The Viper's trail at all. He need only follow Trentham's.