Fallen Hero (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite Book 3)

by Rebecca King

  “You, Horvat, are under arrest,” he drawled somewhat mockingly.

  Horvat, suddenly lifted his boot and tried to withdraw a small knife only for Niall to kick it out of his hand the instant it left the leather.

  Horvat was then hauled forward, out of his corner, and slammed brutally face down on the kitchen table. Once there, his arms were twisted up behind him at an uncomfortable angle as his legs were kicked wide apart. Now completely disarmed, Horvat began to curse but it had no impact on the men from the Star Elite who, upon hearing Sir Hugo’s signal, all entered the house to look at their latest foe.

  It was imminently reassuring to have the region’s most prolific kidnapper safely confined, and no longer in a position where he could steal innocent people’s lives. All the men took a moment to quietly celebrate their success, but it wasn’t for long because the body of the house’s owner still had to be found, and a variety of legalities seen to. There was also still a lot of work to do to find the victims, but that didn’t stop Aaron and his friends celebrating their success – just a little.

  Across the village, there was no cause for celebration.

  “Get up.”

  Elspeth’s eyes popped wide at the sound of the masculine voice that was most definitely not Aaron’s. She stared in horror at the tall figure standing beside the bed. Her gaze fell to the gun in his hand. Her heart thundered heavily in her ears as she tugged the covers higher.

  “How did you get in here?” she demanded.

  “Get out of bed,” Frederick ordered. He waved the gun to motion her to leave the bed.

  “Turn around,” Elspeth snapped. “I am not getting out of bed with you there. Turn your back or I am staying.”

  “You can get up,” Frederick snapped. “Wrap the blanket around you. You are coming with me.”

  “I am getting dressed,” Elspeth retorted coldly.

  “Get up.”

  “Turn around,” Elspeth said again. “I am not doing anything so shoot me if you will, I am no good to you then, am I?”

  Frederick cocked the gun. “Get out of the damned bed,” he yelled.

  Elspeth eyed the door. “What have you done with everybody?” she asked.

  Her stomach lurched with sickening horror when she didn’t hear the reassuring sound of booted feet racing to her rescue.

  “Where is Aaron?”

  “Your lover?” Frederick smirked. “You are nothing but a harlot.”

  “You know nothing,” Elspeth snorted. “Shut up you oaf, and put that damned gun down before you shoot yourself.”

  She swiftly turned her back. Most of her clothing had been thrown over the side of the bed by Aaron earlier. Thankfully, they were still there which meant she had to do nothing more than bend down to get them. Quickly, while trying to use the blanket as cover, she tugged on her dress and managed to preserve her modesty. Eventually, she turned to face the thug who had now moved to stand beside the door.

  “What is this all about, Frederick? You do know who Aaron and his friends are, don’t you?” she sighed.

  Elspeth suspected he didn’t or else he wouldn’t have put his future at risk. Frederick was nothing more than a petty crook who mistakenly believed he could bully people to get what he wanted. Unfortunately, he was also armed.

  “Yes, he is someone who has had no qualms about making use of you now your brother is no longer here to protect your virtue, isn’t he?” Frederick declared condemningly.

  “He has done no such thing,” Elspeth protested, even though she flushed guiltily.

  “Really? So why were you in bed with him? Checking your wounds, was he?”

  At Frederick’s insistence, Elspeth descended the stairs. Her alarm grew when she found no sign of Aaron and his friends in the study or sitting room. While it had been agreed that they would all pretend to leave in the hope of luring Thomas, or Frederick, out of hiding, Aaron had said that he would remain with her. Why wasn’t he there? Where was he?

  Her stomach dipped at the thought that they had all moved on having believed Frederick posed no further threat now Voss had been arrested. Whatever had made them leave, the men from the Star Elite weren’t in the house when she needed them most.

  “What do you want, Frederick? This brutish display of thuggery might be impressive, to you at least, but you are boring me now. I have nothing for you.”

  Frederick removed a thick packet of papers from his cloak and waved them at her.

  “Get into the study,” he commanded with a nod to the room beside them.

  Elspeth dutifully wandered into the room and over to the desk.

  “Sit,” Frederick grunted.

  He threw the papers onto the desk and dipped a quill into the ink pot. Holding it out to her, he lifted his brows.

  “Sign them where the crosses are,” he ordered.

  “Am I to know what I am signing?” she asked.

  She unfolded the parchment and read its contents only to sigh in disgust.

  “Do you really think I am going to sign the house over to you? Really?” Slowly, she took the quill off him and eyed the barrel of the gun he pointed at her with dispassionate distaste. “Why are you so desperate to get your hands on this house? Does Miriam want you gone? Is she sick of you trying to leech off her as well?”

  “Shut your mouth,” Frederick commanded.

  “No,” Elspeth snapped defiantly. “You are going to have to shoot me because I am never signing those papers over to you. God, you are a fraudster, aren’t you? It has been a lie all along, hasn’t it? This rubbish about there being a stipulation in the will that the house can only be inherited by males of the family. It is nothing but a pack of lies. I suppose things like that really do happen, but only with large estates and people who have vast wealth. Women cannot, after all, run estates by themselves. This house is nothing special. There is no reason why you should be so determined to get your hands on it, unless you are after the money its sale can bring you. What do you plan to do? Sell it and live the high life off its proceeds? I mean, you have no other source of income, do you?”

  “Shut up?” Frederick shouted.

  Elspeth was so busy studying the gun that she didn’t see the large palm he slammed across her cheek until she felt the sharp sting of pain. She gasped and struggled to withhold her tears.

  “Sign the papers,” Frederick demanded.

  “No,” Elspeth snapped. She tasted blood and felt something warm trickle down her chin. Wiping it with the back of her hand she stared down at the crimson streak of blood for a moment and resolved right there and then never to give him what he wanted.

  Frederick yanked her head back and pointed the gun to her temple. Elspeth cried out in pain.

  “Sign the papers,” Frederick ordered, his voice cold and hard.

  “No. You will have to kill me because I will not sign,” she bit out. “I am not signing it, no matter what you do.”

  Frederick cursed viciously.

  In that moment, they were interrupted by the faint rustling of movement of someone in the doorway.

  Elspeth’s heart lurched at the thought it might be Aaron. She cried out aloud when she saw who it was. Frederick blinked in astonishment and was temporarily distracted enough to loosen his hold on Elspeth long enough to give Elspeth the opportunity to yank her hair out of his grasp. When free, she threw herself sideways, out of the chair and onto the floor. She crawled across the room to put some distance between her and Frederick, who was now staring in stunned disbelief at the new arrival. Slowly, Elspeth then turned to stare at the newcomer with a mixture of disbelief and horror.

  “Thomas,” Elspeth whispered. “You are supposed to be dead.”

  Thomas, somewhat theatrically, patted himself down. “No. No. I am very much alive, I can assure you,” he murmured with a smirk.

  Elspeth would have stood up, if her legs had been able to support her. There was an odd tension in the room that warned her something was wrong, terribly wrong. It was enough to keep her where she wa
s – at a safe distance from both Frederick and Thomas.

  “Move behind me, Elspeth,” Thomas drawled. “This bastard is going to leave us alone once and for all.”

  Thomas lifted the gun in his hand and took aim, but only to pull the trigger while the gun was pointed at the weapon in Frederick’s hand. The loud retort of the gun made everyone jerk, not least Frederick, who screamed in pain. The weapon he held was catapulted into the corner of the room, leaving its owner to clutch at his wounded hand in pain.

  Before Frederick could do anything more than grab his wounded limb, Thomas vaulted across the room and slammed a punch into Frederick’s face that covered them both in a shower of blood. Thomas grabbed Frederick by the cravat and yanked the man around the desk. Swinging him around in a wild arc, he kicked Frederick in his gut and slammed a heavy fist into the side of the man’s head that made him groan with pain.

  “What are you doing?” Frederick cried.

  Frederick, dazed and wounded, slid a poker out of the bucket beside him. Swinging it behind him, he slammed it down on Thomas’s arm with such brutality that Thomas cursed virulently. He suspected his arm was broken but didn’t allow the pain to thwart him. When Frederick tried lifting the poker again, Thomas side-stepped it and snatched it off him and threw it after the gun.

  “Traitor,” Frederick hissed, his dark gaze narrow and spiteful.

  Elspeth cowered against the wall and tried to think of what she could do to stop the men killing each other. She had never seen her brother so brutal with rage before. It was a side to him that left her in no doubt Thomas would kill the man who had caused them all so much physical, mental and emotional pain. She refused to do anything to protect Frederick, though, not least because she didn’t want to venture anywhere near this new, and completely unexpected side of her cold-blooded brother.

  “God, I don’t know whether to kill you where you stand or leave you to rot away quietly in gaol where you belong. The only consolation of knowing you are behind bars is that you are going to spend your days in a small confined cell the likes of which I hope to God you never escape from,” Thomas snorted. “You deserve nothing more.”

  “The rubbish he has been telling us about the deeds stating the house can only be inherited by men has at least now been proven to be a lie,” Elspeth informed her brother.

  “I know, or else he wouldn’t be here trying to force you to sign the damned house over to him. I wasn’t expecting him to wait so long. I thought the ink would barely be dry on my death certificate before the bastard did something to try to con you out of the house. He has been working with Voss, do you know that? Together they have robbed Miriam blind and have been working to try to scare you into wanting to leave here. I am sure Voss, at some point, would have made you an offer for the house that was considerably lower than the asking price. Of course, he wasn’t going to pay you. Given you were all alone in this house, I have no doubt something would have happened to you to force you to hand the place over to Frederick or Voss.”

  Thomas’s voice was rich with disgust and vibrated with the force of his anger.

  “Where is Aaron?” Elspeth whispered.

  “I don’t know. I thought he would look after you, especially with this buffoon about. Obviously, I was wrong,” Thomas bit out with annoyed disgust.

  Elspeth looked at Frederick. It was ridiculous to contemplate that Frederick might have done something to all the men from the Star Elite. Frederick was untrained, uncouth, and had no experience of fighting. That much was obvious from the mess he was currently in. However, it was evident the men from the Star Elite weren’t. More importantly for Elspeth, Aaron wasn’t there. Quickly blocking out all thought of what she would have done if Thomas hadn’t been there either, Elspeth tried to think of how she and Thomas were going to make sure Frederick faced the justice he deserved.

  “We need to get the magistrate,” she whispered.

  “Where is the money?” Frederick demanded. He pointed another, smaller gun at Thomas’s head.

  “Now where did you get that from?” Thomas snorted in disgust when he saw it.

  Frederick smirked and pulled the trigger.

  Elspeth screamed when Thomas jerked and staggered back against the door with one hand clutching his now wounded shoulder.

  Frederick cocked his weapon again but this time, looked at Elspeth.

  “Get behind this desk. You will sign the damned papers, or he dies,” Frederick grunted. “I will have no hesitation in shooting you either.”

  Elspeth didn’t doubt it.

  “Sign the papers, Elspeth,” Thomas whispered. “He isn’t going to leave the house with them.”

  Elspeth looked at her brother in horror, and for the first time, began to wonder if he was involved in Frederick’s scheming.

  “Why should I sign over a house that I don’t own? You are still alive, Thomas, so you effectively own the property,” she replied carefully.

  Elspeth was more torn than ever. She wanted to believe in Thomas’s innocence, but what he had done to her by making her believe he was dead was just about as heinous as what Frederick was trying to do. Was Thomas innocent after all?

  For the first time in her life, Elspeth began to fear her brother. What concerned her more than anything was why Thomas had chosen to make his presence – and survival – known, especially now that the men from the Star Elite had left.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Elspeth began to back toward the door. She was terrified, confused, and eyed both men with a growing trepidation that threatened to send her out of her mind. Her fingers clenched, such was the force of her determination to fight them no matter what it cost her, and she knew now that it was ‘them’ she was fighting, not just Frederick or Thomas.

  “You are in this together, aren’t you?” she whispered in disbelief.

  “Sign the damned form,” Frederick ordered.

  Elspeth shook her head. She could feel her brother turning to look at her and sensed his gaze burning into her, but it was far from friendly.

  “Who are you?” she asked him, her voice tremulous with the strength of the betrayal she now faced. “What has happened to you?”

  She knew from the way he continued to stare at her with icy disdain that she had lost her brother, the stolid, dependable man she had thought she had known. The man before her now was a cold, callous, dangerous stranger.

  “Where did you go? Why did you let me believe you were dead?” she demanded, her voice weak and uncertain.

  “I am telling you to sign the damned form.” Frederick stepped away from the fireplace.

  It was the signal Thomas gave him that made Elspeth cry out in disbelief. The brief nod had been so minute that if she hadn’t been staring at her brother, Elspeth knew she would have missed it. But she had seen it, and now knew the truth that was her brother.

  “Why? Why would you do this to me?” she hissed.

  Thomas snorted contemptuously. “Just sign the damned form.”

  “But I don’t own the house. You do. You are still alive,” Elspeth replied.

  Thomas surged toward her and grabbed her by the front of her dress. The tearing of the material barely registered on Elspeth, who gasped in shock but could do little more than clutch at Thomas’s tight fist as she was swung toward the desk.

  “Sit down,” Thomas snarled.

  Elspeth found herself being slammed into the chair behind the desk anyway. She stared blankly at the table before her but struggled to know what to do.

  “Why do I have to sign?” she persisted. She tried to come up with a reasonable suggestion as to why Thomas was so insistent she should sign papers that were really nothing to do with her.

  “You own the damned house,” Thomas hissed through gritted teeth. He shoved the papers toward her and leaned over the desk. “Now sign the papers.”

  Elspeth slowly picked the papers up. She forced herself to lean her forearms onto the desk, so her hands didn’t shake as much when she read the script. At fir
st glance, the papers appeared to be the ownership deeds to the property. Slowly, carefully, she read the document.

  “It’s been mine all along?” she whispered when she read the section that listed her as the current owner, who had inherited it from her father five years previously. “But you told me you owned it.”

  “It should have been mine,” Thomas shouted. “It all should have been mine and would have been if it weren’t for you. None of this should have happened. It is all down to you. All because you are a bloody female.”

  “What?” Elspeth looked from Thomas to Frederick and back again.

  Slowly, she turned the page and read the second sheet.

  “You expect me to hand over the deeds to the house for no money at all? Seriously? You are out of your mind. How do you expect to get that past the solicitor?” Elspeth heard the quiet click of the gun being cocked. When she looked up she felt the cold press of the metal of the gun in between her eyes.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, now that she had had the opportunity to regain her bearings, Elspeth began to lose her temper. The disbelief she had felt only moments ago was starting to turn into a deep fury that gave her the strength to glare at the man before her, as though there was no gun levelled on her.

  “Kill me. I promise you that you shall never rest easy,” she whispered vehemently. “I shall haunt your worthless carcass for the rest of my life in eternity.”

  “Sign,” Thomas snarled.

  Elspeth tipped her head to one side and continued to read the papers carefully. She was stalling for time, hoping that Aaron would reappear.

  “Have you seen him? Aaron? Do you know he has left his work with the Star Elite all because of a selfish, ignorant, greedy man like you?” Elspeth spat, making no attempt to hide her disgust. “God, you are a bastard.”

  “Nobody asked him to get himself involved,” Thomas shrugged unconcernedly.

  “You went to his boss. Sir Hugo,” Elspeth retorted. “Do you think he is going to let you off the hook when I end up dead? He already knows Frederick is guilty of trying to break in here. He won’t settle until you are behind bars, you idiot.”