by CR Robertson
Sasha had adopted me when I joined the law firm, showing me the ropes and making sure I found my feet. She mothered me in the best way, and I found myself relaxing in her presence. The backpack sat at my feet with whatever all those people wanted in it. I could almost feel heat pulsing from it with all the secrets it contained.
The door opened, and Xavier popped his head around. “Sasha, Ash is going to take you home with Jay on his bike keeping an eye in the background. I’ll wait here with Cassandra since it doesn’t look like anyone has followed us.”
Jordan and Ash entered the room, both men now dressed casually and ready to ride their bikes. “Ready?” Jordan asked, lifting his eyebrow in question.
Sasha gave me a quick hug and grabbed her handbag before following them out. Stopping at the door, she gave me a salacious smile and fanned herself, before darting out behind them.
Xavier gave a low chuckle. “They won’t know what hit them,” he mused.
My attention was on the bag at my feet. “Do we really want to know what’s in this?” I asked, poking it with my shoe.
“Some things can’t be unseen when you see them, or removed from your head when you know them,” Xavier agreed. “But something in that bag has some very bad men spooked. So, it’s better that we know whatever it is that your uncle thought was important enough to give you the second key for.”
“Why not force the box open?” I asked. My parents died twenty years ago, surely someone must have wanted the information before now.
“They’re tamper-resistant, and Dragon’s Hoard trade on their reputation for secrecy and keeping items hidden for generations. How many clients do you think would use them if they allowed anyone who wanted have access to your secrets?”
I pushed the bag toward him with my toe. “I don’t think I have the strength to look today. You have a quick inspection and we’ll discuss it fully when you know what it all means.”
There was no one else in the world that I would trust to look through my family history except Xavier. He studied me for several moments and nodded, then bent to lift the bag. He lifted items out and studied them before setting them on the table. Initially, I tried to remain impassive and uninterested. But watching his expression constantly change, I became intrigued. Finally, I left my seat to go and peer over his shoulder.
“It seems your father and uncle were planning to systematically eradicate the Council. They were collecting information on the members who were using the Council for their own personal gain.”
“Doesn’t everyone do that?” I asked, lifting a piece of paper from the table.
“No, the entire purpose of the Council is unity for the collective. All funds are supposed to go to a central account that filters equal profits to all members. That’s why there was so much uproar about Malcolm. He was using Council resources to finance his own slave trade business.”
A shiver ran up my spine at the thought of helpless men and women being abducted for the sick pleasure of others.
“If Uncle Dan was helping Dad, then why did they fall out?”
“I don’t think they did, Cas. I think they had different roles to play.”
There had been old tapes and videos in the box that we would need to source a player for, and journals. It would take a long time to search through all the information. Xavier’s shoulders stiffened and I knew that whatever he was reading meant bad news.
“What is it?”
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “I’m not sure, but I think this book might be what everyone is getting their panties in a twist for.”
Leaning on his shoulders with my hands, I leaned forward to try and read it. “It’s just numbers.”
“Those numbers are the right length for account codes.” That hadn’t occurred to me. “There are initials, which might correspond to Council members past and present. From my research, your father was first and foremost a businessman who was a wizard with figures.”
I just remembered his love of old buildings, but I was beginning to wonder if the houses he took me to were involved in conveyancing or if everything I knew was a lie.
Xavier started to separate everything and put them into box folders. “I’ll sort this properly later,” he said. “Ash brought our bags from the apartment and I’ll use one of my cars stored here. We can leave as soon as everyone is back.”
The world closed in around me and I struggled to breathe. My past started to catch up with my present until everything felt too much.
Xavier’s eyes missed nothing, his arms steadying me, and his lips finding my forehead. “Breathe, baby. Everything will be okay.”
I doubted that, but I appreciated the sentiment.
***
Chapter Seventeen
Xavier
Cassandra and Sasha were in our home, far from prying eyes and listening ears. I locked myself in my study after we arrived to remove some of the paperwork I saw earlier. I trusted Jordan and Ash with my life, but some of the information in that last safety deposit box made me re-evaluate my own background and what my father had told me.
Money turned good men bad. The property deeds to diamond mines would be enough for the Council to sign an execution warrant over. I had no doubt that was what everyone was wondering was in that deposit box. I also knew that the Council was the only one with the power to get their hands on those land deeds.
Clive Brown sat in a chair, looking pale and bewildered. His hand shook as he pushed his hair back from his face. “What happened?” he stuttered slightly as he spoke. Ash had pretended to be a doctor earlier, telling him he’d been in a car crash when he panicked as Jordan brought him out of the induced coma. He was dressed in black jogging bottoms and a sweatshirt.
I dragged a seat across the room and turned it around before straddling the chair to sit on it. “I want to tell you a story,” I started, giving him a reassuring smile. “It’s about a man who loved his family so much that he decided to give up everything he knew to keep them safe.”
Clive’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Is this about my accident?”
“It’s about an accident,” I replied. “Do you remember your business partner Frank Jenkins?”
He reared back in his chair and stared at me as if I was the devil. “What’s going on here? I need to go home.”
Ignoring him, I continued. “He died in a car crash with his wife and youngest daughter. The surviving daughter was taken from the accident and subsequently put into the care system with nothing more than a teddy bear and a new name.”
He swallowed, his eyes searching the room for an exit.
“That daughter is all grown up now with a family of her own.”
His tongue darted over his lips. “What do you want from me?”
I leaned forward in my chair, my arms braced across the back. A dark smile tugged at my lips. “My name is Xavier Bartholomew and I’m married to Cassandra.”
All the colour left his face, his expression blank. If he knew anything about the Council, which I guessed he did, he would know exactly who I was. He pursed his lips together before his eyes closed.
“What do you want from me?” he asked in a hushed whisper.
“I want to go back in time and save my wife from the asshole who left her alone and broken. But since I can’t have that, I’ll take the answers to a list of questions, and then perhaps some retribution for a man who trusted you and who you betrayed.”
It was the only scenario that made sense. There was nothing in the Council archives, yet this man turned up at the scene of the accident. He knew it was his business partner, but let authorities believe it was the bodies of someone else as they had the details of their new identities on them.
His sins had finally caught up with him.
“I don’t have any answers for you. I was merely following instructions, as I still am to this day.”
“Malcolm is dead,” I informed him. His intake of breath made me smile. “I’m sure you can discuss the details with him when you
join him in hell.”
He gripped the edges of his seat. “Then there is little point in speaking to you.”
I got up abruptly and he flinched back. “There are a thousand different ways to die,” I informed him. “Ultimately, I can make this easy on you, or you can spend the next several months if not years enduring torture while we keep you barely alive so you can experience it.”
“There are scarier men than you out there,” he hissed, folding his arms.
My lips flashed a smile that showed my white teeth. “Have you met my friend Jay already?” His face turned serious in a heartbeat. “Who ordered the hit on Frank?”
“Fuck you!”
“No thanks, you’re not my type. I had an interesting conversation with Frank’s brother Dante. He believed his little brother was safe and well all these years. It finally made sense to me that he didn’t look for him because he was going into hiding. Dante thought mutual friends were keeping him safe and communicated messages back to him about his brother.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am I?” I enquired. “He tried to track you down to have a chat, but Jordan already brought you here as our guest.”
“Dan never steps foot in this country.”
Everyone appeared to be terrified of Cassandra’s uncle. I wondered if scary genes were hereditary. “But that was until his business partner Malcom died and we sent the police on a bread crumb trail to his door. Then, as if by magic, he appeared with a business offer. Imagine his surprise to find his niece and discover that the rest of his family were dead.”
“I demand to speak to the chairman of the Council. All my actions were sanctioned, and I have their assurance—”
I cut him off with a wave of my hand. “Do I look like I give a fuck what assurances you were given? The old empire is crumbling, and new fiefdoms are forming. You’ll disappear like Malcolm and the gaze of the Council will fall on all those you love.”
He blanched at my words.
“Your wife and children are lovely, by the way. Worried sick about where you are, but I’m sure they’ll come to terms with your disappearance eventually. Your youngest daughter is about Cassandra’s age when you put her into the foster system.”
I knew that I was being an evil fucker, but I was long past caring. The contents of that box had the potential to blow all our worlds apart. Those property deeds were making me incredibly nervous.
He eyed me with disdain. “My wife is still alive.”
“Accidents happen every day,” I replied with a shrug. “Surely you know that.”
I deliberately brought my eyes up to meet his, letting my words settle in. He tried to swallow again. I would never harm a woman or a child, but he didn’t know that. All he saw was a man he knew by reputation alone. Jordan had given all of us reputations that made people shudder.
“Can you imagine what it was like to wake up in hospital and find all your family dead? To make it worse, you had to forget the very fabric of who you were and forge a new life for yourself. All while you hadn’t even become a teenager yet.” My fingers twitched, even as I fought the urge to tear his throat out as I imagined a young and terrified Cassandra.
Everyone possessed a fight or flight mechanism. Clive was stupid enough to try the flight option, running to the locked door to try and haul it open. I sat and watched him trying to unlock a door that had been shut and bolted. It was probably blast-proof.
“Dante seemed very disappointed in you and Malcolm. So upset, that he gave us the second key to a certain safety deposit box.”
Clive slowly turned to face me, his eyes wary and expression guarded.
“Malcolm was very interested in finding keys that had been in Cassandra’s family home. You must have an idea what is in that box that is currently in my possession.”
His hand trembled as he covered his mouth. “Matteus promised us that no one would ever know.”
“Well, that appears to be incorrect,” I commented dryly. “Frank was your friend. Why did he have to die?”
Clive tried to swallow several times. “I need a drink.”
I wandered to a cupboard at the back of the room and retrieved a bottle of water to hand to him.
“Frank never wanted his place on the Council,” Clive said, returning to his seat. “It belonged to Dan, but he took his wife’s position since women aren’t allowed to retain a place. The brothers were the ones who tended to block anything that ventured too far away from the law. I met Frank at university, and I was fascinated by the world he lived in. I wanted a place on the Council, but positions were inherited, not bought.”
His dead brown eyes met mine. “If he hadn’t been so outspoken, and just sat in his position, he would still be alive today.”
“I like your story, Clive,” I replied. “It makes you sound innocent. The problem being that the Council never sanctioned his hit, they believed he took his family and disappeared into obscurity. His seat was never filled. Imagine their surprise when they discovered he’d been dead and buried twenty years.”
“Listen here, you little shit—"
I had him off the seat and pinned to the wall before he could finish his insult. “Let’s get this straight, Clive. You will be dead at the end of this process, so you can start praying to whatever or whoever you believe in. The only variable yet to be determined is how it will happen.”
My fingers opened and he dropped to the floor, his hand reaching up to rub his injured throat.
“Let’s start again. Why did you save Cassandra? And don’t give me any crap about not being able to kill her, because we both know you were responsible for that accident.”
He glared at me in rebellion. “Do your worst.”
A dark smile crossed my lips. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
Torture wasn’t my thing, but Jordan had a unique ability that would either fascinate or repulse people. He knew where to cut so that the person was screaming in agony but not hurt in any way that would ensure their death.
Several hours later, Clive hung suspended from the wooden beam, blood dripping onto the floor. His skin was flayed from the muscles in his back, deep cuts running parallel down his arms. All the cuts missed major arteries and veins but penetrated deep into nerves and muscles. His fingers twitched in reflex to the stimulus, but I doubted they worked anymore.
Clive’s laugh bordered on maniacal, his eyes rolling in his head. “Your father would be very proud of you.” He cackled. “He’s an evil son of a bitch as well.”
Jordan and I shared a look, before turning back to the man at our mercy.
“You could have killed her that night or left her to die, why did you save her?”
His gaze finally met mine. “She was heiress to a massive fortune. I had access to the business accounts but not to where the majority of the money fed to. One day that girl would be the only means to withdraw those funds. There’s been a bounty on her head since she turned thirty, because that is the age that her father’s will activated.” He coughed up blood as he continued to laugh.
It was the first time a man looked at both of us in a bar and approached me. Cassandra’s words came back to haunt me.
“How would they know where to find her?” I asked, not showing that my emotions were spiralling out of control.
He gave me a smile of blood-coated teeth. “I was the only one who knew her new name. Both girls looked like their mother. It wouldn’t be hard to identify someone with that bone structure.”
Thank fuck Cassandra and Megan sat sideward in their office photographs, it had kept the wolves from their doors.
“I would have considered divorcing my wife and marrying her myself for the money we’re talking about. If she’s anything like her mother, I wouldn’t have had to try very hard to be interested in the bedroom.”
My fist connected with his face without any conscious thought. He spat blood out on the floor.
“Who’s looking for her?” I demanded.
“Some of the bigger
gangs would love to tap that resource. Billions have a tendency to do that. Men have gone to war over less.” He gave me another bloody grin. “You need to ask yourself why you married her, considering her first two children have been bequeathed huge trust funds.”
My fingers formed a fist at my side.
“That’s easy,” Jordan intervened. “He fell for her and knocked her up before he even knew who she was. Money means nothing when you have your own billions in the bank.”
Clive laughed before he winced in pain. “My father told me a long time ago that the first time you marry it should be for money and the second time for love. You can destroy a man when he loves something.”
“Cassandra is perfectly safe,” I commented, but fear gnawed deep in my stomach at the thought of a price on her head.
“And your child? Are they safe when the prize incentive includes being the father of her first-born child?”
My control started to slip and the red mist that normally ended in someone’s death began to descend.
Jordan stepped forward, twirling a scalpel between his fingers. “Now I need to address the matter of your business and how it links into the Council.”
He threw Jordan a filthy look. “I told you enough, now kill me and leave my family alone.”
Jordan tutted. “Sorry, but it doesn’t work like that.” His scalpel kissed the skin of Clive’s chest. “How did Malcolm get the kids he abducted out of the country? I’ve seen your accounts and he’s been paying you for years.”
That was news to me, but nothing ever escaped Jordan’s attention.
“You included fitness centres and gyms in your business expansion a few years ago. That would give you access to the personal details of thousands of vulnerable women.” He pressed down on the scalpel and blood trickled down Clive’s chest. “I checked. Dozens of females have disappeared—and guess what the connection between them is? Your clubs all over the country.”