by CR Robertson
Jordan slid into the car with the holdall. “Not a fucking chance. I’m good at hacking and killing. I avoid numbers. Hell, I don’t even look at my credit card bill when it comes in.”
Ash glared at him. “Why do I always have to be the responsible one of the group?”
I grinned. “Because someone has to save our asses.”
Our meeting with Dad and Matteus had granted Ash time to work his magic with those numbers until we knew what the hell we were dealing with. We’d let Ash guide us on the new stage of our journey. Jordan could hack every government agency we knew, and I could turn a business from failure to flourishing. But when it came to a spreadsheet and hiding money, then Ash was the only one of us able to solve the clues left behind by Cassandra’s financial genius father.
My Jaguar was put into storage in one of our units and I took one of the black Range Rovers that was registered to our aliases. The wheels screamed as I sped it out onto the road. Now that we’d set the trap, I wanted to get back home to Cassandra.
Dad believed that we were still loyal, so he wouldn’t allow the Council to come after us. That and I was his only heir. Ash’s father had lots of children hiding in the wings to take his place, and he’d proved that he was willing to sacrifice them when he stood aside and let the Council vote on Michael.
Now that we’d appeased the Council, we had time to try and plan our next move, whatever that might be. I was able to breathe again for the first time in days.
***
Chapter Twenty-Two
Xavier
The helicopter rose high in the air as we made our journey to Cassandra’s childhood home. I didn’t want her to have to face her past with everyone watching her. It should have been in her own time when she felt ready. After this, I was wrapping her in proverbial cotton wool until our baby arrived.
A security detail remained at home to look after the remaining four women. Megan had sat with her head down, refusing to look at Jordan. If he didn’t fix the situation with her soon, there would be nothing left to fix. Cassandra ran, but she still reached out to me when she felt lost and lonely.
All the original documents with the secret writing on them were stored in a folder in a backpack that I carried, my other hand gripping Cassandra’s. My fingers protested from her boa constrictor grip on them, but Cassandra appeared small beside me, her face devoid of all emotion as she closed herself off from the world. I knew she was hurting, but there was nothing I could do to make it better.
Eventually, Cassandra sat back with her eyes closed. She didn’t wear the earphones that allowed us all to talk to each other, merely a discreet pair of ear defenders to cut out most of the noise from the blades rotating.
“That house contains too many secrets,” Ash said. “We’ll need to go in and search it properly at some stage.”
“I would think that Malcolm has already done that,” Jordan replied. “The only thing left to discover are the secrets that were left by the family members. The positive aspect is that Cassandra kept that house as a shrine to the memories of those who lived there.”
“This is too much for her,” I said, my jaw bunching in frustration. “She should be taking life easy right now, not having to face her past and run for her life.”
“We will keep her safe, Xavier,” Uncle Lucas said. “She is family and that means we will care for her. I already have my people delving into the death of her parents.”
We. He meant the shadow Council he led. The organisation that was so secretive that not even the Council we sat on knew they existed. Government officials lived in the depths of his pockets, law enforcement agencies suddenly finding something interesting to study in the opposite direction when he entered a room.
Right now, I would sell my soul to Satan to ensure Cassandra’s safety.
“Ten minutes out,” the pilot sounded in my ear.
“Everyone remember their roles,” I instructed. “Maximum intel, minimum time.”
As soon as we got what we were looking for, we were out of there. Only I needed to protect Cassandra, I wouldn’t even be making this journey. However, there was something we needed to see, and this was the only place we would find it.
The helicopter lowered until it landed on the land behind her old home. I had four guns strapped to me and I was sure Uncle Lucas and Jordan were packing a small arsenal. We flanked Cassandra as we strode across the rear lawn.
The house felt cold, as if the ghosts that haunted it were watching us from their lofty perches. Her father’s study was on the ground floor, a thin layer of dust covering the edges of the shelves.
“Shout out the locations,” Cassandra instructed, taking control as her fingers trailed over the leather covers in greeting.
There were three numbers which revealed the shelf, book, and page. She pulled each book forward as Jordan called out the coordinates until we had them all identified. Ash was about to lift the first book when Cassandra put her hand up to stop him.
“Wait.” She studied the shelves. “Zee, can you take a photograph of this? The pattern is familiar, but I can’t place it at the moment.”
Without hesitation, I did what she asked. She lifted the first book, her fingers running over the page. Using my phone, she photographed the page. She set it down and lifted the next, then the next. The final book she studied, turning it over in her hands.
“Do you have a knife?”
I was about to say no when Jordan handed her a flick knife. There were times I swear he had a toolbox up his ass with every instrument you needed to kill someone in it. She cut the paper from the rear back cover to reveal a hidden panel, recovering one of the old discs that computers used to use before CDs.
Every book was returned to its original position.
She studied them before pushing them back into place, and used a tissue to wipe the shelves so no one would know which books had been disturbed. Without a word, she turned on her heel and left the room, with the four of us dragging behind her. A rear family study with a massive bookcase spanning the entire side wall was her destination. Cassandra lifted a huge world globe and handed it to Ash. She then picked up a large sphere of the moon with all the features engraved on it and handed it to Jordan, another featured the constellation of the night’s sky. I watched with my brow furrowed as she hunted the room until she found an old leather-bound Bible.
“Give me a hand,” she called.
I was at her side in an instant as she piled six massive volumes on top of the bible, waving Uncle Lucas across to carry the other six. She held the old Bible against her chest.
“We have hostiles entering the property,” the pilot said into our earpieces.
“Fuck,” Jordan snarled, setting his moon down and pulling his gun from the waistband of his jeans.
“Stay with her,” I instructed Uncle Lucas, following Jordan and Ash out the door.
We’d anticipated that the house was still under surveillance. Each of us spread out. We wanted to disturb the house as little as possible, but safety was our main concern. The first guy I encountered tried to lift his gun, but I kicked it from his hand. I wrapped my arm around his neck and give it a swift yank. He fell to the floor after I snapped his neck.
Ash grabbled the second invader, his arm compressing the windpipe as his hand covered his nose and mouth. His legs wrapped around the man’s flailing limbs until he stopped moving and his eyes rolled back in his head.
We found a third just outside the kitchen door on the patio with a dagger through his heart. Jordan had a tendency to throw one of his blades and keep moving. My fingers felt for a pulse on his throat before Ash and I moved on through the house.
I touched the communications device at the side of my head. “How many hostiles?”
“Eight,” the pilot replied. “All armed.”
“Roger that.”
A fourth man lay in the pantry with his neck at an awkward angle. A fifth man was trying to crawl toward the front door. I grabbed a handful of his hair an
d dragged his head back, snapping his neck so that I wouldn’t leave a mess to clean.
We followed the sound of voices that led us back to the family study. Jordan stood outside the door, his finger on his lips telling us not to make a sound.
“I don’t think so,” Cassandra replied to something that had been said.
“Our boss would like to know how you’re alive when we killed you?” A male voice sounded from inside the room.
“Fuck you!” Cassandra snapped. “You are nothing but a pathetic excuse for a human being with a small dick. All those photographs kept my friends and me entertained for hours.”
The sound of flesh connecting with flesh made my fingers wrap around the doorknob. Someone had just been struck.
“Shut the fuck up!” Dick pic guy snarled. “You were supposed to be dead, but I’m happy to rectify the situation. Since you’re married with a child on the way, you’re useless for the purposes of your father’s will, so we need to revert to plan B where all his inheritance reverts to his brother and any heirs he has upon the death of his wife and children.”
They must have predicted we’d need to come here.
Ash quietly cocked his gun in preparation. Jordan gave his creepy smile and nodded. It was time that dick pic guy learned not to send unsolicited messages to people who had no interest in his anatomy.
Cassandra began laughing in the room, and my heart thudded rapidly at the thought of her in danger.
“What the hell is she laughing at?” another male voice asked.
“I’m laughing because you were stupid enough to come into my home when my husband is here,” she replied. “I’m laughing because you are nothing more than a little boy pretending to be a man. Do you really think Xavier will let any of you leave here alive? I’m laughing because you arrived here thinking that you were the predators when you’re about to find out you’re the prey.”
Jordan bounced his eyebrows at me, and his grin grew. Ash bowed slightly and indicated that I open the door. Since she’d introduced us, we may as well make an appearance.
Uncle Lucas watched us enter the room with a small smile playing on his mouth. It was as if he’d been expecting us.
Dick pic guy loomed over my wife, waving a gun in her face. “I have a highly trained unit with me, so if he’s not already dead, he soon will be.”
“I highly doubt that since the other five members of your team are currently dead,” I said. Rage burned deep in my chest in a fiery embrace when I saw my wife on her knees. Uncle Lucas watched the three men with deadly intent, holding back only because there were guns being brandished around a pregnant woman.
As the three men in the room turned to face us, Jordan grabbed the one closest to him, twisting a metal cord around his neck. When it was snapped into place, unless you had bolt cutters, that garrotte wasn’t coming off and you’d be dead when the remaining air left in your lungs was used. The man tried to drag it from his neck even while his knees failed, and he stumbled forward.
Using the dying man as a distraction, I launched myself forward and used my weight to bring the asshole with the gun to the floor. His gun clattered as it fell from his hand. In my peripheral vision, Uncle Lucas attacked the last remaining man.
“You are a fucking nuisance,” I hissed in dick pic’s face. “I have had the misfortune of having to text you to keep you online.”
My temper escalated and I punched him in the face.
“No. Means. No.” I punctuated every word with another punch.
“You can’t stop the brotherhood.” He laughed, showing blood covered teeth. “We never fail in our quest. When one falls in pursuit of the cause, three more will take his place.”
“Fuck this,” I muttered, pushing myself up and reaching for my other gun to point at his head. “I watched your performance with Cassandra’s decoy. Men like you make me sick and ashamed to be male.”
I was a murderer, but I would never be a rapist like the piece of shit grinning up at me. That grin disappeared as I slammed my foot down on his dick, deliberately grinding it into the floor. The fucker would never use it again, in this life or the next.
Cassandra gasped, her eyes moving between the man breathing his last, Uncle Lucas beating the man on my right into the next world, and me.
“Take them outside,” I commanded. “Jordan, stay with Cassandra.”
Ash threw one man over his shoulder. Uncle Lucas trailed the man he was fighting out by the hair, even as he tried to dig his heels in. “Come along, dick pic guy. You and I need to have a word on appropriate content of text messages.”
He kept stumbling forward as I hauled him outside with his arm forced up his back. I threw him onto the ground, my muscles tight as I tried to contain myself. His image had seared itself into my mind as I watched the video feed from my apartment. The fucker had been stalking my wife, traumatising her with his photography skills.
I watched as he struggled onto his hands and knees. I booted him in the balls, and he keeled over onto his side. “Phone,” I demanded as I knelt down beside him.
He dragged his phone out of his pocket.
“Phone your boss,” I instructed.
He used his thumb as the biometrics to open it. He hit a number and handed it to me, sitting back to stare at us. All his team were dead, and he probably knew he was on very thin ice with hell melting it away under him.
“Patrick?” a voice said from the other end of the line.
“No, unfortunately he can’t come to the phone at the moment. This is Xavier Bartholomew.”
Silence stretched on the other side. “You seem to have the lives of a cat, Mr. Bartholomew.”
“No, but I never underestimate my opponent, which is exactly what you’ve done. Your team is dead and let me assure you that I’m coming for you next. This is your only warning. Every person who threatens my wife will be eliminated. Anyone who comes near my family will pay in blood.”
“I don’t appreciate you threatening me.”
I barked out a dark laugh. “That wasn’t a threat. I’m promising you what will happen.”
Uncle Lucas stepped forward and held his hand out. Without a word, I put it in his hand, my gaze moving to the man on the ground.
“This is Lucas Black.” He paused, one eyebrow raising for a moment. “Well, Elijah, thank you for confirming who I suspected was behind this grimy money venture. Xavier and his wife are under my protection now, so any action taken against them will be considered an act of war. Have a pleasant day, and I’m sure I’ll be seeing you soon.”
He hung up and handed the phone to Ash, wiping his hands on a white cotton handkerchief from his pocket.
“Elijah?” I queried.
“I recognised his voice. It is a problem for another day. Let us finish here and go home.” He walked back into the house, stopping at the door. “Remember what I taught you, Xavier. No witnesses.”
Patrick shuffled back, his eyes searching for an escape route. I met Ash’s gaze and he nodded once, following Uncle Lucas.
All my fury coalesced into one outburst of rage. His skill was raping innocent women and shooting people, so he was no match for my physical strength as I punched and kicked him until he was broken beyond repair. I ignored his pleas as he had that innocent woman. He would have violated Cassandra given another chance.
“Give my regards to Malcom and Clive,” I said into his ear and my blade cut across his throat.
I cut off his thumb with the dagger I’d seen in the man’s chest earlier. It was put into a plastic bag with his phone to use his biometrics later.
Vengeance was a dish best served cold and bloody.
Anyone who threatened my wife would learn the same lesson of death.
Cassandra had said she’d go to Tuscany, but I knew by her expression over the past few days that she was reconsidering our agreement. I needed to make our home as secure as possible for my family.
I would terminate any threat to them before it reached our door.
; ***
Chapter Twenty-Three
Cassandra
The fact that they didn’t exit via the back door told me there were bodies there that they didn’t want me to see.
When Xavier left with Ash and Lucas, Jordan calmly began to collect all the things I’d selected.
“If there’s anything else you need or want, this is the time to collect it,” he told me.
My emotions were numb, my mind blank. “Such as?”
His lips lifted in a sad smile. “When my parents died, my grandfather removed every trace of them, almost as if they never existed. I found a photograph of my mother years later, but that’s all I have.”
Using what little time I’d been given, I raced to my mother’s craft area. She kept framed photographs there that I put into one of her homemade bags. I crammed as much of her stuff as possible in there until there was no more room. Jordan watched from the door and silently handed me another bag.
By the time the men returned to the library, we were laden down with sentimental stuff to put in my new home. Xavier cast an eye over it but didn’t comment. He merely started lifting stuff before ushering us to the door.
A memory jarred free in my head. “Stop!” All eyes turned to me.
I ran back to the library with Xavier following me. Long ago, I’d been sleeping on the old leather sofa and woke up to see Uncle Dan with a wooden panel removed. He’d put his finger to his lips and winked, telling me it would be our secret.
The panel looked like every other wooden panel in the room. I pointed to it. “There’s a safe behind there. I think the numbers Uncle Dan whispered may be the combination. He knows that I saw where it was when I was little.”
Xavier was on his knees in an instant, his fingers feeling around the edge until the panel fell forward onto his knees. “Quickly,” he urged.
Fourteen, fifty-nine, twenty-one. The door clicked and my eyes met Xavier’s. There was a metal box sitting inside that I lifted out. Xavier closed the door and spun the combination dial around, before he set the panel back in place.
