I jerked, staring at his retreating back.
Did Fred just call me Basilia?
My jaw bobbed. He did!
Never—not in nearly twenty-two years of being in this man’s presence had he called me anything other than Miss or Miss Le Spyre. Even when I tried to trick him into it for a full month at fourteen years old.
I skimmed over our conversation again, wondering if I’d missed something—because there was no way in hell a butler trained by my grandmother just slipped up.
Fred had something big to tell me.
8
“Miss Le Spyre, how did you sleep?” Fred asked as he entered my grandmother’s office.
Just fucking peachy after his Basilia bomb. I spent half the night furiously scribbling notes to Tommy who’d taken the news that seven vampires were sleeping on the first floor about as well as expected. That she’d already spent a night in Laurel’s company, albeit in complete ignorance, helped not at all in calming her down.
“Good. And yourself?” I replied from behind the heavy mahogany desk.
The last person to sit here was my grandmother.
Fred closed the door. “As well as ever.”
I gestured to the neatly stacked papers before me, setting my glasses down. “What’s the go? I’ve flicked through our financial team’s latest report—nothing seems amiss. Are there proposed investments that require attention? Staff matters? Issues with one of our major companies?” Fifty-five percent of the Le Spyre fortune originated from one of five companies. We were major shareholders in a further twenty-nine international companies.
When Grandmother insisted I learn how to run the estate, it was no skin off my back—even if my agreement to learn was really to better my understanding of how corporations ripped people off. What I found during that training only made me proud of my ancestors. The research Grandmother had done into the ethics and environmental impact on our investments was extensive. She—and those before her—had always upheld such a code—even in times when most of the world hadn’t cared or known about such things.
“Not quite, miss,” he said. Reaching up to the third shelf of the bookcase wall, he pressed a button.
My ears popped. “Whoa, what was that?”
“Noise-cancelling technology,” he answered, turning back to me. “This is a conversation best conducted in a soundproofed room.”
Soundproofed room.
With those two words, I knew.
My mouth dried as I contemplated the estate butler. Fred faced me as straight-backed and militant as he’d always been—impeccable manners beaten into an ex-army man. Now, I studied the awareness in his kind blue eyes with new understanding.
“You know,” I whispered.
He held my gaze. “I do, Miss Le Spyre.”
“How long?”
The butler lowered onto the seat opposite me, the massive desk separating us. “Just over one year.”
Far longer than the six weeks since I’d left the estate. Which meant…
I rested my head in my hands. “Grandmother knew.”
“She did. Long before confiding in me.”
I could have come to her. She could have helped me get away from Kyros and his tower.
And no wonder she’d tried to push Tommy away. She’d known the entire time.
That was a bitter fucking pill to swallow.
I rested back in the upholstered seat, regarding Fred as I scrambled to collect my feelings and thoughts. A foreign focus invaded my own shock, and I honed in on Kyros’s emotions for the first time since leaving his lair. His focus was intense. Pinpoint. Which was fine unless he was studying my emotions.
First things first. “This room is only soundproofed when you press that button?”
“Yes. Without the button, it’s merely soundproofed against human ears. However, if you’re concerned about outside ears listening to your conversation with Miss Tommy, I can assure you I set a high-pitched frequency through the speakers outside the room.”
My brows climbed.
“Your grandmother believed Vissimo had trouble hearing through a specific frequency.”
My grandmother didn’t believe in things. She’d tested the frequency herself—or knew someone she implicitly trusted who’d done so.
I breathed fully as my chest loosened, the fear for Tommy dissipating. “Thank you, Fred.”
“My pleasure, Miss Le Spyre.”
Leaning forward, I clasped my hands together atop a stack of papers. Grandmother hadn’t just known vampires existed, she’d learned about them. That was a whole other kettle of fish. “First off, you need to be aware my ability to talk freely on this subject is controlled. These are chains I cannot break.”
His eyes widened. “I see. You’ve been compelled. Mrs Le Spyre suspected as much.”
I swallowed. “Was Grandmother controlled, Fred?”
“No, miss.”
My grandmother had somehow managed to discover vampires, elude them, and protect herself and her family against them. Meanwhile, I’d botched things right out the gate.
He added, “She wasn’t sure if you’d been compelled the permanent way or not.”
“Permanent,” I replied.
He closed his eyes. “For that, I’m sorrier than you know. Can I ask if you’re compelled to report to the beasts?”
“I am not.” But he hadn’t known that when broaching the subject, which had been a massive risk for him.
Fred took a breath. “Of course you could be forced to say that too. I have only a small idea how such things work. Your behaviour since returning gave me reassurance you weren’t totally under their control.”
“The tequila and golf cart?” I asked drily.
The butler’s lips twitched before his solemnity reappeared. “Several of your grandmother’s close acquaintances are also in their grip.”
That was news—though Rory told me most of the city’s rich were tied under the compulsion. I’d just assumed those I knew and loved would be free.
Hoped.
The thought of anyone from the front row of Grandmother’s funeral being under the thumb of a Vissimo clan made me feel sick. “I’ll need a list of their names later, but I’d like to know how my grandmother first made the discovery. Please tell me everything.”
Fred tipped his head back. “She did confide in me on that point. I’ll tell you what I know. She first discovered vampires when Sir Olythieu was placed under a blood compulsion nearly thirty years ago. She was on the phone to him when the beasts stormed his estate. The phone dropped but didn’t disconnect. She overheard everything.”
Nearly thirty years ago. So long ago.
“Oh my god.” I’d been in her shoes. I’d felt that terror and disbelief and horrible loneliness. It was too late to show her that I understood her pain.
I’d regret that to the end of my days.
“I believe she was a great source of comfort to Sir Olythieu. For the others too. With her help, they could speak of the controls over them. In return, they protected your grandmother and yourself always. Before themselves even. She was their bridge to the human world and some modicum of independence and stability.”
My grandmother hid this my entire life, maybe even from my parents.
“This is a lot to take in.” I stood, striding around the desk, my head lost in that moment—all those years and decades—and how it must have felt. The threat of Vissimo discovering her involvement would have been constant.
How had she slept at night?
Though I knew the answer to that, really.
Her mind wasn’t controlled. She wasn’t tied to them.
Yet even then, she’d stayed here to help her friends.
Fred’s gaze tracked me around the room. “I would imagine it’s no small shock—though not as much as discovering the beasts exist in the first place.”
They aren’t all beasts.
I rubbed my forehead. “I hate that she had to bear that alone.” Had I known, things could h
ave been so different. I might have been here when she needed me.
“My knowledge on such matters is limited,” the butler said softly. “But you can go through your grandmother’s records.”
I snapped my head up, lowering my arms. “What?”
He got to his feet. “Agatha Le Spyre had not a passive bone in her body.”
True.
“Do you really think she’d let vampires take the city, her friends, and her beloved granddaughter without a fight?”
Not one fucking bit, but the glint in his eyes was almost frightening. Finally, I got a glimpse at what others saw when they looked at the butler.
Scary.
“How did she fight them?” I stated, lifting my chin.
Fred crossed to the bookshelf and pulled out the copy of Tom Hanks’s autobiography. My grandmother had never read it but bought the book out of loyalty because Sleepless in Seattle was her favourite movie.
The butler pressed something in the gap and stepped away.
My mouth bobbed as the bookcase swung inward.
Well, shit.
Turns out I didn’t know all the hidden nooks on the estate.
“Why don’t you head down and find out for yourself?” he suggested.
I tore my gaze from the dark wooden hall visible through the bookcase door. “You aren’t coming?”
He bowed. “This is a matter for the head of estate, Miss Le Spyre. And you can rest assured that once the bookshelf is sealed shut again, the area below is entirely soundproof.”
“That’s me,” I said, my tongue thick in my mouth.
A small smile curved his lips before it faded into an expression as grave as I’d ever seen on him. “Time to find out what else that entails.”
Two flights of stairs and low-ceilinged hall descended to a circular room that I guessed was somewhere beneath the vicinity of the kitchen.
The secret room was part of the original house if I had to guess. The other hidden passages were added during the second world war by Gloria Le Spyre and didn’t use the same materials as the original structure, whereas the mahogany floors here matched the rest of the house.
I scanned the room—absorbing the huge bird’s-eye map of Bluff City covering the walls. There were nine colour blocks surrounding me which correlated to the nine suburbs. The estates were in another section and the agricultural district in another. Eleven in total.
The map couldn’t be coincidence.
“You knew the game existed,” I whispered. “Not just them.”
Turning in a full circle, I took in the filing cabinets lining the walls below the map wallpaper. Beneath the estates’ section of the map was a desk identical to the one upstairs.
I perched on the upholstered chair and studied the contents of the heavy desk, swallowing hard at the picture of nine-year-old me with my parents a few months before they died.
A piece of paper stuck out from the silver frame. Working the paper free, I read the letters and numbers on it.
“Password,” I murmured. It had to be.
Switching on the middle monitor, I clicked on the login box and drew the keyboard to me, typing:
LavEnDeR!@2274#
Not as impressive as the code for Kyros’s lair.
Scowling, I tuned into the vampire prince again, relieved to find a vague peace floating through him. Was he sleeping? Colour me surprised he could sleep with so much on his conscience.
All three screens flickered to life, and I took a deep breath, pushing up my glasses to scan the contents. The left screen showed an open email browser with a stack of unopened messages in the inbox.
The right was a reporting system that looked similar to Monocle.
The middle desktop contained one file labelled Basilia.
“Fuck, okay. What have you got for me, Agatha?” I shook out my hands and touched the file on the screen, tapping twice.
My grandmother’s face appeared on each of the three screens.
“Basilia,” she said.
It was a video!
Fumbling, I rushed to tap the pause icon. The image froze and I stared at the video of my grandmother, breath harsh and quick.
Not even three weeks had passed since her death. I wasn’t ready to see her.
To hear her voice.
My hands shook as I studied her direct topaz gaze, the colour an exact match for mine and my father’s. Her shoulders were relaxed, and she was dressed in her token skirt suit, just like Queen Elizabeth—except her grey hair was long and thick and twisted into an elegant coil at the nape of her neck.
These would be the last words I’d ever hear from her lips.
It just wasn’t an easy thing to come to grips with.
Closing my eyes, I dragged in a breath and slowly released it.
I tapped the play button, dread and determination filling me.
“If you are watching this, I am likely dead,” she announced, her statement sounding like an order. “In fact, it is highly likely I was killed by vampires who call themselves Vissimo and will do anything to protect their race and their cause. At the time of recording this—”
I glanced at the date in the bottom left of the recording.
Three months ago.
“—you are yet unaware of the monsters in our world, and though I sincerely hope to keep it that way, my work against the Vissimo has recently entered a riskier stage than in past years. As such, I must plan for the worst in case I am disposed of.”
She spoke so matter-of-factly about her own death. She’d forecasted her end.
My stomach threatened to revolt.
“There are two vampire clans in Bluff City, granddaughter, totalling around fifteen thousand strong. One is named Clan Sundulus and the other Clan Fyrlia. For one hundred and forty-nine years they have been embroiled in a war, a game of sorts, called Ingenium. The clans will stop at nothing until one of them emerges the victor.”
Her words were drops of water in the desert. I was deathly scared to miss a single one.
She rehashed information I’d already learned the hard way, explaining how the clans worked and how their game appeared to operate.
I leaned in, eyes riveted on her elegant, lined face.
“Though I tried my best not to influence how you saw the world, I was prouder than you realise when you turned away from the ways of our neighbours. It was not an easy lesson for you, but that is when I saw what kind of woman you would one day be—strong like your mother and father. Kind. Aware. Passionate.”
I blinked several times, digging my nails into my palms.
“You deplore games as a result of your upbringing, so what I’m about to ask of you will demand a sacrifice—a left turn from the way I can see you wish to live life. Know that I do not make this request lightly. That I hope to live for many years to come to give you and whatever family you choose to have a full and blissfully ignorant life. I make this recording in case that goal is not realised.”
Kids? A husband? I’d never thought much about having either except for errant fantasies about a runaway wedding.
But if I had children, they’d never meet their great-grandmother. Or their grandparents. That made me really fucking sad.
On the screen, my grandmother paused, clasping her hands atop the desk. She tilted her chin. “I have watched these monsters place cages around the minds of my friends. I have seen them murder and torture and take what they want without care for human life. I will not let them claim Bluff City, Basilia.”
Her furious conviction reeled me in until my nose almost touched the screen. I’d rarely seen her this impassioned.
“What these beasts are not aware of,” Agatha Le Spyre said, a small smile curving her lips, “is that for nearly three decades, there has been a third player on the board.”
I didn’t dare make a sound as I stared into my grandmother’s topaz eyes.
“Do not belittle yourself by seeking revenge on my behalf. Instead, set your thoughts on a more honourable battle. Vampires h
ave sunk their claws into this city, tearing through humans to do so. Now, they must pay that debt. My heart, my dearest granddaughter, it is your turn to play Ingenium. For the Le Spyres.”
9
I sat in my grandmother’s office—the official above-ground one—swirling my wine and staring at the deep red like the crystal ball it was.
Grandmother detailed everything.
The offshore accounts. The illegal aliases her staff bought houses under so the clans wouldn’t come for us. Most of the mega-rich had teams for pretty much everything, and the Le Spyres were no different. Publicists, CEOs, financial advisors, brokers, property management, legal teams—everything. This was no different. Grandmother had a team in Churchill who handled conveyance, research, forecasting, and valuation of Bluff City real estate—including tracking the movements of Live Right Realty and Foremost Realty. They handled all of the leasing of rentals.
In twenty-seven years, Agatha Le Spyre had privately purchased and currently leased thousands of properties here. Only the estate was under our real name. Unlike Clan Sundulus, my grandmother ironically operated under a totally, totally illegal system. Fake identifications, banks, and tax accounts. Money laundering.
“Shit.” I choked on a laugh, taking a sip and tipping back my head so the wine trickled past my taste buds.
In the hours I’d spent gazing at the copy of Tom Hanks’s autobiography, aka the entrance to her mastermind cave, I’d ascertained several things.
One, I’d continue my grandmother’s work without hesitation.
Two, my grandmother hadn’t known the extent of my blood ties to Kyros.
Three, that the major weakness to her plan wasn’t lack of money—not even close—but lack of intel.
She hadn’t known what the clan’s movements and plans were from day-to-day. She’d purchased an average of 325 properties each year for the better part of thirty years, starting slow and gradually accelerating her efforts to thwart the vampires. But she’d had to guess their strategy. Having personally seen how intricate their strategies were, I knew for a fact guessing would be near impossible.
Vampire Debt: Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers Book 2) Page 11
