Forbidden Legacy

by Mari Carr

  She had no idea if he was bluffing or not, but given what she knew of his past crimes, she wasn’t willing to take the chance. “I’ll go with you.”

  He opened his door and then hers. He bent into the car, revealing the wicked-looking knife he possessed. She held her breath as he cut the ropes at her wrists. He tossed the knife on the floor and then gripped her upper arm roughly and dragged her from the car. He didn’t release his hold as the two of them entered the library.

  Sadly, no one appeared to notice either of them as they walked up the stairs, not stopping until they’d hit the third floor. Harrison had explained there was a secret entry to the Trinity Masters’ rooms that only members knew how to access. Ryan’s surefooted steps made Alexis fear the man had somehow discovered the way in.

  She wasn’t surprised when they approached the rare-book room. It was well off the beaten path as far as popular spots in the library. However, it was locked, protected by a keypad. She hoped against hope the lock would keep Ryan out, but after he pressed three numbers on the pad, the door clicked. He knew exactly what he was doing. As she suspected, the room was currently empty.

  Ryan walked to a section of wall inscribed with a triangle and the words Mitimur in Vetitum. Alexis recalled her Latin from school.

  We strive for the forbidden.

  The words produced a slight chill as she considered all the forbidden pleasure she’d found with Michael and Harrison.

  Once again, Ryan proved himself a worthy adversary as he placed his hands on either side of the triangle and pushed. He’d uncovered the entrance to one of the most secret societies in American history. His pleasure was tangible when a section of the wall popped in and then slid to the side.

  Curiosity won out. “How did you know to do that?”

  Ryan remained quiet for a moment and she figured he wouldn’t answer her. Then, at last, he said, “My father told me. The Trinity Masters should have been my legacy. Your boyfriend, Harrison, thought he could deny my existence, but he failed, so now I’m here to take away his existence.”

  Alexis recalled the bomb Ryan claimed to have set. She believed it was truly here. She also knew he would press the trigger before the night was out if she couldn’t find a way to stop him.

  Ryan pushed her through the gap in the wall, the two of them crammed into the small space together as it closed behind them. Once they were sealed in, a light flashed on. Ryan quickly found the entrance to a small service elevator. They entered together and the small car took them down several floors. When the doors opened, they revealed a long marble hallway where columns supported a high arched ceiling.

  Ryan silently urged her to move forward and the two of them passed one set of perpendicular hallways. Ryan glanced both ways but then forged on, moving to the very end of the corridor.

  The faint sound of voices echoed in the hallway from the left, coming from a room near the end. Ryan smiled, the expression one of pure insanity.

  It took all the strength Alexis had not to scream—in fear and in warning. But to do so would set off whatever evil chain of events Ryan had planned right now. And Alexis was too fucking scared to face that.

  “This way,” Ryan said, his voice low. He tugged her in the opposite direction, not stopping until he stood outside a large door at the very end. He turned the knob. It was locked.

  Alexis almost cried for joy. She suspected Ryan really wanted whatever was behind this door and she hoped this obstruction would slow his roll, set him back.

  He reached into his pocket and retrieved a file of some sort, clearly intent on picking the lock. She stood still for several moments as he fiddled with the knob. Her mind whirled as she tried to figure out her options. The trigger to the bomb was in his jacket pocket. If she could manage to get it away from him and run for help, perhaps Harrison and Michael could be saved.

  She looked around the cavernous space. Ryan was in good shape, so her chances of outrunning him were slim. Even if she screamed for help and the Trinity Masters came out of the meeting, she didn’t know what other weapons Ryan had in his possession. She recalled the knife he’d left in the car. His jacket had several pockets and it appeared weighted down. What if he pulled out a gun and started firing? Or if he simply detonated the bomb?

  A click sounded, dragging her from her thoughts. He’d gotten the door open. He pushed her inside. “Look for a light switch.”

  She felt along the wall until she found it. Turning the lights on, she spun to survey the room. She was in one of the most ornate, beautiful offices she’d ever seen.

  “Jackpot,” Ryan murmured.

  He pushed her farther into the room, shut and locked the door behind them. Then he gestured toward the desk. “Go sit in that chair.”

  She did as he instructed. Her hopes at escaping faded when he grasped her hands and secured them with a thin piece of wire he pulled from his coat pocket. He bound them tightly and the wire cut her wrists as soon as she started to struggle. Pain kept her still.

  Satisfied she was helpless, Ryan turned on the computer and rubbed his hands with glee. He procured a thumb drive from the front pocket of his jeans and inserted it into the USB port, waiting impatiently for the programs to appear.

  With a few clicks, he grinned as he pulled up a screen that looked like the floor plan to the Trinity Masters headquarters. Tapping on the mouse, he muttered, “Let’s make sure no one disturbs us.” She watched a lock icon appear over the room where she suspected the meeting was taking place. Despite the ornate, turn-of-the-century appearance of these offices, it appeared the security was state of the art.

  Alexis glanced at the desk, searching for some way to signal to the men down the hall that they were in danger. There was an intercom and a phone, both useless to her without the use of her hands. She hadn’t seen her cell phone since the parking garage, so she could only assume it was in Ryan’s possession.

  Screaming may or may not work, but the bomb kept her silent. Maybe Ryan would simply get the information he wanted from the computer and leave.

  Even as she thought it, she rolled her eyes. Tonight was going to end in bloodshed. That much was obvious. She just prayed it was Ryan’s blood and no one else’s.

  “Why are you doing this?” Alexis asked. “Why do you hate Harrison so much? He doesn’t even know you.”

  Ryan stopped his work and turned to look at her. “Doesn’t know me?”

  His arm flew before she saw him move, the back of his hand slapping her hard across the face. She blinked rapidly, tears falling before she could call them back.

  “That fucking bastard knew me for nine years. My mother called him our fairy godfather. She always smiled when the money from Uncle H. was deposited in our bank. That’s what she called him when I asked her where the money came from. Then Uncle H. chose to forget about us. Left me with that slut of a mother. We lost our apartment, ended up sleeping on the floor of a stripper my mother was friends with. No food, no nice clothes, nothing. He left us to rot. Like we were trash.”

  Alexis struggled to understand. “Harrison wouldn’t do that.”

  Ryan struck again, adding to the flaming agony in her cheek. She sucked in a pained breath.

  “And then he thought he could make up for it by sending me to college. Thought I was too stupid to question why I’d get a full ride to some Ivy League school I never even applied to.”

  Suddenly, a light went on. Ryan had been in the file of mysteries. Harrison’s father had been sending the money to Ryan’s mother, but when he had the stroke, that bit of information had been lost in the chicken scratch.

  “Harrison isn’t Uncle H.” She closed her eyes, ready for another slap. Mercifully, it didn’t appear.

  “My mother died just after I got that stupid acceptance to Harvard. I found a letter in her things. It was from Harrison Adams and it was delivered to my mother just before I was born. It said he was sorry that to tell her that my father had died and that as the executor to my old man’s estate, he would send us mo
ney each month. It was signed Harrison Adams. I remembered the man’s name from the acceptance letter, so I looked him up online, found out he was the Dean of Admissions. The man was loaded, yet he couldn’t be bothered with sending a few measly dollars to me and my mother.”

  “Harrison didn’t know about you. He sent you that acceptance letter at the bidding of his father, also named Harrison Adams. Your Uncle H. had a stroke eleven years ago. He’s dead.”

  Alexis figured Ryan was too far gone, too lost in his anger, to admit he’d made a mistake. She was right.

  Ryan laughed. “Is that right? Well, good riddance. Looks like I won’t have to add that asshole to my list of pricks to kill.”

  “Doesn’t that also mean you should take Harrison the third off your list?” she tried to reason.

  Ryan shook his head, a murderous rage returning to his eyes. “No. He’s a part of this.” Ryan waved his arm around the office and then reached into his pocket, flashing the detonator to the bomb in her face. “They’re all a part of this. And now they’ll pay.”

  “But that doesn’t—”

  “Shut up, you stupid cunt. I have work to do.” Ryan turned away from her and clicked a few more buttons, chuckling when it appeared he’d hit the jackpot. A long list scrolled on the screen—names, addresses, phone numbers, occupations. It only took a few seconds for Alexis to realize Ryan had found the membership roster for the Trinity Masters.

  Exposing those names, making them public, would destroy everything Harrison and Michael and all the members before them had worked so hard to protect. It would bring about the downfall of their secret society, putting an end to the good work the members sought to do. Harrison and Michael had spent nearly an hour this morning in bed with her, filling her in on some of the amazing things the Trinity Masters were accomplishing in the fields of medicine, science, education and technology.

  With one fell swoop, Ryan stood in a position to wipe out centuries of progress and development.

  But there were still too many unanswered questions. “How did you learn about the Trinity Masters?” she asked, hoping to distract him long enough that the meeting would end and someone would figure out they were in here.

  “Damon Corzo. He was a fancy lawyer at the DA’s office where I was doing an internship. He was wearing the same signet ring Harrison Adams had on in his picture on the Harvard website. I asked Corzo about it. He said he just bought it because he liked the design. I didn’t believe him. I did some research on the symbol, started finding it in other pictures, even in paintings of men who lived during the American Revolution and the Civil War. The more I looked, the more I found it. I started following Corzo and noticed his friend, Polin, had the same ring. I decided to see what would happen if I threatened them.”

  “So you made that sex tape and blackmailed them.”

  He nodded. “Wasn’t hard. My mother started stripping when the money from Adams dried up. When she lost her looks, she earned it on her back. I did my homework every night at a booth in a strip club from the time I was ten right through high school.”

  “You killed one of those women.”

  Ryan waved his hand, unconcerned. “Collateral damage. She was just a whore. Wasn’t like she mattered or anything. And the ruse worked. Sort of. Corzo flew here—to Boston—right after I started to blackmail him. I figured that was no coincidence and I was right. So I narrowed my search for the symbol to this city. And that’s when I found him.”

  “Harrison?”

  Ryan shook his head, snarling at her as if she was stupid. “No. My father. He wasn’t dead.”

  Alexis suddenly understood. “Jonathan was your dad.”

  Ryan nodded. “He said he didn’t know about me. Didn’t realize my mother had gotten pregnant. He thought I’d sought him out to start some little-league happily-ever-after father-and-son relationship with him. I killed those unholy wives of his and then went to work on his weak mind. It took very little pressure before he revealed his alliance with the Trinity Masters, where their headquarters are located and who their leader is. Wouldn’t you know it? Harrison Adams.”

  “That’s how you knew the codes, the way in.”

  Ryan seemed pleased to have his brilliance recognized. “He thought I was going to join, become a member. You should have seen the poor bastard’s face after he’d given me all that information and I told him what I really planned to do.”

  “You dictated the suicide note to him.”

  “And I put the gun in his hand. When he wouldn’t pull the trigger on his own, I placed my hand over his and did it for him.”

  Alexis was horrified by the absolute joy in Ryan’s eyes as he recalled murdering his own father.

  Anger welled up inside her, wiping out the fear. This man needed to be stopped. And it looked like she was the only one in a position to do so. She could sit around like a damsel in distress waiting for the cavalry to arrive, or she could take charge. She waited until Ryan turned back toward the computer, then she lifted her legs and kicked out with all her might.

  *****

  Harrison was in the middle of a discussion with the CEO of BC Bank when a flashing light on his phone captured his attention. He frowned. The silent alarm in his office had been triggered. He glanced at Michael who was seated in the front row of the lecture room and waved for him to come to the podium. He handed Michael the phone.

  “Ladies. Gentlemen. I’m sorry to cut this meeting short, but something has come up that requires my attention. I suspect the caterer will have the hors d’oeuvres set out and the bar open.”

  There was a moment of confusion among the members as their meeting was scheduled to last at least another hour and they’d accomplished next to nothing on the agenda, including Harrison dropping the news that he intended to resign his role as Grand Master. He would have to call an emergency meeting to announce he was stepping down later, but first, he needed to find out who was in his office.

  “The door is locked,” Giles Kim, one of the most elderly members of the Trinity Masters, announced as people stood to file out.

  Michael quickly walked to the door and confirmed they were indeed trapped. “Someone has gotten access to the lock system.”

  Gunner frowned. “That’s in your office, isn’t it, Harrison?”

  Harrison nodded. He had invited Gunner and Tasha to this meeting to stand in for Price who was still looking for Myers in L.A.

  Gunner turned toward the wall behind Harrison and pointed to the display screens. “Can you turn on the camera in your office from here?”

  Harrison looked at Tasha, silently bidding her to do just that. The older members of the society resumed their seats as Harrison held his breath. None of them had a clue to the danger that had surrounded the organization this year, but it appeared they were about to find out.

  It was clear from the terrified look on Michael’s face he expected to see the same person in his office as Harrison. Myers obviously wasn’t in California.

  Tasha clicked a few buttons and then adjusted the volume. Harrison heard Lex’s voice a split second before he saw her face. His blood ran cold.

  Myers had Alexis tied to the chair in his office.

  “Why are you doing this?” he heard her ask. Several of the Trinity Masters rose from their seats, alarm setting in.

  “Who is that?” Giles barked. “Neither of those people are members. How did they get in here?”

  Harrison didn’t have a clue and he sure as hell didn’t have time to explain it. “Sit down and be quiet,” he said loudly when more and more voices began demanding answers.

  For a decade, he’d been their leader. He’d ruled with calm, quiet authority. Tonight, he couldn’t give them that.

  Giles resumed his seat slowly and the others followed suit. Ryan was doing the explanations for him, answering the questions that had plagued Harrison for a year. As the older members listened to Ryan, Harrison pulled Gunner, Michael and Tasha aside.

  “We need to get into that office,
” Gunner said.

  Harrison nodded. “There’s a secret panel in this room that will take us there, but it’s narrow. We could only enter the office one at a time. If Ryan has a gun, he could pick us off like flies or shoot Alexis before we even get the door open.”

  Tasha glanced at the screen. “Where does the panel open in relation to your desk?”

  Harrison was grateful he’d thought to include her in this meeting. He could already see her quick mind working to break down the scene and come up with a rescue plan. He walked over to the screen and pointed to a small painting to the left of his desk. “Here.”

  At that moment, Ryan raised his hand and struck Alexis. Harrison’s hand balled into a fist, anger tearing at his gut.

  Tasha started to ask another question, but Michael raised his hand for them to stop talking. The four of them listened as Ryan confessed to killing Jonathan. Michael’s face turned to stone, his expression reflecting the anger Harrison felt.

  There was no time for alarm or fear, though Harrison suspected if he let himself acknowledge it, he’d fall apart. Alexis was in serious danger. And it was his fault.

  “If anything happens to her,” he murmured to Michael.

  Michael put his hand on his shoulder. “We’re going to get her out of there. In one piece.”

  Michael’s assurance soothed him, helped him beat down the panicked beast.

  Tasha bid Harrison to open the panel and then motioned for Gunner and Michael. “Wait for me. The three of us are going in this way.”

  Harrison frowned. Surely she didn’t expect him to stay behind. “Tasha—”

  Tasha walked to the door of the conference room without acknowledging him. She quickly and efficiently flipped the lock. How she’d managed to throw back a heavy-duty deadbolt without a key, he’d never know. She gestured for Harrison to join her.

  “Give us two minutes to get through the secret corridor and then knock on the door to your office. He won’t be expecting that because he thinks he’s trapped us all in here.”

  “We don’t know if he has a weapon.”