Page 23 of Broken Empire
He pulled out a gleaming dagger, cut one of the naked people free, and dragged her to her feet before pulling her mask off. She begged and pleaded for him to stop and let her go, but he ignored her and drew the blade across her throat.
Blood spurted in every direction, coating the dead brown leaves in the clearing in thick red puddles. The woman slumped to the ground and rolled onto her side, twitching as the light faded from her eyes. The man in the bull mask moved away from her, knelt down, and started sawing at another woman’s bonds.
“What the fuck is this?” I asked, staring around the table. “Is it real?”
Murray turned the volume down, allowing the video to play in the background as he addressed my questions.
“This tape fetched us five million dollars from a client,” he said. “On top of that, the client paid half a million for each of the people in the beaded masks. That’s eight million in profit for a day’s work, minus the production costs, for justoneof our chapters.”
Another woman was having her throat slashed onscreen now. I steeled my jaw and looked back at Murray. “So itisreal.”
“Yes. This is how we make our money, Killian.”
“From fucking snuff films? Are you serious?”
Murray nodded. “It’s a huge industry, believe it or not. Wildly lucrative,” he said. “We funnel all the profits through the art world to clean them up so the IRS never suspects anything. It’s easier than you’d think. And technically, moviesareart, aren’t they?”
Fear kindled in my guts as he spoke. What if they intended to kill Shay for one of these projects?
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
This was a thousand times worse than whatever I thought it could be. I couldn’t even let myself think about the possibility that Shay was already dead and buried somewhere while these sick assholes smiled smugly at their growing bank balances.
How much was her life worth to them? How much wasanyone’slife worth to them? Was that half a million figure Murray mentioned a flat rate, or were others deemed to be worth more or less?
“You’ll find out all the details as you go along, but essentially, we sell people to the highest bidders and have them disposed of in whatever manner the bidders choose,” Murray went on. “That’s what you’re seeing onscreen right now.”
Cold, slimy dread built inside me with every passing millisecond. “Who are the people?” I asked in a hollow voice. “The ones who die.”
Murray lifted one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “They come from all over the place.”
“You know what I’m really asking,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “Do they deserve it?”
“This isn’t the Hellfire Club, Killian. We aren’t vigilantes trying to save the world one sex offender at a time. We take any people we can get,” he said. “The more people we get, the more money we make. It’s as simple as that.”
“So you kill innocent people,” I said, pulse racing like mad. My suspicions were correct. Shaywasat risk.
“We don’t kill anyone at all,” Murray said smoothly. “We hire out the dirty work to others. Our job is to manage the money we make by cleaning it, building new companies with it, and growing existing ones. On top of that, we use the influence that comes with the money to liaise with governments and other organizations to further our ambitions and keep ourselves and our families on top, just as we discussed earlier. That’s where your responsibilities will lie as well.”
I looked over at my father. I could practically see the words flashing in his guilt-ridden eyes.See, son? I didn’t lie to you. We never have to kill anyone here.
He’d left one part unspoken.We pay others to do it for us.
Now I understood why they kept the Hellfire Club completely separate from the Schöneberg Group. The whole point of membership in the Hellfire Club was to rid the world of people who truly deserved it—at least that’s what we were told when we joined. It seemed like a noble, righteous thing to do. Our twisted version of a good deed for society. However, there was a price—video evidence of our crimes to ensure we all maintained total confidentiality.
That evidence was meant to be used for the singular purpose of secret-keeping, but the Schöneberg Group was using it in another way. They used it to manipulate their new members into participating in horrific crimes against people whodidn’tdeserve it. Those members were all too scared to say no or tell anyone else about what was happening, fearing the release of their Hellfire tapes as retribution if they dared to do so.
That explained why my father and brothers had tried to dissuade me from joining both the Hellfire Club and the Schöneberg Group over the years.
All this time, I thought it was because I was the black sheep of the family.
Back when I was a kid getting into trouble all the time at prep school, Dad sat me down one day and talked to me about my future. He told me that college wasn’t for everyone, and I might be better suited to something else. My brothers basically said the same thing, albeit in a much crueler way.
I always thought their bullying stemmed from resentment over the fact that Mom left because of me, but now I saw the truth. They were just trying to stop me from making the same mistakes as them and joining the Hellfire Club only to be manipulated into joining the Schöneberg Group later.
It didn’t work, though. Their insistence that I shouldn’t go to college or try to be like them made me more determined to smash my exams, get into Bellingham, and get recruited into the same clubs and secret societies as them. I needed to prove that I was good enough despite not being a ‘real’ Knight based on my blood. Prove that I could do everything they could.
“You haven’t said anything for a while,” Murray said, brows puckering as he looked at me. “Do you have any thoughts you’d like to share?”
