Page 64 of Midnight Legacy

“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.

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