Page 70 of Midnight Legacy

Lucas held his hand up and silence spread around the room. “We shall regroup this evening and decide the best course of action. If anyone dares to touch what is ours then we will cut their hands off and return them as a warning. The next one is returned in a body bag until they finally get the message that we will not be messed with. I may even have to speak to my associate Nic. His body count is as impressive as Jordan’s.”

My eyes met Megan’s as she sat pale and silent. Violence scared her, and she’d suddenly found herself in the middle of criminals who didn’t think twice about killing their enemies.

Before Malcolm, I shared her feelings. Now, I just wanted those I loved to stay safe. If it took a gun to accomplish that, then I would have to buy some earplugs for when the bang sounded.

***

Chapter Nineteen

Xavier

Cassandra hummed to herself while she pottered around the kitchen. She was nest building, filling our house with all the things that made it a home. As much as I teased her about her cushions, I was getting used to being surrounded by them and sinking into them to watch TV. Over the years, I hated getting my photographs taken by the paparazzi, but Cassandra had selfies we’d taken with us both smiling. She had our wedding photographs made into canvases that were in the family room.

My phone pinged and I swiped the screen. It was an alarm activation at one of our offices. It was the one that was registered as our official business address. There was nothing there except empty offices with computers that contained no information on them. It was a front that made our business legitimate.

I sat watching the men in balaclavas storm through empty offices. Cassandra appeared beside me, her head resting on my shoulder. She’d become an expert on reading my body language.

“What’s happening?” she asked.

“Looks like the proprietors of Dragon’s Hoard are searching for the contents of that box,” I replied, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

“Is what was in it so bad?”

There were some secrets that a daughter didn’t need to know about her father. Looking through the documents, there was no doubt in my mind that her father had been a good man, but he was out of his depth in the discoveries he’d made. Him and Dante (or Danzer), as the documents proved, had agreed to tackle the problem from two different ends and try to meet in the middle.

The rest was confined to history. There were photographs and other documents in that box that I’d removed. Normally I shared everything with my two oldest friends, but secrets were evil little minions sent to destroy lives and make people miserable. Sometimes the dead were best left buried in the past. I needed to ask Uncle Lucas about the photographs. I had no doubt that Frank had died because of those deeds and access to the bank accounts.

I hadn’t answered Cassandra’s questions, so she poked me in the arm.

“Yeah, your dad and uncle had an uncanny ability to turn over stones that should have remained unturned.”

“Maybe I should take a look?”

Technically, the contents belonged to her, but some secrets could get you killed and I preferred her head still attached to her shoulders. “You can if you want, but some of it isn’t happy reading.”

She spun the barstool around so she could step between my legs. “Meaning?”

“Meaning, your father was a member of the Council. He died when you were young and he was still a hero to you.”

She blinked, and started to chew the inside of her mouth the way she did when she was thinking. “I kept Mum’s Bible with the keys in it hidden for years. I finally found the locations written close to the back and instructions on how to use them. The first time I visited the first box, I realised that my life hadn’t been what I thought. When I started to piece it all together, I realised that Mum and Kimberley died because of something connected with Dad. I made my peace a long time ago, Xavier. You can’t stay angry at the dead because it eats you inside and destroys your soul.”

“I just want to keep you safe.” I tucked her unruly hair behind her ear.

“I need to keep you safe too, Zee. This house means nothing without anyone to share it with.”

Taking her hand, I led her to the entrance to my safe room. The scanner bleeped when it read my fingerprint, granting us entry. All the paperwork was laid out on the table where we’d tried to put it in order to make sense of it. One thick file seemed to be complete nonsense.

Cassandra settled herself at the desk and returned to her role as a solicitor. Her superpower was organisation and she excelled at it. I watched her from the other side of the table. We’d pored over this particular file for hours last night with no success.

Her forehead creased and her back straightened. She began to reorganise the folder, pulling particular papers out and setting the rest to one side.

“When I was little, Dad taught me how to leave coded messages for him so that no one else could read them. It was our little secret. Look at these pages.” She passed them across to me.

My eyebrows rose in silent question.

“Every one of these pages is marked in some way—a bent corner, a nick from the page, a tear somewhere. These are the pages that have information on them. The rest are a decoy.”

She had my full attention.

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