Page 37 of Midnight Revelations

“I can take them to a storage facility that is like a massive Faraday cage for a day or two,” Jordan said. “It’ll give us time to think and remove the trackers.”

“And since we got the locations from Dad, it’s been bugging me—why is Michael’s slave at Dad’s house? Why not his own?” I’d had time to think on the flight since I refused to think about Lucrezia at the moment.

“What are you thinking?” Xavier asked.

“What if they are assets, but not as we suspect?” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I doubt that Dad would have a problem pulling the trigger to save himself. Why not let Marlow do it, since the asshole loves blood?”

“These are all excellent points raised a little too late,” Jordan pointed out.

“It’s only too late if we are standing in the middle of it,” Xavier said. He pulled out his phone and lifted it to his ear. “Uncle Lucas? Hey, have you heard anything about Matteus being involved in anything to do with women going missing?”

There was silence for several seconds before Lucas launched into a tirade in rapid Italian as if he was a native of the country. Apparently he had heard something and wasn’t very happy about it.

“Look we have a situation that we’re trying to deal with and I just wanted some more information…” Xavier looked at me and rolled his eyes. “Ash is nothing like his father… Yeah, I think I would have noticed if he was a hellspawn since we spent most of our childhood together. No, he isn’t trying to lure Lucrezia into sin, Uncle Lucas, he genuinely tried to help her.”

I stared out the window. Lucas should stop worrying. I wasn’t trying to lure her into sin. We’d already been there and fucked our brains out. It was why my dick wasn’t interested in anyone else.

“Oh, I hadn’t heard that. Yeah, I’ll look into it. Thanks, Uncle Lucas, and try not to give Ash a hard time for my sake.” Xavier hung up.

“Looks like I’m on his hate list,” I commented dryly.

“He thinks you’re trying to get into Lucy’s pants.”

I wanted to ask if it was her unicorn or Care Bears ones, but didn’t think it would be appropriate right now. “He needs to fucking wise up. If he hadn’t kept them wrapped in bubble wrap, Nigel wouldn’t have tried to take advantage of her.”

“What did he say about missing girls?” Jordan asked.

“Some heiresses have gone missing over the years and turned up married to men with titles and no money. Their personality had changed and they were like Stepford wives.”

Jordan’s eyebrows shot up. “And no one asked the relevant questions?”

“I think their families tried to, but the women were too far gone for them to get reasonable answers. Their trust funds were drained and the women had unfortunate accidents after producing a few heirs.”

“What the hell?” I asked, thinking of Dad’s list of suitable wives and the fact Oliver had picked someone off it. “Surely you don’t think that Oliver’s fiancée is part of all this?”

“She still lives at home, so I would guess not,” Jordan replied. “We really need to be careful tonight. Matteus may be using us as a scapegoat in case he was ever incriminated.”

He signed that contract which made me know he was serious, but I wished I had asked more questions now. Aaron and I would be having a conversation in the morning, especially around what Dad had offered him when it came to theseassets.

“Look, the way I see it is that I would prefer more information, but right now we’re ready to rescue these women,” Jordan said. “Instead of taking them straight to the rehabilitation unit, I suggest quarantining them in our unit with a full blocking system in place. That way if anyone is looking for them or tracking our movements, they’re blind.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Xavier said. “Let’s get in and out without detection.”

We parked down the street. A unit was already in place around the corner to carry them away. Jordan texted on his phone for a moment. “I told them to activate the blockers in the van as we were going black. I’ve also given them the new location.”

Jordan had his team of cleaners he used for other tasks. We rarely saw them, but if they were vetted by him, then they were all trustworthy. Our phones had been changed earlier with new security upgrades to ensure no one was listening to conversations they shouldn’t be.

“Okay,” Xavier said. “We all good?”

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh.

I didn’t want to go in there. My dad was an evil spawn from Satan, Lucas wasn’t wrong about that, but he was still my dad. After tonight, I would see and know things about him that I would never be able to eradicate from my memory. Like finding Mum with bruises on her and her hands trembling. It was the day that I bought her townhouse and moved her in after it was decorated. She stayed in my apartment in the meantime. From the day I entered the business world, his grasp on me had weakened until I began to peel his etheric fingers from my throat, one at a time.

The property was registered to a company I had never heard of, but when Caleb started to track back through the financials for me, it had Dad loosely connected in the background. That company was now being investigated forensically and I would take it apart piece at a time until nothing remained of it. This was no longer about protecting my family, but cutting off all avenues of revenue to Dad so he was trapped like the rat he was.

We rolled our balaclavas into place, each of us moving into the positions we’d agreed before leaving. Jordan disabled the alarms, Xavier picked the locks, and I moved around the exterior to destroy any CCTV units in place.

He would expect us to walk through the front door with the key he’d given me. Fuck that, I refused to abide by any law that he created. If he told me the moon rotated around the Earth, I’d swear the opposite was true. His lies had become pathological, his search for power all-consuming.

---