Page 1 of Midnight Salvation

Chapter One

Ash

My heart filled with hatred for every man at this table. The past month had been a whirlwind that I could barely get my head around. Michael was dead, Cassandra’s uncle was an evil super villain, and my life was slowly unravelling around me.

All I wanted to do was go home and spend some time with my wife. The wife no one knew existed, and I needed to keep it that way or she would be in even more danger than she was now.

“Was it necessary to eliminate Michael?” Uncle Eli asked. “He was a wilful child, but perhaps he could have been brought back into line.”

Dad looked up and the darkness of the abyss resided in his eyes. “Michael betrayed us. He reported us to the police and the women in my Mayfair property all mysteriously disappeared before I could deal with them. I checked all the trackers of my sons. Ash was in his apartment at the time, Aaron and Oliver far from the place, but Michael went dark that night. It was as if he just disappeared.”

Imagine.

I faked my surprise because my tracker had been sitting on a shelf in my apartment in its special keyring. Michael had a scrambler left discreetly with him so he would disappear for the hours it took us to complete that mission.

Jordan was a sneaky bastard, but a genius.

He was twenty steps ahead, plotting our next move before our opponents had even moved their players on the board.

“Are you saying that Michael took possession of your assets?” I asked in a neutral tone. “Where exactly did he put them?”

Dad glared at me for several moments. “I have no idea. He was very fond of one of them, a redhead. He wasn’t happy about giving her up.”

I knew exactly the woman he was taking about, considering I had overseen their move to a secure rehabilitation facility after all their trackers had been neutralised. There was a haunted look in her eyes that only appeared when someone had fractured your soul. Michael had always enjoyed the pain of others.

“I assume you have a means to locate them?” I asked, giving him my best disapproving look.

“Of course, but their trackers went dead the night they went missing and still haven’t come back online.” Dad trailed his fingers through his hair. It was the first time he’d looked stressed in years.

“Dare I ask how many of these assets are missing?” I already knew the answer. Twelve. He had twelve women locked in cages in his dungeon of depravity.

He vaguely waved his arm as if it was of no concern.

My entire life I watched these men hold their power over others. They were like sharks who scented blood in the water and launched themselves in for the kill. My uncles didn’t care who you were. If you pissed them off, you were dead.

I brought my head up until my eyes met Dad’s. “I think you’ll find that every detail about this matters,” I said in a cold, hard voice. “Any one of those women could identify you or anyone else you let touch them.”

I let my words sink in because these men shared in their corruption. My cousin was married recently and his wife was left in the billiard room for every male in our family to sample. I had refused, but she was pale and shaking when she emerged after being “sampled” for several hours by her in-laws.

Sex was a weapon to these men. It was the reason that not a single soul in this room knew I was married. Lucrezia would be fair game to their wickedness and I would have to kill every one of them who even thought about putting a finger on her soft skin.

“Michael probably has them locked away somewhere,” Dad replied. “They’ve probably starved to death by now.”

“How can you be so sure since he was working with the police?” I leaned back to stare at him. Aaron and Oliver sat on either side of me, both of them sickened by the events of the past few months. For the first time in our lives, we stood united as brothers. None of us wanted to have any part of human slavery and trafficking.

Uncle Eli slid Dad a questioning look. “You know that some of those girls could identify most of this family.”

I suspected as much, but had refused to look at the tapes. Xavier and Jordan had saved me from having to watch Dad perform in his role as the devil.

Uncle Eli moved his attention to me, his lips pursed in contemplation. “Perhaps we should get Marlow to investigate.”

Marlow had grown up among these sickos. He’d been a Blackwood in all but name.

“He has gone missing,” Dad finally admitted, his jaw tight. “I haven’t been able to contact him for weeks.”

That was probably because his body had been cremated and his head was currently situated in a freezer waiting for the perfect moment for me to send it to Dad.

“All this is very troubling,” Uncle Eli said. “This house needs put in order immediately. I will not have us brought down because you couldn’t keep your offspring in line.”

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