Page 23 of Midnight Salvation

Lucrezia sat back in her chair and I felt her hair brush against my fingers. Her proximity stabilised my emotions as I dragged in a shaky breath.

Xavier went to a safe at the back of the room and opened it, lifting out a box file and setting it on the table. “Before I open this, you need to promise me that what is inside remains a secret. Cassandra’s family died because of this and the men who carried out that attack are still out there somewhere.”

After such a speech, part of me expected the box to explode when he opened it. Instead, it contained papers and photographs. Xavier handed the paperwork to me and the photographs to Jordan.

I scanned the documents. The value associated with the diamond mines was enough to wipe out several families for. The other documents included the will of Frank Jenkins’ father. It also contained marriage certificates. I could see why he handed me the paperwork.

“Anything of interest?” Jordan asked me.

“The deeds to diamond mines, and some family documents such as wills and marriage certificates from Cassandra’s family.” If he wanted to see them, he could, so I did what I had always done in poker and set them where everyone could see and access them.

“This is my grandfather when he was younger,” Jordan said as he flicked through the photographs. “Some of the men I don’t recognise.”

Lucas stood to look over his shoulder. “That is Frank Jenkins and his brother Dante. They had been inseparable as boys.” He pointed to another photograph. “That is me and Hugh. He met my sister not long after this was taken. Xavier is the conclusion of their story.”

“What is the zodiac brotherhood, and how is all this connected?” Lucrezia asked. “I assume all the symbols in the books refer to people and places.”

Lucas smiled at his daughter. “You were always too smart for your own good.” He rubbed his eyes with his hand. “I need a drink.”

Cassandra silently got up and went into the kitchen, returning with a tray filled with glasses and a bottle of scotch. Lucas happily accepted a glass and swallowed the fiery liquid in one go. She left again when Sasha called her name.

“Our families taught us from an early age the importance of the Council until it was engrained into our souls,” Lucas said in a low tone. “I will never forget the day that I discovered it was all a fucking lie. Isabella was pregnant with Catarina when we’d been recalled. Elijah and I had arrived together since we shared a car up from London. We were late, and locked out of the meeting. Even in those days the doors were bolted when a conference commenced. So we decided to do a little exploring. Back then, the archives lived in the dungeon on dusty shelves in ledgers.”

Whatever I’d been expecting, this hadn’t been it.

“In another room in the dungeon we found a barely-alive woman they’d been torturing. I doubt she was even twenty, and on the verge of death. An offering to some ancient tradition that none of us knew about. One of the ledgers contained the details of families that owed a debt to the Council. Beside their names were the payment. Some were cash and others were young females sent to be raped and abused by the sick bastards who accepted them.”

Silence filled the room at the horror of his words. I knew the Council had sick individuals in it, but nothing as bad as this. It reminded me of what Dad had been doing and Oliver’s asset that could well have been his future sister-in-law since she was in that townhouse.

“Where are the ledgers now?” I asked.

“Hidden far from the world or destroyed to cover their sins. Who knows?” Lucas replied. “That was the day that I knew I could no longer be a part of their organisation. At the time I thought Elijah and I were in agreement, but as the years passed I realised he was only interested in money. He saw an opportunity in what he had witnessed down there that day and followed it.”

“Shit,” Xavier muttered, his hands gripping the chair behind Cassandra. “This is worse than I thought.”

“When human nature is in the equation, nothing is ever worse than we think,” Lucas replied. “Both Elijah and I approached Council members we were friendly with to gauge their reactions to what we saw. Some were shocked, like Frank and Dan, while others already knew and wanted us to join them in their sick games. That was when the zodiac brotherhood was born.”

Part of me didn’t want to hear the rest of this. I sure as hell didn’t want Lucrezia to hear any of it. Once evil this dark was spoken out loud, there was no way to push it back into its box again.

“The zodiac brotherhood wasn’t just members of the Council, it was a group of men determined to try and fix the world. I took the place of the first house and the god of war, Frank took the second house as it was all about finances.” Lucas lifted his gaze to me. “You get the idea.”

Unfortunately I did, but like all ideals they tended to be corrupted and destroyed when human greed was added to the equation.

“What happened?” I asked.

“In the beginning we were able to counter what the Council did until we began to try and start to unravel their web of deceit. Power is a much greater motivator than morality. The deeper we dug, the more malignant the situation became. Frank was working on trying to stall their financial avenues, Zach took on their business dealings in an attempt to stop how far they could reach into the lives of others.” Lucas smiled at Lucrezia. “Trust my daughter to see the patterns and symbols in those books. She always did have an eye for intricate details.”

Lucrezia’s head dipped the way it did when she was embarrassed.

“And what happened to this order of noble knights?” Jordan asked, his arms folded over his chest and his expression pissed.

Lucas met his eyes. “Some were seduced by power like Elijah, while others were murdered like your father.”

Jordan stiffened, all the shutters coming down over his eyes. His parents were a no-go area of discussion. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to know about them, but his grandfather had beat the instinct to pry out of him until any mention of them was almost like a phobia that created an adverse reaction.

“I’m assuming that since we have no Elijah on the Council and dick pic guy referred to the brotherhood, he formed something else?” Xavier asked.

“He did.” Lucas sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Most of the firearms trafficked around the world go through Elijah. He needs money to create new weapons, so it looks like he might have decided to take some inspiration from the Council and access a few heiresses along the way.”

---