Page 4 of Midnight Secrets

Viceroy of the Americas.

The Washington Massacre had been phase one and that had been a resounding success.

One extra special fillip to the Massacre was that it had taken out the Delvauxs, the whole brood. Simply swatted them away, like you would with pernicious flies.

Officious pricks, every single one of them.

The Blakes and Delvauxs had been friends for three generations.

Everyone thought Blake and Alex Delvaux were friends when the truth was Blake despised Alex, always had. Hated all the Delvauxs, actually, with their shock of blondish hair, athleticism and charisma. Kennedys for the twenty-first century. Seemingly destined for greatness when there had been no greatness there, just mediocrity and good cheekbones.

It had been his distinct pleasure to arrange for the Massacre to be at a campaign party announcing Alex’s candidacy for the presidential nomination.

Wiped almost all of them out.

All in all, over fifty Delvauxes killed. Every single one, actually, except for one.

Blake frowned.

Why Isabel Delvaux had been spared was beyond him. The utter vagaries of chance. She was a pretty thing, some kind of food maven, completely inconsequential. Her survival was a quirk of fate. She wasn’t political in any way, as many of the Delvauxs had been. Had gone on record as being against her father’s campaign, but for personal reasons not political reasons. Most of the Delvauxs were highly political and very vocal. Had any of the political Delvauxs survived the blast, Blake would have had them put down by his team because none of them would stand still for phase two.

Blake let Isabel be. She wasn’t going to make waves. She was a shadow of her former self and had changed her name and crossed the country to live a recluse’s life in Portland, Oregon.

It was a very good thing that it looked like Isabel could barely stand on her feet, because she’d seen things she shouldn’t have. For one electric moment that night, in the midst of the Massacre, their eyes had met and Blake saw that she’d realized something. Then the building had blown. He thought she’d died together with the rest and had been astonished three days later to discover she was in a coma at George Washington University Hospital.

He’d been very tempted to send a kill team to her. There was so much chaos everywhere that it would have been easy to slip into her hospital room and inject an air bubble in the IV line.

In the end, he’d decided to wait it out and he’d been right

But he kept an eye on her, checking in at intervals. She remembered literally nothing from the night of the Massacre.

If her memory ever came back, Blake would have her put down. He had a man in Portland keeping an eye on her.

No, Isabel was no threat.

So, now they were passing on to phase two.

He got up, poured himself a thirty-two-year-old single malt and sat down again, admiring the view outside his windows.

Viceroy of the Americas. He smiled and took another sip of his $3,000 Macallan.

2

PORTLAND

It was freezing cold and windy, but Isabel Delvaux, now Isabel Lawton, went out anyway. Her daily torture session—a one-hour walk. It had to be done. If she didn’t grit her teeth and force herself to go out, she’d never leave the house.

Staying in her house forever. It scared her that the thought didn’t scare her.

The wind was as raw as she felt. She had three layers under her down coat but the wind made her shiver anyway. Probably because of the exhaustion. It had been another horrible, sleepless night. Just like the night before and the night before that and like tomorrow night would be. She hadn’t had one decent night’s sleep since the Massacre.

The night she lost her whole family, the night she lost everything.

Don’t think about it.Her daily—hourly—mantra.

Don’t think about Mom or Dad. Or Teddy or Rob. Or—God!—Jack. There hadn’t been anything found of Jack to bury.

Don’t think about her aunts and uncles and cousins—all gone. Her tribe—gone.

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