Page 11 of Lady of Darkness
Harlow
Later that afternoon,I’m trying not to fall asleep during a PowerPoint about rival crime syndicates, when the name Crawford comes up. I sit up straighter as the family tree appears, and to my surprise, Cecelia’s name and picture are on the screen. I read the information provided, feeling my stomach drop as it sinks in.
The Crawford Family dates back to 1200 A.D. They currently reside in a small village in the Cotswolds, with George Crawford, the current leader of the Crawford empire. Since its founding, the Crawfords have been attempting to undermine the Lords of Darkness in every way possible. Most recently, George Crawford set up a marriage between Cecelia, his eldest daughter, and the late Charles Blackwell, previously one of the Lords of Darkness. It is thought that George and Charles were secretly working together, with Charles feeding sensitive information to George for several years before his unfortunate death.
“What the fuck?” I whisper, looking around the small room.
His unfortunate death.
I’m watching these boring presentations in a room off of their office, so I stand up and march outside, finding all four of them working on computers. It makes me pause for a second, because right now, they look so ordinary–simply men in suits, working on their computers.
I clear my throat.
“How come no one told me about Cecelia?”
Alaric cracks his knuckles. “It wasn’t pertinent for you to know at the time.”
“Is that why you told me she wouldn’t fight me for the title and house? Because her father…”
I trail off, remembering something Rose said a couple of weeks ago.
Running this house by herself was always a daunting prospect, and her father is... very overprotective.
Theo laughs. “George Crawford would never let his daughter reside in the house of a Lord of Darkness. Once Charles died, she went right back to her family, because her being in Blackwell was of no use to her father anymore. He’s still licking his wounds now that their informant–your father–is dead. Their access to our information was severed.”
I open and close my mouth, trying to digest everything he’s telling me. “Does Cecelia know?”
Gideon shakes his head. “No. She never knew she was just a pawn in their game.”
My father’s words from his letter filter back into my mind.
I made many mistakes, and I regret them every day. If I could erase my mistakes, I would. Whatever they say about me after I’m gone… it’s true.
I was selfish, power-hungry, and I thought I was better than my best friends.
Please don’t be like me.
“What does this mean about Archie?”
“George already has an heir, Cecelia’s older brother, plus or minus a few nephews, so Archie was never a target. If you’d walked away from the Lords, Archie would’ve become a Lord of Darkness, just like we said he would. George would not have fought us on it.”
I sit down on the couch next to Alaric’s desk. “Was my mother…” I trail off, swallowing.
The truth is, ever since I found out about the Lords, I wondered if my mother ever knew. If she ever suspected what my father was a part of, or what kind of bloodline she was carrying forward.
“No,” Alaric says slowly. “Your mother and father were young and in love. She knew him before he was a Lord.”
I nod. I vaguely remember my grandfather, and that he died when I was really little. “So, Cecelia’s family was working with my father, but Cecelia didn’t know about it?”
Alaric clears his throat. “Yes. And neither did we, until a few weeks ago. He kept everything very cleverly hidden.” His eyes rove over my face. “He kept a lot of things very cleverly hidden.”
I look down at my boots, trying to understand. “But why would he do that? Why feed information to the Crawford family, going against you and every ancestor we ever had? Why ruin something almost a thousand years old?”
Gideon shrugs from his position in front of me. “We don’t know the reason. Stupidity, greed, or a blind desperation for power… who knows. But for now, the Crawfords have backed off. We handed Cecelia back unharmed–something we didn’t have to do, mind you–and George knows she will be our first target if he decides to go after us.”
“I had to scrub our servers, delete any sensitive information, and transfer it to a new server,” Theo interjects. “He basically had every single piece of information funneling to the Crawfords–every email, every target, every text. I’m surprised they didn’t kill us. They had many opportunities. Instead, they studied us, which is even more disconcerting. We were vulnerable as hell, but I learned my lesson. We now all have to approve any new contacts to the system, and our entire infrastructure is visible to all of us. The comings and goings,everything. Any changes require a 30-character password from each of us.” His icy blue eyes bore into mine. “It’s impossible to penetrate now–more secure than the U.S. government.”
I swallow. “That’s good.”
