“What’s your name?” Fiona asked gently.
“Molly,” she replied softly.
“Well, Molly, soon we’ll be at Brookhaven, and you’ll be safe.”
Brookhaven was the orphanage Adrian had founded years ago, specifically to care for children like Molly, girls and boys who’d been sold into prostitution. For years, Adrian had donned the mask of Prometheus and rescued children from places like the one she’d been at tonight. He’d brought them to Fiona, who ran the home and made sure the children were fed, cared for, and even educated.
Unfortunately, Adrian had recently wed and started a family. He’d retired the mask of Prometheus when he’d found out that his wife, Vanessa, was expecting a baby. While Fiona couldn’t blame her old friend for stopping his dangerous activities, she’d been haunted by the idea of all the children who were still suffering.
A few weeks ago, it had suddenly occurred to her that although Adrian had stopped, there was no reason Prometheus had to. She’d made herself a mask and cape similar to Prometheus’s and had started prowling the streets at night, listening and watching, searching for children to rescue.
A surge of purpose pulsed through her. She’d worried that, as a woman, she wouldn’t be able to do this, but so far, she’d had extraordinary luck.
Molly threw herself into Fiona’s arms, hugging her tightly. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you so much.”
Fiona hugged her back, absolutely certain that this was what she’d been meant to do.
* * *
“ITHOUGHT YOU’D PUTthe mask away,” Morgan Strathmore said as soon as he was shown into the Earl of Hawkesmere’s sitting room where his two brothers were engaged in a game of chess.
His twin, Adrian, looked up at him in confusion. His face still bore a faint tracery of scars from the fire that had killed their father when they were children. “What are you talking about?”
Morgan poured himself a drink and then took a seat near them. “Prometheus was apparently spotted in the East End last night. Which one of you was it?”
Lucien, his older brother, who was also the earl, glanced up from the board. “Well, it wasn’t me.” He turned back to Adrian. “I thought you were done with all that.”
Adrian shrugged. “It wasn’t me either.”
Morgan frowned at them both. “If it wasn’t either of you, then who the bloody hell was it?”
Lucien sat back and shook his head. “The mask and cape are upstairs. Whoever’s doing this must have had their own made.”
“For what purpose?” Adrian asked.
Morgan sighed and rubbed his temple. “I don’t know. The person who told me about it didn’t know exactly what this faux-Prometheus was up to.”
“I don’t like it,” said Lucien. “Do you think that whoever he is has any idea that we’re involved?”
“Everyone who knows that we came up with Prometheus is in this room,” said Adrian. “There’s no way anyone else could know.”
For several years, Adrian had masqueraded as Prometheus, reimagining their childhood creation into a champion for those who were too small or weak to champion themselves. When he’d finally put the mask away, Lucien had briefly reprised the role to find out information about the child their mother and stepbrother had taken from him when he was young. Morgan was the only one of them who had never donned the mask himself. At least, not since the night Winters had died...
Shaking himself out of those dangerous thoughts, he returned his attention to his brothers. “You’re forgetting about your wives. They both know.”
Lucien glared at him. “Are you insinuating that Vanessa or Serenity would betray our confidence?”
Morgan sighed. “No, of course not. I just don’t know who else might know.”
“I don’t think anyone knows that we’re linked to Prometheus,” Adrian cut in. “Someone must have decided to adopt the persona for their own purposes.”
Lucien shook his head. “The last thing I want is for someone to draw attention to Prometheus. We’re lucky no one put two and two together when Adrian was burning down brothels from one end of the city to the other.”
“No one knew it was me,” Adrian said. “I was careful.”
“Winters knew,” Morgan reminded them both, referring to their stepbrother, who now bore his father’s title. The bastard had run all sorts of unsavory establishments, and Adrian had targeted him with a single-minded intensity that had ended in the death of Morgan’s wife, Anne. Winters had also kidnapped their little sister, Allison, and escaped to the Continent. Lucien had dispatched an inspector to find Allison and bring her back. Quinn O’Brien had done so, but he hadn’t managed to capture Winters. They hadn’t heard anything from their stepbrother since, but Morgan was certain they eventually would.
“Do you think that he’s come back? Perhaps hired someone to play Prometheus in an attempt to draw us out?” Lucien asked, leaning forward with a look of quiet intensity.
