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“You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying here under our lock and key,” he growls. “I can walk there, but it’ll be twenty minutes. They cook them fresh.”
I scowl, feigning annoyance, but I’m already planning where I’m going to explore first. Callen grabs a leather jacket and pulls a beanie over his head, keeping his long hair under wraps.
“I’d tell you not to come back,” I say, returning to my spot on the sofa, “but I want my pizza.”
He calls over his shoulder, “Don’t cause any trouble when I’m gone.”
The door closes, but I don’t move straight away. If Callen is the suspicious person I think he is, he’ll test me. I’m right. A few minutes later, as predicted, he returns to check I’m still there.
“What?” I look up with wide, innocent eyes and bat my eyelashes. “Disappointed that I’m not flicking my bean?”
He grins and licks his lips. “Definitely.”
“Fuck you, Callen.”
The door closes for a second time. I cautiously move to the window and watch him disappear down the street until he vanishes from view. The search is on. My twenty-minute timer starts now. I reach for my ruby ring, spinning the stone clockwise twice to activate the micro camera jammer. It’s a hidden device that Penelope designed to disable all cameras within a twenty-foot radius. It’s real spy shit.
I go to his laptop. Password protected, of course. He’s precariously balanced a stack of papers underneath it, and a folder with ‘Bexley’ written on the cover is at the top. It makes sense that a spineless coward like Spencer hired protection. But do the Dukes know they’re protecting a monster?
I peer inside the folder to see a photograph of Doyle’s body filling the hot tub like a lilo. There’s a nice message written on the floor, too. Real subtle. I ruffle through the pages to see more pictures and freeze when I see him.Spencer. His leering smile haunts my nightmares. I want to take a potato peeler to his lips and tear them off… a possibility that’s edging closer, mainly because the Dukes can give me access.
What’s more important? Killing Spencer or following Alaric’s orders?
I put the papers back carefully. I don’t have long until Callen returns and my next stop is the top floor. They’re hiding something up there, and I need to discover what it is.
I climb the stairs two at a time. Freddie gave me free rein of the house, so, technically, I’m doing nothing wrong. When I enter, nothing looks unusual from the outset. It’s just your average bachelor pad. I run my fingers over the bar top. Shelves line the black walls. Maybe they have the same setup as HQ with a hidden door. I try moving books on the shelves, but nothing.
Behind the sofa? A few crumpled fivers and dust bunnies. Behind the bar? Enough booze to live through a pandemic but no criminal activity. Under a shag rug? No trap door. There’s nothing! I’m about to drown my sorrows in frustration when I spot it.There. Logs stacked in the fireplace on the other side of the room don’t look like they’ve been burned. There’s no chimney on the outside of the house.Come to Mumma!
Ten minutes to go.
I slide my hand over the mantlepiece and kneel down. No one recommends sticking your hand up a chimney, but I do it anyway. I reach into the blackness to grope the walls. There’s no soot, which proves it’s a decorative piece or an entranceway.
My fingers explore the smooth walls, then stumble across something. A lever? A button? Something that shouldn’t be there. I flick it, then pull back. When I do, the back panel of the fireplace moves. It slides and disappears into the floor to reveal another door with a click. There’s no way any of the guys could squeeze through that gap when a hobbit would struggle to fit. I stand up, scanning the fireplace again, and notice tiny hinges disguised by a trailing plant on its left side.
The entire fireplace is the same height as my shoulder, and I use all of my strength to swing it away from the wall to reveal the rest of the door. It’s smaller than a standard door but usable. I’ve stumbled on the jackpot. This is what I’ve been searching for.
Inside, the adjoining room has many computer screens, resembling Penelope’s office at HQ. The pungent smell of gunpowder hits me instantly. From the supplies on a workbench, it looks like someone has been experimenting with explosives. A large desk and filing cabinet sit in the corner, but the key items that catch my eye are mounted on the walls. Weapons.
Guns of all sizes. Rows and rows of them. Windowed cabinets create aisles down the middle of the room, holding knives and other devices. Most women get excited about seeing displays in jewellery shops, but the Duke’s collection is impressive.
I open a drawer to see rows of bullets. They have more ammunition than I expected. I don’t know how anyone got away with smuggling so many weapons into the city without Alaric knowing. He’s aware of all the key players, so the Dukes must have connections he doesn’t know about.
There’s also a steel lift shaft to my left. I’ve not seen an opening anywhere else in the house, so there must be another hidden room in the basement. Knowing about their weapons stash is useful, but I need more than that.
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath as I try to force open the filing cabinet. It’s locked and requires a combination. Isn’t a moving fireplace enough of a security measure? “There has to be something…”
I head to the desk to check the unlocked drawers. The first three are filled with boring stationery items lined up neatly. I pull open the bottom drawer and freeze.
A brown manilla folder reads:
Daisy Penrose.
My heart sinks as I flick through the reams of paper. There are some photographs of our cottage—what remains of it, anyway. It was sold at auction and bought by a developer who changed its appearance dramatically. There’s another photograph too. A grainy image of me and Freddie on the night we met. It’s too blurry to make out any of our features, but he must have pulled it from a CCTV camera. Something Penelope missed. There’s a coroner’s report with hastily written notes in the margins—scraps of paper with roughly drawn timelines trying to map out my life but drawing blanks. If the Dukes didn’t find out my secret, no one can.
I look again at the hazy image of the couple holding hands under the street lights. The woman in the photo is oblivious to what’s coming next and how her entire life will change. I squint at the black cab driving past. A detail I forgot about until now. On another page, Freddie has blown up the registration plates of the vehicle, and a name is written next to it:
Vincent.
