Page 1 of Cardinal House

Chapter 1

Wolf

Thunder rolls and claps overhead, no rain falling yet, but I know it’s coming, can feel it hanging heavy and low in the black clouds. My feet are silent as we make our way across the open field of tarmac, my youngest brother, Raine, at my back.

The car park is empty, all except for one vehicle in the far back corner of the lot. A 1999, Lotus Esprit GT3 Turbo in faded lime green is angled across three spaces. Its back end spun out, the front crushed into a light pole with a steady cloud of smoke wafting from the mangled bonnet.

It wasn’t the plan to follow a low level drug dealer tonight, but when the call came in on our way back from a body drop off. Our eldest brother, Thorne, telling us to track and chase this fool for our biggest employers, The Swallows, a crime family we often act as disposals for, we did as instructed.

After all, it is what we do as Blackwells, deal in death.

Only, we took chase for less than three minutes before he was careening into the empty car park and crashing into the railings. Still, I wasn’t planning on doing anything else exciting tonight, so I suppose this is better than another evening stuck down in the morgue.

“You check the back,” I instruct Raine as we come up on the smoking car, guns drawn, steps slow.

We don’t know who or what else could be in the vehicle, what weapons he has, and despite my hunch that this is exactly what Thorne said, just a simple grab and bag, I don’t wanna take any chances.

“Got it,” Raine replies lowly, tone thick and tired, his body moving around me and stealthily loping towards the back end of the destroyed car.

Adjusting my grip on the gun, I bend down to peer into the cracked window. The guy’s dark eyes are open, unseeing through the shattered windscreen. Blood covering his face from where he looks to have headbutted the steering wheel, body half slumped out of his seat, more red dribbling from his ear and down his neck.

Ah, fuck.

“Raine,” I say loudly, trying to get my brother’s consistently wandering attention, “Come ‘ere.”

Elbowing the remaining glass out, I reach in and feel for a pulse, but even as I do, I know I’m not going to find one. I’ve been disposing of corpses for more than twenty of my thirty-four years on this planet, I know when I’m looking at a dead thing.

My fingers slip in the warm blood, but I feel around anyway, just to confirm what I know, this’ll be our second body drop off of the evening.

“He’s dead,” I tell Raine, drawing myself away from the window, turning to where I see my brother hovering beside the back bumper. “Call it in and we’ll get this lot moved, might need Archer, too, for the tow.”

Raine stares at me unblinking, his dark brown eyes, so much like our four other siblings’, are wide. Deep violet circles beneath them look ghoulish under the flickering glow of the street lamp above. His choppy hair is a messy wave across his forehead, white licking burn scars threading down the side of his neck, disappearing beneath the round neckline of his t-shirt. He stands rigid, staring at me, and I sigh so heavily it feels as though my lungs deflate.

“For shit’s sake, Rainey! You’re fucking high?” I know he is now that I stare back, the way his pupils are blown wide, his jaw clenched tight but still fucking swinging, his shoulders shaking.

I sweep a hand over my head, my black hair tied up in a loop at the crown of my skull. I tuck my gun back into the holster, and pull out my phone, dialling Thorne. He answers before it even fully plays the first call tone in my ear.

“Wolf,” he answers smoothly.

“Can you and Archer get over here? Got a disposal and a vehicle that needs crushing, Raine needs to go home,” I tell him, staring at our brother.

“Got your location, on our way,” he replies calmly, the soft taps of his dress shoes echoing in the background. “Is he high again?”

“Yes,” I grit out, both angry and sad that this seems to be becoming a regular occurrence.

Thorne says something but I don’t hear him as Raine cocks his head at me, his brow scrunched, eyes lifting from my booted feet up to my head, slow, until his gaze reconnects with mine. That’s when I notice the gun still clenched in his hands, his finger on the trigger as he lifts it, aiming at me, arms trembling.

“Raine,” that’s what I say, my lips forming the words, I know I say them but I don’t hear them, the phone still pressed close to my head. “Put the gun down, brother, you don’t wanna be aiming that shit at me.” My words are slow, calm, patient.

Thorne’s voice is unusually sharp in my ear, his words a quick clip, “Archer is the closest, he is four minutes out.”

“Raine,” I repeat, “Rainey,” my mouth feels impossibly dry. “Bro.”

“You’re a liar,” he says coldly, his dark eyes nothing more than black holes in his face, his warm olive skin sallow under the shadow of the street light.

Blackwells don’t tell lies.

That’s our family’s one rule.

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