Page 10 of Wicked Heiress

“He has a deadly weapon in his possession and refuses to use it,” my father said with disdain in his tone. “He could easily solve our problems with The Lucaya Group.”

We suspected but couldn’t confirm that Grace’s biological father was the leader of The Lucaya Group. For that reason, The Devil’s Knights had to protect her.

Fitzy hid her when she was nine. Her name change became essential at eleven when her father escaped imprisonment on Skull Island, where The Devil’s Knights locked up the worst offenders.

That day, she became Grace Hale, and Katarina Adams Romanov died. If you were to do a Google search—or any search for that matter—you wouldn’t find a trace of Grace’s former identity. It was as if she were never born.

“Drake isn’t like you,” I told my dad. “Or like the other Knights.”

My cousin had a kind heart and genuinely wanted to change the world. Maybe he could, but his personal beliefs contradicted our current situation.

“No, he’s not,” Dad agreed. “But one day, he will change his mind, and when he does, it will be too late.”

If anyone could take down The Lucaya Group, it was Drake. But he let his conscience guide him. My dad and I hadn’t told any of The Knights about some of Drake’s developments. Because we knew if the Salvatore brothers found out, they would force him to use his work for evil.

Drake believed the only way out was to find a backdoor. He thought like a hacker, not like my dad and The Founders. So, for now, his secret stayed within the family. No one but us would ever know he could stop this war.

And that meant I had to pay extra special attention to Grace. Until her adoptive father returned from his assignment, I wouldn’t let her out of sight—only on the rare occasions when I met with The Knights.

“Can you check on her if our meeting goes longer than expected?”

Dad nodded. “Grace is safe under our roof. Nothing will happen to her, Cole.”

I wanted to believe that.

If there’s a will, there’s a way, my grandfather used to say. After ten years of relentless searching, Viktor Romanov proved he would never give up on his daughter, no matter the obstacles.

I turned to leave, and my dad added, “I know you have feelings for her, son. But getting in Fitzy’s way will hurt our family.”

“I understand what’s at stake for us.”

But my dick doesn’t.

“Good.” He raised a tumbler of scotch to his mouth and drank. “I have seen first-hand what happens to Knights who disobey The Founders, and it would not end well for us.”

“I have to go,” I said, hating that I could only ever look at Grace and never touch her. “The Knights are waiting for me. You know how Luca gets when we’re late.”

Chapter Five

COLE

I stopped in the library, removed a few books from the shelves, and set them on the table. Then, I reached into the open space on the center shelf and pulled on the lever. All the founding families of Devil’s Creek had a similar passageway in their homes. You only had to remove the correct books to find the secret door, which swung open for me.

In every house, the lever was behind The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Choosing a classic novel about a man tunneling his way out of prison only seemed fitting. Our ancestors had an interesting sense of humor. But it would take forever to discover this door in a library of this size, with a thirty-foot ceiling and wall-to-wall books.

I closed the door behind me and hit the button on the wall to illuminate the narrow channel. Taking the stairs two at a time, I headed into the catacombs beneath Devil’s Creek and followed the familiar path.

The cramped passage smelled like mildew, salt water, and earth. This far below ground, the air was dense and harder to breathe. Iron lanterns cast a soft glow on the stone walls with symbols etched into them.

Some images depicted skulls with knives driven into the bone. My favorite was a knight wearing a helmet with the eyes of a demon. Beside it, a knight in full armor held the Scales of Justice, but the weight was unbalanced. It dipped to one side from a giant serpent holding it down, slithering up the arm of the knight.

Most of the wall had deranged and borderline satanic markings. The Knights were like other secret societies, but we killed people. We did horrible things for a good cause, to protect the citizens of this country from the scumbags of the world. But we also did some of those things for personal gain.

After a few minutes of walking, I entered a massive room with two thrones sitting on top of a dais. There was a ceremonial table laden with red silk sheets to my right. On my left, several Knights grabbed their hooded robes from hooks.

Luca Salvatore waited for us on the throne, already dressed in his robe and wearing an irritated scowl. He was about to take over for his father as the Grand Master of The Devil’s Knights. Arlo had been transitioning his duties to his son for the past few months.

The Salvatores had ties to the Italian Mafia, ruling without fear for nearly a century. They weren’t descendants of the United States Founding Fathers but had earned their place among us.

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