Page 4 of Seduce & Destroy

“No, not ‘oh well’!”

This was all coming out wrong. It just didn’t make sense. “I didn’t mea-”

“Keep your voice down.” I am. “This is a declaration of war. Find me the culprit with whatever cyber security bullshit you tout so often. Trust no one.”

“Do you think it’s…?”

“No.”

He said firm. “They are dead. All of them. I can prove it.”

I couldn’t understand his certainty, but he was already walking away in a slow commanding stride before I could ask. I rolled my eyes in frustration. It was a routine that we excelled at. I talked, he didn't listen. He spoke, and I must obey. A cat-and-mouse game like that wasn’t rewarded by a father-daughter hug afterwards, regardless of how much I wished it was.

He beckoned me with two fingers over his shoulders.

So, I followed his back. Perusing each maroon painted wall adorned with a vast collection of family portraits and looted artworks as I went. Since the Ravencroft-Karstein split, the fissure, when we were evicted to London, the confines of these walls had been stifling with unresolved drama. What had been an untouched relic now had footmen scurrying along its many corridors—the speed of their movements partly out of duty but primarily out of fear. Father already ruled with an iron fist.

Amidst that chaos, it was difficult to find peace and even more challenging to find friends. The added isolation of this Hertfordshire village depleted me. Any hope that I’d find somebody like Tilly found her husband vanished by the day.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked. Nothing but forest hugged the property. It hummed with a haunted knowing. The canopy of trees shrouded it in complete darkness. I noticed the shift even with my eyes shut. We walked into its embrace, and with a breath of fresh air, it suddenly hit me.

I’ll never see my grandfather again.

He was dead. At the hand of a gun.

In this life, we were taught to anticipate the loss, but you can never quite predict the grief.

“You’ll see,” was all he said.

As the foliage thickened, we slowed our pace. I restrained a sob that threatened to erupt between clambered breaths. Edward Ravencroft was not a good man. He never claimed to be. He made his mistakes and certainly didn’t deserve my tears. Still, the overwhelming sense of absence filled my bones, my grip on the present moment slipping. I hoped he didn’t feel that emptiness as he passed.

“How was he found?” And I didn’t mean with a hole in his head. “Was he alone?”

He didn’t say anything, he just walked to a large dark square imprinted into the grass clearing outlined with blackened brick. It took a minute to gather that it wasn’t grass I was walking on, but gravel intertwined with weeds.

A branch snapped below my feet, taking me from my thoughts. Light filtered back into my vision as we reached a clearing.

“You’re wondering why we had to move away from London?” He shrugged, nonchalant, but there was something unkempt in his posture, unresolved as he pointed at the tarnished ground. “This is what happens in war, Laney. Do not underestimate the brutality of it.”

Great Tenor. It suddenly occurred to me. The place of union, but also…“The fire was here.”

…the site of the Karstein massacre.

The bird song echoed rather than flowed. The wind stilled. My heart raced. I can’t be here.

I jumped off the blackened gravel onto a patch of untainted grass and whipped around to return to the house, but Father wrapped a hand around my waist, pulling my back to his front. “This isn’t a fairytale, Sunshine. Not like in your books.”

I shook my head. “War won’t fix this.”

“Diplomacy won’t either. That broke down the second they murdered my father. But this place could protect us.”

“It doesn’t have to–”

“It does.” He pointed toward the scorched rock. “No one made it out of this house. A whole bloodline. Gone. There are no winners in this world, just survivors. Land. On. Top.”

This wasn’t a battle I could win. Not with him. I had to concede. “Yes, Sir.”

Most likely, I wouldn’t land on top, but maybe I could not get crushed at the bottom of the pile.

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