Page 40 of Secrets and Ruin

“Oh, well… I didn’t know what Mister Brandt was for a long time. I worked at his club for a while until Dirk got me a better job for my degree with his dad. Driving people around isn’t what I normally do, but I was asked because I figured out something was wrong. Dirk and I were supposed to hang out, and he never showed, which isn’t like him. He was supposed to tell me all about the United States and Texas. He even said he was seeing someone, but he didn’t tell me the lucky girl’s name over the phone.” She gave me a grin. “He’s your nephew, right?”

“Ah… yeah, in a sense.” I was grateful Landon was in the backseat. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to out either man, but it certainly put me in an awkward position because she was clearly fishing for information.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Millie. I was wondering where I recognized your name,” Landon said. I looked over my shoulder to see his sharp smile, but there wasn’t anything aggressive about his posture. “He’s told me a bit about you.”

“Oh, are you a friend of his?”

“Of a sort,” Landon confirmed.

I quietly decided to leave this be until we were at the estate, and no one was driving fast enough to kill everyone in the vehicle. I did my best to keep the conversation to a minimum, but it was difficult to be too quiet as Millie raced through the country, leaving me feeling like my life was in danger. More than once, I tried to step on an invisible brake, hoping I could slow us down, only to be disappointed to find one didn’t exist.

Finally, the sun getting lower than I liked, we turned right down a rarely used road. It was maintained but didn’t see heavy traffic, and whoever kept it clear of debris didn’t do that often. Tall trees towered around us, no more road signs showing up as we weaved down, Millie watching her speed. Branches littered the road, and I even saw a carcass of roadkill that had to be at least a week old.

“Are we almost there?” I asked, an assumption born of the environment around me and the road. I was confused because I hadn’t yet felt the entry into Niko’s territory.

“Yes, ma’am,” she said, her voice suddenly low, a near whisper. “There will be a couple more turns. This is still a public road. You’ll know when we get to the private drive.”

I knew well before we finally rolled into Niko’s territory. I received no wave of feeling or response from Niko, who would have known I was there if he was anywhere in his own territory. Territory magic was mostly feeling, a silent one-way form of communicating between the one who claimed it and the one who entered. Niko’s response could have told me to leave or made me feel welcomed. Perhaps it would feel wary but willing to meet.

All I got was a sense of secrets, with an undercurrent of danger, but there was no active presence in the sensation. It was like a foreboding sign in a horror movie but without the immediate threat of the monster. I was walking into its lair, but the beast wasn’t in the area to enforce the warning. I knew Niko wasn’t in his territory. Even if he was trying to hide, I would have known from even the smallest shift in that feeling.

Not paying attention to the distance or time anymore, my eyes searched the trees, hoping for any sign of someone or something I recognized. I didn’t know the landscape, but something made me want to look, as though it pricked my instincts in a bad way. As I searched and saw nothing, I felt restless, edgy with the need for someone or something to jump out and try to attack or the need to find something to attack. It took too long for me to realize what my instincts were trying to tell me, and it had nothing to do with being in Niko’s territory.

This place is dangerous. Even Millie recognizes it, and she probably doesn’t even know why…

I sniffed the air and caught the scent of Landon’s growing agitation, but he was composed. Whatever we were getting couldn’t bait him into doing anything, but he noticed it like I did.

“Here we are,” Millie now said in the softest whisper, barely audible over the sound of the SUV.

She turned left down a dirt road, but it didn’t stay dirt for longer than a hundred yards before becoming a paved drive. Now our speed could only be described as a crawl. I itched to get out of the SUV and run through the woods, wanting to find whatever dangerous thing lurked out there, unseen and unheard butthere.

It was still a lengthy drive, but as we weaved through the trees into a clearing, the sight of his remote home came into view.

“It’s time to get to work,” I said, readying myself for whatever secrets Landon and I were about to stumble into while we looked for our missing members of the Brandt family.

17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Iwasn’t sure if I should call Niko’s home a mansion or a castle. It was neither and both. What I could reasonably guess was there had been a castle or keep-like structure originally, and Niko had renovated it with a dash of more modern aesthetics, sharp lines and angles to mix with the organic stone of older areas of the structure. It was contradictory and strange. There were solar panels on the roofs at all different levels of the three-story monstrosity and a few satellites jutting out from the seemingly original towers, one on each side of the home.

“Dirk never told me what this place looked like, but I wasn’t expecting this,” I said, shaking my head at the strange place, unable to identify if I thought it was cool and unique or the most atrocious thing I had ever seen.

“He never told me much about it either,” Landon said, leaning between the front seats now to look out the front. “I hate it.”

“Niko certainly… made some choices…”

“You know, there’s no record of a castle ever being here. I looked after my first time visiting… only time. This is my second trip here,” Millie said, her bubbly personality becoming more edgy and panicked as though she was trying to cover up her nerves. She was failing, but the effort was there.

Millie said nothing more as she drove us into the underground garage, where a line of several other vehicles waited. I could smell her confusion. It matched with her frown as she picked a spot.

“I hope this is the right one,” she said, her audible swallow telling me she was more nervous than excited.

“I’m sure no one will mind.” I was trying to comfort her, but I had no idea how things were run here. I was only hoping I could sway them thanks to nepotism.

As I got out, there was already someone running toward us, and I saw Ansel behind him, walking quickly but not in the same rush. Behind us, the garage doors were closing quickly, blocking all sunlight from the garage and leaving only the artificial lights above us.

“Welcome.” Ansel started talking even though he was still another fifty feet from us. “Please follow me. He’ll get your things into a pair of rooms I’ve set aside for you.” He gestured at the running human, who was already opening the trunk to grab our stuff. “Dinner will be ready in an hour, then we have lights out at midnight—”

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