Page 38 of Midnight Revelations

I scanned the area around the house, section by section, until nothing else existed in my mind but our mission. Wires led through the undergrowth to the windows and front door. I crouched low to study them. Someone had rigged the door with a device that would probably blow me and the guys into the next century if we activated it. There wasn’t a chance in hell we were using that door. I pressed the device in my ear in a long bleep to tell them to come to my location.

Xavier appeared first, crouching beside me. Jordan wandered around the side of the house a few moments later. Even in the darkness, I could tell his reaction as his shoulders stiffened and his spine straightened. Dad was fast working his way up Jordan’s hit list and that was not a place anyone wanted to be.

Bombs were my domain because the composition and ultimate deconstruction of them was logical and methodical, all the things that an accountant was criticised for.

“Do we want to deactivate it?” I asked.

“Is the back rigged?” Xavier replied.

“No idea. I was working my way around the periphery looking for CCTV wires, and came across this instead.” I cautiously worked my way around the rest of the property. There were alarms connected to the windows, but they were more an intruder system, or a way to know if someone had escaped. The back door didn’t have any leads running to it or connected to the frame. There were no pressure pads under the mat. The only other option was that it was rigged from the inside and then the bomb maker rigged the front door.

The guys joined me to watch what I was doing.

“Do we still have heat signatures inside?” I asked.

Jordan checked his phone and nodded.

“My guess is that they need a door to get in and out through, and this would be it. It would be primed from the inside, but if there are still people inside, then I doubt it.” I sat back on my heels and stared up at them.

“My gut says we do it, since we’re here tonight. We might not get a chance again,” Xavier said.

Jordan stared at the house in quiet contemplation. “What the fuck is he hiding in there, and what shit is he trying to make us walk into?”

The way we planned this, no one would ever know it was us. The assets would be taken and no one would ever be able to prove who it was. They could guess, but the finger of blame would never fall on us.

“Let’s do it,” I muttered, taking my kit from my pocket to pick the lock.

My gun was in a holster at my waist, and in the silence of the house, I heard us each flick the safety off and cock our weapons. We spread out, searching the house, one room at a time, as we cleared each level. All that was left was the basement.

“Stop!” The other two stood statue-still at my command. “Before all hell breaks loose, should we not check for whatever he is trying to hide when this place blows?”

They slowly turned to face me. We needed to find whatever was out of place in this house, because it wasn’t the house that was Dad’s issue, there was something here he was trying to hide, like Malcolm.

We once again spread out and I contemplated the set-up Dad had in his other homes. Humans were creatures of routine and tended to set their little castles up so that their possessions were familiar around them. The library sat in the same position of his back home, the bedroom that looked inhabited was in the same position as the one he used in his other houses.

Dad tended to spend his day in the library as he used it as his office. He kept all his files and documents close by in case he needed them for whatever he was working on. I stood with my hands on my hips and let my instincts guide me. The layout was nearly identical to that in Blackwood Manor. Too many hours I had sat while he lectured me on the importance of family and the pedigree of our family. He taught me the basics of his business empire in that library and I’d sat and watched while he wandered around as I pretended to study.

I turned to my left and followed the familiar path to the bookcase. My fingers trailed over the wooden frame until I felt what I was searching for. The lever slid up and the middle section lifted away to reveal shelves behind it that contained folders. On the bottom shelf there was a laptop. There were velvet boxes set in the bottom right-hand side.

Footsteps echoed behind me as the guys arrived.

“What the fuck?” Xavier said.

“Same place as he kept it back home,” I muttered in reply.

Together, we shoved it all into Jordan and Xavier’s backpacks since mine was full, and I set the front back in place.

“Time’s running out,” Jordan said.

We made our way to the staircase in the central hall. The door in the wooden panel had five locks in it that were not for keeping people out. I slid them open one at a time from top to bottom and stepped inside.

A faint light illuminated the wooden stairs and I cautiously took one step at a time into whatever hell my father had created down here. There was an odour of stale urine that turned my stomach and I hated the fact that I wanted to turn and run back up the stairs.

Cages lined the back wall, the type people put big dogs in to ship to competitions. Inside there were women with collars around their necks and cuffs on their ankles and wrists. What the fuck was dad involved in, because there were too many here for his own pleasure harem.

Elaborate water bottles connected to a plastic tubing that led to a sink in the corner were strapped to the side of the cages, like something you’d see on a rabbit cage. He was treating them like fucking animals.

“I need to document this,” Jordan said, and Xavier and I stepped back onto the staircase as Jordan took videos and pictures on his phone. Some of the women cowered back, others stared at us as if we were the devil out for an evening stroll. Considering how they’d been treated, I didn’t blame them.

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