Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
“Thomas!” Marco screamed, staring through the blaze of fire around him, tears streaming and throat burning. “Thomas, where are you?”
“Sir!” A frantic voice called back, thin and reedy through the smoke. “I am trapped, sir!”
Marco tied his handkerchief around his face and fought through the thick smoke of his burning factory, forcing himself to keep moving despite his lungs screaming to run out into the fresh air.
He saw with horror that a large wooden beam had fallen across the door to the office.
Marco launched forward, desperately using all of his strength to pull the beam away.
The wood was burning hot, and splinters lodged into his palms, but he gritted his teeth and prayed to God that he could save his friend.
With a strength he didn’t know he had, he pulled the heavy beam away and wrenched the office door open.
When he crossed the threshold, he almost gasped in shock.
It seemed that the office had been close to the blast's epicenter, and his long-time foreman, Thomas Cromer, was curled on the floor, his clothes blackened and his face red and bloody with gashes and horrible burns.
Half of his hair seemed to have been singed away.
“Sweet Jesus,” Marco muttered, dropping to his knees. His foreman looked in his direction with bloodied and swollen eyes.
“I cannot see, sir,” Thomas coughed in a gravelly voice. “My eyes…”
Marco's heart clenched for his friend and devoted worker, a man on whom he'd relied to keep an eye on the factory floor.
Marco's factory was on fire around them, and Thomas was seriously injured, possibly even blinded.
He felt despair rising within him, but pushed it away.
They had to leave the building before the roof collapsed.
“Thomas, I am here,” Marco said, pressing his hands to Thomas’s chest to try to staunch the flow of blood. “We must get out of here.”
“God bless you, sir,” Thomas groaned, heaving himself to a seated position with a cry of pain. Thomas heard a menacing creak in the ceiling beams above them and knew they had no time to lose.
“Forgive me, Thomas,” Marco said as he swept his friend up and tossed him over his shoulder.
Thomas let out a gurgling groan, but Marco knew they needed to get out of there fast. He held Thomas' body steady as he lurched through the factory, blinking away tears from the smoke.
Marco inhaled fresher air as he approached the factory yard.
He noticed men swarming around, throwing buckets of water through broken windows in a desperate attempt to save the structure.
“A physician!” Marco croaked as loudly as he could before lowering Thomas to the ground some distance away from the blaze. “Someone send for a physician at once!”
“Right away!” one of workers shouted, racing away.
Thomas’s head lolled against the cobbled stones, slick with a dirty muck of fallen ash mixed with mud and water from the buckets.
“Do not trouble yourself, sir,” Thomas coughed. Marco was horrified to see blood around his friend’s lips, and he sent up another desperate prayer for him to survive. “I must tell you what happened.”
“Not now,” Marco said. "Save your strength, my friend."
“You have to know. This was no accident, sir,” Thomas coughed again, clutching his bloody chest. The man fumbled in his coat pocket as his body shuddered.
In a cotton factory, accidents were common. No matter how cautious the workers were, disaster struck occasionally. Because the materials were so flammable, there was always the risk of fire. Marco would not hold that against his foreman.
“I'll get it.” Marco reached into Thomas’ pocket; the wool of his jacket scorched and bloody.
He took out a wrinkled piece of parchment and unfolded it.
Despite the block lettering designed to conceal any identifiable features, the handwriting was somehow familiar.
The words were simple but menacing: THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE.
“Another threat, sir,” Thomas whispered, his voice becoming weaker by the minute. Still, he kept going. “I read it… before I could do anything, there was a… a terrible explosion.”
Marco looked down at Thomas’s battered body as the man struggled for breath. He remembered the first time his foreman had come to him with a hostile letter.
“You have received a threat, sir,” Thomas said as Marco strolled into the factory office, closing the door, so the sound of the cotton spinners’ work did not disturb them.
“A threat?” Marco asked and was quickly reminded of his cousin, Giovanni, who worked closely with Silas Klane, also known as Lucifer of London.
Giovanni regularly incurred threats against himself and his family, especially since becoming the Marquess of Bath.
Marco had anticipated reuniting with his cousin would impact him, but he had not expected to be in danger. “Against my life?”
“No, sir, against your business,” Thomas replied. He handed over a piece of parchment with the message, "CLOSE YOUR FACTORY OR I SHALL BE FORCED TO TAKE ACTION. YOU WILL REGRET IT IF YOU IGNORE MY DEMAND" boldly printed on it.
“Who could have sent this?” Marco asked in consternation. “How was it delivered?”
“I do not know, sir,” Thomas said, shaking his head. “The note was tacked to the door when I arrived this morning.”
“Would you care to speculate?” Marco asked, looking at the lettering carefully. The author had obviously taken pains to disguise their handwriting. He wondered if that meant he would recognize their actual hand. The thought was disturbing.
“You have many competitors, sir. Your business flourishes, but…” Thomas hesitated, looking toward the windows as if he wondered if they may be overheard. “There is one man in particular who may resent your success.”
“Name him,” Marco demanded.
“The Duke of Fitzroy,” Thomas said. Marco groaned inwardly. The Duke of Fitzroy was not known to him, but the mere fact that he was a duke would make confronting him more difficult should he prove to be behind the threats.
“Tell me of him,” Marco said quietly, sitting opposite Thomas, who sat behind his desk.
“His seat is near here. He owns many of the farms that surround us. He has heavily invested in a factory a few miles away. I believe he has been upset about the success of your business. More specifically, that you offer your workers higher wages,” Thomas said.
“You are besting him in profits and popularity as it is well known that you treat your employees fairly.”
“Yet he is a duke, and I am merely a businessman,” Marco muttered. “If he chooses to hurt me, I cannot possibly bring action against him, especially if he does not sign his threats.”
“You are more than a simple businessman, sir. Your cousin is the Marquess of Bath,” Thomas said. “And your uncle is the Duke of Grasmere.”
“That is true, but it means nothing. I cannot ask them to involve themselves,” Marco sighed.
“Then I shall keep an eye on it, sir,” Thomas said. “No one will stop your business from flourishing. I shall ensure it.”
Marco stood and handed the piece of paper back to Thomas.
“I trust you with this, Thomas. Let me know if anything changes or the Duke makes his identity known.”
“He’s finally slipped up, sir,” Thomas wheezed, pulling Marco out of his memory. His breathing was becoming more shallow, and pain was etched on his face. Macro saw with growing fear that more blood oozed from his mouth as he coughed. “I saw it… just before the blast… the seal."
Marco turned the paper over. There was indeed a broken seal on the letter when there had never been one on the threats before. The Duke of Fitzroy's coat of arms was clearly visible in the red wax.
“The bastard,” Marco whispered, brushing his fingers against the seal. A violent fury rose within him at the carnage the Duke had wrought over his petty concerns.
“We now… have proof, sir,” Thomas whispered hoarsely. His bloody hands groped blindly for Marco’s. He took his hands within his as gently as he could, wincing at the raw, burned skin on the backs of them. “You have him now.”
“I will make him pay for this, Thomas. Pay for the pain he has caused you,” Marco said fiercely.
Thomas gripped Marco's hand for a brief moment before his eyes closed and his hands relaxed. He feared that if the man fell asleep, he would never again wake.
“Don't close your eyes, Thomas,” Marco begged, squeezing his hand again. "You need to stay with me, my friend. I need you." He felt tears prick his eyes as Thomas' remained closed.
The blaze nearby intensified, becoming a roar that seemed to eat up all the air around it. But Marco did not care as he watched Thomas struggle to breathe. "Where is the damned doctor?" he yelled.
One of Marco’s workers ran over to him. “Mr. Alegria, we must go!” He gestured to the blaze. The fire burned uncontrollably and licked at the bricks, reaching up to the roof. “The building is going to collapse. We need to move, sir!"
Marco realized he was right. The building couldn't last much longer; if they stayed, they'd be in the path of the burning debris when it fell. “Help me carry him!” Marco yelled back.
As the other man took Thomas's legs, Marco clutched Thomas's limp body under his arms. They carried him into a field where the other workers had gathered, watching the blaze; terrified.
As more workers and villagers arrived to assist, Marco instructed the other man to ensure that no one else was near the building.
But there was nothing they could do but watch the fire rage.
Marco knelt beside his fallen friend, holding his hand as the man took his final labored breaths.
"You will be avenged, Thomas. I swear it," Marco whispered as he folded Thomas's arms across his now-still chest.
“Father!” William, a boy barely seventeen and Thomas’ eldest son, ran through the crowd and dropped to the ground next to him. "Father!"
“I am so sorry, William. He is gone,” Marco said, unable to stop his voice from breaking.