Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
LEON
The estate is eerily quiet now. I know that won’t last long with Knapp’s men on their way. I hated calling him, but Cruz suggested he might be the only guy who could help with cleanup on this scale. And I guess I didn’t have too many options, not without involving the authorities.
I’ve been searching Alfred’s study for the past hour, quietly sifting through documents both paper and electronic, finding evidence of decades worth of involvement in trafficking rings, fraud, and political corruption that reached levels I never imagined.
Senators, judges, customs officials—all somehow linked.
This whole thing is massive and I can’t wait until each and every piece of shit involved gets what they deserve.
We won’t let them slink away, not anymore.
A leather portfolio sits on the desk in front of me—the one document I opened and then immediately closed.
It’s all the paperwork that Alfred wanted to go over with me tonight.
His “Succession Planning” contracts. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it all yet.
A part of me wants to watch it burn, but I know I could do a lot of good with his money, help the people he’s hurt.
Realistically, the government will probably seize his assets, like they should, but right now, close to midnight of what feels like the longest day of my life, I won’t make any big decisions.
Damon knocks on the open door, pulling my attention. “So… I just found a dead old man. Not a great sight.”
“Fuck,” I say. “That’s got to be one of his employees. Bailey mentioned that he had other staff but I honestly forgot to look for anyone else.”
“Well, the barrel of a gun found him… right in the head.” Damon sucks air through his teeth. “I’m guessing that cleanup will cost extra?”
“Yeah, but it is what it is. I found the bastard’s stash of cash in here. Whatever we need, it’ll be covered.”
He nods once. “Anyone else I should search for? Colonel Mustard in the library with a lead pipe?”
I narrow my eyes. “Who the fuck is that?”
“Clue,” Damon says, like I’m the crazy one. “The board game.”
“No idea what you’re going on about,” I say, shrugging.
He looks like I just told him I lived under a rock. “What was your childhood?”
Gesturing around the room, I smirk. “Clearly, not normal. As if you didn’t already know.”
We hear footsteps and turn toward the door at the same time to see Falin holding her phone. “I thought we should all be together for the big moment. Come on, they’re waiting at the dining room table. Jasper already raided the kitchen.”
“Big moment?” I ask, following her out of the room with the leather portfolio under my arm.
“The media leak! Didn’t I tell you?” I don’t respond so she goes on. “I set everything to drop all at once at midnight London time.”
I do a quick calculation and realize that’ll mean it’s still early enough in the US that the traditional news could hear about it right away.
“Perfect timing,” I say. “How long do you think we have before this place is swarming with investigators?”
“That’s the thing,” Falin replies as we walk down the hallway.
“I may have been deliberately vague about the estate’s location.
I sent everything we have to BBC, Sky News, The Guardian, plus the Metropolitan Police and NCA.
Oh, and I may have also tipped off the FBI and Interpol.
But I only mentioned his London properties and offshore accounts.
Plus, everything we have on Orlov and The Brotherhood. ”
“You didn’t give them this address?”
“Call it a gut feeling,” she says with a slight shrug. “Figured we might need some time to... process everything properly. What with him being your… you know.”
I appreciate her not saying the dreaded F word.
“Jesus, Falin, you’re brilliant.”
She beams and I swear I notice a spring in her step. “I know.”
Damon and I chuckle despite this insane situation. “So how long do we actually have?”
“Could be days before they connect all the dots and trace him here. Maybe longer. There’s a lot of evidence to sift through.”
We reach the dining room where the others have gathered around Alfred’s massive mahogany table. It’s surreal to sit in his formal dining room, surrounded by crystal and silver, while the man himself is locked in a concrete cell below our feet.
Bailey looks up when I enter, and I can see the exhaustion and discomfort in her eyes. She’s been running on adrenaline for hours, and it’s finally starting to catch up with her. She’s sitting next to Mum, who also looks like she’s minutes from falling asleep in her chair.
I go to them, resting my palm on Bailey’s shoulder. She leans into me, humming a small satisfied sound. “How much longer?”
I check my watch. “About ten minutes until the leak goes live. But Falin says we might have days before anyone traces Alfred back to this place.”
“So we can leave soon?”
“Yes, and you never have to come back here again,” I say gently.
Jasper comes through the entryway on the other side of the room, carrying a bottle of liquor in one hand and a covered tray in the other. “Expensive whiskey, anyone?”
“What’s on the tray?” Falin asks.
He holds it close to his chest. “Cheese, but I didn’t say I wanted to share.”
She punches him in the arm. “Put it down, dummy.”
They all start chatting back and forth as Jasper finds glasses and pours drinks, but my focus is solely on the woman next to me. They may all be celebrating, but for Bailey, this is only the beginning.
“To taking down piece of shit rapists,” Jasper calls, holding up his glass.
“To justice,” Mum adds.
“To healing,” Blake says.
All their eyes settle on me, waiting for me to add something. I lift my glass and say, “To family,” before finishing every drop in one gulp.
The clock on the mantel chimes twelve times, and Falin’s phone starts buzzing with notifications.
“And there we go,” she says with satisfaction. “An entire empire just went public.”
An hour later, Knapp’s cleanup crew arrives. They’re efficient, professional, and thankfully silent. I meet them at the front door while the others finish gathering their things.
Knapp himself greets me like an old friend, and I show him to a private spot away from his guys. “Thanks for coming. You’re really helping me out of a jam.”
“We’ll handle everything,” Knapp says, shaking my hand. “You were never here.”
I nod, slipping him an envelope thick with Alfred’s cash. “There’s a basement. Don’t go down there.”
He doesn’t ask questions. “Understood. We’ll be out of your hair before sunrise.”
I nod, then find Falin who’s been quietly working on her laptop at the dining room table. “Did you figure out the door?”
She looks up from her screen with a grin. “Of course I did. I’m going to fry the electronic systems from the inside—manual override, backup power, emergency releases. Everything. Once I’m done, this door won’t open for anything short of explosives.”
Her fingers dash across the keyboard, and I watch her with amazement. I know I’m skilled when it comes to hacking systems, but I’m nothing compared to Falin.
“There,” she says after a few minutes. “The system’s completely corrupted. That lock is permanent now.”
We share relieved looks and I let out a breath. “Let’s get out of here.”
Somehow everyone manages to squeeze into the rental SUV, with Damon behind the wheel. Bailey and Mum approach the vehicle, but I hold up a hand, an idea coming to mind.
“Wait. There’s one last thing I need to do downstairs. Do you want to come with me, or would you rather wait here?”
Bailey looks toward the house, and wraps her arms around her chest. She seems to consider my offer for a moment, but shakes her head. “No. I don’t want to see him again. I don’t want to give him any more of my time or energy.”
Mum nods firmly. “I’ll come. There are things I need to say.”
“Are you sure?” I ask. “You don’t have to.”
“I’m sure,” Mum says, squaring her shoulders. “It’s time.”
I look at Damon through the driver’s window. “Give us ten minutes? Bailey, can you wait here?”
They nod. “Take your time. We’ll wait.”
Bailey squeezes my hand before getting into the back seat. “Just... be safe down there.”
Mum and I head back toward the house. There’s one last thing we need to do.
It takes work to climb down those stairs.
Everything in me recoils once we reach the bottom again.
I’m sure there’s plenty of evidence I could collect down here, more than enough to add to Alfred’s crimes, but I’ll leave that to the police.
I don’t want to spend a minute more in this hellscape than necessary.
But this time, it’s not only me that has something to say.
Mum steps forward, determined like I haven’t seen her in years. She approaches the cell window, and Alfred’s face appears behind the glass, hope flickering in his eyes.
“Ada, darling—”
“Don’t,” she cuts him off sharply. “You don’t get to call me that anymore.”
Alfred’s mouth opens and closes like a fish.
“For over twenty years, you made me believe I was nothing without you,” Mum continues, her voice growing stronger with each word. “You convinced me I was weak, that I needed your protection, your guidance. That I should be grateful for the scraps of affection you threw my way.”
She presses her palm against the glass, and Alfred flinches backward.
“But I raised a good man despite you. Leon is everything you’re not—he’s kind, protective, loyal. He chose love over power, family over legacy. He’s more of a man at twenty-four than you’ll ever be.”
Tears stream down her face, but her voice never wavers. I’m so damn proud of her.
“I wasted decades of my life loving a monster. But I’m done now. I’m done being afraid of you, done letting you control my thoughts, done feeling guilty for my son growing up without a father. He’s lucky you were absent.”
She steps back from the window, wiping her eyes.
“Rot in there, Alfred. You too, Greta. You both deserve every sickening moment you have left on this earth.”
The cell falls silent. Even Alfred seems stunned into speechlessness.
Mum turns to me, and I swear she looks like a different woman. “I’m ready to go home now.”
I lead her to the stairs and gesture for her to start climbing all while Alfred pounds on the door, shouting. “You can’t leave me here! This is murder!”
Once Mum is halfway up, I move to the cell window again.
“Maybe so, but it’s nothing you don’t deserve.
” I hold up the portfolio so he can see.
“Thanks for the inheritance documentation, by the way. I’ll make sure every penny goes to helping the people you hurt.
Oh, and one more thing… we leaked everything to the media.
You can die knowing that the whole world knows exactly what you are. ”
His face drops but he recovers quick enough to pound on the door. “Leon, please. Don’t do this—”
“I hope you left some water in there for your prisoners because that’s all you’ll have.”
“The authorities will find me eventually,” he says, sounding desperate.
“Maybe. Could be days though. Possibly longer.” I turn to follow Mum up the stairs, pausing at the bottom. “And Alfred? In case you were wondering, that emergency override system you disabled so your victims couldn’t escape during fires? We made sure it stays that way.”
His voice follows us up the stairs—shouting, pleading, threatening. But I don’t look back.
Some monsters deserve to die alone in the dark.