Chapter 52
Lincoln
A text from Edgar flashes up on my watch.
That lead you had me look into seems promising. Maybe even what we’ve been looking for all along. Sent you some info.
My pulse spikes. What we’ve been looking for? That means we may have just found ourselves a Rook. I had him research Fraser
Lane after seeing his name in Farnham’s study, and it seems like it’s paid off.
I type out a quick thanks to him, itching to get to my basement and assess what he’s sent me.
Imogen is reading, her head on my lap as we cuddle together on the sofa in the library.
I run my hand over the soft skin of her arm.
Although I trust her enough to allow her into my basement, whatever Edgar has uncovered isn’t the kind of thing I want to dive into while she’s there with me, until I at least have an idea of what it is he’s sent me.
There could be a link to her father for all I know, and while I know I need to tell her about our connection, I just have no fucking idea how to go about that.
Especially now that I know what she was told about her parents’ murders.
The fallout could be disastrous, and the only thing more painful than keeping secrets from her is the thought of losing her.
“I have to go check something, angel. I won’t be long. ”
She sits up, gives me a soft smile and nods. “Okay. I’ll finish my book.”
I rest my lips on the top of her head, inhaling the sweet scent of her hair. How can I ever tell her the truth and risk losing
this? I didn’t intend to tell her about my armory, but when she asked, it seemed natural to give her the truth. To give her
something in return for her trust. Her reaction was as positive as I could have hoped for. She sat in my basement with me
for an hour afterward, reading her book. But then I saw her shivering and forgot how cold it is down there for someone not
used to it, so we came back up to the main house. At least showing her the room seems to have satisfied her curiosity somewhat,
and for that I’m grateful.
I slip out of the room and head down to my basement. I’ve been there only a few minutes when I hear Pierre’s distinctive footfall
on the stairs.
“Are you spying on me, old friend?”
He scoffs. “Heard you coming down here and anything that tears you away from the sofa this late in the evening lately must
be important.”
I pull up Edgar’s email on one of my screens, and my encryption decoding program quickly gets to work. “He said he had some
interesting information on a lead I gave him.”
Pierre pulls up his usual chair and sits beside me. “A lead on a woman, or . . .”
“Not quite. A lead on a Rook.”
“A Rook?” His excitement is palpable.
Not wanting to get his hopes up before I see what it is Edgar has sent me, I say, “Maybe. I need to check. It was just a hunch.”
He waits impatiently, drumming his fingers on his thigh. “A Rook, a Rook, my kingdom for a Rook,” he murmurs to himself.
I stare at the screen, waiting for the text to be deciphered. I spent a lot of time here in the early days teaching Edgar
everything I know about computers, coding, encryptions, hacking, and he’s put it all to good use over the years. His encryptions
are as complex as my own. When the text finally forms on the screen, I read through it quickly.
“Well? Anything yet? Don’t keep an old blind man in suspense.”
I peer at the screen, making sure I have all the information before I relay it to Pierre. “You’re not old, you just like to
act it.”
He huffs.
I see the name I’ve been hoping to read—a man I assumed was dead until recently. Adrenaline thunders through my veins and
I feel the smile spreading across my face. Finally, after all these years. “I think we’ve got one, Pierre.”
He grabs hold of my forearm, squeezing tightly. “Lincoln?”
I pat his hand, my own excitement bubbling over as my eyes still scan over the text.
“Who?” he demands.
“Fraser Lane.”
Pierre shakes his head. “Don’t recognize his name.”
“He’s a Knight. At least he was eighteen years ago. But he’s obviously risen through the ranks since I last saw him.”
“You knew him? But I thought you already dispensed with all of the Knights you remembered?”
I did. Methodically and ruthlessly, over the course of eighteen years, I hunted down and killed every single Knight I knew.
Some were already dead by the time I got around to them, no doubt a few would have been killed at the hands of the Brotherhood themselves, but the rest met with unfortunate, untraceable-to-me ends.
Heart attacks. Car wrecks. A few suicides.
It took a lot of willpower to do it that way, because for those where I can get up close and personal, there’s nothing like the recognition on their face when they realize who’s responsible for taking their lives.
I have many names within the Brotherhood. The Freak. The Ghost. Traitor. But whatever one they knew me by, they always know
my real name at the very end.
Killian Wolfe—the man the Brotherhood couldn’t kill.
“Did this one slip under your radar?” Pierre asks.
“I thought he was dead. I even went to his funeral.” I stood amidst the trees on a rainy day, in a gray cemetery just outside
London, and watched as they lowered a casket into the ground. It seems Fraser Lane wasn’t inside it. “It looks like the Brotherhood
gave him a new identity along with his promotion. Now he’s Francis Davies. And he lives in Surrey.”
“Surrey, England?”
I murmur my agreement, doing an internet search on Francis Davies. A Conservative MP with a questionable voting record on
human rights issues and the ability to come through numerous scandals unscathed while still holding on to his position.
I send a quick text to Edgar.
Contact my broker and have him set up a meeting in London. Tell him I’m looking for a UK company to invest in. Lincoln Knight
needs a legitimate reason to fly to the UK.
He replies immediately.
You’ll need the jet?
I tap out my reply. Yes.
“So you’re traveling to England, then, sir?” Pierre dons his best British accent, which is as appalling as my French one.
“Looks like.”
“As Lincoln, or covertly?”
“As Lincoln.”
“Won’t that draw attention? If you’re in the UK when a Rook is murdered, then it could bring suspicion?”
I know that it will, and maybe that’s why I’m doing it. It’s taken me eighteen years to get this far, and I can’t wait another
eighteen to find another one. Rooks are given high-level access for a reason. They are chosen because they would die before
they’d betray the Brotherhood, so this might be my only chance to send a message that I can get to their elite. It might be
the only chance I get. Playing the long game and picking them off one by one was viable when I had nothing but time and nothing
else to live for, but now I have Imogen. And she’s made me realize that this all needs to fucking end. Maybe another King
will take this one’s place and maybe the Brotherhood will go on forever, or another organization will rise to power in its
stead. But I want the opportunity to look him in the eye. The one who established the auctions, the one who gave the orders for the murder of Luca and Carmen DeMotta,
and who framed me for the crime. I want him to know that it’s me taking his life.
Then, I can walk away.
“I think maybe it’s time to stop playing so safe and up the stakes, Pierre.”
He smiles. “And not before time, sir.”