Page 121 of The Devil’s Lair

Too late.

“You murdered our sister,” he says, each word regulated with visible effort. “You murdered our mother. You shattered our family and stood on the sidelines for two fucking decades, watching while we mourned them. While we found a way through the horror. Tell me, Alice… did you get off on that? On our pain and suffering?”

“No,” she exclaims. “I never wanted to do any of it. I was forced to.”

Xan laughs, the kind of sound that would make grown men tremble in their shoes and brace for what’s coming.

“Liar. It’s all in here.” He tosses the diary over her head. It lands on the table with a loud crack. Alice jumps. “You knew exactly what you were doing, and you know what I think?” He leans over her chair until he’s in her peripheral vision. “You enjoyed it. You enjoyed the power, the grief. The winning.”

“No. No.” Alice breaks down, sobbing uncontrollably. “George loved her. He loved her more than me. When he told me we were moving back here, I knew I had to do something. If he’d found out you were his, the children he desperately wanted that I couldn’t give him, I’d lose him. I’d lose everything.”

“So, you thought kidnapping children, having my sister raped and murdered, was the answer? That taking away a mother from her grieving kids was the right fucking thing to do?”

“They weren’t supposed to rape her. I never sanctioned that.”

“Oh, well, that’s okay then,” Nicholas erupts, shaking with rage. “You fucking evil bitch!”

“How did you know?” Saskia’s question is uttered so quietly, I wonder if she meant to say it aloud at all. “How did you know George was their father?”

“I always suspected it. I met George in a bar only a few days after he fled to Japan. We got to talking, drank too much, and he confessed how he’d… what he’d done to Fiona the night before your wedding. He regretted it, I could tell. It haunted him for years, but the twins births nine months after your wedding was too coincidental. After he insisted on moving back here, I had a DNA test done. When the results came back, I knew what I had to do.”

“Murder a child and take away their mother for your own selfish needs?” I bite out.

“If you want to put it like that.” She shrugs, matter-of-factly, like she’s confessing she swapped out chocolate biscuits for shortbread. Her eyes travel to Dad. “What are you going to do with me?”

“I’m not going to do anything.” For a split second, hope lights up Alice’s face, until Dad adds, “Alexander is.”

The evil way my brother smiles, I know, I just know he’s planning something truly awful. He takes out his phone and taps on it, then lifts it to his ear.

“Anatoly,” he says. “It’s Alexander De Vil. I’m calling in that favor you owe me.”

“No!” Alice launches to her feet and sprints to the door like she has a hope of escaping.

Alan steps to one side, allowing Alice space to wrench the door open. Outside is a wall of bodyguards. I guess Xan called for them, although I’ve no idea when.

She spins back around. “Alexander, please, no. Not this. I’m begging you.”

“Throw her in the cell with him,” Xan orders. “Then have them both transported to Southampton on Tuesday and put on the Volkov Imperiya. They’re expected.”

Out of all The Consortium members, the Volkovs have the most vicious streak. Anatoly will see to it that George and Alice suffer far more than killing them would achieve.

“You can’t do this,” Alice screams. “Not the Volkovs, not Russia.”

“Xan’s lips peel back in a half-snarl, half-smirk. “Siberia.”

“Charles, please,” Alice cries.

Dad gets to his feet and walks over to the fireplace, his back to her. Taking his lead, we all stand beside him, an impenetrable wall.

Alice’s screams fade as she’s hauled away and out of our lives forever.

Chapter Thirty-Six

REBECCA

In the last hour, since Tobias left me standing in the middle of his living room, I’ve worn a hole in the carpet with all the pacing I’ve done. Poor Isla must wonder where on earth I’ve got to considering I had Maisie come back almost as soon as I’d let her go. I can’t have Isla with me when Tobias returns, though. I’ve no idea what kind of a state he’ll be in.

It worries me, all this trauma, and the lasting effect it could have on a man who is built only of goodness. In the last few months, he’s been shot, saved me and my daughter, married me (a virtual stranger), discovered he was abused as a child by someone in a position of trust, launched an investigation to find other potential victims, and now he’s somehow got to deal with the fact his aunt was responsible for arranging the kidnapping of his brother and sister, and for poisoning his mother and watching her drown in the bath.