The Edinburgh safe house was a charnel house.
Seraphina stood in the doorway, her hand pressed to her mouth, fighting the urge to vomit. Three bodies lay scattered across the elegant sitting room—two men in expensive suits, one woman in tactical gear. All had been executed with professional precision, single shots to the head that spoke of military training and cold calculation.
"Isabel?" Damien called out, his pistol drawn as he moved through the apartment with fluid grace. "Michael?"
Silence answered him. The kind of heavy, oppressive silence that meant they were too late.
"Sir." MacLeod's voice came from the bedroom, grim with certainty. "You need to see this."
They found Isabel Ashford tied to a chair, her elegant clothes torn and bloodstained. But she was alive—barely. Her face was a mess of bruises, her breathing shallow and labored, but her pale blue eyes tracked their movement with desperate intelligence.
"Cut her loose," Damien ordered, holstering his weapon. "MacLeod, perimeter check. I want to know who did this and how long ago."
"On it, sir." MacLeod disappeared with her usual efficiency, leaving Seraphina to help untie the ropes binding Isabel's wrists.
"Seraphina," Isabel whispered, her voice barely audible through split lips. "You came."
"We came," Seraphina corrected, supporting Isabel's weight as the woman nearly collapsed. "Where's Michael?"
"Gone." Isabel's face crumpled with grief and guilt. "They took him two hours ago. I tried to stop them, but—"
"Who took him?" Damien demanded, kneeling beside them. His voice was gentle, but there was steel underneath. "I need names, Isabel."
"Lord Pemberton." The name came out like a curse. "Sir Marcus Thornton. Lady Catherine Westbrook. The same people who've been pulling my father's strings for seventeen years."
Seraphina's blood chilled. She recognized those names—they'd been guests at the wedding, sitting in the front rows with expressions of polite curiosity as Edmund Ashford was dragged away in handcuffs.
"They were at our wedding," she said, the pieces clicking into place. "They watched your father get arrested and didn't even flinch."
"Because they knew it didn't matter." Isabel struggled to sit up straighter, wincing as the movement pulled at what were obviously cracked ribs. "Edmund was expendable. A front man they could sacrifice if things went wrong. The real operation is much bigger."
"How much bigger?" Damien asked, though something in his expression suggested he already suspected the answer.
"International. Arms dealing, human trafficking, money laundering through half the major charities in Europe." Isabel wiped blood from her mouth with a shaking hand. "The Ashford Foundation was just one piece of a network that stretches from London to Moscow to Hong Kong."
"And they've been using murdered families as cover stories," Seraphina said, her voice flat with horrified understanding. "Create a tragedy, frame an innocent man, then use the sympathy and outrage to build an untouchable charity empire."
"Exactly." Isabel's laugh was bitter, broken. "Do you know how many 'Marcus Kanes' there have been over the years? How many innocent men framed for murders they didn't commit while the real killers built fortunes on their graves?"
The scope of it hit Seraphina like a physical blow. This wasn't just about her father, wasn't just about one family's destruction. It was systematic, industrial-scale evil that had been operating for decades.
"Why are you telling us this?" Damien asked quietly. "You could have run. Disappeared. Started over somewhere they'd never find you."
"Because Michael is the only family I have left." Isabel's voice broke on her brother's name. "And because I'm tired of being a coward. Tired of letting innocent people die for crimes my family committed."
Before anyone could respond, MacLeod's voice crackled through Damien's earpiece. "Sir, we have incoming. Six vehicles, professional formation, ETA three minutes."
"Time to go," Damien said, hauling Isabel to her feet. "Can you walk?"
"I can run if I have to." Isabel proved her words by moving toward the window, despite the obvious pain each step caused. "There's a fire escape—"
"No need." Damien was already on his phone, typing rapidly. "Emergency extraction, package for three, location Alpha-Seven."
The response was immediate—the sound of rotor blades approaching fast. Through the window, Seraphina could see a helicopter rising from behind the neighboring building like some mechanical angel of death.
"Your pilot is very good," Isabel observed as the aircraft maneuvered into position outside the fourth-floor window.
"The best money can buy," Damien replied, opening the window and securing the rappelling line that had dropped from the helicopter's bay. "Ladies first."
Isabel went without hesitation, her movements speaking of training that hadn't come from finishing schools. Seraphina followed, her wedding dress—she was still wearing the damn thing—whipping around her legs as she slid down to the helicopter's open door.
Damien came last, just as the sound of boots on stairs echoed from inside the building. As the helicopter banked sharply away from the safe house, Seraphina saw black-clad figures pouring into the building below.
"Too close," she muttered, settling into her seat and accepting the headset MacLeod handed her.
"Story of our lives now," Damien replied through the comms, his arm sliding around her waist in a gesture that was both protective and possessive. "Isabel, we need everything you know about Pemberton, Thornton, and Westbrook. Bank accounts, safe houses, associates, weaknesses. Everything."
"I can give you bank accounts," Isabel said, her voice steady despite the pain she was obviously in. "But it won't matter. They move money through so many shell companies and offshore holdings that tracking it would take years."
"What about Michael?" Seraphina asked. "Where would they take him?"
"Westbrook has an estate in the Cotswolds. Isolated, heavily secured, perfect for keeping someone prisoner." Isabel's face was pale but determined. "But it's also where they hold their quarterly meetings. If they took Michael there, it's because they plan to use him as leverage."
"Leverage for what?"
"To ensure my silence. And yours." Isabel met Seraphina's eyes across the helicopter's cabin. "They're going to offer you a deal, Mrs. Blackwood. Your brother-in-law's life in exchange for your discretion about what you've learned."
"Brother-in-law?" The words felt strange in Seraphina's mouth.
"You married into the family that helped destroy mine," Isabel said with a bitter smile. "By the twisted logic of their world, that makes us relatives. And family protects family, even when that family is built on lies and blood."
The helicopter banked toward the Scottish border, carrying them away from Edinburgh and toward whatever confrontation awaited at Westbrook's estate. Seraphina watched the lights of the city fade behind them, her mind churning with possibilities and plans.
"You said they move money through charities," she said suddenly. "What if we didn't try to trace the money? What if we made them come to us instead?"
Damien's eyes sharpened with interest. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking that people who build empires on sympathy and outrage are vulnerable to the same weapons." Seraphina's smile was sharp as winter. "What if the world learned that some of their most beloved charities were fronts for international criminals? What if every donation, every gala, every tax write-off was suddenly suspect?"
"A media campaign," Isabel said slowly. "Expose the network publicly, make it impossible for them to operate."
"Exactly. But not just media." Seraphina was warming to the idea, seeing the shape of a plan that could destroy their enemies completely. "What if we gave them something they couldn't ignore? Something that would force them to reveal themselves trying to stop us?"
"Such as?" Damien asked, though his tone suggested he was already following her logic.
"A charity gala of our own." Seraphina's smile widened. "The Marcus Kane Foundation for Truth and Justice. A memorial fund for all the innocent people who've been framed and murdered to protect criminal enterprises. With a very public list of donor names and a promise to investigate every suspicious death connected to major charitable donations."
The helicopter fell silent except for the rotor noise as everyone absorbed the audacity of her proposal.
"That's..." Isabel started.
"Insane," Damien finished, but his eyes were bright with admiration and something that looked like pride. "Absolutely, brilliantly insane."
"They couldn't ignore it," MacLeod added, her tactical mind immediately seeing the strategic value. "They'd have to try to shut it down, which would expose their methods and connections."
"And in the meantime, we rescue Michael and use him to authenticate our claims," Seraphina continued. "The surviving witness to the original crime, hidden for seventeen years, finally ready to tell his story."
"There's just one problem," Isabel said quietly. "To make this work, you'd need someone with credibility to front the foundation. Someone the media would trust, whose story would command international attention."
"We have someone," Damien said, his hand tightening on Seraphina's. "The daughter of Marcus Kane, married to the heir of one of Britain's most powerful families, finally breaking her silence about the conspiracy that destroyed her childhood."
The weight of what he was suggesting hit Seraphina like a physical blow. She would have to tell her story publicly, expose every painful detail of her father's death and her years in hiding. She would become the face of justice for people she'd never met, the symbol of resistance against forces that had toppled governments.
"Are you ready for that?" Isabel asked gently. "Once you put yourself at the center of this, there's no going back. They'll try to destroy you in every way possible."
Seraphina looked around the helicopter—at Damien with his pale eyes full of deadly devotion, at MacLeod with her quiet competence and unwavering loyalty, at Isabel with her guilt and desperate hope for redemption.
She thought about her father, dying in prison branded as a monster. She thought about Michael Ashford, hiding for seventeen years while his sister lived with the guilt of their family's lies. She thought about all the other Marcus Kanes, all the other families destroyed by people who treated human lives as collateral damage in their pursuit of wealth and power.
"Let them try," she said, her voice steady as steel. "I've been running from my name my whole life. It's time I made it worth something."
Damien's smile was proud and predatory and full of dark promise. "That's my girl," he murmured, leaning over to kiss her temple. "My beautiful, dangerous, absolutely brilliant girl."
"When do we start?" Isabel asked.
"Now," Seraphina replied. "We start now. By the time we rescue Michael, I want the world to know exactly who the Blackwoods are at war with."
As the helicopter carried them through the Scottish night toward whatever battle awaited, Seraphina felt something settle in her chest that she'd never experienced before. Not just determination or anger, but purpose. She wasn't just fighting for revenge anymore.
She was fighting for justice. For truth. For all the innocents who'd been destroyed by people who thought their wealth and power made them untouchable.
And she was going to win.
The devil's heir had found his queen. Now it was time to claim their kingdom.