“Let’s go.”
The three of us made our way across to the family wing and upstairs to the private sitting room. Francis was sat in one of the armchairs scrolling through his phone. He looked up when the three of us entered. Stuart and Phoebe were both tied up. I noted Francis had shaped harnesses around them using ropes and chains. His attention to detail made me smile.
“Have they woken up?” Prescott asked, leaning against the wall.
“Not yet,” Francis replied as he got up, stuffing his phone back in his pocket.
I looked around the place.
“Have you seen Drake?”
“No, I thought he was with you and West.”
I shook my head.
“He was until he heard a noise and went to investigate.”
Retracing my steps, I walked back outside the room and looked down the hallway. A door opening caught my attention. I froze in place as the person exited the room. My breath whooshed out of me, spying familiar the black hair of the man I loved dragging someone out with him. My feet were immediately carrying me over to him.
“Drake!”
He looked at me and smiled.
“Where have you been?” I asked when I reached him.
He abruptly closed the door behind him. It was the master bathroom. I frowned, wondering why on earth he would be in there.
“Dealing with a stray guard and a couple of other staff members.”
I looked at the man he had a hold of. His throat was slit, but there was no blood dripping from it any longer.
“What were you doing in the bathroom?”
Drake looked behind him, then back at me.
“Nothing really.”
I waved at the man.
“That does not look like nothing.”
He shrugged.
“Where are the others?”
“In with Stuart and Phoebe. We think we got everyone.”
He started towards the open doorway I’d come out of, dragging the man behind him.
“We’ll deal with this guy, do one last sweep of the place, make sure everyone is where they should be and then we can wake Stuart up.”
I wanted to ask Drake further questions about the bathroom but decided it wasn’t worth it. We had more important things to do.
He left the dead guy outside the sitting room and walked in.
“Right. We can leave those two here. They’re not going anywhere. Let’s all walk the building, then we’ll deal with them, okay?”
The others nodded and followed him out the door. Drake picked up the dead guy and strode off in the direction of the staff wing.
It was time to make sure everything was handled here before the final act.
The one we’d all been waiting for.
The deaths of Stuart and Phoebe Carver.
Thirty Seven
Scarlett
After we walked the house, the boys carried Phoebe and Stuart from the main house to one of the outbuildings nearby. It was an old barn with beams running across it. From there, Francis and West secured a meat hook to a chain and hoisted Stuart up onto it, hanging him on the hook. He was left dangling in the middle of the space. They did the exact same thing to Phoebe.
Drake had been looking around the barn for something. He appeared next to me with two large plastic containers. I raised my eyebrows as he placed them underneath Stuart and Phoebe’s hanging bodies.
“What are those for?” West asked as he stood back to make sure their handiwork was secure.
“I want their blood,” Drake said with a shrug.
“Why am I not surprised?”
West rolled his eyes and came over to me and Prescott, who was laying out a few implements on an abandoned table we’d found in the barn. Drake’s statement, combined with the whole keeping me out of the master bathroom before we left the main house, made me suspicious about what he had planned.
West put his hands on my shoulders and gave them a squeeze.
“You ready for this, little Scar?”
I leant back into his chest and turned my face up towards him.
“As I’ll ever be.”
He bent his head, seeking out my mouth with his and kissing me. Then he stroked my neck when he let go, giving me a wicked grin. I’d put my hair up in a braided bun to keep it out of the way.
“Do you want to go first or last?”
“Last.”
“As my little Scar wishes.”
He released me. I curled myself into Prescott’s side. He wrapped an arm around me, giving me a half-smile as he stroked his fingers down the handle of the butcher’s knife.
“You planning on using that?”
Prescott snorted and picked it up, swinging it a few times.