“Mr Draven, sir.”
Draven looked up at
the newest member of the team, Natalie and smiled. He had hired the young woman
a couple of months ago, seeing something in her that hadn’t been obvious in the
other candidates for the position – a strong sense of discretion and something
more that he just couldn’t put his finger on. His PA was on holiday this week,
having some kind of family emergency and Natalie was proving to be a worthy
replacement, albeit temporarily. “Oh, good morning, Natalie; found anything
interesting for me?”
She swallowed
convulsively and suppressed a shudder. Mr Draven was a little intimidating to
say the least and she wasn’t at all sure that his latest project for her was
legal; still, that was his business, “Um, yes sir. Mr Riley Byrnes would seem
to be now residing in a small town called Fernley. He’s been there for around
six months now, he’s recently married a woman called Brie – her surname was
already Byrnes, incidentally – although I haven’t been able to find if they’ve
remarried or if it is simply by co-incidence that they share the same surname –
records don’t seem to go back very far on any member of the family.”
Draven nodded. Well
of course they didn’t – vampires couldn’t very well appear on records – they
lived for too damned long…
She looked at him
for the go ahead to keep talking. He nodded to her. She smiled nervously; as
intimidating and downright creepy he was at times, there was something about Mr
Draven that was incredibly attractive. She guessed he was around ten years
older than her and had sort of assumed that he was looking up a former lover,
or worse – an ex-partner when he’d asked her to investigate Brie and Riley
Byrnes. Once she got started though, she began to doubt herself – because once
she saw Jonah and Adam Byrnes, she couldn’t ignore the resemblance between them
and Mr Draven… but if it was his family he was looking for, then he could only
be an older brother of the three young men that lived with Brie Byrnes – because,
seriously, the eldest was only a few years younger than him. She ended up with
more questions of her own than answers for him.
She sighed, pushing
all of her questions to the back of her mind – she was his PA, nothing more
after all, she concentrated on her notes to stop herself from looking at him
again. “He has moved into her home by the looks of it – and there are three
teenage boys living with them too. Their names are Jonah, Adam and Oscar Byrnes.
There are a couple of photo’s in the envelope – but having to take them at a
distance, some of them are a little fuzzy.” It was true that the photos were
fuzzy – but she’d gotten a really good look at them all and had been amazed at
the likeness of the two eldest boys to Draven. It hadn’t even occurred to her
for a few minutes to get photos, in her shock, and they’d moved away from her
before she’d gathered her thoughts properly.
Draven felt the
blood pounding in his ears as she rattled this information off at speed. Forcing
himself to appear completely calm and relaxed he smiled at his employee.
“That’s excellent work, Natalie – can you leave your report on my desk – I
should like to refer to it again.”
Natalie nodded. As
attractive a man as he was, she really didn’t like Mr Draven all that much and
was counting down the days when she could go back to the office and leave
Julie, his usual PA, to it. Having a rather active imagination, and a penchant
for reading books about all sorts of dark creatures of the night, she often
likened him to the vampires in her books. It was his pale skin and dark hair –
and those freakishly pale green eyes – although, she had to admit – if he
really was a vampire, surely his eyes would be red…
Suppressing a shiver
she got up from her chair and made her way back to her own office, leaving him
with the report.
Draven turned away
from his desk and looked out of the huge floor to ceiling window that gave him
a fantastic view of the city. He had the envelope in his hand and was already
reaching for the documents she had left.
He pulled the
envelope open and scanned the photos within.
“Playing happy
families with my wife and kids, huh?” he murmured as he perused the photos.
He came across one
of Oscar and Riley and a feeling of such pure hatred coursed through him so
violently he could barely focus. “This means war,” He growled, “I’ll find out
who released that bastard from where he belonged and I’ll kill him myself…”
Pre- Order now... Release date 30th June 2016
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