“Zoey isn’t your niece,” Ranulf dismissed.
Nor, considering they now knew Wallis was responsible for the demise of Zoey’s parents so that he could become her guardian and have access to her trust fund, did Ranulf believe this man had any real interest in her welfare now.
“But you do know where she is,” Wallis pressed.
“Isn’t any attempt at concern on your part as to her whereabouts a little late in coming?”
“Oh, I’m not concerned about Zoey,” he scorned.“I’m only interested in knowing the whereabouts of your big bastard of a brother.As Zoey is probably still with him, I thought I would ask where she was rather than him,” he calmly explained.
As if Ranulf cared what this man’s thought processes were.“They are both somewhere safe.”
“And your other brother and the girl who originally bought the journal?”
“Also safe.”His eyes narrowed.“Where is the journal now?”
“Also safe,” Wallis mocked.“More than a fair trade for a large chunk of your treasure, don’t you think?”
Except none of the brothers were foolish enough to believe that would be the end of Wallis’s demands.Just as they knew that, after he had returned the journal, there was no guarantee that he hadn’t taken copies of the relevant pages of that old journal as insurance and future leverage.
Besides, the Drake brothers didn’t make deals with murderers.
They could, of course, wipe Wallis’s memory of any knowledge of the Drake brothers, their location, and the treasure.
But all three brothers, as well as Belle and Zoey, had agreed that course of action didn’t punish Wallis for the three deaths he was already responsible for.
Whatever punishment they decided upon would have to be carried out soon, because the time was fast approaching when they would all need to move elsewhere for several decades.Under the circumstances, that would probably be as well.
Usually, the brothers retreated to their caves and slept some of that time away on top of their treasure.But with them all now having mates, that was no longer an option.They would all need to relocate to one of the other houses the brothers owned in different locations around the world.
As this was their main residence, their treasure would remain here, unprotected apart from the wards they would leave in place at the entrance and inside the cavern.Those wards would alert the brothers the moment anyone attempted to enter the network of caves where their treasure was hidden.
Not Wallis, of course, because whatever punishment they unanimously decided upon for this man, he was never walking away from here.No, Wallis’s fate had been decided from the moment he arranged for the journal to be stolen from Belle and after the horrendous way he had killed the young thief after he had handed it over to him.No doubt Wallis had carried out that horror show not only to avoid paying Ben for stealing the journal, but also to ensure his silence on the existence of dragons and, hopefully, their treasure.
No, Wallis’s ultimate fate had been unanimously agreed upon.The only decision yet to be made was the method of his death.
“None of us would ever simply hand any of that over to you,” Ranulf scorned.
“You will unless you want the Malcolms to die and this pretty thing to hate you.”Wallis briefly released Sephie’s shoulders and dared to touch her pink tresses.
Ranulf’s jaw tightened, and his dragon scrabbled inside to be set free with the cry ofkill.
A savagery Ranulf managed to quell as he maintained an outwardly bored expression and gave a disinterested shrug.“As I told you, I don’t know them or her.”
“Even if that were true, it’s obvious, from reading the nun’s journal, that you and your brothers all have a savior complex,” he derided.
“Only up to a point,” Ranulf acknowledged.“That point being as long as it doesn’t involve harm coming to any of us,” he added when Wallis raised a questioning brow.
“Let’s test that theory, shall we?”Wallis lifted his hand, his thumb hovering an inch above the red button before it began to lower.
“No!”Ranulf made a forward move, as if he intended to stop the other man.
“Thought so.”Wallis chuckled as he lifted his thumb a safe distance.“I took the time to research the people living in the village before coming here.More specifically, I looked into all things Drake-brothers related.”
That explained part of what this man had been doing when he had disappeared for the past week.
Wallis nodded.“It seems that when the church needed a new roof, Drake Enterprises gave it the money.When the school needed a tennis court, Drake Construction donated their services.When the local shop was threatened with the removal of the post office service, a company named Drake Brothers Ltd.stepped in and offered the necessary funding to keep that service open.Do you see the pattern?”he taunted.
Ranulf snorted.“That proves nothing except that we like to invest in the village we’ve made our home.”
