Blood Money

Book 0: Sisterhood

by Fern Michaels

Genres: Women's Fiction

Synopsis

The fearless, loyal women of The Sisterhood reunite to help true underdogs in need in this fast-paced, thrilling story of female friendship and vigilante justice.

The Sisterhood: a group of women from all walks of life bound by friendship and years of adventure. Armed with vast resources, top-notch expertise, and a loyal network of allies around the globe, the Sisterhood will not rest until every wrong is made right.

British banking titan Cedric Wexley may have wealth and power galore, but right now, he needs the kind of help only the Sisterhood can provide. On a visit to his wife’s grave, his butler, Robert, and his beloved dog, Lucy, are ambushed by unknown assailants and kidnapped. But before Robert is taken, he hands Cedric a special phone with one number programmed into it, and instructs Cedric to tell the man who answers that “Solomon” told him to call.

When Cedric calls the number, the Sisterhood’s very own Charles answers. Unbeknownst to Cedric, Robert is a retired MI6 operative, and Charles owes him a favor. Soon, the Sisterhood is on the case, uncovering the kidnappers’ identities and learning about their ransom demands. Even Lucy, a former K9 unit, is in danger, for the villains intend to turns her into a prize fighter and sell her litter to a dogfighting ring.

The women of the Sisterhood have always been devoted to helping the underdog, and cruelty towards animals warrants a very special kind of response. Enlisting Annie’s business connections and Charles’s intelligence network, they plan a takedown that, if it succeeds, may just turn the tables and see justice restored, all in the most satisfying way possible . . .

Release date: December 15, 2026

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 368

Sample

Myra Rutledge sensed something was wrong before her eyes opened all the way.

She could feel Charles was not in bed beside her. She rolled over, wondering why she had woken up before the alarm and why her husband had woken up even before that. She looked around, wondering if he’d just gone to the bathroom in the middle of the night, perhaps, but his side of the bed was cold.

It was four o’clock in the morning. Myra got herself ready, first putting on her precious pearls, then a pair of slippers and her favorite robe. It was old flannel, one she’d owned for so many years she couldn’t even remember how she’d gotten it, but it was warm, and it was cozy. The edges of the robe were littered with little rips and tears from where Lady and her pups had nipped at her for their daily treats. She walked down the stairs, remembering the days when she had slid down the banister and crashed into a pile of pillows at the bottom. No time for anything like that this morning, she thought. She didn’t know how, but she knew something was wrong, she just knew. When she got a gut feeling like this, it was never, ever wrong. Her fingers gripped at the pearls around her neck without her even realizing what she was doing.

The minute she stepped into the kitchen, the dogs were all over her. Myra could smell coffee, but the pot was almost empty. She didn’t see Charles, and there were no signs he was preparing breakfast. That meant only one thing—he was in the war room.

Myra wrapped the robe around herself more snugly and opened the secret passage that led down to the Sisterhood’s control center. “Guard,” she told Lady, who barked and sat down, alert for any intruders.

Myra moved carefully down the mossy steps. She had a small, sad smile as always when she passed by the bells that she’d hung up for Nikki and Barbara all those years ago when the two girls had played down in the tunnels beneath Pinewood. She walked into the command room, where she found her husband sitting at his post on top of the dais.

“Charles, dear, what on earth is going on? It’s not even sunrise, and you’ve already consumed a pot of coffee. What’s happened? Is it one of the girls?”

Charles turned, giving his wife a tired smile. She could see from the bags under his eyes that he hadn’t slept the night before. “Sorry, luv. I didn’t mean to make you worry. In fact, I’d hoped to be back in the kitchen in time to have breakfast ready for you. I wasn’t expecting you to get up quite so early. I must’ve … I must’ve just lost track of the time.”

“Well, I suppose it’s hard to sleep without you there, whether I’m aware of it or not.” Myra walked up the steps and placed a loving hand on Charles’s shoulder. He reached up and grabbed it. “Now, tell me what’s wrong. I haven’t seen you like this in quite some time.”

“It’s not the girls,” Charles said at last. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”

The computer terminals in front of Charles were turned off, and he had no files or paperwork of any kind, only a mug of coffee and one of those special satellite phones that he’d given to everyone when they’d first started the Sisterhood all those years ago.

“Quite the opposite? What do you mean?” Myra bristled.

“You know in my past life,” Charles said, “in my work for MI6, is where I met Avery, but of course, he wasn’t the only close partner that I had in the service. I had a dear friend named Solomon Westford. He was one of the best agents that I ever knew. He even taught me a thing or two about cooking. But after my cover was blown, I had to break off contact with most of my old friends, and I haven’t spoken with him since.”

Myra frowned. “I don’t understand. Did he pass away? How would you even have heard such news?”

Charles shook his head. “No, I fear it may be worse than that. I received a call from his number, but not from him. It was from a man named Cedric Wexley, who’s in charge of one of the world’s biggest financial management companies. He called me in a panic, saying that he was calling in an old favor. Solomon’s old favor.”

Myra waited, sensing that Charles was not finished. He took a slow breath and continued after taking another sip of his coffee.

“Solomon saved my life on a very dangerous mission all those years ago, and I always felt terrible that I never returned the favor. Once I was forced to go underground and take up this new identity, I couldn’t reach out to him. I always wondered if he’d turned out alright. It would seem he wound up working as a butler and a bodyguard for Cedric Wexley, but now he’s in danger.”

Myra tilted her head. “He’s in danger? By he, you mean Cedric is in danger, or your friend Solomon?”

“My friend Solomon—though I suppose his name now is Robert, just like how my name is now Charles.”

“I don’t understand, Charles. Why would the butler be in danger, and not the man in charge of a company that big and powerful?” Myra grasped her pearls as she tried to find an answer.

Charles shook his head, fingers drumming on the coffee mug. “I don’t understand, either, dear. And I don’t like it when I don’t understand something. I like answers. I like clear explanations.”

“Surely Cedric must have told you more than just that,” Myra persisted.

“The man was scared out of his mind and barely coherent. I was able to calm him down and give him instructions to get somewhere safe, somewhere visible, somewhere public. He’s on his way to a high-end hotel in London as we speak, where he’s promised to contact me with more information. But I know this is Solomon’s work—there’s no one else who would have been able to contact me here,” he said, tapping a finger on the cell phone, “aside from you and the rest of the Sisterhood. Only someone with MI6 connections would know how to get hold of me.”

Myra didn’t know what to say. She bundled her robe more tightly around her. It was quiet down in the war room, underground in the tunnels beneath the farmhouse. Myra studied Charles for a moment and saw that he was staring across the room at the empty chair in the corner. It had belonged to Julia Webster—their fallen Sister. Charles seemed lost in thought, and Myra did not know how to pull him back to earth.

“If someone was able to get the drop on Solomon, then they must be quite the professional,” Charles said, muttering to himself more than Myra. “I’m talking people with my kind of training.”

“Someone like Jellicoe, do you think?” Myra mused, referring to the Sisterhood’s Enemy #1.

“It’s very possible,” Charles said, his voice grim. “To make matters worse, I seriously doubt Cedric has the training to notice any useful details—like the make and model of the assailant’s firearm, for example. I’ll need to reach out to my contacts and see what information I can gather. I’m sure Avery will be willing to help me. I have a few old favors at MI6 I can call in, and Fergus still has friends at Scotland Yard. Then after that … well, then I’m not quite sure.”

“I’ll stop you right there. The first thing you need to do,” Myra said, “is go upstairs and get another pot of coffee going.”

Charles shook his head. “No, old girl, I’ve already had nearly a full pot this morning. I don’t need any more. My nerves are already twanging all over the place as it is.”

Myra squeezed his shoulder. “The pot is for me, dear. And once we get the call out to Annie and the others to come over and help us brainstorm this, then they’ll be needing some coffee, too.”

Myra was pleased to see a genuine—if exhausted—smile on Charles’s face. He grabbed her fingers gently and gave them a quick kiss. “It would seem two old MI6 agents may not be a match for whoever this enemy is,” Charles said, turning up to look at his wife. “But I imagine the entire Sisterhood might be.”

It was a cool, clear spring morning in the nation’s capital, one of those days where the early morning cold could chill you to the bone until the early afternoon sunshine made it tolerable. In the reporters’ room at the Post, however, it seemed like that early afternoon would never arrive. The reporters sipped their coffee, stared at the clock, checked and then rechecked their emails … and then did it all over again.

“This is the slowest news day I can remember in years,” Ted grumbled. He tapped at his coffee mug, which had his name on it. “Hey, kid. Bring me some more coffee, will you?”

Dennis, who had his head buried in a laptop, looked up at his idol, Ted Robinson, with an irritated look. “How come I still have to get the coffee? I’ve been here long enough. You know the Post has interns for this sort of thing. Why don’t you make them go get the coffee?”

“Yeah, there’s interns,” Ted said, “but you’re still the new guy, so you have to go get us coffee until we get an even newer guy. Those are the rules.”

Dennis sighed. He looked around for support, but both Maggie and Joe Espinosa responded with a shrug as if to say, Them’s the breaks, kid.

“Alright, fine,” Dennis said, standing up and closing his laptop. “I’ll get the coffee. But you better watch out, Ted, I’ve been keeping up with my lessons with Harry and Jack, you know. One of these days you’re not gonna be able to boss me around anymore. I’ll karate-chop you out a window or something.”

“You probably could do that if you wanted,” Ted said, sliding his mug down the table to the young multimillionaire, “and then when I’m in the ER, you can still bring me some more coffee, because you’ll still be the new guy.”

Dennis grumbled as he grabbed everyone’s mugs and went off to the break room.

Maggie grunted as she shifted back and forth in her seat, unable to get comfortable.

“You alright?” Ted asked. He tried to hide the alarm in his voice but was not successful.

Espinosa smirked at this but said nothing, continuing to review the latest series of photographs he’d taken.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Maggie said, scrolling idly on her computer and chewing on a pencil. “I just can’t sit still for very long these days. Just the lingering effects of getting hit by that damn van. It’s gonna be something I will have to live with forever, but it’s not too bad. It’s better some days. It’s worse on others.”

Ted was not sure how to respond to that. If it were up to him, he’d have taken all the pain and the hassle of it away from his one-time boss and longtime love of his life, but he couldn’t. “We could always hire you a live-in nurse again.”

Maggie threw her pencil at him.

Ducking just in time, Ted laughed and said, “Hey! You could’ve blinded me.”

“You only need one eye to write news articles,” Maggie snapped.

“I think it’s pretty funny,” Espinosa said.

“What? Me almost getting hit in the eye with a pencil?”

“No, the food chain here. Well, actually, you almost getting hit in the eye is pretty funny, but I meant the food chain. Ted tells Dennis what to do. Maggie tells Ted what to do. Annie tells Maggie what to do. It all just lines up like that, you know?”

Maggie scowled. “You left out the part where Alexis tells you what to do.”

Espinosa grinned. “Hey, I never denied that. But she doesn’t throw pencils at me, either.”

Maggie chuckled and glanced at the clock again, trying to figure out when they could justify leaving the Post’s office and heading down to Squire’s Pub for lunch. She was starving. Well, she was always starving, but with so much time to kill today and absolutely nothing exciting to write about, there was nothing to distract her from how hungry she was. She tried to stare at the emails in her inbox, scouring for anything that came close to an interesting lead on a story, but her mind kept wandering to a juicy cheeseburger, those made-in-house potato chips Squire’s Pub had, and a chocolate shake to wash it down.

“Alright, coffee’s here,” Dennis said, carefully balancing everyone’s mugs as he passed them all out. “Now stop bothering me, will you? Just because you guys have no real work to do today doesn’t mean I don’t.”

“Real work sounds better than sitting here with our thumbs up our asses watching the time go by. What’s the editor in chief got you working on?” Ted asked.

“There’s a huge—like really huge—financial summit coming up with a lot of big banks and investment firms and that sort of thing.”

“Eh,” Espinosa said, and shrugged. “Just sounds like a bunch of people with a bunch of money to me.”

“Well, you’re not wrong, but it’s still a big deal. It seems like they’re trying to broker deals; a few of the companies are open to a pretty big merger,” Dennis said. “It’s all money stuff I don’t think the Average Joe picking up a newspaper from the corner would really care about, but it’s important.”

“I agree,” Maggie said. “I don’t think the Average Joe would care. Isn’t there anything exciting to it? Some angle you could lead with? Guys with too much money are always doing scandalous stuff, having affairs, that kind of thing.”

Dennis sat back down in his chair. It squeaked a bit as he rolled it closer to the table. “That’s what I’m trying to find out, but a lot of it is financial wizardry, mumbo-jumbo type stuff.”

“You got more than enough zeroes in your bank account,” Ted said. “Shouldn’t you have all that kind of stuff figured out?”

Dennis grinned but squirmed a bit, too—he was uncomfortable with people knowing about how much money he’d received in a surprise inheritance a few years ago. But he knew the teasing from Ted was light-hearted. They may give him a hard time, but Dennis knew he could trust any of them with his life. “Hey, I just spend the money and invest in whatever Annie says is a good idea to invest in. I never said I understood how all that stuff works.”

“Well, I say we—” Maggie said, before she was interrupted by her phone. She blinked, grabbing at the backpack she had at her feet—the backpack she never left home without. She rummaged through it until she pulled out her cell phone, answering it.

“Hello?” she said. Maggie nodded, listening for a minute before saying, “Got it … right away. Will do.” She hung up and wrinkled her brow.

“Who was that?” Espinosa asked.

“Our boss.”

“The editor in chief?” Ted asked, frowning.

“No, our real boss. Good ol’ Countess Annie de Silva. She’s got two assignments for us.”

“A reporter kind of assignment or … the other kind of assignment?”

Maggie grinned. “Little of column A, little of column B.”

Ted, Dennis, and Espinosa sat forward, eyes on Maggie Spritzer. She brushed a stray strand of her curly red hair out of the way and leaned in, keeping her voice down. “I think big things are happening. Maybe another mission in the works. Annie wants us to look into everything we can to find out about one Cedric Wexley, and his company—”

“Vault Financial Enterprises!” Dennis said.

The other three turned and looked at him.

“How’d you know that?” Ted asked.

“They’re one of the big players at the summit that’s coming up,” Dennis said, sifting through his notes. “Actually, wait, hold on.” Dennis clicked a button on his laptop and turned it around. A picture of a kind-looking British man was on the screen. “I’ve been reading up on the guy.”

“Look at you doing your homework,” Maggie said, smiling. “Let’s hear it. What’s the verdict on this guy?”

Dennis shrugged. “As far as I’ve been able to tell, they’re an honest company. The guy—Cedric Wexley—built it up from pretty much nothing and has done well for himself. They do a lot of due diligence to keep their clients’ investments safe and make sure they’re not exposed to any unnecessary risk. Wexley apparently saw the big housing crisis coming and was able to talk a lot of his clients into reinvesting and shifting things around. He kept a lot of his investors, some of whom were just small families, from going bankrupt. That was their really big break in the financial world, from what I’ve read.”

“So, what does his company actually do?” Espinosa asked.

Dennis shrugged again. “Look, like I said, it’s all money stuff. Investments … portfolios … I don’t know how it works.”

“Honestly, nobody does.” Maggie chuckled. “But he seems like a decent guy?”

“Oh, yeah,” Dennis said. “I haven’t found any dirt on him yet.”

“Hmm,” Ted said, turning back to Maggie. “Doesn’t sound like the sort of person we’d normally get assigned homework on. But I guess he has skeletons in his closet somewhere.”

Maggie shook her head. “No, my instincts are telling me there’s something else going on here. I think this guy’s just one piece of the puzzle. Background reading … not the real target. Let’s get cracking,” Maggie said, excited, the prospect of lunch suddenly forgotten.

Ted and Espinosa nodded, flipping to fresh pages in their notebooks.

“Wait, wait,” Dennis said, looking up with a frown. “You said there were two assignments. What’s the other one?”

Maggie responded without looking up from her computer. “Clear your schedules for tonight—we’ve got a meeting at the farmhouse.”

“Does that mean we get Charles’s cooking?” Dennis asked.

“Hell yes, it does,” Maggie said, grinning.

The branches of the 300-year-old angel oak outside Pinewood swayed in the evening breeze as the last car, a cobalt blue BMW, pulled in.

Nikki and Alexis stepped out, taking a moment to grumble and stretch their stiff legs before heading up the familiar front steps. Nikki had been pissed the entire drive, stuck in two hours of D.C. gridlock traffic leaving work, but the sight of the house all lit up and the raucous laughter coming from her family and friends made it all melt away.

She went inside, grinning wide as she saw the old kitchen table set with extra chairs squeezed in to accommodate everyone. It was one excited hug after another, with the longest saved for Myra.

“Good to see you, dear,” Myra said.

“Yeah, yeah, good to see you both,” Kathryn said, waving her to her seat. “How have you been, what’s new, so on, so forth—now hurry up and sit your late asses down so we can eat already!”

“Alright, alright,” Nikki said, grinning. “Sorry to hold you guys up; we didn’t exactly want to be stuck in traffic, you know.”

Charles smirked as he brought the coleslaw he’d prepared to the table. Ted and Espinosa came in with Dennis, who’d been busy grilling burgers out on the back patio. As they gathered at the table, Annie said a quick grace, and the Sisterhood dug in.

“It has to be two or three months since we were all together like this,” Alexis said, washing down her hamburger with iced tea. “What’s new with everyone?”

“Abner and I are working on designing a new house,” Isabelle said, smiling wide. “It’s really exciting—everything from the ground up, just the way we want it.”

“Are you guys selling his current place?” Maggie asked. “It’s so cool, I can’t believe you’d get rid of it.”

“No, not at all,” Isabelle said, shaking her head. “He’s far too attached after all that hard work he put in renovating it. And I don’t blame him, but he and I both wanted a little cabin for cozy getaways, and we’ve been having fun brainstorming all the little details.”

“After all the property I had to buy for him,” Annie sighed, “and still he wants more. Some people are just never satisfied.”

“Variety is the spice of life!” Isabelle replied.

“What about you, Kathryn?” Alexis asked. “How’s life on the road?”

Kathryn beamed. “Life on the road is life on the road. Never been better.”

“Don’t you ever get lonely?” Yoko asked.

Kathryn shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, I guess sometimes.”

“What ever happened with you and Jackson Sparrow?” Annie asked. “You seemed quite smitten with him at one point.”

“Jackson and I see each other when we can,” Kathryn admitted, “but we’re both busy, we both have our own lives. Neither one of us is the type to spend all our time. . .