PROLOGUE
Miles Rampell's stride carried a weary rhythm as he approached his front door. The day's work had left its mark, adding another line to his forehead, another wrinkle that no cream could fix. With each step up the familiar path, Miles mentally wandered through the mundane checklist of evening routines: a quick dinner, perhaps some mindless television, and an early night. The very thought of such a sedentary evening was a balm to his frayed nerves.
The hallway welcomed him, and Miles dropped his keys into the small bowl on the table, a habitual gesture that marked the end of his workday and the beginning of his private sanctuary. Miles shrugged off his coat, hung it up, and began the automatic process of settling in for the evening.
Living alone had its perks, though the silence of the house still cut deep. It had been a month since Jessica walked out, her absence still a fresh wound. They'd talked about children, a future together, dreams that now lay dormant. Miles remembered the clumps of hair in the shower, the abundance of candles that dominated the living room, the green smoothies in the fridge. Things he deemed inconveniences at the time but now missed terribly.
Miles moved through the house, his steps automatic but his mind far away. The pictures on the walls, the furniture they had picked out together, even the way the cushions were arranged on the couch – all of it felt like echoes of a life that was slipping away from him. The space felt larger now, emptier, the walls holding the whispers of what could have been.
Life went on, Miles reminded himself.
Into the living room, Miles switched on the TV. Channel 292 filled the screen, the channel that offered suitable trash to while away the evening with. Old game shows, alien abduction stories, ghost-hunting shows with bad acting. Brainless content that didn’t demand much attention. It was the stuff that got him through the night.
But by the muted light of the TV, Miles felt a change in the environment. His gaze drifted away from the flickering screen, drawn to his garden beyond his patio doors. Dusk was on the horizon, tinting the overgrown grass – another byproduct of Jessica’s absence – a dark silver.
But there was an anomaly amongst the familiar view, because there, taped to the glass of the patio door, was an envelope.
Miles froze; soles sealed to the carpet. He adjusted his eyes to the odd image, leaning closer but unable to unfasten the nails in his feet.
The envelope was plain, but the words written on it in bold, clear script said; OPEN ME.
He managed to unfix himself from the ground, then nestled against the wall. Miles suddenly felt an invisible force observing him, documenting his movements. The envelope seemed almost surreal, a physical manifestation
of the unknown that had suddenly invaded his orderly world. As he got closer, he saw it was taped to the other side of the glass.
Whoever sent it had been in his back garden.
The thought unnerved him, someone being so close to his sanctuary. And how would they have gained access? Gone through every garden in the street? Hopped the fence? The most sinister possibilities raged through his mind, but then Miles stopped, breathed deeply and calmed himself.
Even the strangest instances had plausible explanations.
A creative attempt at junk mail?
An urgent message from the homeowner’s association?
Or, Miles thought with a surge of hope, a message from Jessica.
She was always leaving notes around the house, usually declarations of affection. What he wouldn’t give to get one more note from her.
Maybe this was it.
Miles stepped forward, unlocked the patio door and pulled the envelope off the other side of the glass. He locked the door behind him, then clutched the envelope, noting its weight and the way it seemed to pulse with a life of its own. Miles did a quick scan of the room, checking the closet, peering behind the drapes. For what? He wasn’t sure, but he couldn’t shake the idea of someone else being here. Everything seemed to be in its place, but he had to confess that since Jessica vanished, he hadn’t been as orderly as he used to be.
The TV's mindless chatter became a distant hum as he focused on the task at hand. The envelope, plain and unassuming, seemed to hold an entire universe of possibilities. He switched on the overhead light, sat in his chair and turned the envelope over in his hands. He searched for any indication of its sender but found none. It was thick, its edges crisp and unbent, indicating whatever was inside hadn't been there long. No postmark, no stamp - this wasn't the work of a postal worker.
Someone had been here, at his house, and left this envelope specifically for him. It was as anonymous as it was insistent.
Miles gently tore the envelope and peered inside. He reached two fingers in and pulled out the contents - a single piece of paper, folded with meticulous care that seemed at odds with the unremarkable appearance of the envelope. Miles kept the contents at arm’s length, clinging onto the hope that Jessica’s touch had graced it too.
His breath caught in his throat when he saw it.
A note.
A message.
Blank ink, handwritten.
One half of the note was readable, decipherable, familiar to his understanding of the written word.
The other half, not so much.
Two sentences graced the top of the page, and Miles’ life experience told him it was a riddle.
A coven's count on a moonlit night.
I’m death in tarot, a superstitious blight.
Miles read it through three, four, five times, unable to see anything other than a jumble of words that seemed orderly on the surface but on closer inspection said nothing. The words death and blight unnerved him a little, but he couldn’t shake the feeling this was one of Jessica’s attempts to draw his attention.
But below the riddle was something else. Another section to the puzzle, only it was a jumble of capital letters.
ZRRG ZR NG GUR PRZRGREL VA PYRNEIVRJ CNEX GRA CZ GBAVTUG BE LBH JVYY QVR.
Miles pored over the message, neither the riddle nor the nonsensical string of characters offering any immediate insight. A coven’s count? What did that even mean? A coven of witches? And death in tarot he assumed referred to tarot cards, something he was equally as clueless about as covens.
But at least those terms meant something to him, unlike the jumble of letters. Was it a cipher? An anagram? And more importantly, why would someone leave this for him? He didn’t recognize the handwriting,
and while none of it suggested Jessica’s involvement, it pained him to admit that he couldn’t have identified Jessica’s handwriting if someone had a gun to his head.
Miles felt the room begin to close around him. The cryptic riddle and the jumble of letters felt like an unsolvable puzzle, a maze with no clear entrance or exit, and he didn’t have the energy to dig much deeper. But the idea that someone had been in his back garden, so close to his personal space, pushed him further to the edge. Every shadow seemed darker, every creak of the house louder. The anonymity of it, the lack of any clear sender or motive, made it all the more disturbing. He glanced around the room, half expecting to see a pair of eyes staring back at him from the darkness.
In a moment of decision, Miles crumpled the note in his hand. The paper, once meticulously folded, was now just a wad of frustration and fear. He stood up, walked over to the trash can and dumped the paper inside, discarding the unease it brought along with it.
‘Garbage,’ Miles said. Probably just a new type of junk mail, or maybe it was one of the neighbors’ kids messing with him. He wouldn’t put it past some of the delinquents around here, and Miles reassured himself that if the message was so important, the sender would find another way to contact him.
But try as he might, Miles couldn’t shake his fear. He ran through recent events in his head, trying to pinpoint any new enemies or old enemies returned. Maybe it really was Jessica playing a game with him, or maybe one of her dumb friends trying to exact vengeance for treating her the way he did.
The unease clung to him, a shadow that wouldn't be dispelled by rational thoughts or logical explanations. He tried to focus on the mundane, the everyday life that awaited him tomorrow, but his mind kept circling back to the mysterious note, to the feeling of being watched. Miles looked around the living room once more, his eyes lingering on the dark corners, the spaces behind the furniture where shadows gathered. He shuffled to the windows beside his patio doors and locked them shut. The idea of calling the police crossed his mind, but what would
he tell them? He found an anonymous note taped to his patio door? He had cause to do it, but he’d be the fool when police traced it back to a bored kid who lived down the street.
Back in the living room, Miles glanced at the trash can where the crumpled note lay hidden. Part of him wanted to retrieve it, to try to solve the puzzle once more, but he resisted the urge. It was better left alone, a mystery that wouldn't find its solution tonight.
As Miles turned away from the trash can, a sudden, chilling sensation gripped him. Every nerve ending in his body came alive. The unsettling feeling of being watched intensified, morphing into an undeniable presence sharing the same space.
In the dim light of the room, a shadow detached itself from the darkness. It was almost imperceptible at first, a slight shift behind the curtains. They billowed as if caught by an unseen breeze, then a blur in the periphery of Miles' vision moved with a startling quickness. Before he could react, before he could even process what was happening, the figure sprang at him from the shadows.
CHAPTER ONE
Agent Ella Dark sat in the interview room of Virginia State Prison, hands clasped together in mock prayer. Unanswered questions had brought her to the prison doors, and her contacts and credentials had gotten her through the four layers of security. Now she awaited her interviewee, soon to be escorted in once the clock struck midday.
A week ago, Ella had finally exorcised the demon that had haunted her since she was five years old. She’d captured Logan Nash – an underground assassin and the man who’d killed her father twenty-five years ago – after a year-long exhaustive journey. She’d been the one to hunt him down, capture him and put him in front of a judge, but Ella had a problem. She hadn't played by the rules throughout her personal investigation. She'd used a few tricks, called in a few favors, operated outside the confines of the FBI guidebook. It had put Logan Nash in a secure location, but Ella had been concerned that once Logan came to trial, she'd have to divulge all of her misdeeds to the world. Doing so would not only have put her job on the line but cemented Logan Nash as an innocent man in the eyes of the law.
But Ella must have had a guardian angel watching over her, because two days ago, she’d found Logan Nash dead in his safe house. A bullet to the head, executed in cold blood. Ella hadn’t been able to erase the image of Nash’s corpse from her mind, and every time she focused on it, a bittersweet rush stabbed her in the gut. The author of her pain had been wiped out, deleting not just Nash’s existence but all of her problems that came with him being alive.
Only this mysterious triggerman had hijacked Ella’s story and given her a surprise ending. She could never talk to Nash, listen to his excuses, look in the black slits that passed for his eyes and relish in his defeat. Her problems might have been vanquished, but so had her opportunity for closure.
And there was another problem. Who killed Logan Nash – and why?
Ella had one idea, and that’s what she was here to confirm. Logan Nash worked for an underground group named the Red Diamonds, and in most cases, you had more chance of catching a ghost than one of their members.
However, Ella had already bagged two Diamond members on the road to Logan Nash. And if they were still alive, it begged the question as to why Nash wasn’t.
The door to the interview room finally opened, and a prison guard escorted in her interviewee. A middle-aged man in an orange jumpsuit, athletic, well-built, but clearly reeling from his short stint in prison. She hadn’t known his name when she’d busted him, but she now knew him as Nathan Russo, a twenty-year Diamond veteran.
Russo sat down, rubbed the back of his neck and yawned. Ella saw right through the façade to the grisly truth beneath. Russo tried to play the part of the dominant, but he had a fifteen-year sentence ahead of him. Meanwhile, she was a free woman with enough sway to reduce his sentence should he assist her.
‘Mr. Russo,’ Ella said.
Russo sighed. ‘I don’t remember your name.’
‘Sure you don’t, but my name’s not important. What’s important is that your little pal, Logan Nash – shot dead in a place he should have been safe.’ Ella didn’t miss a beat.
Russo’s expression didn’t falter. He peered over at the glass along the far wall and checked his reflection. ‘You don’t say.’
‘I do say.’
‘And how’s this my problem?’
Ella leaned forward, her eyes locked on Russo. ‘Because Nash was your colleague, part of your criminal gang. You tell me, Russo, do the Diamonds make a habit of killing their own members?’
Russo shrugged nonchalantly, but Ella could see the tension in his jaw. ‘The Diamonds have their own way of doing things.’
‘And that involves clearing up loose ends, ensuring members don’t talk?’
The prisoner inspected his nails, clearly mulling his response over. Ella took note of Russo’s microsignals; steady hands, stable legs, the makings of a grin forming at the edges of his lips. All her training told her that Russo wasn’t trying to hide anything.
‘Do you know why we’re called the Diamonds, agent?’
Ella glanced at the clock. She didn’t have time for a history lesson. ‘Because you have diamond tattoos.’
Russo let out a low chuckle, his grin now fully formed. ‘No. You’ve fallen prey to gossip, again. We're called the Diamonds because of what diamonds represent – strength, loyalty, endurance. And yes, there's a symbol of our commitment,’ he opened his mouth slightly, gesturing to the back of his teeth where a small diamond implant glittered. ‘Every member has one, a sign of our unbreakable bond.’
Ella leaned closer, studying the diamond tooth. It was new information, but it didn’t lead her anywhere.
‘But,’ Russo continued, ‘it’s more than a tooth. It’s actually hollow, and there’s a cyanide capsule inside.’ The prisoner reached into his mouth, dislodged the rare gem and presented it for Ella’s inspection, saliva drops and all.
Ella fit the pieces together. In the two days since Logan Nash had died, she hadn’t stopped to consider that maybe his death was intentional – by his own hand.
'And here's me thinking the cyanide tooth was a wartime fairytale.'
‘It was, but we made it real.’
‘So, you’re saying Diamonds commit suicide if they’re caught?’
‘Death before dishonor,’ Russo said. ‘If Nash is gone, chances are he offed himself. The man was a phantom, the smartest killer in the game. No one kills Logan Nash except Logan Nash.’
Ella doubted that. ‘But he was shot right between the eyes. People don’t kill themselves like that. And if he had a cyanide capsule in his tooth, why would he shoot himself?’
Russo grinned again. ‘Cyanide hurts, or so I’ve heard. A bullet to the brain? Not so much.’
Ella considered the information – and the possibility that Russo was lying to protect one of his colleagues. She’d seen a hundred execution scenes in her time, and Nash’s scene was a carbon copy. Nash could have staged his suicide to look like a murder – one last twist for Ella to agonize over – but every fiber of her being told her that Nash was a murder victim.
‘I’m not sure I believe you,’ Ella said.
Russo leaned back, sweeping one hand through his short hair. ‘I don’t care. Why should I help you anyway? You’re the bitch that put me here.’
Ella maintained her composure. She’d been called worse. She leaned in, her voice low and steady. ‘Because I have something you want. Fifteen years is a long time, and cooperation can get you out of here in half that. I'm sure there are things on the outside you'd rather not miss.’
Russo's defiant facade faltered for a moment, a flicker of interest rousing up. Ella knew she’d hit a nerve. ‘What kind of cooperation are we talking about?’
'Your sentence rests on my testimony. You give me the whole truth, and I'll make sure you get off light. Tell me a load and crap and, well…’ Ella glanced over at the one-way mirror, leaned in and said, ‘get used to these walls.’
Russo seemed to weigh his options, the internal struggle evident. Finally, he nodded. ‘This conversation isn’t being recorded, is it?’
‘Only in my head,’ Ella said.
‘Good. If I help you, I want you to help me.’
Ella held his stare. ‘Go on.’
‘I don’t care about my sentence. I’m in here for the long haul, and when the time is right, I’ll meet the man upstairs.’ Russo tapped his diamond tooth through his cheek. ‘But I have a wife and daughter out there. I have some money stashed away, money I kept hidden from the Diamonds. I want you to get it, give it to them, and tell them I’m sorry.’
Blood money, Ella thought. Her humanity took center stage, overriding professionalism and personal vendettas. ‘You kept your family in the dark?’
Russo nodded. ‘They never knew who I really was.’
Ella studied Russo's face, searching for any hint of deceit. The hardened criminal before her was a stark contrast to the family man he was now claiming to be. Yet, in his eyes, she saw a glimmer of genuine concern, a fragment of the man who existed beyond the crimes and the Diamond persona.
‘And you’re asking this of me? An FBI agent?’
Russo grinned. ‘We know you. We’ve had tabs on you for ages. If you were always on the right side of the law, you wouldn’t be sitting in front of me, would you?’
Ella considered the request, both an accusation and a challenge. Helping a criminal's family was murky territory, ethically and legally. Yet, there was a human element she couldn't ignore.
‘You have my attention, Russo. But why trust me with this? Why not someone from
your... circle?’ Ella asked.
Russo's grin faded, replaced by a somber expression. ‘Because in our world, trust is a rare commodity. And my family... they're better off without the Diamonds knowing about them. You're my best shot at keeping them safe. So I’m asking you this, not as a criminal but as a man.’
His plea hung in the air, resonating with a sincerity Ella couldn’t dismiss. ...
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