The Almighty Dominance (by Sunshine) novel Chapter 815

The idiot had walked out of the Grand a minute after his promise, with two bread rolls wrapped in a napkin for the dog. By midnight the guests were gone, and he had not come back.

Serena sat on the Grand's wet steps with her phone. Her father sat beside her in his torn jacket, holding his ribs.

"I need to find a way to settle this," she said. "Peacefully. Tonight."

"Serena." Gideon's voice was careful. "It's Victor Russell. Nobody on this coast will put their hand into that fire. Not for us."

"Then I'll ask until somebody does. He thinks Victor Russell will forgive him, Father. He thinks he can walk in and say sorry."

"It would be the worst thing you could do. If you cross him now—"

"He came for me, Father." She looked at him. "When nobody in that room moved, he came for me with a tray. Should I just sit here and watch him die?"

Gideon opened his mouth. Then he closed it again.

She dialled.

"Good evening. It's Serena Tiffany. I'm so sorry to call this late. It's about Victor Russell—"

The line went dead.

The next one.

"It's Serena Tiffany. I only need a word to someone at the harbour—"

Dead.

"Please, I'm only asking you to speak to him. You've known my grandmother thirty years—"

"Is this about the Russell boy?"

"Yes, but if you would just—"

Click.

The fourth man didn't let her finish her name. "Don't call this number again, Miss Tiffany."

The fifth didn't pick up at all.

She tried the sixth. It didn't ring. A flat recorded voice said the number could not be reached.

The seventh. The same voice. The eighth. The same.

She went back to the first number, the one that had hung up on her. The same flat voice.

"They've blocked you," Gideon said softly. "Word moves faster than you can dial. Nobody wants Victor Russell to find their name on your phone."

"Nine," Serena said, and dialled. "Ten."

The voice. The voice.

"Eleven."

"Serena. It isn't that they won't help. It's that they can't."

The rain came down past the steps in silver strings. She held the phone in her lap and stared at it.

Then it buzzed with a message.

Leave it to me. Gran knows the man. I'll make a few calls. Don't worry. P.

Serena read it twice. An hour ago Preston had sat on the floor and said nothing while she was dragged across the room.

"Preston says he'll try," she said.

"Preston," said her father, "says a great many things."

At the kerb below the steps, a long black car sat with its engine running.

In the back seat, Rebecca Morgan had the Grand's security footage open on her phone. She had paid the night manager for it before the soup was cold.

She watched it again. The idiot with the tray. Then black. Ninety seconds of black, full of screams and the sound of men falling. Then the lights, and a hall full of bodies, and a man in the soup.

"Black, black, black," she murmured, "and then a man in the soup."

In the driving seat, Peters met her eyes in the mirror.

"You think I should help the Tiffanys," she said. "Don't you."

Peters said nothing.

"Not yet. I want to see who turns the lights back on." She closed the phone. "Put a man on the Tiffany gate tonight. I want to know where every one of them goes."

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