“Be safe, Mayhem.” Milo ordered her before dropping a kiss on her lips.
“You do the same, Pretty Boy.” She winked then glanced to where Ezra still wore a frown. He hated this. I couldn’t blame him. His father was a problem.
We were fixing the problem.
“I’ll be good,” Ezra promised. “Mostly. Liam will probably kick my ass if I’m not.”
“Accurate,” Liam said, then waved him to the car.
Lainey blew Ezra a kiss then Adam gave him a long measuring look. When Ezra grinned and saluted, Adam rolled his eyes.
Better.
They were finding balance.
“Let’s go,” I said, opening the passenger door for Lainey.
All the smiles faded. It was time to get to work.
Once on the road, Lainey and Adam were both on their phones. She made calls to track down Dinah Graham while Adam handled getting his security in place to replace the Graham security.
A few had already been bought and paid for, but that wouldn’t be all of them. I already had a cleanup crew on standby. When we finished with Graham, we had one more target to eliminate before we left—if time allowed. If not, we’d deal with him when we came home.
The drive to Harrows Park was over an hour and it flew past as Lainey and Adam made plans. Some calls they didn’t want to put Ezra through. The rest? Well, we couldn’t make the calls until it was time.
“She’s definitely out,” Lainey said as we arrived at the gates to Harrows Park. No one was in the guardhouse and the main gates were closed. “She’s checked in for a full spa day to get ready for the memorial service.”
I nodded then used the remote from Ezra to open the gates. Both cars had one. They were entering from the back, while we came from the front. I wanted all the attention on us.
Honestly, I wanted all the resistance on us too. It would be great fun to see them try to keep us from doing what we came here to do.
I parked in the porte cochere and took my keys before sliding around the car. Adam was already out and he had Lainey’s door open. I gave them both a nod as I ascended the steps to the entrance.
Unsurprisingly, these doors weren’t locked. They opened right into the foyer. The doors on the far side of the foyer might be locked, but I wasn’t concerned. Security cameras, patrolling security, and an estate of land offered the feeling of protection.
Arrogance. The downfall of so many and a lesson that the wealthy and the powerful should have learned. Influence was only valuable to the people that needed it or wanted it. The rest? Well, it only provided a shield against those not willing to take what was owed to them.
Pushing open the doors to the main house, I wasn’t surprised to find a footman hurrying to greet us. “I’m sorry, Mr. Graham is not receiving visitors today.”
“Henderson,” Adam said as he swept past me. “We need to talk.”
If we didn’t have to kill the staff, we wouldn’t. Some of them would have to go. Unfortunately, some would have blind loyalty, either bought and paid for or earned over the years.
They could no more sacrifice it than they could their own families because they built their whole lives and identities around the families they served. It was a throwback to a different age, and a different place. I never wanted staff like that.
Frankly, I didn’t want staff. I preferred people with principles that would turn on you if you turned out to be a raging psychopath who locked up your wife. Or beat your son. Or plotted the sexual slavery of your stepdaughter.
I didn’t think that was unreasonable.
Lainey walked at my side as we trailed behind Adam. He collected another footman, then a butler on our way to the kitchen.
The housekeeper rose as Adam and his entourage swept in ahead of us. The cook turned around, his expression fierce. Yeah, we were intruding on their territory.
“Gentlemen, ladies,” Adam began, summoning their attention to him. “I have an offer for you and it’s only available for thirty seconds.”
Outside the windows, I could see one of Adam’s security teams moving. Excellent. Touching Lainey’s shoulder to remind her I had another task, I left her guarding Adam’s back as I took the door down to the wine cellar.
The Grahams had quite the collection stored in temperature controlled vaults, along with a few other artifacts and items they didn’t share with the public. Vaults within vaults.
I liked digging through secrets. However, I wasn’t down here for the secrets. We’d have time to sort all that out for Ezra later. Right now, I wanted the primary security room.
As much as I disliked applauding the man, I had to give the Grahams credit for this. Stored within the wine vault, in a room of its own and on a separate feed, was the primary servers and control room for the whole house.
Security had access to some feeds and some cameras. This room recorded everything. It was how Wallace Graham manipulated and extorted his way to the top. He had dirt on a lot of people, all safely stored where no one could get to it.
Ezra knew two of the codes.
Adam actually had a third.
But Lainey B surprised us all when she handed over the last one. Her amusement at how stunned Ezra and Adam were had shown.
“You boys are so cute that you think I don’t pay attention to everything going on around me.”
I would never make that mistake.
The codes got me into the first wine vault. Then into the second, and finally the last two opened the door behind the wine rack that took me into the security room. Quite paranoid in the placement.
I approved.
