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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thank you for all the great reviews. Don't hate me for the cliffhanger.
Cold seemed to enter the very walls as they journeyed deeper beneath the estate. As long as Spike had been a member of the family, this place had existed, sealed off from the upper floors of the house through tight security systems. Guards stood along the walls, their seasoned eyes conveying the severity of the occasion. It was rare of Angel to miss any meeting, let alone one where he had to kill his mentor. The poof would've relished that, maybe even have stepped in for his own spot of violence. No something was wrong. Even Drake's smooth voice, so perceptively calm in the throes of anger had carried a hint of it. Spike ignored the guns to either side of his head as he walked. Hunter had been disarmed at the first checkpoint and he never carried a weapon whilst on the estate. Lackeys or lieutenants could be forgiven for expecting trouble but for him, it was considered a threat. Besides, he always had his weapons at the ready. A swift knock could disarm a man far faster than playing cowboys. Hunter trailed to his left, hands unconsciously twitching as he briskly marched towards their destination. The chit was still on his mind even now. Spike knew he would have to put a stop to that. Women were just another possession, the moment you treated them as something more, you were the one who became owned.

Like a sodding dog.

Unbidden Dru appeared in his thoughts. How many times had he rescued her from this place? How many times had he watched helplessly as Angel laid into her laughing form with the whip? He'd tortured far too many in this overdone bloody basement, but Spike could only picture her, raven hair swinging as she tossed her head to and fro. She'd always screamed the loudest down here.

Angel was part of the reason, the cells were so well renowned within the family. His games with the girls, and even a few blokes had made many men stammer a polite refusal when Angel asked them to accompany him to the elevator. But the knowledge of the place was not only on his part. Notoriety was splashed like a bucket of blood against the stained walls. They could clean every inch of the fucking place and still it would stink like a butcher's table. Even with his eyes closed, Spike could feel it, the scent of fear somehow still lingering long after the bodies were taken away. The place was as cursed as it could be to a cynical murderer. Masters had told him about it when the family was still a new thing to him, warning that more often then not, it was the first place you would wake. That is, unless they decided you were better off dead and merely topped you in your sleep. No, the cells was for punishment and Angel had excelled at it. More than one of the men Spike had joined with in those early days, had met their ugly demise in the sterile rooms. The poor sods.

He had nearly joined them, himself.

The poof and he had never been friends. But the civility between them had remained intact until the first time that Spike caught a glimpse of Drusilla. She'd clung to Angel's arm like a small bird, dark eyes gazing around the ball room with delight. A velvet red dress had clung to her sharp hips, draping pale skin the colour of parchment.

At once a million words coalesced in his head. She was amazing, stunning, a wicked plum, the long wished for vision. Her dark embrace was something he had only dreamed about. She slid her eyes over him for an instant, and his skin turned to ice, heart stopping with a thud. An image of her wrapped in his arms, their lips bloodied with a feral lust, came unbidden. He couldn't take his eyes off of her even as Masters came to stand by his side.

"She's not for you, Spike." The old man had whispered. His eyes crinkled with palpable sorrow at the sight of Angel whirling the dark woman around. "No one can touch her except Angel." He paused, watching the nerve along William's jaw tick. He was stubborn to the point of exasperation and also foolhardy. "It would be better if you could try to listen." His protégée had glanced back down to him with a rueful grim. The hair was a dark blonde then, shorn short so as to avoid the unruly curls that had once graced his crown.

"'M listening… doesn't mean I hav' to like it." A giggle turned the younger man's head back to the centre of the room where Angel was blatantly fondling Drusilla's breasts. "Pillock."

"And Drake's brother and Frank's godson. You don't want to mess with that family" Masters reminded. Before Angel had killed the old bastard, Frank had pretty much directed the whole operation; Masters himself had been brought in by the tough, brutal leader. Spike had luckily escaped the whole coup, by remaining abroad and settling key transactions for the family. He'd only heard second hand from Hunter, the bloodbath that had occurred as Frank sought to keep control. At that time, the ole geezer had been chatting up some pretty little thing, as his son wandered the opposite end of the room. Even in those early years, the blood had turned bad.

Spike could remember silently offering an arm of support as Masters wavered for a moment. Masters had not walked with a cane then. His pride was to great to tolerate the imposition of a stick. And failing health was never a good thing to show at such a meeting. Masters had peered into his eyes, wrinkles and a heavy brow shadowing his own till they appeared as tiny specks of black. "I want you to stay alive William. Promise me that. No matter what goes on tonight." His feeble fingers had clutched tight for a moment with the strength of his feeling.

Spike could remember frowning, before nodding his head once. "Don't need to promise that, already like living well enough." Especially if it involves Drusilla.

Masters had seemed satisfied. Wrinkling his nose, the bat like man had sneered as one of the European delegates walked past them. "Without you, the family will turn into the Italians, squabbling over the small amount of money the government hasn't taken away." Spike had grinned, the bastard was right about that, and not a little furious in regards to the people of the boot. Masters had come from a long line of English gangsters, their notoriety constantly being upstaged by RICO antics that set the media on fire. Even with the threat of investigation and the government the old sod had kept his love of power and reveled in other people, the sheep as he called them, knowing about it.

"The Italians won't know what hit 'em, once 'm official" Spike had offered the assurance placatingly, Dru still spinning in the back of his head. Her lips were wide with rapture now as Angel dragged her to the edge of the room, hands fisted in the edge of her dress. Jus' once, I'd like to touch such a black goddess.

"I'm glad, my boy, you don't know how happy I am to hear that." A pause stretched between them and Spike broke his gaze to stare down at his elder's hands. They were like boney spiders, spread across the ink blue of his suit.

"I'll do whatever's bloody called for, you tell 'em that."

"Anything?"

Spike merely nodded. The ole codger was up to something. Dru had disappeared from view.

Before another word could pass between them, Masters pushed away from Spike's arm, to greet another older member stalking across the room.

Immediately Masters' henchmen followed. They had all been loyal then, taking up the physical presence that Masters no longer could enforce. Hunter winked at him, before settling against the wall as the two old men discussed their schemes. All knew that Spike was considered Masters' son, even though the gap in age was similar to that of a grandchild. The family practically encouraged nepotism where a vacuum of power could threaten to dissolve the whole organisation. They had been close, or at least as close as two men who lusted for power and were far from it. Masters had brought the international ties to the family, but as he grew older, his chances of keeping it were looking slim. Unless Spike replaced him, the wealth of his life would be divided between spoilt brats like Angel and his even more vicious brother Drake.

They had all thought till that night, that Drake was the more violent of the two. Bloody fools, the lot of them.

The night had dragged on with aplomb, Angel dragging a willing Drusilla through the motions of a waltz. Their disappearance had been short despite the marks which now graced Dru's slender throat.

Spike snorted as Angel sidestepped, his feet almost tangling. The ponce could never dance, he was too awkward looking, his feet always lumbering a pace behind the beat. And yet, his dark haired beauty, Drusilla kept gazing upwards at him as though moonstruck.

He imagined it was the same look upon his own face as he stared after the couple.

A fool for love. It was all he was. And all that Dru would ever see him as.

But Spike hadn't known it then. Hadn't dare acknowledge the assured sense of rejection even as he cornered her in a hallway hours later as the party ended. He'd assumed that Angel was somewhere with another girl, preoccupied and fucking himself senseless.

She'd gazed at him with quiet approval, her mouth curving into a content smile. Her teeth were gleaming white and sharp as she bit him spontaneously on the side of the neck. Before he could react, she'd nipped at his throat again, smothering his skin in kisses. She'd whispered that he would do wonderful, dastardly things even as he took her in the open, her mouth babbling incessantly of the great things they would see, the pixies, sodding fairytales.

He hadn't cared. Her black beauty seemed to suck in the light around him until her face was all that he could focus on. In that moment, Spike threw his lot in with Masters and gave his salvation to Dru.

If only he had known how it would end.

A heavy hand on his shoulder awoke Spike from his thoughts.

"We're here, boss." Hunter opened the door as the smaller man strode purposefully into the well-lit cell. There were no obvious stains in this one, no congealed blood that hinted at its usual purpose.

"Well Spikey, didn't expect to see you. Finally upgrade from being Masters' bitch?" Angel was shackled to the wall, his skin bare except for a ragged pair of trousers. Something was very, very wrong.

Spike raised his brow questioningly at Drake. The man was dressed in loose slacks, a collared shirt left hanging open as he leaned forward on the chair. Long legs were crossed together as though to hold himself in place, but his hands kept moving, brushing his hair back, fingering the bat which laid on his lap and then back again to the wisps which had escaped the tight knot at the nape of his neck. His face was tight now, brow heavy as he continued to stare at his younger brother. A mere three years separated them and the two were thought of as twins. Spike imagined their mother had been beautiful before ole Frankie slit her throat.

"What's this 'bout?" He ignored the chair that Drake had thrust in his direction.

"This is an intervention."

Angel thrashed against his chains. They had placed him in a stress position, toes just barely touching the floor. The trembling in his limbs said that he had been there for no more than an hour. The pillock deserves to be there for eternity.

"Your fucking kidding me." Spike couldn't contain his exasperation as the two brothers continued to stare at each other.

"Oh he's serious Spikey." Angel couldn't help grinning as he eyed the wooden bat. He was lucky they hadn’t gone with the metal version. He waited for Drake to begin and then winced. Of course they had brought her. Who else would revel so endlessly in his greatest mistake? his brother wouldn't look at either of them now, but it had to be expected. He'd been her first conquest and was always the weakest within the blood family. Not that it matters when there are only two of us left.

He could already see the whip in her gloved hand and knew the sting of its lash would not be far. The party must only be getting started. Fuck it , Angel thought angrily. It's already happened to Spike. But inside he could feel the anxiety mounting. A sense of terrible unease that was now being reflected in azure eyes from across the room.

"Hello boys."





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