Page 41 of Venom (St. Sebastian’s at Cravenmoor Academy #1)

Blake

T he morning after our midnight reconnaissance finds me in my usual position in the library, but the familiar weight of a leather-bound first edition feels foreign in my hands.

The words are a salad as my mind processes what we discovered.

St. Sebastian’s is a sophisticated recruitment and training operation for human trafficking networks.

But I’m still not sure this goes across the collegiate.

It’s too big of an operation. The VC is involved, I have no doubt, and several of the professors, but not all.

I close the book with a soft thud and reach for my laptop.

The Locke family’s resources aren’t just financial; they’re informational.

We’ve spent generations building networks that span continents, cultivating sources in governments, law enforcement, and the shadowy spaces between legal and illegal enterprise.

If St. Sebastian’s has been operating for decades, there will be traces.

Patterns. Financial footprints that even the most careful criminal enterprise can’t entirely erase.

My fingers move across the keyboard, accessing databases that most people don’t even know exist. The preliminary searches confirm what we suspected—St. Sebastian’s has been unusually successful at placing graduates in prestigious positions across the UK, Europe, and beyond.

Positions that, when cross-referenced with trafficking investigation reports, paint a disturbing picture.

“Productive morning?” Venetia’s voice interrupts my concentration.

I look up to find her approaching, flanked by Viper and Rafferty. She’s carrying a stack of textbooks, maintaining the pretence of academic normalcy even as we prepare to dismantle the institution from within.

“Illuminating,” I reply, closing the laptop and gesturing to the empty chairs. “We need to discuss next steps.”

Rafferty drops into his usual seat with characteristic irreverence. “Please tell me you’ve found something we can use to burn this place to the ground.”

“Better,” I say, reopening the laptop. “I’ve found a network map of sorts.”

The screen displays a complex web of connections—financial transactions, personnel movements, and organisational structures that reveal the true scope of St. Sebastian’s operations. Venetia leans forward, her eyes sharp as she processes the information.

“This is massive,” she breathes. “It’s not just one academy. There are sister institutions across Europe, all feeding into the same network.”

“Precisely.” I highlight specific nodes on the map. “Manchester, London, Edinburgh, Prague, Budapest, Istanbul, Naples. Each one specialises in different aspects of the operation. St. Sebastian’s appears to focus on management and coordination, the training of executives who will run the networks.”

Viper’s expression darkens as he studies the screen. “Manchester?”

I nod, knowing he is about to be pissed beyond belief.

“Some of these operations you’ve probably been competing with without realising it.

They’ve been playing in your territory, using your city as a transit point.

Three of your predecessors’ lieutenants were St. Sebastian’s graduates.

They were placed specifically to ensure the South Side remained accessible to trafficking operations.

When you took over and replaced everyone with your own guys, the network was cut off. ”

“Those bastards,” he growls.

“It gets worse,” I say, accessing Rafferty’s files. “Your family’s assassination contracts. I’ve cross-referenced them with the trafficking investigation records. Half of your targets over the past two years have been people who were getting too close to exposing this network.”

Rafferty’s usual smirk vanishes entirely. “They’ve been using my family as their personal cleanup crew.”

“Without your knowledge,” I clarify. “The contracts came through intermediaries, legitimate-seeming clients with convincing motivations. But the pattern is clear, anyone who threatened to expose the trafficking network found themselves on the Warrick family’s target list.”

We’ve discovered that we’re all already part of it.

“So, what’s the plan?” Venetia asks, her voice steady despite the magnitude of what we’ve uncovered. “If Dad sent me here to wipe this organisation out, how do we even go about doing that?”

“We gather evidence systematically,” I reply. “Financial records, operational details. Personnel files. Communication logs. Everything we need to expose the entire network.”

“And then?” Viper asks.

“Then we decide whether to destroy it or take it over.”

The suggestion hangs in the air like a challenge. Venetia’s eyes gleam with a dangerous light that I recognise. It’s the same calculating ambition that drives me.

“Take it over,” she says quietly. “We remake it. Turn their infrastructure against them.”

“A hostile takeover,” I murmur. “We eliminate the current leadership and restructure the organisation to serve our purposes.”

“Which are?” Rafferty asks.

“Ending human trafficking,” Venetia says without hesitation. “Using their resources, their networks, to hunt down every bastard who’s ever sold another human being and annihilate them.”

It’s audacious. It’s dangerous. It’s exactly the kind of generational power play that my family has built its reputation on.

“The logistics are complex,” I continue, my mind already working through the possibilities. “But not impossible. We have the connections, the resources, and the tactical capabilities. What we need is a systematic approach.”

I pull up a new screen, this one showing the academy’s organisational structure. “We start here. St. Sebastian’s is the nerve centre, but it’s also the most vulnerable point. If we can take control of the academy, we can access the entire network.”

“How?” Viper asks.

“By playing their game better than they do,” I reply. “They think they’re grooming us to be executives in their organisation. We let them believe that while we position ourselves to take over.”

“A Trojan horse strategy,” Venetia says, understanding immediately. “We become so valuable to them that they give us access to everything we need to destroy them.”

“Precisely. But it requires patience. We can’t move too quickly, or they’ll realise what we’re doing.”

“I don’t do patience,” Viper growls.

“Then you’ll learn,” I say coolly. “Because the alternative is failure, and failure means more innocent people suffer while we satisfy our need for immediate gratification.”

He doesn’t like it, but he nods. Venetia’s influence over him is remarkable. She’s managed to channel his protective instincts into something more strategic.

“What about the immediate threat?” Rafferty asks. “The people trying to kill Venetia?”

“Connected, but separate,” I reply. “The assassination attempts are about silencing someone who was getting too close to the truth. Now that we know what the truth is, we can use that knowledge to our advantage.”

“How?”

“By making them think they’ve succeeded in silencing her,” Venetia says, catching on immediately. “If they believe I’ve been neutralised as a threat, they’ll focus on other priorities.”

“A staged death?” Viper asks, his tone suggesting he finds the idea deeply unpleasant.

“A strategic withdrawal,” I correct. “We make it appear that Venetia has bigger fish to fry. I know a few sharks that need to learn that there are killer whales about.”

“The kraken,” Venetia murmurs, her eyes on me.

I give her a questioning stare but continue. “Meanwhile, we work from within to gather the evidence we need.”

“Then we strike,” Venetia says. “All at once. Simultaneously. We don’t just take down St. Sebastian’s, we take down the entire network.”

The plan is ambitious, potentially suicidal, and absolutely necessary.

The trafficking network has been operating with impunity for decades, hidden behind legitimate facades and protected by corruption.

Traditional law enforcement approaches have failed because they’re fighting symptoms rather than the disease. If they’re fighting at all.

“What about our families?” Rafferty asks. “Do we tell them?”

“They can’t know the full scope of what we’re doing,” I reply.

“My father would try to stop me if he knew I was planning to take on an organisation this size. The risk to the family empire would be too great.” My bitterness over my father’s lack of care for me is hard to cover up.

Venetia’s gaze tells me I didn’t do a very good job.

“What about my dad, though?” she asks. “He sent me here for this reason.”

“Plausible deniability,” I say. “The less he knows, the better.”

The conversation is interrupted by the arrival of other students, their chatter about lectures and assignments a jarring reminder of the normalcy we’re pretending to maintain. We disperse with casual farewells, but the weight of our conspiracy hangs between us.