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Bella leaned forward, scrutinizing it. “Do we know what it says?”

I slightly pulled her back. I didn’t want her to get sick, but she patted my thigh, gesturing that she was fine.

“They’ve been overwritten too much to be decrypted, but you see this here.” He pointed at the faint markings on the upper corner of the paper. “It appears some of the ink from the postmark bled into the letter. It’s not much, but we were able to establish a date.”

“Which is?” I asked.

“The earliest was around the summer of ’10…” He switched to a different folder. “And stopped somewhere around 2015. But get this, the earliest letters were one-sided, not from the side we think, though.”

“So it wasn’t Kenny who made the initial contact, it was the White Hand?” Bella mused, biting her lower lip.

He simply used Kenny. No wonder that bastard who simply sat on the Sollus for years suddenly had the brains to build the Covent and demand a truce.

It was never his plan. It was the White Hand’s. It always has been.

Why?

“Did anything happen in your family at that time?” Bella turned to me. “Something to make your brothers or friends turn against you?”

I shook my head. If anyone had a reason, it should be me. Father treated all my brothers with equal love and care, and I knew for a fact that David and William both thought highly of their sons. Was I thinking this wrong all along? What if maybe… just maybe it wasn’t one of them? If not them, then who?

“Think hard, Arkane. There must be something.” Bella placed a soft hand on my shoulder.

“I don’t know,” I muttered, gesturing for Bella to take my chair as I stalked around the room. 2010? What was I fucking eighteen then? Nothing ever seemed memorable about that time in my life.

I turned to see Bella speaking to Mikhail in hushed tones. He spoke to her in a way that was so unlike his usual grimness. At first, he was completely against the idea of bringing her into my life. Now it was the complete opposite, and he even developed a rare soft spot for her.

“Wait…” I said, as a memory popped into my mind. They both snapped their eyes toward me with equal parts question and curiosity.

“It isn’t much,” I explained. “But right around that time was when Father officially announced that I would inherit the family.” It was a given that, as the eldest, it would be mine, but my family had a weird ritual where it was only made official by the predecessor, who had the right to change the heir.

Bella’s eyes found mine, and they widened. “Someone else was expecting that it would be them.”

I nodded. Who? Marcus? Grayson? Did Father wrong the Greigewood and the Fords in some way, and did they put it in their sons’ heads that they should be the ones instead? Even if there was something, Father was going to hold onto his pride rather than tell me anything.

I could feel a slight throb starting to build in the back of my head just thinking about the possibilities. “We know the letters stopped in 2015.” I tried to focus on the one in front of me. “It meant they switched from letters to something else. We need to find out what. If we do, we might finally figure out how they were communicating.”

“I think I know,” said a voice from behind me.

Grayson.

He stood by the threshold with a blank face. His arms folded across his chest as he regarded me with his cool-gray eyes. He might as well be the enemy under my roof, but only his anger saved him. The White Hand was far too patient to be Grayson. I knew for a fact that he would never wait years to take my place. He would’ve killed me by now.

“How?” I asked, watching him carefully.

Nothing in his expression slipped as he said, “When they contacted me, I noticed something.”

I raised a brow, waiting.

“There was a weird noise behind the voice; it was like static, like…” He frowned, searching for the right word. “Like many sounds merged into one.”

“Analog radio,” Bella stated, dragging her eyes to me. “They’re using voice scrambling.”

I agreed, eyeing Mikhail, who was already on his feet, rushing out of the room. If it turned out to be right, this could be our first fucking break. The White Hand wouldn’t be someone to let out on his plans. It was clear he worked alone and was only using Kenny… And now Heath Glen.

Grayson shifted his weight as an awkward energy lingered between us. Even though he was living with me, we had barely spoken since Alessio’s death.

I didn’t know what to say to him. Alessio would’ve still been alive if he had just trusted me. But he didn’t. And here we are.