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“Yo, what the fuck is up with all this tension?” Jon drawled, eyeing us both before his gaze landed on my wife, and an ear-splitting grin spread across his lips. “Sister-in-law, what’s going on here?”

I glared as he walked over to her and bounced her chair, careful not to touch her. Although my brother acted like an imbecile most of the time, he was oddly perceptive and hid his intelligence well. Given his extreme personality traits, I considered him to be the White Hand more often than I liked. But the fact that he was too young kept hitting me every single time.

Bella lifted her chin toward him and smiled. “Nothing, Jon.”

In return, his grin widened, adding extra charm to his eyes just to get a rise out of me.

“Yes, nothing,” Grayson grumbled, and he too walked over to her and propped himself by the window. For someone who loathed her initially, he was strangely protective of her now. Not just Bella, but also her sisters. He lingered in the shadows every time they were in the room, watching them like a hawk. Why? I had no idea.

“Bellerose.” Marcus entered the room with a happy smile on his face, followed by a grim Lucien and an unbothered Karl, who was still in his suit, briefcase in hand, looking like he needed a stiff drink or two.

“Hey, Marcus.” Bella nodded to him, raising a brow when he placed a pink box in front of her. “What’s this?”

“The cupcakes I promised,” he said with a grin.

“Thank you.” She smiled.

Bella somehow had all my men wrapped around her pretty little finger. She didn’t do much, nor did she give them any attention, but they immediately took a liking to her. Guess my wife did have that kind of effect.

None of them said a word against my marriage, not like I cared about their opinion, but I expected them to loudly voice their objections. But no, they all accepted her as if she had been part of the family for years. Even Karl came around, after jokingly moaning about his lost opportunity.

The same couldn’t be said for Father. Actually, I had no idea how he felt because I avoided him like the plague.

An hour later, Mikhail sent me a text that he had found something. It was just us men in the room. Bella had left to go be with her sisters.

Leaving the men to chat among themselves, I walked out, only to pause and stare at the closed door. One man inside was the White Hand. And if I killed them all, this would all end right here, right now. But even a heartless monster like me didn’t have the heart to do it. Because even if one of them was a traitor, the rest were men I considered my own.

Minutes later, Bella, Mikhail, and I found ourselves at the small library in the East wing.

“It isn’t much, but I got something,” he announced, placing the laptop on the table. “Turns out we were right. They’ve been using their own frequency.” He pressed a button on the laptop. “Although the audio wasn’t very clear, we were able to pick up a few words.”

Vic…told…hem…not…tree…hun…in…Vic…gen…repeat…seven…that…teent...to…Surmans…hag…In…all of the…twen

I leaned forward, elbows to the table, as I tried to listen closer. The three of us kept our ears open, trying to catch something, but none of it made any fucking sense.

I ran a hand through my hair. “All I fucking hear is ‘repeat that to the Surmans,’” I muttered. “Repeat fucking what?” I felt equal parts annoyance and unease at the situation. The White Hand was running out of time to kill me, and I was running out of time to find him. Only he had a fucking plan, and I didn’t.

Bella threw her head back and closed her eyes while audio kept playing in the background, and Mikhail lowered to a chair, his concentrated gaze fixed on the laptop screen.

I walked over to the windows and stared at the silent night, the white foamy seawater touching the sharp edges of the cliffs over and over again, just like how my mind felt at the moment.

“Could it be Invictus?” Bella’s voice broke me out of my thoughts.

I stilled, my eyes flying to her.

“Invictus,” she repeated, wide-eyed. “Invictus. Surmans. Hagen…Petra Hagen. Twenty-three hundred on the seventeenth.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

That was fucking today.

CHAPTER 40

ARKANE

Every bone in my body tensed as I paced the room, forcing myself to remain calm. But I just couldn’t. “Why the fuck was I not informed of it?” I roared, slamming a hand on the wall.

Mikhail had just told me there was an attempted break-in at the Stormhold HQ earlier this week, and that Paul, our R&D head, was missing from the safe house.