Chapter 96 Mysterious Call
Chapter 96 Mysterious Call
The news was mine to release.
I fed it to the media outlets I trusted most, along with a handful of carefully staged "candid" shots of Arthur and me leaning into each other on the yacht. The angles, the lighting, even the way his gaze lingered on my hair--all of it had been engineered by me.
To anyone watching, we looked like a pair of fools hopelessly in love.
Then came the second headline, the one that detonated across every feed in Asteria City.
Arthur, ignoring every warning from the family elders, had booked the city's most exclusive Skyline Terrace just to give his fiancée the romantic date she'd been denied.
Within hours, the city was laughing at him. A mafia boss, throwing caution to the wind in a time of mortal danger, all for a woman. The kind of decision that made him look like a fool in tailored silk.
I sat in the study of Arthur's estate, scrolling through the avalanche of online mockery--posts calling us "the dumbest couple of the year"--and took a slow sip of coffee.
"Looks like the fish are starting to smell the blood," I said.
Arthur sat across from me, lazily polishing an old Beretta with a square of silk. He wasn't in a suit, just a black silk shirt with the top three buttons undone, his chest and collarbone catching the lamplight. The kind of dangerous, unbothered look that would make those mocking journalists choke on their own words.
"They've smelled it," he said, setting the gun down and sliding a folder across the desk toward me. "And they're already circling."
It was intel. Movements of several underground factions in Asteria City--quietly gathering men, all converging on the Nightfall Club.
Everyone believed the Skyline Terrace date was a smokescreen. That Arthur's real goal was to get back to the Nightfall Club and lock down his defenses. They wanted to hit him on the road, catch him between safe ground and danger.
"Everything's going according to plan," I murmured, scanning the pages.
But a sliver of unease cut through me. Too smooth. Smooth in the way that makes you feel someone's steering you from the shadows.
The knock on the study door snapped the thought in half. Colin stepped in, his face tight.
"Boss," he said, glancing at me before turning to Arthur, "we lost contact with our eyes at the dockside warehouse."
The dockside warehouse. The Russell family's most critical transit hub. The place where most of their weapons were stored.
Arthur's expression went cold. "When?"
"Fifteen minutes ago."
My stomach dropped.
"They're not trying to ambush you," I said, standing so fast the chair scraped the floor. My voice trembled with urgency. "The Nightfall Club is the trap. They want us to think that's the target, but the real one is--"
"The docks," Arthur finished, his amber eyes flashing with lethal clarity.
We'd been played. They'd seen through our plan and flipped it on us--dangling a false target to pull our focus and manpower away from the real kill zone. Then striking fast at the one place we could least afford to lose.
Arthur's private phone began to vibrate violently on the desk.
An encrypted, unknown number.
He glanced at it, didn't pick up. Instead, he tapped the speakerphone button.
Static hissed, then a voice came through--processed until gender was impossible to tell, metallic and sharp-edged. Amusement dripped from it like poison.
"Good evening, Arthur."
I froze. Every muscle locked.
Arthur leaned back in his chair as if this were nothing more than a prank call. Long legs crossed, posture all lazy defiance. He even reached for my half-finished coffee and swirled it idly.
"And here I thought it might be someone interesting," he said, lips curling into a cold smile. "Turns out it's just another coward hiding in the dark."
The contempt in his voice was a blade. And against all reason, it steadied me. My heart, which had been pounding hard enough to hurt, slowed. This was not the time for fear.
I snapped into motion, crossing to my laptop and flipping it open. Fingers hit the keys at a speed that blurred them.
Trace the signal. Lock it down before it vanished.
"Coward?" The voice laughed, the sound thick with malice. "Arthur, are you sure you understand the situation? Your docks... your precious stockpiles of guns... by now, they should be nothing but a beautiful fireworks display."
Another sinking feeling in my stomach.
On the laptop screen, lines of code raced past. The signal skipped across servers around the globe like a phantom, disappearing every time I was about to pin it, reappearing on the other side of the planet.
"A little welcome gift," the voice went on. "I hope you enjoy it."
Arthur chuckled, set the coffee cup down with a sharp click.
"Enjoy it? How could I not?" His gaze slid to me, those amber eyes mirroring my own cold focus. "You're the first in years to cost me this much. I should give you an award."
"Is that so?" The voice paused, as if provoked past the point of amusement. "Then I wonder if you'll enjoy this next gift, Mr. Russell."
My trace slammed into a wall of code so dense it might as well have been steel. The screen flashed a single word in red--FAILURE.
"Business is boring," the voice said suddenly, shifting its tone into something far more sinister. It wasn't speaking to Arthur anymore. It was speaking to me. And it was close, close enough to feel like it was breathing against my ear.
"Let's talk about something personal... Sophia Davis."
My blood iced over.
"I hear your mother hasn't been feeling well lately," it murmured. Each word was deliberate, surgical, striking straight at my most vulnerable point.
My mind went blank.
Mother. Hidden so carefully. Tucked away in the most secluded care facility in Wasserfeld under a web of false identities. Every possible link severed.
How the hell did they know?
"She loved the white jasmine blooming in the garden today," the voice continued, slow and poisonous. "Said the color reminded her of the dress you wore when you were a little girl."