Chapter 36
This Elizabeth… she was a wildcard.
And apparently, far closer to Jacob than I had anticipated.
I set down my coffee cup, my fingers drumming a light, rhythmic tattoo against the polished wood of the desk.
It seemed the plan required a few adjustments.
After building with blocks with Jack for a little while, Elizabeth handed him over to Willa, who was taking him to his morning enrichment class. Just as she did, her phone buzzed with an insistent urgency.
The name "Father" flashed across the screen.
Elizabeth's gaze went cold. She swiped to answer, her voice a flat, calm sea. "Hello."
Charles's voice, tight with barely suppressed fury, crackled through the speaker, laced with anxiety and accusation. "Elizabeth! Why didn't you come home last night? Where are you? You're about to marry Mr. Smith, how can you be so thoughtless, just spending the night wherever you please?"
Elizabeth walked to the window, gazing out at the manicured grounds of Smith Manor. Her voice remained devoid of any inflection. "I stayed at the Smith estate last night."
"What?!" Charles's voice shot up an octave, a cocktail of disbelief and sheer panic. "You stayed at the Smith estate?! Who permitted you?! How could you just invite yourself into someone else's home! It's completely improper!"
He wasn't panicked about propriety. He was panicked that Elizabeth had slipped from his grasp.
As long as she was under the Windsor roof, he had a shot at those shares. The moment she was ensconced in Smith Manor, with Jacob as her shield, how could he possibly make a move?
"It was Mr. Smith's suggestion," Elizabeth stated coolly. "He felt it would be more convenient for me to stay here for the time being."
"Jacob's suggestion?" Charles's bluster faltered, but his desperation only grew. "That doesn't matter! You're not married yet! Think of what this will do to your reputation! To the Windsor family's reputation! You come home right now! Whatever it is can wait until after the wedding!"
"Are you suggesting, Father, that Jacob's arrangements require your approval?" A flicker of barely-there sarcasm touched Elizabeth's tone.
The question choked him. Charles wouldn't dare question Jacob's arrangements. Who was he to do that?
He could only pivot, softening his tone in a pathetic attempt to play the sympathy card. "Elizabeth, that's not what I meant... I'm just worried about you. It's not good for your reputation to be living with your fiancé. Besides, the family… the family needs you. Vivian was badly hurt at the party yesterday, she's still in bed. Isn't it right for you to come home and check on her?"
He deliberately brought up Vivian, trying to stir some sense of guilt or, at the very least, sisterly obligation in Elizabeth.
Her eyes turned to ice. "Vivian's injuries are none of my concern. Her own inappropriate actions offended Mr. Smith. He has already covered her medical expenses, fulfilling his responsibility."
"How can you say that!" Her coldness infuriated him, and his voice rose again. "She's your sister! Even if she did something wrong, you were right there! Shouldn't you have helped her? You just stood by and watched her get… get treated like that? Do you have any family loyalty left in you!"
Loyalty? Elizabeth almost let out a bitter laugh. In her past life, had they ever shown her a single shred of it?
"Father," her voice turned sharp, as if addressing a stranger, stripped of all warmth. "If you only called to berate me for not looking after the sister who attempted to harass my fiancé and publicly slander me, then I see no reason to continue this conversation. As for where I'm staying, if you have an issue, please take it up directly with Mr. Smith. If he agrees, I should return to the Windsor estate, I will."
Without waiting for another tirade, she hung up and switched her phone to silent.
The more desperate Charles was for her to return, the more it confirmed his obsession with getting that fifteen percent. And the more it proved that staying at Smith Manor was the right move. Here, at least, she could temporarily evade their attacks.
As for Vivian… a chilling glint passed through Elizabeth's eyes. Yesterday's lesson obviously wasn't enough. That woman never seemed to learn her place.
Playing defense wouldn't win this war. She had to go on the offensive.
Having made her decision, she needed a completely secure and anonymous internet access point. The network within Smith Manor was excellent, but the risk was too high; Jacob's control was absolute.
She had to go out.
Elizabeth changed into a nondescript outfit and slipped out of Smith Manor, keeping a low profile. She didn't use a Smith family car, instead, hailing a taxi to a rough-and-tumble neighborhood on the other side of the city.
It was the kind of place with internet cafes that didn't require ID, where the noisy environment and jumbled signals were perfect for covering one's tracks.
In the study of Smith Manor, Leon knocked and entered, his expression more solemn than usual.
"Mr. Smith," he reported, his voice tight with excitement. "There's movement from Nightfall. Their leader, Noel, just showed activity on the dark web."
Jacob looked up from his documents, his gaze sharp as a blade.
"Keep tracking." He'd been monitoring this organization for a long time. They were a recently active and extremely secretive international intelligence and black-ops group, known for their ruthless efficiency and mysterious background. They had gone quiet for a while, but now, it seemed, they were back in business.
"What have we found?" Jacob asked.
"All we know is that there seems to have been a recent change in leadership. The new head goes by the codename Noel—identity unknown, methods even more decisive than their predecessor. Our people have been trying to infiltrate, but their loyalty is ironclad. They seem to have a blind devotion to this Noel." Leon paused. "Our analysis suggests that if we can find Noel, we might have an opportunity for recruitment or partnership. It would be a massive asset for expanding our overseas intelligence network and certain... gray-area operations."
A new leader, shrouded in mystery, who commanded the unswerving loyalty of a band of mercenaries?
Jacob was intrigued.
More importantly, if Nightfall could be brought to his side—or at least kept out of his rivals' hands—it would be a force to be reckoned with.
"Track the IP. Pinpoint the location. I want to know who this Noel is, and where," Jacob commanded, personally moving to another computer connected to a more advanced tracking system.
Leon immediately got to work.
Nightfall's encryption was sophisticated, but Jacob had a team of world-class hackers at his disposal. After a tense back-and-forth of digital attacks and defenses, they managed to triangulate a rough physical location: an old district on the other side of the city.
"The signal is still active, but it's faint. They're being cautious," Leon reported.
Jacob stared at the blinking dot on the screen, his eyes deep and unreadable.
"Get the car ready," he said. "I'm going to check this out myself."