Chapter 154 Adeline

Chapter 154 Adeline
Adeline's POV 

After I successfully talked Percy and Alex out of not going to deal with Richard right away, he insisted that we go out to dinner. 

I was hesitant for security reasons, but he was adamant on getting us out of the house. 

"You know we can't afford to be as reckless. We have our babies to think about." I told him, my hands on my stomach. He got on his knees and peppered kisses all over my stomach until I got ticklish and I fell into him in laughter.

"Baby, you know I don't play about you or your safety. I would never do anything to jeopardize your safety, let alone our babies." It was stupid to think he would put us at risk, but it still had to be said. 

That night, we went out to dinner, and then we hit a club where we danced the night away. We forgot about all our worries for that one night. It was the happiest I had been in a while.

When we got back to the penthouse, he held me down with his hips in bed and made sweet love to me before we both fell asleep.

The next morning, I woke up alone and with a smile on my face yet the stillness of the morning bothered me. I felt alone in the penthouse even though I knew others were in different parts of the house. 

I was sitting at the kitchen island, clutching a mug of tea, watching the twins move in a slow, rhythmic roll beneath my robe.

Once I was done sipping my tea, I went to the living room to dispel the silence. I turned on the huge television screen, expecting another round of praise for Zara’s fashion comeback. Instead, I saw a photo that made my heart stop.

It wasn't a shot from the auction. It was a long-lens, grainy frame of the Catskills' estate. In the photo, Zara was standing on the balcony, her face turned toward Alex, who was standing just inches away, his hand resting on the railing near hers. It looked like a moment of stolen intimacy, like a romantic getaway for New York’s newest power couple. 

Based on the clothes Zara was wearing, it was after we got back from the auction. 
"Percy!" I yelled, my voice cracking the morning quiet.

Percy was out of the elevator before the echo died down, his hand already on his weapon. He took one look at the screen, and his jaw went rigid. "That wasn't taken from the road, was it?" 

"That’s exactly what I thought," I rasped.

"The treeline on that ridge is private property. It’s a dead zone for paparazzi."

"Then how did they get the shot?" Zara asked, walking into the room with Alex trailing her. She looked at the screen and went pale. "Is that... the safe house?"

"What the fuck?" Alex growled, his eyes scanning the frame with precision. "Look at the metadata in the corner. The resolution is too high for any paparazzi shot. This was taken by a drone. A tactical one, at that."

"Silas, sweep the penthouse," Percy commanded into his comms. "I want every square inch checked for trackers. Now!"

We spent the next hour in a tense silence. Alex began a physical sweep of the gifts that had arrived for Zara since the auction. 

The foyer was filled with bouquets of lilies, boxes of expensive chocolates, and welfare gifts from the same socialites who had been so quick to shun her.

"Found it," Alex said. He was holding a vintage silk scarf up. "Do you know where this came from?"

Zara examined the box carefully. "That bitch." She seethed. "It's from Chloe."

He pulled a seam apart, revealing a tiny, microscopic GPS tracker. "Wow, I wonder how much she dropped for this."

"That's obviously from Ilya or Richard. It's military-grade and very rare."

"One would think being caught once would make her remorseful."

"Bitches like this won't stop until they bury you completely." Zara stormed out in anger. Alex wanted to follow her, but I held a hand out. It was my job as a sister to console her.

While Alex dealt with the physical threat, I went to see how far Rowan had gone. If they had a physical beacon on us, they were likely attacking our digital walls, too.

I found Rowan staring at a screen filled with scrolling red text. He didn't look smug anymore, he looked genuinely rattled.

"Adeline, get back," Rowan barked. "We’ve been breached. Someone bypassed the penthouse’s external firewall ten minutes ago."

"How? This is an Akilov server!"

"They didn't go through the front door," Rowan said, his fingers flying across the keys. "They used a backdoor in your private legal files. Specifically, the encrypted folder containing the Whitmore-Sterling audit data."

I felt the blood drain from my face. "They’re trying to delete the evidence against Sterling."

"Deleting would mean that it could be salvaged, they're replacing it in real time." He shook his head in disbelief but he didn't stop typing. "They’re uploading a forged set of ledgers that frame your father, Hart, for the embezzlement and the kidnapping. If they finish the upload, the audit I’m doing will prove the stolen twin narrative was a fraud created by the Whitmores to hide a crime."

"Can you stop it?"

"I’m trying, but the encryption is... It’s a 'dead man’s switch' code. If I cut the connection, it triggers a wipe of the entire server."

I felt a hand on my shoulder. Percy was standing behind me, his presence a dark, grounding force. He looked at the screen, then at me.

"He's trying to win the war before it even starts," Percy said. "He wants to take your name back so he can take your life."

"I won't let him," I said with a conviction I couldn't feel. "Rowan, don't cut the connection. Trace the upload back to the source. If they're in our files, we're in theirs."

"It's risky," Rowan warned.

"Do it," Percy and I said at the same time.

For ten long minutes, we watched the digital battle play out. Red text clashed with blue on the monitors. On the floor above, I could hear Alex and Silas moving furniture, fortifying the penthouse against the physical threat the tracker had invited.

"I have it," Rowan finally gasped in a way that suggested that he couldn't believe himself. "The upload is coming from Midtown, but the drone that took the photo of Zara? Its control signal is coming from the same building."

"Sterling’s apartment?" I asked.

"No," Percy said, his eyes going cold as he looked at the map. "That’s not an apartment. That’s the Kozlov Consulate. He's clearly not hiding anymore."

I looked at the ring on my finger, then at the twins moving in my stomach. 

"We don't go to the office tomorrow," Percy said, turning me to face him. "We go to him."

"No," I countered. "We do both. We leak the real ledgers to the press now while he’s busy with the hack. We let the world see Sterling's crime before Ilya can replace it, and then we bring the fight into his house."

Percy looked at me for a long moment, a slow, predatory smile spreading across his face. "I love the way your brain works, Mrs. Akilov."