Chapter 38
Amira’s POV.
The time came for the meeting. I took a deep breath and stared at my reflection. I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be today but I hope it would bring us one step closer to the identity of those behind the attack. The Silvas and Nikolas’s parents had arrived last and joined us in Nikolas’ office. We were ready to discuss the pressing matter right now. Of course, Caine and Mila were here as well.
Of course, Nikolas’ parents and Ronan’s parents had an issue with the others being around. But there was no point in excluding them. They knew just more than many and made it clear they’d have our back.
“We warned you this would happen,” Uncle Jacob sighed, pacing around the room.
“It was going to happen regardless of what more you would’ve lied about,” Nikolas scoffed and shook his head.
“Niko,” I placed my hand on his arm, tugging him a little closer to me. He looked at me and I just gave him a pleading look. Right now, we needed his parents' help. It was best not to waste time on things we couldn’t change- especially not in front of the others.
“Jake, that chapter is close, we can help so let’s help,” Aunt Andrea reminded her husband and tapped his shoulder.
“We tried to investigate what happened, we really did," Uncle Jacob explained. "But as you know they painted your old pack black. Soon, there wasn't much attention paid to the massacre,” Uncle Jacob added, the mention of the massacre still made my stomach churn.
“But you investigated right?” I asked.
“Of course we did, I did as much as I could to get to the bottom of this,” Uncle Pedro Silva answered, for a moment I had forgotten they were involved as well.
“And?” Caine asked, in suspense.
“Your parents themselves had their suspicions. We checked those out and turns out it was the uprising of a group of rogues. It was them," Uncle Pedro explained, a slight pout on his lips as the disappointment settled in.
"Upon further investigating we realized that they were hired. The actual person who did this was never caught and we never found out their identity," Uncle Jacob explained. The mention of the uprising rogues was new information, at least to me.
“What about the group of rogues?” Nikolas began to ask before I could.
“All died, I have their names and such if you’d like that,” Uncle Jacob said, walking to the bookshelves, searching for something.
“Yes, we’d like that,” Nikolas replied and I already knew what he’d do with them.
“Did you ever come close to who they were hired by?” Chloe wondered.
“Silva only ever retrieved this," Andrea exposed a piece of ruby. The cut was in an oval, and you could tell it fell out of something with slight scratches on one side. "Thus far we know it must be someone wealthy, this is the purest form of ruby I've ever seen,” she placed the gem on the table for us all to take a look at.
I trusted her on this. Aunt Andrea had always and I mean always loved her jewellery and gems. It's a good thing she was a queen.
“I know that from somewhere!” Mila gasped and came to look closer.
“Where?” Uncle Jacob and I asked in unison. I tried to remember if I knew it from somewhere but I couldn’t figure it out.
“I’m thinking, I just can’t pinpoint it but it’s familiar,” Mila replied, squinting her eyes as she thought about it.
“This was a dead end for us but if you can figure out who this is from, you will have a bright idea of who’s behind all this,” Uncle Jacob said, sounding full of hope. This being the last strand of evidence left Mila with a lot of pressure. I knew that wasn’t too nice but I truly needed her to try hard right now.
“Did you ever have your suspicions?” Ronan wondered.
“That’s the thing, we can’t think of who’d want to kill your pack. Despite the beyond supernatural powers, your pack was helpful in many wars against rogues, it didn’t make sense for anyone to want them dead,” Uncle Jacob began to explain. Learning more and more about my parents and the pack only saddened me more, knowing they never meant any harm and protected many against the wild rogues and this was their repayment.
“I remember seeing it at someone during the ball,” Mila said out of the blue, gaining everyone’s attention.
“The ball?” Caine frowned.
“The one held for your pack, the recent one,” Mila recalled.
“Do you have the invitation list?” I turned to Caine.
“Even better, there were many photos taken since Angeline, Beta's wife, loves social media,” he explained, pulling out his phone and I could already see him going in his contacts list.
“Have her send the photos, all of them,” Mila requested.
“I will send this to my tech division, perhaps one of the rogues survived,” Nikolas said after being handed a folder by his father. Within that field rested the names of all of the rogues.
I truly admire everyone right now, willingly putting their time towards this and working well together despite some minor things that happened in the past. As planned, we received the photos from the night of the ball from Angeline, and Mila and I went through all 200 of them in search of any clues about the origin of the missing gem. I hoped Mila's memory was accurate, as this piece of evidence could be crucial in identifying who had hired the hit years ago. Nervousness settled within the pit of my stomach, the thought of doing my parents justice weighed on me and though I had many supporters, I still saw it as something I should do.
Meanwhile, our tech team was diligently working to investigate the backgrounds of all the potential suspects. Jacob wasn't optimistic that we would find anything, but Nikolas remained hopeful that we would uncover even the slightest shred of evidence.
Nikolas's unwavering optimism proved to be justified when his department called us early in the morning. He quickly answered the phone and put it on speaker for all of us to hear.
“King Nikolas, I think might’ve found something,” James, one of the men working in the tech department said.
“What have you found?” Nikolas asked, everyone full of hope, even Uncle Jacob.
“The leader had an illegitimate child,” he informed us.
“That can’t be, he had two sons, both of whom died in the war,” Uncle Jacob whispered with a frown on his face.
“What makes you say that he had another child?” Nikolas then asked.
“This could be nothing but there’s someone who looks exactly like him, when we checked the photos the database brought up a recent photo of someone named Isaac Brington,” James explained and followed up with, “I’ll send a photo.”
Nikolas projected his laptop screen and showed us the photos James sent. The photo on the left was of a much older man but you could very clearly tell that the person on the left was related to him- it just looked like a younger version.
“That- that looks exactly like him,” Uncle Jacob said, mouth gaping.
“He’s around the age of eighteen perhaps,” James informed us.
“Where is he now?” Nikolas asked, already wearing his jacket.
“Cross river pack,” James replied and the mention of the old pack had Nikolas stare at me. It was Leia’s old pack, the night he started to hate me on a much larger scale.
“Thank you, continue to dig, we’ll check out Isaac Barrington,” Nikolas said before ending the call.
“This Isaac Barrington could know something,” Caine touched the screen, pointing to the 18-year-old guy.
“I never knew he had another child,” Uncle Jacob was still stunned.
“This child might know who his parents were working for,” Uncle Pedro replied.
“He will, Leandro involved all his children in everything, I don’t think he’d be any different,” Uncle Jacob was assured.
“How old was he? Six perhaps? He might still know something useful,” Ronan figured, his maths sounding correct. I wanted to believe that Isaac was innocent, he seemed like another child who got orphaned because of a reckless, pointless, war.
“He changed his name to everything, so I’m sure he knew that funny business his father was in,” Nikolas shrugged. “We’ll be going.”
“Caine, Dad, you’re coming with me,” Nikolas pointed to the two then turned to us, “the rest could stay here and hopefully keep an eye out.”
“Of course, Niko,” Ronan nodded.
“And we’re supposed to stay here?” I frowned.
“Amira, you’re still trying to find out who the ruby belongs to and you’re safer here, I promise I’ll keep you in the loop,” Nikolas leaned over and kissed my cheek. I wanted to protest but I knew that at this moment I couldn’t do that. We all wanted the same thing and the quicker we worked, the better.
I wasn’t worried about my life anymore, I was now hellbent on getting revenge for my parents even when they wouldn’t want that.
“You better stay safe,” I glared at him and he just chuckled and said, “I will, honey.”
After the others left, Mila and I continued to search the photos for evidence. The others mostly focused on safety protocols and Chloe tried her best to just lighten the mood and normally it would work but I was too stressed out to even crack a smile right now.
Just as I lost all hope and leaned back, Mila jumped up and shouted, “I have it! Here!”
“It’s-” Chloe frowned and stared at the photo on the screen. We could very clearly see the back of a crown, the middle piece of the band missing a stone at first, it wasn’t obvious but when you pay attention to it you can very clearly see that there’s a gem missing in the identical shape and several others were decorating the band, everywhere but that spot where the missing stone belongs.
“It is Queen Asra?!” Aunt Andrea and Aunt Ana whispered. All of us were stunned for a moment but suddenly it made sense. She had been hostile towards the Hayes’s for quite some time now. Was that why? Because the Hayes’s helped out Ocean Dawn often.
I grabbed the phone to call Nikolas but right at that moment he called me and I immediately picked up but didn’t get the chance to talk. Instead, Nikolas dropped a bomb of information on us. “Amira, we’ve gathered some news. The boy remembered, he said it was King Erick, he not only identified him, he said he worked with another person, a woman he didn’t know.”
We all looked at each other with hopeful eyes.
“It’s Queen Asra, the ruby belongs to her,” Ronan told him, fitting the last piece of the puzzle in. It was a kingdom and queendom who did this, I knew from the start that it was someone rich and powerful but I would’ve never thought it was a leader- two leaders at that.