Page 62 of Siege of Blood and Betrayal

“From figuring out who’s behind Daeva and her army of men coming after my father.”

“Then we send Link and Dante to handle the corporate traitors while you and I focus on the bigger problem—the army coming for your head.”

He steps out of my hold and goes back to the bar to refill his glass. “But whydidn’tthey come after my head? Why would anyone who took the time to infiltrate our compound attack without knowing where I was? A takeover only works if the family line is wiped out.”

Yeah, that’s been bugging me too.

They went after Francesco, but didn’t have Zane or the diamond dagger in hand. That’s either really stupid or we’re missing something important.

And from the way things went off yesterday… I don’t think the orchestrator of this is stupid.

“Benoit fed the royal family. He knew I wasn’t at the residence. So why not wait until they knew where I was?” Zane downs another glass of wine, his gaze wild and unfocused.

The pressure on him is incredible, but he’s doing himself no favors by standing here covered in blood and gore.

“We’ll figure it out. Bran always said conflicts like this are about love, money, or power. This seems like it’s all about power, but whoever is behind this has to have the bankroll to get this far. Get cleaned up and we’ll start unraveling this mystery. Where can I work?”

“Bran’s office is through here.” Zane strikes off down the corridor and I follow. He leads me to a control room with four monitors mounted on the far wall and a phone and computerset-up that mirrors what we use in the royal residence. “Leave it to Bran to have full redundancy set up in the safe house.”

Zane nods. “He was the best of the best.”

“He was.”So why the fuck did he pass me over at the last minute and make Scottie his successor?

Zane’s attention shifts and he reaches into his pocket to pull out his phone. It buzzes in his hand, and he accepts the call and hits the speaker button so I can hear.

Z told me earlier the Vasari IT guy, James Tripp, is digging into the company challenging us on the financial front.

Maybe he has answers.

Zane holds the cell up between us. “What did you find out, Tripp?”

“I’ve been looking into that company, and there’s definitely something strange going on. On the surface, it looks like a regular human-run operation, but I’ve been tracking their financials. About a year ago, they started getting massive cash infusions, seemingly out of nowhere.”

Zane’s gaze narrows as it meets mine. “Who’s behind the money?”

“I haven’t got that far yet. The shell companies make it hard to trace, but whoever is behind this is buying up vast blocks of real estate in the financial core. Everything’s being funneled through at least a dozen different fronts.”

“Tripp, this is Huntley. Can you tell if the funding is coming from local sources or from overseas?”

“Uh… one sec, I wasn’t looking for that.” The sound of clicking keys fills the lull in conversation and then Tripp is back with us. “I don’t see any overseas funding. It looks like all the deposits are from domestic banks.”

I pause, thinking about the implications. Whoever’s orchestrating this is here in Toronto, amassing power right under our noses. “Who in the city has that much cash?”

“I’ll get to work on that with Brandon now,” Tripp says. “We’ll have a list for you later today.”

“Good. I’ll be waiting to hear from you.” Zane hangs up, frustration obviously chipping away at him. “So, they take out the king, they go after our hold on legitimate money, and they’re enticing members of our organization to betray us.”

“They’re destabilizing the Toronto seat of power.”

Zane frowns at me. “That doesn’t feel like an ordinary competitor coming for us—it feels personal.”

It does.“But who has enough money and determination to take us down?”

“That’s the multi-million-dollar question.” Zane moves to slide his phone back into his pocket, but stops, making a face at the goopy globs of plasma and tissue stuck to his pants. “Well, that’s disgusting.”

It is, but after the battle in the residence, I’m not much better. “We’ll need to clean ourselves up if you want to stay on this and drum up answers.”

He meets my gaze and smiles. “Do you have a plan?”

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