Hello 823

Posted by AdminM, ? Views, Released on December 17, 2024

Chapter 823

I rolled my eyes so hard they almost got stuck. Hayden really had way too much time on his hands. Decorating an urn and stashing a data sync device in a jewelry box? Was this some kind of cosmic joke?

Then again, maybe he’d done it to throw people off–make them think it was just a random trinket and not something insanely valuable.

“What the hell is this?” Cole snapped, reaching for the box.

I smacked his hand away. “Chill, Drago. What’s the rush? Don’t you afraid there’s a scorpion inside or something?”

He gave me an annoyed side–eye. “Just open it already. Hayden’s brain must be a circus to come up with this nonsense.”

Ignoring him, I pulled the tiny red box from its fluffy nest of white feathers.

It was way too light. No way it held the device.

Still, I flipped it open–and, of course, my eyes nearly popped out of my head.

“A ring?” Cole said, his voice somewhere between disbelief and irritation.

Yup. A diamond ring. And judging by the size of that rock, it could probably pay off a small country’s debt.

Seriously, Hayden? Another ring? First, it was those weird high–tech matching rings, and now this bling. What was his deal?

I reached for it, but Cole snatched it before I could, holding it up like he expected it to transform into a secret gadget or something.

I ignored his theatrics and focused on the jewelry box itself, poking around its insides. Empty. Totally bare.

Meanwhile, Cole was flipping the ring over, inspecting it like a jeweler on a mission. When that turned up nothing, he grabbed the box and started ripping it apart. Lining, inserts, every layer–it all got shredded.

Nothing.

His smirk vanished, replaced with a stormy glare.

He wasn’t done. Grabbing the urn, he dumped its contents onto the ground, sifting through the mess with a feverish determination Still, zilch.

Finally, with a growl, he kicked the urn toward his men. “Smash it. Now.

He refused to give up.

Chapter 823

+25 BONUS

One of the goons swung a shovel, shattering the urn into jagged shards. But even broken into pieces, it revealed no hidden compartments, no secrets.

Cole’s fists clenched at his sides, the tension rolling off him like a storm. Months of chasing me, following leads, and this was all he had to show for it?

I almost felt bad for him.

Almost.

He had no choice but to accept the truth, no matter how much it stung.

As for me, I was reeling too. Hayden had told me the urn held the device. If it wasn’t here, where had it gone?

Had someone switched it?

I retraced my steps in my head. I’d buried the urn myself, and everything seemed untouched when they dug it up. That left only one possibility: it had been swapped before it got to me.

Yara had been the one to hand it over. Could she have been the one who switched it? Before I could think it through, a sharp pain shot through my shoulder as Cole’s hand clamped down hard. His grip was like iron, his fingers digging in painfully.