Chapter 861
Beatrice’s mouth opened and closed.
“Now they will be owned by me,” Skye said. “Not to wear. But to keep.”
“Never,” Beatrice whispered.
“Then enjoy bankruptcy and a federal indictment for aiding a kidnapping.” Skye turned on her heel. “Lucian? Call the feds.”
“Wait!” Beatrice screamed. She tried to stand, but her legs failed her. She slumped back into the chair, looking small and utterly defeated. “Fine,” she choked out. “Fine. Take them. Just save the Trust.”
𝖲𝗵𝘢𝗋𝖾 𝘆𝘰u𝘳 f𝗮𝗏o𝗋𝗶𝘵𝗲𝘴 f𝗋𝗼𝘮 g𝖺l𝘯𝘰v𝘦𝗅𝘴.co𝗆
Skye stopped. She didn’t look back. “Have the logs and the box on my desk within the hour. Or the deal is off.”
She walked out into the cool air, her heart hammering.
She hadn’t wanted the jewelry for vanity. She had found the data inside the Sapphire. She suspected the Rubies held another piece of the puzzle.
She had just secured the second key.
The rain had started again by the time they reached Oracle Tower. It streaked down the glass walls of Skye’s office, distorting the city lights into bleeding watercolors. Skye stood by the window, watching the ticker on her screen. Kensington Global stock was rallying — her injection of capital into the Trust had stopped the bleeding, just as she had promised. But victory tasted like ash.
Lucian Graves sat on the leather sofa, scrolling through a tablet. “Beatrice transferred the private logs. We have the flight path. The plane carrying Parker and Victoria didn’t go to Zurich — it went to a refueling station in the Mojave, then vanished from civilian radar near the Nellis ranges.”
“Nevada,” Skye murmured. “The Sapphire’s data confirmed the prison codes are for a facility in that sector. We have the location and the key.”
“We still don’t know exactly where they’re being held inside the complex,” Alistair said from the doorway. He was holding a small, velvet-covered box. “But first — your prize arrived.”
He placed the box on her desk. It was old, the leather cracked and stamped with the faded crest of the Kensington family.
Skye walked over. Her hands hovered over the lid.
“Do it,” Alistair said softly.
She opened it.
The Kensington Rubies lay against white silk like drops of fresh blood — a necklace, heavy and intricate, flanked by matching earrings and a ring. They were magnificent. And they felt wrong.
Skye lifted the central piece of the necklace. The ruby was massive, cut in a teardrop shape. She pulled out the small jeweler’s loupe she had taken from the lab and held the stone up to the light.
“There,” she whispered.
Deep inside the crimson heart of the stone, invisible to the naked eye, was a microscopic QR code etched by a laser that shouldn’t have existed when the necklace was crafted in the nineteenth century.
“Retro-fitted,” Julian Vance’s voice came over the speakerphone. He was back at the estate, monitoring the network. “Just like the Sapphire. These gems were modified by the Four Families to store their darkest secrets — a decentralized database.”