Page 147 of Star Crossed Delta


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‘Babe,’ Zolan said, rising to his feet and swiveling to her, hands lifted in a plea. ‘The Sidani clan is on its last legs, my men are unraveling, poverty is spiraling, and I needed an out. Your uncle’s offer for diamonds was meant to keep us afloat, at least until we got to Pegasi.’

Mak shook his head and huffed.

The couple turned to him: Shiloh with wrath, Zolan with confusion.

‘Why am I not surprised?’ he grated. ‘You’ve been stung by yet another Lisade scam, Zolan. Welcome to the party.’

‘That’s not fair,’ Shiloh muttered.

Mak’s lips twisted. ‘Not equitable? Your family, Tewa in particular, contrived a plan to make me wait fourteen years for a bride, in exchange for a fortune-load of diamonds that I broke my back to produce. Tewa pawned you three girls, in effect bartering you until he milked as much as he could from me, while playing Zolan. It’sfokkin’ messed up.’

Mak’s cousin nodded, nostrils flaring. ‘Tis. Remember I told you of a dangerous faction inside the Syndicate targeting your husband? Turns out, the one leading the charge is the girl’s uncle, Tewa.’

Mak grunted. ‘Fokkme.’

‘There’s more. He’s entangled with Nightshade. They’ve been working with Phantom Codex, who’ve made it their mission to cripple Sauvage Corp. They view Mak as a threat. They also resent the fact that the Sauvage family controls a significant portion of the fleet’s energy, hydrogen, and synthetic steel production. Tewa and his rogue Syndicate allies, aligned with Codex, are hell-bent on dismantling everything your husband’s built. Their tactics are precise: espionage, sabotage, and blackmail. They want to break your stronghold from the inside. They approached me first, tried to turn me against you. When I refused, they unleashed lab-grownsachemto finish the job. Ijust discovered this and had to find a way to talk to you, to work this shit out. Thus, the reason for abducting Saba.’

Mak glared at him, mind racing. ‘While that sounds plausible, I’m still unconvinced about your motives, Zolan. We have proof that Shiloh and Saba’s devices are being employed to access sensitive data on Sauvage Corp. Their holo calls were used to transmit a hack from your end to ours.’

Kaal outlined the code breach we found inSombra’snetworks.

Zolan shook his head, forehead furrowed, clueless.

He turned to his 2IC. ‘Ladik, you run all our IT systems, servers, and comms. Know anything about this?’

The man’s eyes flickered and glinted.

‘Nada, boss,’ he said, flashing a sneer at Kaal and Mak.

In that instant, Mak sensed he was hiding something.

Kaal and he exchanged a raised brow and glance, their thoughts in congruence.

‘I have tech that can detect where the source code is,’ Kaal said. ‘If you give me access to your network and let me in, I’ll limit myself to searching only and show you the origin.’

Zolan’s eyes narrowed, even as he swung his head to Ladik, asking a silent question.

His 2IC bristled, and Zolan cursed.

Mak huffed. ‘Seems we have our answer. Your man Ladik is well aware of the hack.’

Zolan scowled at his man in a heated standoff.

‘Fokk, you betrayed me?’ Zolan growled.

He swore long and loud.

As he did, Ladik was inching around the room.

His foot caught the edge of a rug and sent a side table crashing to the floor.

‘What are you doing?’ Kaal snarled at him, distracted for a beat.

The man’s eyes widened, then, without warning, he leaped.

Moving fast, he circled a chair and grabbed Shiloh by the throat, at the same time drawing a weapon from his back pocket and shoving it to her temple.

Kaal and Mak reacted lightning-fast, pulling their weapons from their holsters and aiming at him and Zolan.