Page 5 of Hunt

Some contain pictures as well—pictures of the Carbone alphas, all in random places, doing random things in public and in private. The messages are outgoing, filled with coordinates, affirmations and some Italian phrases that I can’t hope to decipher.

Something sickening churns in my gut the more messages I try to read.

“What the fuck are we looking at?” Hector growls.

He’s visibly shaking. His face is red and there’s a vein throbbing in the side of his neck.

My hands shake as I look through the call log. Dozens of outgoing and incoming calls, all around the same time on the same days of the week. It’s like clockwork.

The messages are a string of instructions and responses, full of cryptic one-word confirmations, times, dates, and additional photos. The first message was sent on the day Bella and I were sent to town, confirming that she had successfully made contact with the "targets."

“She’s been playing us the whole time,” Silas hisses. “She’s keeping tabs on us for her alphas from the first fucking day.” His face has gone eerily cold and utterly devoid of any human emotion.

“The last message sent says:”

Mission complete, return to the pack house immediately.

Hector curses and the sound of shattering glass has us all watching as he proceeds to smash anything and everything in his path. “Fuuucckk!” Blood soaks his knuckles.

Dante rushes to Hector, trying to stop him from harming himself any further, but it doesn't do any good. Hector shoves Dante away, so hard the big man stumbles into the wall.

The room falls silent as the weight of what she’s done crashes down on us. She’s been betraying us from the very beginning. Not only the Carbones, but me too, her bodyguard who would gladly leap in front of a bullet for her.

Why wouldn’t she have told me about this plan? Was it so top secret that even her protector couldn’t be trusted? I wouldn’t put it past the De Luca alphas to be that sneaky, but Bella?

I scroll through more messages, each one making the knot in my stomach tighten further. There's mention of a "extraction plan" and a set of coordinates I don't recognize. My mind races, trying to piece it all together.

"She drugged us," Dante says quietly, his voice cracking. "That's why we all feel like shit. So she could slip away unnoticed."

Hector slams his fist into the wall, leaving a gaping hole. "I'll kill her. I'll fucking kill her for this!"

"No." Silas’s cold voice is low and dangerous, his golden eyes like molten metal. "She's mine. I'll deal with the little traitor myself."

I shake my head, still staring at the phone in disbelief. "We don't know the full story yet. There has to be more to this. Bella wouldn't just..."

But I can't even finish the thought. The evidence is damning. Our omega, the woman we trust and love… or at least I knowIdo, has been working against us all along. Leading us on like fools.

But then again, how well do I know her?

The guys turn to me, and Silas steps closer. “You didn’t know what she was up to? How are we supposed to believe her own De Luca pack bodyguard had no idea she was sent here as a fucking spy?”

Hector glares at me, his eyes filled with suspicion and fury. "Yeah, Sam, how do we know you're not in on this too? You've been with her longer than any of us. Keeping her safe for your precious De Luca masters, huh?"

I bristle at the accusation, my own anger flaring. "You know damn well my loyalty is to Bella, not the De Lucas. I left the pack with her, knowing she never wanted to go back there. I turned my back on them, because I’ve loved her since the moment I met her.”

A realization hits me, causing my heart to sink even deeper. It's Bella's secret. The one she never shared with the Carbone alphas. Suddenly, everything starts to fall into place, even though I desperately don't want to believe it. But it all makes sense now. Before moving to town, Bella was already a killer. She was the De Luca pack's assassin, hiding behind the facade of a sweet omega. No one would have ever suspected her of being capable of such cold-hearted brutality. It turns out that this is what her fathers trained her for, and this was just her latest mission.

I have to tell them the truth. They have to know. Even if I’m betraying her trust, she’s the one who betrayed mine first.

I take a deep breath, my shoulders sagging under the weight of what I'm about to reveal. "There's something you need to know about Bella. Something she's never told any of you."

The alphas turn to me, their eyes narrowed with suspicion and barely contained rage. I meet each of their gazes steadily, steeling myself for their reaction.

"Before she came to town, before she met any of you, Bella was... she was the De Luca pack assassin." The words taste bitter on my tongue. "Her fathers trained her to be a killer, to eliminate their enemies without leaving a trace. That's why they never sold her off when she hit puberty like most omegas. They saw her potential as a weapon. Since she suppressed her heat cycle and they couldn’t sell her off, they found other uses for her."

Silence falls over the room, heavy and suffocating. Hector is the first to break it, a harsh laugh escaping his lips. "You expect us to believe that? An omega assassin? This isn’t a fucking movie, Sam."

But even as he says it, I can see the doubt creeping into his eyes. The pieces are starting to fall into place for all of them, just as they did for me.

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