Page 59 of Sinful Palace

13

Willow

Logan droppedthe miniscule device to the ground and stomped on it. It immediately shattered into black and silver fragments. “How did you know this thing was in here?” he asked, staring at me with wide eyes.

“I had a feeling there might be a bug in the room after I found this on the body today,” I said. I pulled out the threatening note and showed it to him.

He turned it over in his hand. “Holy shit. This is from the Order.”

“Yeah. They found out I tried to get you to investigate them, and they found out pretty damn fast,” I said. “They’re obviously warning me to stop asking questions, right?”

He nodded, a grimace stretching his lips. “This is my fault. I should’ve known,” he muttered.

“Known what?”

“When we talked about the Order the other day… remember how my parents brought us coffee afterwards?”

“Uh-huh.”

“My dad practically had his ear pressed up against the door when I left the room. I asked him if he was eavesdropping, and he said no, but I could tell he was lying. He must’ve overheard our whole conversation and reported it to the rest of the Order council.”

My jaw dropped. “What? Why didn’t you tell me you caught him spying?”

“Because I knew he overheard something, but I figured he would’ve only heard the last minute or so, when we were talking about coffee and breakfast. I didn’t think he was standing out there in the hall for twenty minutes, listening to every word of our conversation.”

“Well, it looks like he was.”

“Yeah.” Logan glanced down at the broken bug on the floor and kicked a piece away. “He must’ve put this in our room afterwards to see if we’d ever talk about it again.”

“Unless someone else from the Order planted the bug,” I said, tilting my head to one side. “How do we know it wasn’t in here the whole time?”

“The maids sweep the rooms for stuff like this once a week. Last time they did it was five days ago, which means the bug has only been in here for the last few days. That lines up with the time Dad overheard us talking.”

“Ah.”

“So it had to be him.” Logan scrubbed a hand over his forehead. “And now the council is warning you about what he overheard. Making sure you stop digging.”

“That’s what I figured when I saw the note.”

“Did anyone else see it?”

I shook my head. “It was in the corpse’s mouth, and it landed right next to me. Only my dad was near me when I crouched down and grabbed it, and he didn’t say or do anything. So I’m pretty sure no one noticed.”

“Okay.” He balled his hands into fists and paced over to the window. “Fuck...”

“What are you thinking?” I asked, shuffling closer to him.

He turned back to face me. “I’m thinking I need to do more to protect you,” he said, jaw clenching. “We had one fucking conversation about the Order, and then suddenly a body gets dropped on you just to scare you. Plus it was my own dad who turned you in for asking me to look into it all. He’s the main reason this shit happened. That’s fucked up.”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t really surprise me, to be honest. I mean, I know he’s your dad, so you probably don’t want to hear this, but he’s kind of a dick most of the time. Of course he’d sell me out to the rest of the Order. Probably wants to bank favors with Q; make himself look good. Selling out his future daughter-in-law proves his loyalty pretty well. Hell, maybe he’s even gunning to be the next supreme leader when Q retires.”

“I don’t know. Right now I’m sort of wondering if you were actually right about him the other day,” Logan said slowly. “Seems like you’ve been right about everything else so far.”

I lifted my brows. “You mean you think he could be Q?”

“Yeah, maybe,” he said in a reluctant tone, rubbing his jaw. He shook his head and let out a short, shallow puff of air. “Fuck, I really don’t know.”

A sudden shiver hit me right between the shoulder blades, and I hugged my arms around myself. “What made you change your mind?” I asked. “You literally laughed in my face when I suggested it the other day.”

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