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I planted a bug in your kitchen and have been listening to your idiot brothers and cousins spill your family secrets for months now. But I’m not about to actually tell her that. So instead, I lift my shoulders in a nonchalant shrug.
“Doesn’t matter.” My gaze sharpens as I lean forward slightly, locking merciless eyes on her. “What matters is that I’m going to tell your family that you gave me this information. That you betrayed them to me.”
It’s going to ruin her. Her family is going to believe that she either gave me all of this information as a bargaining chip to get me to stop tormenting her or that she told me willingly because I managed to seduce her. Either way, they will think that she is broken. A dangerous liability. They will hate her. And the knowledge that I, a Hunter, is the one who got their own sister and daughter to betray them is going to fucking break the Petrov family.
Alina blinks, looking completely stunned.
Anticipation pulses through me.
I wait for fear to flood her features.
It doesn’t. I narrow my eyes. Strange.
Instead, she gives her head a few quick shakes as if to clear it. Then she reaches towards her purse. The sound of a zipper being pulled cuts through the otherwise dead silent room. It’s followed by the rustling of paper.
What the hell is she doing?
Seated there across the table from her, I cock my head and study her intently while I try to figure out why the hell this confrontation isn’t going at all the way I had planned. She should be on her knees next to my chair right now, begging me not to do this. But instead, she’s getting something from her purse.
Getting what? Is it money? Does she think that she can pay me off? She should know better than that. Not only am I already rich enough that money barely holds any value to me, she should know by now that I don’t want her money. I want power. I want her fear, her humiliation, her submission, her life in my fucking hands to do with as I please.
“Since we’re in the sharing mood…” she begins as she straightens again.
I watch as she places two folded-up pieces of paper on the table in front of her. After unfolding them, she runs her hands over them to smooth out the creases. A frown pulls at my brows. What is she doing?
Grabbing the two documents, she flicks her wrist and casually tosses the papers at me. They hit the smooth tabletop and slide a few inches before stopping right before my hands. I glance down at them before meeting her gaze again and arching an eyebrow in silent question.
A truly villainous smile that makes my heart skip a beat spreads across her lips.
“That,” she begins, holding my gaze, “is a record of all the secrets about the Morelli family that you have told me. Business secrets. Financial secrets.” Challenge glitters in her eyes. “Personal secrets.”
For a few seconds, I can’t comprehend what she’s saying.
Glancing down, I stare at the topmost paper.
Utter incredulity clangs through my skull as I read sentence after sentence full of information about the Morelli family and our dealings with them. Some parts are more damning than others, but all of them are things that Alina Petrov most certainly shouldn’t know.
In fact, no one outside of this house should know any of this.
My heart pounds, and there is a faint ringing at the back of my skull.
Blinking, I try to compose myself as I drag my gaze back to hers.
“Interesting collection of information,” I say, trying to sound indifferent, as I flick a glance up and down her body before meeting her gaze again. “How did you acquire it?”
A knowing smile slides home on her lips. “The same way you acquired yours, I presume.”
I just raise my eyebrows in silent question.
She lifts one shoulder in a casual shrug and leans back in her seat. “I bugged your house.”
Shock and alarm crackle through me. And it takes all of my considerable self-control to keep it from showing on my face. She bugged our house? When? How?
“Your bedroom, actually,” she continues, that nonchalant expression still on her features.
Everything inside me twists and pulses with panic. She bugged my bedroom? My bedroom. Then that means that all of the information she has on these papers comes directly from me. From my conversations with Jace in my room or in the hallway outside, depending on where she placed the bug. And from my phone calls with my father and Eli and Rico. Fucking hell. The blame for this can’t even be put on both me and Jace. This is all on me.
Disbelief still clangs through me, both because she managed to even plant a bug without me seeing it and because we had the exact same idea. Bug and blackmail with stolen information. But I can’t let Alina see just how much she has managed to both stun and rattle me with this move, so I lean back in my chair as nonchalantly as I can and pick up my glass.
