Mated To My Obsessive Stepbrother

Norlan leaned forward, a look of genuine pride flickering in his fred eyes. "Where the hell did you get something like that?

I smiled faintly. "It's something my company's been working on Private security- grade surveillance. Still in beta, actually. We haven't even brought it to market. I used the last functioning prototype."

He whistled. "And it works?"

"It's working now. Or... it's supposed to."

He smirked, nodding with approval. "So how does it transmit? Satellite uplink?"

"Triple-layered," I replied. "Primary: satellite uplink. Secondary piggybacks off any Wi-Fi or GSM within range. Tertiary: emergency cache mode. If it can't send data immediately, it stores everything - encrypted and bursts it out the moment it regains a connection."

Norlan chuckled softly. "Redundant architecture. Beautiful."

I grinned back. "And it's smart enough to only activate when triggered. No background noise. It saves power, and avoids premature detection."

"That's solid work, Kes. Damn good. Now open the damn alert," he said, almost giddy. "Let's see the face of the fucker."

I finally opened it.

A map loaded. Coordinates. Audio clips. Static frames. My eyes narrowed.

Then, my heart paused for a breath.

The timeline.

"This doesn't make sense," I muttered.

Norlan's expression sobered. "What?"

I turned the screen so he could see. "The feed's timestamped. Look. It says the

theft happened last night. Around 08:17

PM. It should've been real-time," I muttered.

Norlan looked up. "But you said the tracer had a cache mode?"

I nodded. "It does. But cache is a fallback. It's passive. For when you're

underground, or out of range. But this delay?

Twenty-two hours? That's not dead-zone behavior. That's deliberate. Somebody

knew how to suppress the signal."

Norlan rubbed his temple, "Only one explanation."

glanced at him.

He nodded, "They used a signal jammer."

The pieces clicked.

A military-grade one he continued. "Broad-spectrum suppres on. Probably localized the Jammer to the decoy's location, and disrupted all outbound signals. Your tracer couldn't talk to the satellites, and it also couldn't ping a tower. So it defaulted to cache mode

Fucking bastards! I hissed, returning to my phone screen.

I watched the feed load. It was a choppy series of frames, flicke ing with poor light

and distorted angles, but it was enough.

Suddenly, the breath in my chest turned solid.

"Fuck. Me." I muttered as my eyes locked on a face.

I felt my stomach twist, almost like my insides just recoiled.

Jake.

The mole was fucking Jake.

A cold rush of air hit my lungs like I'd been dunked underwater

Norlan straightened, sensing the shift in me. "Who is it?"

I couldn't speak.

My jaw clenched so hard it hurt. My tongue felt nailed to the roof of my mouth.

I just handed the phone slowly to him, my hand trembling with a rage I could barely keep caged.

His eyes scanned the screen, and he recoiled like the image burned him.

"Holy fuck," he breathed, totally stunned. "Jake?!"

Norlan couldn't hide his rage and disappointment. The truth is, no one would have ever suspected Jake... The Slimy bastard who looked more innocent than a monk.

"That son of a bitch,” Norlan

growled. He works in your officmet

That's how he got around the

els

metric failsafes. How he even

knew where to look."

I was fucking furious.

I had him. I had the opportunity to end that little fucker's life. But I didn't. Because

I didn't want to hurt Kasmine.

And now...?

Now he was the rot.

"Goddammit!" I slammed my fist against the wall, and the sharp pain that greeted my fist grounded me just enough to breathe again.

Norlan cursed again, "We need to find him as soon as possible. Who knows what else he might be up to?"

My thoughts were spiraling rage mixing with something darker than even fury.

This was a direct fucking threat to everything I cared about.

"Wait," Norlan said, holding the phone. "There's an audio file too."

I snatched the phone from his hand and tapped it open with a shaky thumb.

The sound crackled to life. It was a

call between Jake and someone

tit

else, and it was grainy at first, but it djt became a bit clearer. The voice from

the other end of the line was low,

grifty and chilling, like gravel soaked in blood. noveldrama

sŵnovel

Unknown Voice: "Did you get it?"

Jake: "Yeah. I have the ledger."

There was a pause.

Unknown Voice: "What about his mate?"

That stopped my breath cold.

Jake, that fucker! He didn't even hesitate.

Jake: "I'll bring her to you. Tomorrow night."

The audio clicked off and the phone slipped from my fingers.

Everything around me blurred for a second.

Tomorrow night...

No... tonight.

Jake had signed Kasmine over like a fucking courier.

And now, they were coming for her.

Norlan said something, but I didn't hear him. Everything inside me was collapsing

into a single point of pure, blinding

urgency.

I was already moving.

Because if Jake made his move tonight...

Kasmine wouldn't see tomorrow morning.