?Chapter 916:


    “A year ago?” Raegan spoke evenly, her voice steady as her hand lingered on a half-turned page in the prison log. There was a subtle edge of sarcasm in her words. “How convenient. Maia was just about to walk free, and the one man who might’ve known the full story—Morse—suddenly drops dead…” She paused and looked over at Kiley. After catching a small nod from her, Raegan went on, her tone turning icy. “Sounds like someone’s sweeping things under the rug. Don’t you agree?”


    Shiloh kept the same polite smile stered on his face. “Well… surely that’s just a coincidence, isn’t it? What kind of secret could a prison possibly be hiding?”


    Kiley offered a faint smile of her own, slow and unreadable. Her fingers tapped against the tabletop in a steady rhythm. Her eyes, however, were sharp enough to cut.


    The room fell dead silent. The tension was thick enough to choke on. Shiloh kept his grin in ce, but the sheen of sweat forming on his forehead betrayed his nerves.


    Once they had stepped out of the prison, Kiley turned to Raegan and lifted an eyebrow. “Your thoughts?”


    Raegan lowered her voice. “Shiloh… doesn’t sit right with me.”


    Kiley’s eyes grew colder. “Same here.”


    She tapped her fingers once against the table. “With the old warden gone, there’s no one left to verify anything. He could cook up whatever story suits him.”


    Raegan gave a slight nod, her expression tightening as her eyes narrowed. In her view, this way of covering up the truth fit perfectly with how The Mask usually operated. It appeared that Maia’s ties to both The Mask and its leader ran deeper than she had originally believed. “So, what’s our next move?” Raegan asked quietly.


    Kiley didn’t respond right away. A cold smirk formed on her lips. “Maybe it’s time we tried a different approach—see if we can get Shiloh to spill on his own.”


    Raegan locked eyes with her, and in that brief nce, they understood each otherpletely.


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    Not another word was needed.


    Inside the CEO’s office at Cooper Group headquarters, tension gripped the air. udius moved restlessly from one side of the room to the other. His forehead creased deeper with every pass, and his pace grew sharper.


    It was a jarring contrast to the calm, collected figure he usually was. Clearly, waiting had worn him thin, stripping away every trace of his usualposure.


    All at once, he halted and turned back toward theputer screen. A news sh lit up in bold letters. “Miss Kiley Cooper, heiress of Cooper Group, has arrived in Wront via private jet…” The line made udius’s chest tighten.


    His sister had only recently brought this up in conversation. He hadn’t even packed, hadn’t even seen Maia. Now Kiley was already in town, and from the looks of it, she was forcing his hand, pressuring him to drop everything and fly out to Otruitho without dy. Still, was it truly necessary to rush?


    udius’s fingers curled slightly. He nced at his watch, uncertainty tightening his jaw. It was nearly midday now, and something didn’t sit right.


    Ordinarily, his sister would havee straight to thepany to begin the handover. Instead, ever since the news broke, he’d been sitting tight—yet there was still no sign of Kiley.


    Where could she have gone?


    The butler had just confirmed that Kiley hadn’t returned to the Cooper estate either.


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