The Heiress’ Return: Six Brothers at Her Beck and Call (Wynter Quinnell) novel Chapter 1980

In the ventilation duct was a circular metal emblem with a strange symbol engraved upon it—a snake wrapped around a sword.

Wynter's expression darkened. She'd seen this emblem before during a border mission.

Back then, she'd lost a team member because of those people. After the incident, she'd sent people to investigate but had never heard from them since.

It wasn't until some time ago that she received information that this was the emblem of a secret organization from Emstia. They'd always been hard to pin down, so she hadn't expected to see this emblem again here.

"What is this?" Sherman asked, cutting through her thoughts.

Wynter took out an evidence bag and placed the emblem inside it. "An emblem. I'll look into this matter. You can't let anything slip at the moment, Mr. Linne, or we'll have no chance to turn this around."

Sherman was aware of that as well. Once things came to a head, even retirement might become a luxury for him, to say nothing of whether he would be able to keep his job.

"I understand," he replied, clenching his fists tightly. "If our superiors were to check on us, I would definitely be exposed. I can only do my best to maintain control of the situation."

Wynter nodded. "Leave this to us. You can continue with museum operations."

Sherman made a noise of acknowledgement before leaving the control room with Manuel.

The sound of Wolf tapping away at the keyboard rang out without pause. Wynter glanced at the computer. She could more or less guess that even if the surveillance footage was restored, they probably wouldn't be able to make out the perpetrator's face.

Dalton said in a low voice, "I didn't expect them to move so quickly."

Wynter turned toward him. "They might have already started planning this months ago. However, inspections are continuously conducted here, so they've been feeling out the pattern this entire time.

"The moment they grasped that pattern, they found themselves a top-class hacker to infiltrate the system, a professional locksmith, and someone to orchestrate the scheme. I just didn't expect Silverfang to be involved in this…"

Silverfang—the organization to which this emblem belonged. This organization was different from the rest in that it only stole precious cultural relics before smuggling them out. However, it was based in Emstia, while Wynter herself was tied down in Havenia.

Dalton looked up at her. "According to news from overseas, several cultural relics have appeared on the Emstian black market. Unsurprisingly, they were also stolen from Cascadia."

"It looks like I'll have to make a trip to Emstia to meet this Silverfang Organization," Wynter told him, arching an eyebrow. "They've repeatedly come to Cascadia to provoke us, stealing our cultural relics and precious treasures."

Dalton looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. "When will you set out? I'll get someone to book the flight tickets."

Wynter smiled. "We have to locate Isidore first. I'm uneasy about the fact that he's in Havenia. These incidents are all related to him, after all."

At that moment, Wynter's phone chimed, and she glanced down at it.

The message she received read, "Boss, regarding your orders for me to dispatch people to check on the cultural relics in various museums just now, Zelwick is the only city in which a similar incident occurred.

"Two cultural relics have been lost, and the museum director has been taken away for investigation due to this."

Wynter put her phone away, then said, "As expected, Zelwick has already suffered a loss of cultural relics. It looks like Havenia is not their only target, as such incidents have also occurred on the mainland."

Dalton nodded slightly. "If we want to know where these cultural relics have gone, Isidore is currently the only one with that knowledge. However, we haven't found any trace of him, despite his being in Havenia for so long. How would we lure him out?"

"Let me think," Wynter said, her eyes deepening in thought. "We'll take advantage of this opportunity to deal with him once and for all."

Wolf stopped typing on the keyboard. "The surveillance footage has been restored, Boss. It's not very useful, though."

Wynter followed his gaze and saw that the surveillance footage shown on the monitor had indeed changed. However, only one person appeared in the footage. They were wearing a mask and had bundled themselves up very well.

"It's pretty much what I expected," Wynter said, then narrowed her eyes slightly. "From their figure, they look like a man."

At the thought of this, his eyes darkened, and he redoubled his efforts. The Drakevein Pendant could no longer resist in the face of such powerful strength, and black light poured into it.

Isidore was delighted to see this and greedily absorbed its energy. It took him a while to finally realize that something wasn't quite right.

It looked like he was absorbing its energy, but in truth, his own energy levels were decreasing. It was as if the Drakevein Pendant was absorbing his energy instead.

He hurriedly stopped and looked at the pendant, murmuring to himself, "This pendant… How could it be absorbing my energy instead? It's unbelievable."

He'd absorbed many cultural relics' energy before, but none of them had been as abnormal as this one.

Just then, the black-robed figure called out from the doorway, "Someone from Silverfang is here to see you, my lord."

Upon hearing this, Isidore put away the Drakevein Pendant. "Let him in."

As soon as the words left his mouth, a foreigner walked through the doorway and asked in broken Cascadian, "Have you acquired the Drakevein Pendant?"

Isidore raised his head and replied casually, "I have, but it's not yet time to hand it over to you."

"Why?" the foreigner asked in Emstian, puzzled, before reverting to Cascadian. "Didn't we have an agreement? You will absorb the energy from every cultural relic we steal, after which you hand it to us, right?"

Isidore shook his head. "The Drakevein Pendant this time is unusual, so I can't hand it to you for now."

"Fuck!" the foreigner swore loudly in Emstian, his gaze sharpening. "Are you toying around with our organization?"

Contrary to expectation, Isidore smiled. "Are you threatening me?"