Chapter 59|MIA.

....

"There's no sign of Leah anywhere." Damon's words had everyone in the room raising to their feet. "She's gone." He ground through gritted teeth.

Isabelle's gaze turned to Arabella who deftly moved her red tinged fingernails from the table. Her eyes were wide as she stared back at the fiery haired woman who used to be her closest companion and friend.

The tension from Arabella's silence to Isabelle's silently spoken question from earlier had everyone staring at her in an accusing manner after Damon's statement

"Where did she go to?" Alexander asked Isabelle and everyone else's unspoken question. He moved closer to her.

All eyes focused on Arabella who felt the accusation right in her heart. "I.. I don't know what you're talking about. I have no idea wh..."

"You more than anyone knows what he's talking about, where the hell did Leah run off to?" Lucas asked, cutting her off mid-sentence, his voice hard and his fists clenched harder. "Where is she?"

"Are you sure everywhere has been searched?" Old Bea asked worriedly, turning her attention from the strawberry blonde to the seething Delta. He looked ready to explode.

"We've searched the basics, currently on the process of searching everywhere else, I alerted the security and they're running through it right now. But, the main thing is that she is currently not within the Pack territory," He narrowed his eyes at Arabella who was attempting to pull off a nonchalant look that was supposed to hide her fear and discomfort, her efforts were to no avail. "Tell us now if you are willing to cooperate. We won't have you with us by half measures, if it isn't full it's not needed. You'll be dealt with too. Where is Leah?"

Arabella looked around the room and found the same expression on all of their faces. Standing brave, she spoke, "The only possible explanation to her disappearance is if she has found out in one way or the other that Isabelle is alive and has returned to the Pack because she knows then that her betrayal is out in the open and she's outnumbered. She must've fled for help before the Alpha and everyone else heard of the part she took in the deed."

Isabelle moved around Lucas and Alexander who were both hovering over Arabella, taking the other girl's hand into hers, feeling the sincerity in her words from the tinge that zapped through her. She rounded the table with Arabella's hand in hers, helping the distraught lady to a chair.

Isabelle felt the truth in her tone and knowing Leah, she must have gotten the information from one of her trusted sources around. "That could be possible, Leah is desperate for something I'm not sure of, there's nothing desperation won't do to a person."

Series of knocks rapped against the door from the other side of the sturdy mahogany, one of the Sentinels, Luis Fabio walked in donning a grim expression. "The Alpha's sister is gone from the Pack, she was last seen driving out of the manor a few minutes after the Beta's return."

"What the fuck has gotten into Leah's head?" Lucas asked no one in particular.

Alexander nodded at the man's revelation, "Damon, I trust you to deal with her, find her and bring her back to the people she's decided to misguide. She needs to know who the wrong guy to fuck with is. I need to know what's going on with her."

The four men discussed some more about what to be done concerning the missing girl before Damon barged out of the room in swift strides with Fabio following closely behind him.

"Leah has an aim in this, yesterday she came with news about Isabelle's body found burnt and barely recognizable. I felt the loss of the woman who was brought to us because it seemed like her face was deliberately made to suffer the brunt of the burn more as it was the most affected part of her body. Her hair was red too but I saw the brunette roots and felt relieved even though I had already received Francis' call confirming Isabelle's safety and wellbeing. Something felt strange in her reaction and the way she flew straight to Arabella, attacked the girl without a heads up, you were there too Old Bea." Alexander explained everything regarding Leah's strange behaviors from after he dismissed the dead body to the way she accused Arabella of being involved in the whole ordeal.

Old Bea nodded, agreeing with the Alpha.

"It will be wise for us to think fast and sharp on our next move, the man Leah works for knows the ins and outs of this Pack, he knows more than a lot of us do and he has so many backup plans that knowing his next tricky move will be hard to decipher. He might be in hiding with Leah at the moment but there are other important stuff to get rid of before it gets late." Arabella wringed her hands as she spoke with her head raised high. She wanted their acceptance, their approval. She needed to belong somewhere and she knew exactly where she vied for the most.

But, for her to truly belong she had to let go of every string attaching her to the man behind the ordeal, even if it meant cutting off her own kin.

"The betrothal." Old Bea concluded, "You need to revoke your engagement to Arabella."

"And also deal with the fuckers who dared to put so many other people's futures at stake for their selfish reasons starting from Sylvester Skorr and Viktor Ives." The Alpha's wolf howled for blood. His heart was beating wildly in anticipation of his next actions.

"One more thing," All eyes turned to Isabelle. "Arabella is unable to disclose her benefactor's identity because he is the closest relative she has alive. He is a man who was once trusted and taken in high regard in this very Pack and the one I come from. The man who caused Christopher Knight of the Bane Pack's accident that led to his paralysis is the same man behind all of this bullshit." Arabella's eyes widened as the realization that Isabelle was truly about his disclose her grandfather's identity dawned on her.

She shuffled to her feet.

"He is none other than the man who had a hand in the Late Stephano De Luca's death, he is Martin Miles, Arabella's grandfather and our grandfathers' most trusted repartee who brought down the men who trusted him most because of his selfish reasons and right now, the most unsafe person here is Arabella, he knows she's with us and there's nothing he won't do to cover his identity."

Isabelle paid no heed to Old Bea's sharp intake of breath until she saw Lucas wrapping his hands around the woman and pulling her down to a chair to support her shaky legs.

"It has to be said and cannot be hid any longer. That man is a huge threat to us, if he can inflict torture on his closest family there's no one else he can spare. That is why I made a decision that will be of benefit to us all." She stood her solid ground as they all took in the authority laced in her voice and her stature. "My decison might not be accepted with open arms but trust me, it will be for the best. Arabella and I will return to the Bane Pack, for the sake of her protection and her peace of mind."

Alexander shook his head even before she was done speaking, "You're not going anywhere Belle. You're not leaving, not at this time. Not now"

"I'm not leaving, it'll only be for a short while, temporary." She promised.

"Doesn't matter. You can't leave." He countered, rounding the table to reach her. His head was stuck on the part of her leaving to the point that it didn't dawn on him that he was just told that his grandfather didn't die a natural or accidental death as he was told. That piece of information didn't pass through his ears.

"We have no other choice, Martin knows Arabella has taken our side and nothing will stop him from achieving his goals to have us go down because he is a man scorned, a man bittered by love and propelled into action by revenge. He's not doing all of this for fun, he's fulfilling his wife's wishes to take us down because justice was served as she was banished to the Forest of Doom as punishment for killing my parents and five more innocents in coldblood. Martin is desperate for blood and I will not stand by and do nothing, I won't watch as his bloodlust makes him kill the only good thing to ever happen to him which is Arabella." She took Arabella's hand by the wrist, circled hers around the former's in a resistant lock. "No matter what might have happened in the past between the two of us Arabella is and will always be my friend. She needs to belong somewhere. She needs it. She needs to be protected." She stared hard into Alexander's eyes and she watched as he battled with his emotions.

She could feel the hurricane of emotions whirling in him, his unwavering stare told her more and his face when she placed her palm over a part of it was granite hard from how taut it was pulled tight.

She had a lot of explaining to do.

With a straight face she pulled at Alexander's hands urging him out of the room. Their discussion demanded privacy.