Treasured Heart

Chapter 22

A/N: Hope you all had a good weekend! There's a lot going on this chapter, so I'm gonna let you get right to it.

Thanks for reading/reviewing, and thanks to my beta for her awesome beta skills.

For some reason this wouldn't load last week, so you're getting 2 chapters today.

It had been an incredibly busy week now that we were back on site. The new research vessel Edward had procured was much larger than The Akkaris had been, and, somehow, Jasper had convinced Aro that we needed more people to help excavate the rest of The Sirène. So now, we had fifteen people working on this project, so it was making the excavation go by much quicker. Chances were good, we'd be done within a month, if not sooner, since we weren't allowed to research the artifacts.

It pained me to bring items up from the ocean floor, only to give them a quick cleaning and cursory look before sticking them in a box labeled with a generic title.

"I never thought I'd say this, but I'm so ready for this project to be done," I told Dr. T. as we finished cataloging some pieces of jewelry. "There's just been so much drama—"

"And blood," Dr. T broke in, and I nodded my head. "I understand, Bella. I'm ready to go home and take a break."

We were both rather quiet for a while after that until it was time for dinner.

We parted ways in the hallway, and I made my way to the wheelhouse to see if Edward had time for a break.

"Hey," he said, looking up from the many instruments that were in front of him.

"Hey, you hungry?" I asked after giving him a kiss.

"Yeah, but I can't leave just yet. I've got Omar checking the engine rooms and I'm waiting on his report," he told me, and I knew he was paranoid about another mishap happening on his watch.

"Why don't I grab some dinner for us, and we can just eat up here?"

"That would be great. Thanks, Bella," he said, planting another kiss on my lips, and then I left and made my way to the mess hall.

I was halfway there when Rose came rushing out of her room, tablet in hand, and grabbed my arm, dragging me toward Jasper's office. I called out for Edward, and he rushed toward us, and we followed Rose down the hall.

Rose banged on Jasper door until he opened it, and I bit back a smirk as I took in both Jasper and Alice's disheveled appearance. Obviously, we had interrupted something.

"I've got something," Rose said as she pushed her way inside, and I mouthed an apology to them as I followed Rose in.

She sat down at Jasper's desk, hooking up her tablet to his computer before turning the monitor toward us.

"I found the connection between Black and Caius," she told us, and immediately, we all sat down to pay attention to what she had to say.

"Remember how I told you that Black had something like eighty grand deposited into his account for 'consulting fees'?"

We nodded our heads.

"It took a lot of work, and I called in a lot of favors, but I found out where the money came from. It came from a man named Felix Voltaire."

I knew I'd heard that name before, and I searched my memory for the answer until it came to me.

"Dad knew him! I don't know how, but I swear he'd mentioned that name once or twice."

I turned to Edward and asked him to call his dad and see if he knew who Felix was.

Immediately, Edward was on the sat phone, calling his dad.