CHAPTER 248: CHAPTER 248 WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING?

"Convenient, isn’t it?" another guest murmured, frowning.

Bella’s eyes narrowed, sharp as glass. She stepped forward, her chin raised. "I can prove it," she said, her tone calm but filled with icy determination. "Take me to the CCTV control room."

Her words silenced the crowd, her gaze locked on Alexa and Stella with a dangerous fire. Her calmness only made them shift uneasily, like prey caught in a snare.

Alexa’s lips trembled before she quickly masked it with anger. "You think you can bluff your way out of this?"

"I don’t bluff," Bella said flatly. Her eyes glinted, cold and merciless as she stared them down.

Leo’s gaze focused on her, the faintest flicker of curiosity breaking through his icy calm. What are you planning, Bella? he thought.

•••••••

The control room was vast, a wall of monitors glowing in dim blue light, each screen showing a different corner of the mansion. The soft sound of servers filled the silence, broken only by the shuffle of shoes as William, his son, and his three grandsons entered alongside Leo, Bella, Stella, and Alexa.

The technician seated in the command chair shot to his feet, startled. His eyes went straight to Jacob for instruction.

"Sir?" he asked, clearly confused by the sudden crowd.

Jacob’s expression was sharp, his voice clipped. "Bring up the missing feeds. Now."

The man’s fingers moved rapidly over the keyboard, but the monitors flickered with static before displaying error codes. "Sir, the files were deleted at root. It’s like they never existed," he admitted nervously.

William’s aged face darkened, but his eyes glittered with something sharper than anger as they fell on Bella.

"Isabella..." he said slowly, his tone heavy with implication. "What are you trying to do?"

Bella froze, her lips parting in shock. Why is he looking at me like that? she thought. Her heart thumped.

The old man’s eyes, however, weren’t condemning—they were sparkling with interest. He knew. He knew. He had seen that same sharp brilliance in their earlier meeting. But the others—Leo, Stella, and Alexa—looked as if none of them had the faintest idea. To them, Bella was nothing more than Leo’s young wife, uneducated and naive.

This was going to be very exciting, William thought, hiding his smirk behind his hand.

"You’re going to recover footage? Pffft!" Stella’s voice cut the tension like broken glass, her laughter shrill as she clutched Alexa’s arm. Alexa joined in, her chuckles low and mocking.

"Hahahaha! What a joke! The little bellla is going to fix an entire surveillance system?" Stella sneered. "She probably doesn’t even know how to open a monitor properly."

"Maybe she’ll just pray to her plushies to restore it," Alexa added, smirking.

Their laughter echoed, sharp and humiliating, bouncing off the sterile walls of the control room.

"Quiet."

The word came like a whip crack. Leo’s voice was low, his tone commanding enough to freeze the air. His gray eyes burned with cold fire as he stepped closer to Bella, placing himself slightly in front of her like a shield.

The laughter died instantly. Even William’s grandsons stiffened, their expressions uneasy. No one missed the way Leo’s aura filled the room, heavy, dangerous, like a predator daring anyone to move.

Bella, meanwhile, pressed her lips together, her mind racing. She could recover the footage easily but doing so would mean exposing the truth about herself. Did she dare?

Bella lowered herself into the command chair, the leather creaking softly under her light frame. The glow of the massive monitors cast a pale sheen over her face. For a moment, her nerves betrayed her—her hand shook slightly as she gripped the mouse. Stella caught it instantly and burst into laughter, her voice echoing through the quiet control room.

"Hah! Look at her! She’s trembling already!" Stella mocked, her lips curled in cruel amusement.

Leo’s eyes snapped toward her, cold as steel. His glare alone was enough to silence her, the weight of it pressing like a blade against her throat. She immediately shut her mouth, her smirk faltering under the sharp intensity of his gaze.

Bella closed her eyes, shutting everything else out—the mockery, the whispers, even Leo’s piercing stare. She needed calm. The room held its breath as she sat still, her lashes trembling against her cheeks.

Stella leaned toward Alexa, whispering with a laugh, "Is she... sleeping? Maybe she’s praying for a miracle." Alexa covered her lips to stifle a chuckle.

Then Bella’s eyes opened.

Her soft brown eyes looked different now—darker, sharper, a shade that seemed to pull everything into their depths. She no longer looked nervous. Her slender fingers moved across the mouse and keyboard, quick yet graceful, her earlier trembling gone as though it had never existed.

Lines of code began to scroll across the main monitor, glowing green against the black background. The previously missing camera feeds flickered, the words file not found flashing before shifting into something new. Bella’s lips pressed together in quiet determination.

On the screen, the missing footage folder appeared—corrupted, fragmented, yet still there. A ripple of murmurs spread among William’s grandsons as they leaned forward, shock written on their faces.

Leo’s gaze never left her. His eyes were dark and unreadable.

William, on the other hand, had to suppress his chuckle. His old, tired eyes lit up with recognition. So it’s true, he thought. My Isaac... you didn’t disappoint me.

The cursor moved faster, Bella’s small hands flying over the keyboard now, stringing together codes the technician in the corner had never seen before. His jaw dropped open in disbelief.

Within seconds, the main monitor shifted, and suddenly the missing files began to reassemble. Fragments turned into clear images, static fading away until the feed of the restricted corridor filled the screen.

The room went silent, no one even daring to breathe.

Bella leaned back slowly in the chair, her expression calm, though inside her heart was racing wildly. She had done it too quickly, too cleanly. She prayed no one asked how.

But Leo was still watching her, his gaze deep, his jaw tight.