ARCANUM

CHAPTER 37

PETER POV

My guts are that we will find Punpun's whereabouts soon. I believe she is the woman that Altair Khaliq is betting on. The woman he gave up because of his only defeat so far. Luckily, Casino Aldabra is equipped with CCTV. I saw them scattered all over the casino and in the poker playing area, I spotted several.

With Rosie's way of working, I don't think we'll have to wait too long. Maybe before morning comes, the results will already be out, so I'm looking forward to it. I couldn't sleep until I got the answer. My mind also drifted to many possible scenarios.

"Here," Ruby's voice made my mind wander a little. She put down the warm chamomile tea. Although I don't need hot drinks anymore at night because it's not as cold as Moscow, a glass of hot chamomile tea is very pleasant and comforting.

After placing the teacup on the coffee table in front of me, Ruby joined me on the couch. She sat next to me. At times like this, and for the umpteenth time, I'm relieved to have a partner, especially like Jennie Kim, aka Ruby. I will never stop praising her because she deserves praise.

While waiting for Rosie, we exchanged thoughts. In her beautiful and intelligent head, she also thought of many scenarios. We went through each scenario in our heads and occasionally talked about other light things outside of the mission when we were tired.

At 4 in the morning, about 6 hours after we informed Rosie, Jennie's cellphone rang, which made us jump up immediately and enthusiastically. Jennie didn't linger and immediately grabbed the cellphone that she placed on the coffee table in front of us and swiped the green button.

"Yes, Rosie?" We hope and believe Rosie will not disappoint.

"I found it. May 13th. Altair Khaliq lost the bet he said," Rosie immediately said without further ado.

"Is that really Punpun?" I asked because Jennie's phone was in loudspeaker mode.

"I sent the CCTV footage to you," Rosie said, and I immediately opened the laptop that was ready in front of me to access my cloud, which connected to The Arc system. A hidden cloud is dedicated to this while we were on a mission. A cloud that no one will be able to hack even if my laptop falls into someone else's hands. All of our gadgets have embedded automatic data destroyers which can be controlled from The Arc. Things designed by Jisoo and tools made by the R&D team.

I immediately opened the new file Rosie had sent me and tilted it, so Ruby could watch it too. As soon as I pressed the space bar, the CCTV footage immediately played and highlighted the nearest table. The poker table position where Altair Khaliq was seen having a poker-duel with other people was visible. Unfortunately, the position of the man who was dueling with him was not visible because he was sitting with his back to the CCTV.

We watched in silence until a few minutes later, a look of disappointment appeared on Altair's face. He had lost the bet. I'm grateful that Rosie has cut out the important part for us to see.

"That's right," I said as the woman on whom the bet was made, was handed over to the winner of the match. From the CCTV position, the woman's face was visible. Ruby had pressed the space bar and paused the recording, and then zoomed in on the face of the woman in the long dress. Altair Khaliq gripped her elbow as he handed over the bet.