The Ancient Genes

Roxley House, Trinity.

The television screen was currently flashing with some Exclusive tags. It showed something which was capable of shaking the entire upper society.

As for what the content of the news flash was, it was some exclusive leaked photos which showed Ander Barnes and Roman Roxley together.

"This is the news flash which had been exclusively received by our channel a while ago. One can clearly see that the two people in the picture, one is the Lord of Roxley House and the other person is apparently the Lord of Barnes House."

These people actually had several pictures of the two. Some were from the hotel and it even included those pictures where Ander had taken off his disguise to put on a new one.

The photos also showed Ander and Barnes with their arms around each other's shoulder. It was taken right in front of the gates of Roxley House..

Roman was actually whispering warnings to Ander there, but in the picture it looked something entirely different. There was no audio in there after all and people could only see the two with big smiles on their faces.

"This raises a lot of questions in the current situation." The news anchor said while staring into the camera. "Was the feud between Roxley's and Barnes all just a sham?"

"Is there nothing wrong between them or have they reached a friendly junction now?"

The news anchor continued to speak and the more he did, the more ugly Ander and Roman's faces turned. This was going to be one hell of a trouble for them.

Even Melinda's face was turning pale. The process of befriending a friend wasn't easy. You need to first convince your own people before convincing your enemy. And, right now they hadn't done either of it.

"We have the person who has supplied us this information here with us today. Let's give him a huge round of applause." The anchor suddenly said and the next instant, the screen shifted towards a man sitting in darkness.

His face seemed to have been covered due to personal reasons.

"Sir, would you like to let us know what happened and how you came across this?" The news anchor asked with a serious tone.

"Well, I had been working as a paparazzi for a while. I was here in Trinity this time to capture some action during the All Academy Competitions. But, it was my luck when I happened to chance upon Sir Roman entering the hotel where I was staying." The mysterious person said with a raspy voice and took a slight pause before continuing, "I went after him in curiosity and saw him meeting with a man, whom he called Barnes."

"When the two revealed their auras, the people around immediately became tense. That was a frightening feeling, but luckily it took the guard's attention and allowed me to sneak in. In the end, I got a few good pictures."

"A few minutes later, I saw Sir Ander taking off his disguise and revealing his face. It was indeed him and I even took a few pictures of him. He then continued to put on another disguise for some reason."

Well, it was because Ander was already seen through by Roman with that disguise on. Hence, he needed an even stronger one to possibly remain undetected under his wife's radar. After all, she was the one who knew him the best.

"After that, they seemingly left the place. I was just too slow to match their pace and hence headed towards the Roxley House hoping to catch sight of them and managed to do so."

The paparazzi guy looked very nervous as he spoke about the entire incident.

….

"Bullsh*t!" Roman cursed in anger, it seemed that flames were about to spew out of his eyes. He couldn't believe that he allowed himself to be captured by a paparazzi. This really was shameful on his side.

But, actually it was not. It was very hard to differentiate common people without mana. You would just end up thinking of them as a random person on a crowded street, or maybe just a curious person or a fan staring at you. Only if there was some killing intent in them, it would have made the job for Mages easy to spot them. But there was no reason for these people to have such intent. Hence, no matter how strong the people were, they always had to be careful of these reporters and paparazzi's. And, at times they even had to run away if needed.

"Is this your doing, Barnes?" Roman suddenly turned to look at Ander. He no longer cared about their act. There was no meaning to carry it any longer. The cat was out of the bag after all.

Ander opened his mouth to refute, but suddenly stopped to give Max a glance. Didn't Max just ask him to forgive him for any one thing? Not to mention, the possibility of some outsider doing this was very low.

In the end, he just shook his head. It was not the time to decide whether it was Max's actual fault or not. And, even if it was, he couldn't possibly berate him for it after what Max had done for him.

"Stop blaming me! If you hadn't come there, that person would have never followed you. It is you, who have brought upon this trouble and involved me within," Ander replied with a frown.

"Don't lie Barnes, I don't think it was any outsider who could have possibly done that," Roman shared the same opinion as Ander.

Melinda looked at Max and saw him standing there with a calm look on his face. 'Don't tell me?'

Her face suddenly changed when she remembered his words earlier, 'I can definitely get it done. Even if it means being a bit extreme.'

Max, feeling her gaze, looked at Melinda and smiled. And, it was the same one which he had shown earlier. It was clear to Melinda now, he was the culprit.

She wasn't a fool and immediately understood Max's trail of thought. But, it still left her with a frown on her face.

In the current situation, there was no way for Roman to explain the situation to anyone. Even if he said that her and Ander were still rivals with bad blood between them, no one would believe it.

Even their own people will start doubting their leader. This left them with only one choice.

Turn the current situation into a real one.

Melinda couldn't help, but give Max another look. She had just realized something. This guy didn't do it because she challenged him to do so, but he had planned it from the very start. After all, looking at the photos, it was clear that he had already initiated the plan way before.

Doesn't that mean, getting her involved and making her challenge him also a part of his plan?

Melinda's face slowly changed. It was only now that she realized that she had been set up in a trap.