Chapter 987
Skye Sterling stood at the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at a city that resembled a circuit board of rain-slicked concrete and neon. Her reflection in the glass was pale, her eyes dark hollows of exhaustion, but her spine was rigid. She was truly alone now, with the ghost of her uncle and the weight of a stolen legacy.
The door didn’t creak — it slammed against the stopper with a violence that made the crystal decanter on the sidebar rattle.
Parker Hayes rushed in. He was usually the picture of composure, but his hair was disheveled and his face had the color of old ash. He held a tablet in both hands as though it were a live grenade.
“You need to see this,” Parker said, his voice tight and strangled. “Now. Before the networks pick it up globally.”
Skye turned slowly, her movements deliberate. She had just dismantled Arthur Sterling’s life, watched him dragged away in handcuffs, and received the news of his death in custody. She had thought she’d hit the bottom of the well.
She was wrong.
“What is it, Parker?”
“Gemma,” Parker said, throwing the tablet onto her desk. It slid across the mahogany surface and came to rest near her hand. “She’s gone. The police transport carrying her to the federal detention center was intercepted ten minutes ago.”
Skye’s brows drew together. “Intercepted? By whom? Liam’s lawyers?”
“By a paramilitary extraction team.” Parker pulled up a grainy traffic camera feed. It showed a heavy armored truck ramming the police van, followed by men in tactical gear pulling Gemma out — not as a prisoner, but as a VIP. “They used military-grade jammers to kill local comms. This wasn’t a jailbreak, Skye. This was an extraction. Someone just promoted her.”
𝗔d𝗱i𝖼𝗍𝗶𝘃𝖾 𝗇𝗈𝗏𝘦ls 𝗼n 𝘨𝘢l𝗇о𝗏𝗲l𝘴.𝖼o𝘮
Skye looked at the tablet. The screen was paused on a video frame — not from the traffic camera, but a new upload. Gemma Sterling, or rather Vanessa Kincaid, sat on a concrete floor hugging her knees. The background was dark and indistinguishable. She wasn’t wearing the designer clothes Arthur had bought her; she wore an oversized, threadbare sweater, her makeup smeared, her eyes red-rimmed.
Skye tapped play.
“My name is Gemma,” the girl on the screen whispered, her voice fracturing into a sob. “I don’t know who I am anymore. My uncle Arthur… he took me in when I had nothing. He tried to protect me. And now he’s dead.” She looked directly into the camera, her large eyes filled with a terrifyingly convincing blend of fear and accusation. “She killed him. Skye Sterling. She didn’t just take the company. She didn’t just take the money. She hunted him down. She bullied him until his heart gave out. And now she’s coming for me. She says I’m a fake. She says I’m a liar. But I remember the fire. I remember the pain. Why does my sister want me dead?”
The video ended with Gemma burying her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking.
Skye felt a physical blow to her chest. It was masterful — a performance worthy of an Academy Award. In two minutes, Gemma had pivoted from an exposed fraud to a grieving, persecuted little sister.
“Look at the comments,” Parker said, scrolling down.
JusticeForGemma. SkyeSterlingMurderer. BoycottOracle.
.
.