Chapter 658
Chapter 658:
Parker paused. His interest was piqued, but not for the reasons she thought.
“What do you want p>
“I want her gone,” Beatrice said. “Skye. While she’s distracted with the manhunt. A car accident. A robbery gone wrong. I don’t care. Just make it happen p>
Parker felt a cold spike of adrenaline. He glanced at the guard, then shielded his mouth with his hand. This was it. The leverage he had been praying for.
“That’s a tall order, Stepmom,” he said, his voice dropping to match hers. “Killing the queen bee while the hive is on high alert? That’s expensive p>
“Money is not an issue,” she said quickly. “I have a stash. Fifty thousand in cash, access to a black card. I can transfer it to any account you name. Just tell me you can do it p>
Parker grinned, a wolfish expression that didn’t reach his eyes. He tapped a sequence onto the modified keypad of the prison phone, a jailbreak code he’d bartered three packs of cigarettes for. It didn’t stop the prison recording, but it diverted a copy of the audio stream to a private cloud server.
“Send the details to the usual drop,” Parker said. “Consider it done p>
“Do not fail me,” Parker, Beatrice warned, and the line went dead.
Parker hung up the phone. He sat there for a moment, the hum of the prison surrounding him. Then he stood and walked over to the dataport in the corner of the room, ostensibly to check his legal mail.
He logged in. He found the audio file. He saved it as The_Wicked_Witch_Confession.mp3.
He didn’t call a hitman. He initiated a secure chat request to an external IP address he knew by heart.
User: BlackSheep
Status: Online
Message: I have a gift for you, Skye. Beatrice just ordered a hit.
And I recorded every word.
𝘑𝘰𝘪ո 𝗍𝗁𝗼𝘂sа𝗻𝗱𝗌 о𝖿 r𝘦𝖺𝗱𝘦𝗿𝘀 𝗈ո belոоve𝗅s.со𝗺
Minutes later, a reply pinged back.
User: Skye_S
Message: Send it. And Parker? If this is a trick, I’ll have Liam transfer you to a supermax in Alaska.
Parker chuckled darkly. “Welcome to the winning side, self,” he muttered.
The internet, much like nature, abhors a vacuum. And the next morning, while the physical world was paralyzed by police checkpoints and the desperate search for Tessa, the digital world exploded.
It started on X (formerly Twitter) at 7:00 AM sharp. An account named @RichKidExposed posted a single audio file with a caption that read: “When the stepmom wants the inheritance all to herself. HayesFamily MurderForHire BeatriceKensington.” By 7:15 AM, it was trending worldwide. The audio was crisp, Beatrice’s voice unmistakable in its malice: “I want her gone… Dead. A car accident… I don’t care how p>
Liam Kensington sat in the command center Skye had set up in the Kensington Manor library. He hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours. His eyes were gritty, his jaw shadowed with stubble. The map on the wall was covered in red markers, potential sightings of Lucian that had all turned out to be dead ends.
“She tried to order a hit on you while we’re trying to save Tessa,” Liam said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that vibrated in his chest. He stared at the tablet where the audio loop played. “I’m going to kill her p>