Page 82 of Twice as Forbidden

“Tell me something I don’t already know.”

“Burt tried to amend his losses. He landed the job with Terra Blueprint Consulting, but it was nowhere near lucrative enough to keep up with the lifestyle he created—”

“Craig, you’re wasting my fucking—”

“Burt may be broke and on the verge of a midlife crisis, but I don’t think he’s your guy.”

“What are you talking about? His fucking son tried to blackmail my girl.”

“Oh, the son’s guilty as fuck. A rap sheet a mile long. He’s definitely an accomplice, if not the driving force.” He tosses black and white images onto my desk. Screenshots from video footage.

“What is this?”

“Did your manager a solid. I know an IT guy who got past the virus. This is the warehouse tour footage. Lookie who we’ve got there.” I lean closer, trying to take in the blurry image. It takes me a minute to figure it out. “Fuck.”

“Vince Hallstead.”

“But who’s the kid he’s with?”

“Random. He didn’t have a parent, and Vince slipped in and claimed the kid as his little brother. No one batted an eye at it.”

“You also know him as Jethro Brock. The temp on file.” That motherfucker. “But how? Isn’t he at college—”

“Appears not. Money issues. Lost his funding. He never went.”

“But he said—”

“While we’ve kept our focus on his father, Vince was masterminding a way to destroy you, learning the system, conspiring how to get in and out without being recognized. Some would think the kid was yours—he’s become a wiz at coding. Perhaps he thought that if he obtained the ledger, he could figure out the next level.

“And Georgia?”

“He’s been watching you two. Appears he figured it out before he caught her. Has video footage of the two of you...”

I grab the back of my neck. “What does he plan to do with it?”

“Based on emails, exploit you, tag you as a predator. He fucked with timestamps, dating them back years ago.”

“When she would have been underage.”

“Exactly.”

“That motherfucker.”

“What’s his endgame?”

“Take everything from you that you took from his family. Make you suffer. You have an unhinged kid on your hands. But that’s not the worst part.”

“There’s fucking more?”

“There’s no love lost for Georgia. Vince seems to know you have a weakness for her. It’s in Telegram, the dark web system he uses to contact his partner. The shit they talk about is fucked up. Makes it sound like if and when they get that ledger, they plan on getting rid of all evidence in case anyone comes searching—including Georgia.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? As in hurting her?”

“Killing her—”

“The fuck they will!” I roar. “If Vince or Burt get anywhere near her—”

“I told you, it’s not Burt. He’s clean as a whistle in all this.”

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