Gemma’s face twisted in the phone screen, her features contorted with fury
“Selene! What the hell are you doing?!” She nearly wanted to reach through the screen and grab Selene’s hand herself.
Gemma glared into her phone, nostrils flaring, eyes bulging as if they might pop
out.
“You think you have something on me? I’m not falling for your tricks!”
Selene’s voice was calm. “Ms. Yates, you’ll know soon enough whether or not I’m bluffing. Within seven business days, the result will be clear. And for now, the evidence I’ve submitted will only cost you a public commendation.”
She paused, her tone sharpening. “But if you come after me again, all those shiny titles of yours will be stripped away–one by one.’
To Gemma, Selene’s warning was pure provocation. “Ha! Go ahead, report me! I’d love to see you try. What, you plan to bring down the whole world?”
Selene was just a clueless country girl, Gemma thought with disdain. The young woman clearly had no idea how deep Gemma’s connections ran in the upper echelons of Capital City.
Gemma laughed, her crimson lips vivid and mocking even through the screen. “I was only being civil for Daph’s sake, but if you dare report me, as of today, Dames’s mother is dead.”
Her eyes glinted with cold malice as she pronounced her verdict, judge and executioner both. “I won’t let you see Dames ever again.”
Gemma’s words were an icy sentence–she wanted to hit Selene where it hurt most: sever her from her child, rob her of any right to see Dames.
Once, this had been Selene’s greatest fear.
Back when Dames was two, the Vaughn family had already planned to send him off for elite schooling, separating him from his mother for good.
That nearly destroyed Selene.
She had knelt before Gemma, begging, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Gemma knew exactly where Selene’s weakness lay.
To her, Selene taking Daph was nothing more than a petty trick–something to put
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on a show for Harrison. With Daph and Dames at the same school, Selene could see her son any time she wanted.
So, looking straight into the camera, Gemma gave her final sentence. “You will lose your son–completely.”
She waited, expecting Selene to break down, to sob and plead as she once had.
But instead, Selene lifted her chin and smiled.
“Gemma, I hope you keep your word.”
“What?!” This time, it was the older woman who was caught off–guard.
Selene hung up without hesitation, then just stood there, breathing deeply.
If Dames truly decided to cut her off, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all. At least, he wouldn’t be used as ammunition by people with ill intentions.
Every wound her child had inflicted on her was like a dull, rusty knife, reopening cuts that had never fully healed.
Selene’s lashes quivered as she tried to set her phone down. Suddenly, a new notification flashed across the screen.
She glanced at it–it was a notice that her Twitter password had been changed.
Selene froze, then hurried to open the
app.
She tried to log in to her long–neglected account, only to get a message: Incorrect password.
*
Meanwhile, at the Thompson residence, Felicity was sprawled lazily across the -sofa, head tilted as she answered the phone. She twirled a strand of hair around
her finger, the picture of idle mischief.
“Flick, I got my hands on Selene’s Twitter account! There’s a ton of videos and photos of her son and daughter, plus written records–she’d set all those tweets to private.”
Felicity’s voice was casual. “And those private tweets, they’re all her venting about her kids and her husband, right?”
The hacker on the other end snickered. “Exactly. The latest one says–get this–‘Harrison, you say you’ve repaid everything you owed my father, but can you return all the love I gave you?‘ Talk about bitter!”
Chapter 120
He laughed, a note of mockery in his voice. “Selene’s Twitter reads like the diary of a woman scorned!”
