LOGINChapter 77She'd panicked. She had done all she could to get to the medical facility but the guards on duty that night had turned her away. Told her to deal with it herself. Threatened her with solitary confinement if she kept making a fuss.So she'd gone to the bathroom. Had locked herself in the furthest stall. Had delivered her first son while biting down on her own sleeve to muffle the screams because making noise would bring guards and guards meant questions and questions meant investigations she couldn't afford.The baby had come fast, with the kind of urgency that suggested that the baby was aware that the environment wasn't safe, that he needed to be born immediately even if it killed them both. She'd caught him in her shaking hands, had felt him squirming and alive.And then the door had opened.She'd been too focused on the baby—on clearing his airways, on making sure he was breathing, on trying to figure out how to cut the umbilical cord with nothing but her hands—to noti
Chapter 76And now someone was claiming to have information about that night and who had attacked her.Either the person had found her on their own, knowing who she was from the beginning,or that her post that she had posted had made it possible for the person to put two and two together.Ravyn's hands trembled as she began typing, her hacker instincts taking over despite the emotional turmoil that she was currently in. She initiated trace programs, began analyzing the message origin, started deploying every tool in her arsenal to identify the sender.The message had been routed through at least fifty different servers. She could see the IP addresses bouncing from Russia to Singapore to Brazil to Morocco, each hop that was also encrypted with military-grade security protocols. Whoever had sent this understood operational security at the highest level.She deployed her most sophisticated tracking programs, the ones she'd developed specifically for situations where normal methods faile
Chapter 75The dark web interface glowed in the locked room, as the Ravyn was scrolling through the feeds as Whisper 119, replying messages and either accepting or rejecting jobs as they came.It was approaching midnight, and the Hawkins estate had finally settled into an uneasy silence that left Ravyn rattled because she knew that there was going to be retribution because there was no way that they were going to keep quiet and just forget about the confrontation with Aspen and her family's predictable support of her sister's delusional accusations. Surprising how she was held the escape goat for Miles forgetting to remember he had a new girlfriend and calling her name during intimacy with Aspen, instead of recognizing that he was the asshole in this situation.Ravyn shook her head trying to get rid of the thoughts deciding to focus on this for now, her fingers were moving across the keyboards, checking messages from clients, reviewing pending job requests, and also maintaining the
Chapter 74"You exist," Aspen said simply. "That's what you've done. You exist, and as long as you exist, I'll never be enough. Miles will always be comparing me to you. Our parents will always be wishing I was more like you—smarter, more capable, more independent. Everyone will always see me as the lesser sister. The one who only got what she has because you were removed from the equation."The admission hung in the air, brutal in its honesty. This wasn't about Miles. Not really. This was about Aspen's lifelong competition with Ravyn, her desperate need to be seen as equal or superior, her fury at the fact that even after five years in prison, even after a conviction for negligent homicide, Ravyn was still somehow winning."I'm sorry you feel that way," Ravyn said, meaning it. "But I can't fix that for you. I can't make myself less to make you feel like more. I can't sabotage my own life to make you more comfortable. And I certainly can't accept being accused of planning sexual assau
Chapter 73"That's not true," Ravyn said, but her voice sounded weak even to her own ears. "None of that is true. I'm not jealous of you. I'm not plotting against you. I'm just trying to live my life.""By seducing my fiancé," Aspen shot back. "By using his brother to get close to him. By planning to drug him and—""I would never do that," Ravyn said, her voice strengthening with conviction. "I would never drug anyone. I would never force sexual contact on anyone. That's a vile accusation and you know it.""Do I?" Aspen asked, her voice dropping to something dangerously soft. "Because I don't know what you're capable of anymore, Ravyn. You were convicted of negligent homicide. You killed Caroline. Who's to say you wouldn't drug and rape someone if it served your purposes?"The comparison hit like a physical blow. Aspen had just equated Ravyn's conviction—the car accident that had killed their friend, the tragedy that had destroyed Ravyn's life—with premeditated sexual assault. Had dra
Chapter 72She was standing her ground, refusing to show weakness, refusing to let them make her feel ashamed of a relationship that was actually a carefully constructed cover story designed to protect her real secrets.But she could see the frustration building in her parents' faces, the way Nathan and Jeremy were exchanging looks that promised this conversation wasn't over, that there would be consequences for her defiance."You're making a mistake," Garret said finally. "Dante Archer is not the man you think he is. He has his own problems, his own complications. Getting involved with him will only bring you more trouble."Ravyn wondered what her father knew. What information he'd gathered about Dante, what leverage he thought he could use to control this situation. Did he know about Miles's blackmail? About the photos? About the pressure Dante was under from his own family?"Everyone has complications," Ravyn said carefully. "That's life. I'm not looking for perfection. I'm looking







