Chapter 886

Chapter 886:
The pressure bit into his fingers until they throbbed, though the ache was nothing compared to the restless unease gnawing at his heart. Calling her now, demanding answers, would only betray suspicion. It would drive a wedge between them when their fragile closeness had just begun to return.
And then there was Amon—playing the hero. William knew it had to be deliberate, meant to draw a reaction from him. If he lashed out in the heat of the moment, he would give Amon exactly what he wanted, accomplishing nothing else.
William shut his eyes, forcing his emotions deep beneath the surface. When he opened them again, his gaze held only cold determination. He brushed the wrinkles from his suit jacket, straightened his frame, and stepped back into the study.
Dexter’s emergency hospital visit had left him confined to his bedroom, and the Briggs family’s balance was already shifting under the weight of his sudden collapse. William couldn’t afford a distraction now.
Yet the matter was far from settled. William would get to the bottom of Dexter’s sudden illness, no matter what it took.
Stella shut the door behind her with a decisive click, sliding the lock into place. The silence of her apartment pressed in as she drifted to her bedroom, her mind looping through the day’s chaos on repeat. Something wasn’t right. Too many accidents, too many near-misses—none of it felt random anymore. Why was she suddenly being targeted over and over? Was Nina sending people to harass her again, or had Alonzo’s shadow network finally decided it was time to silence her for good? Or worse—was Amon behind it all?
Every time danger closed in, he appeared right on cue. It couldn’t be chance, not every single time. And yet… when she remembered the way his eyes had looked while pulling her out of harm’s way, the raw sincerity in them—it seemed too genuine to fake.
Stella exhaled hard and shook her head. She couldn’t afford to spiral like this. Sitting still was no longer an option. Whoever was behind the attacks was getting bolder, and next time, she might not be lucky enough for Amon—or anyone—to intervene.
Decisively, she pulled out her laptop, her posture straightening as her focus sharpened. One by one, she opened every file tied to her adoptive parents’ car accident. Her gaze hardened; she would dig out Alonzo’s network herself, piece by piece, before they struck again.
Halfway through a stack of archives, her eyes snagged on a fragment—the pattern and the string of code on the restored film reel. She only half-remembered it, but she was certain it began with P73X and ended with numbers.
Her instincts hummed. That code had to mean something.
Stella scoured public and semi-public forums, typing it into every search field she could find. Nothing. Whoever had created the code had buried it deep, well out of reach.
Hours slipped past unnoticed. By the time dawn lightened the sky outside her window, she realized she’d been glued to the laptop all night.
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