Chapter 887
Chapter 887:
Then, at last, a buried headline surfaced—an obscure news blurb almost lost to time. It mentioned a shipping company that once used “P” prefixes for its vessels before scrapping the system altogether. No reason given.
Her heart gave a jolt. Could P73X be one of those ships?
Her pulse quickened as she dug deeper, only to hit wall after wall—locked databases, restricted files. With no other option, she compiled her findings and fired them off to Sharon. If anyone could break through, it was her. Sharon knew some skilled hackers who could likely help.
It was barely 5:40 a.m. Stella expected Sharon to be asleep, but a reply came back instantly. Hours later, another message arrived.
“Check your email. My guy found something. This is bigger than we thought. Be careful.”
Stella opened the attachment, her eyes scanning the decrypted report. Over a decade ago, before its takeover by the Briggs Group, the shipping company had operated a cargo vessel with the code P73X.
Her stomach tightened. Right before the acquisition—around the exact time of her adoptive parents’ accident—the ship had sailed from Choria to Cheralia. And during that voyage, it had veered off course multiple times, making brief, undocumented stops that never appeared in official logs.
Stella’s lips pressed into a thin line as she read on. Not long after the Briggs Group acquired the company, P73X had been quietly scrapped, labeled “outdated.” Its records were wiped clean, erased so thoroughly that they had been almost impossible to find.
Her thoughts raced back to William’s warning: Alonzo had ties to operations overseas. This ship had to be connected to Alonzo’s operations.
A cargo ship was the perfect cover—capable of carrying contraband unnoticed across borders.
And Marc’s words echoed, chilling her blood. Her adoptive parents had died because they’d witnessed something they weren’t meant to see.
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Her jaw tightened. There was no doubt now. That ship wasn’t just a lead. It was a smoking gun.
The discovery sent a tremor through Stella’s fingers. Though she still didn’t have the full picture of what had happened all those years ago, she was closer than ever. She could feel it.
She quickly scribbled the lead down, her excitement mounting. There had to be more traces online. Something this significant couldn’t have disappeared without leaving a trace.
But just as she clicked to dig deeper into the ship’s records, her laptop screen went black.
A blood-red skull icon flashed incessantly before her eyes, accompanied by a warning: “Warning: Unauthorized access detected. System will self-destruct.”
Stella’s breath hitched. She realized the earlier webpage had been a trap.
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