The Ex-con Queen Strikes Back novel Chapter 22

Chapter 22

“And this,” she added, scooping more. “You’ve been working too hard. You’re getting too thin eat up?

Skylar’s plate looked like a mountain. She laughed, grabbing her mom’s hand. “Mom, stop, I can’t eat all this?”

“It’s hardly anything!” Yana said, frowning. “Look at you, so skinny. You need to eat to keep your energy up for work.”

She added a big pile of braised short ribs.

Skylar shot her dad a desperate look, begging for backup.

Carlos tugged at his wife’s arm, fake–pouting. “Hey, don’t just spoil Skylar. Show me and Freya some love, too.”

Yana laughed, sliding a lamb chop onto Carlos’s and Freya’s plates. “Grown man acting like a jealous kid. Eat up already”

Freya glanced at Skylar’s plate, stacked high like a buffet, and barely stopped herself from tossing her fork and storming off

Before Skylar came along, Freya’s plate was always loaded. Now? Just one lousy chop.

Yana was acting like she only had one daughter.

Panic hit Freya hard, sharp and urgent.

She had to move–fast. Skylar’s connection with the Lamberts was still new. If Freya played it smart, she could shove her out before those bonds got stronger.

The table went quiet, everyone wrapped up in their own plans as they ate.

Back in her room, Skylar stepped out of the shower, her wet hair sticking to her shoulders. Her eyes hit her laptop, and the day’s frustrations came rushing back.

She dropped into the chair at her desk, fingers racing across the keyboard. Lines of code flowed out, clean and deadly.

With a final tap, she hit enter, and the program kicked into gear.

At Campbell Group’s headquarters, the late–night quiet broke as alarms screamed.

“Warning! Someone’s attacking the firewall!” a tech yelled, voice cracking. “It’s going down!”

Programmers pounded their keyboards, screens flashing with desperate commands, but the attack tore through unchecked.

Yosef, still in his office, got the call and bolted to the server room.

He pushed a programmer out of the way, slid into the chair, and started typing, his fingers flying as he tried to patch the defenses.

Skylar smirked from her room, propping her chin on one hand. “Think you can stop me? That’s cute.”

She leaned back, watching the chaos unfold.

If she wasn’t sleeping easy tonight, neither would Yosef.

The firewall crumbled, ripped apart like paper.

Yosef froze for a split second, then shifted gears, writing code to track the attacker’s location.

Skylar spotted his move and threw up her own firewall, blocking his trace.

1/2

Chapter 22

But she was half a second late.

Yosef caught the location before it disappeared, burning it into his mind. “The Lambert estate…

He ran through the options. He had no issues with the Lamberts, no reason for them to target him like this.

Yet the trace led right to their door.

“Hudson,” he snapped into his phone. “Find

out

what’s been going on with the Lambert family lately”

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