Chapter 490 Charles Officially Strikes
Charles rounded up a few buddies from the crew; he was dead set on getting Aaron outta Philly and making sure he never messed with Susanna's life in Lindwell again.
Charles tracked Aaron down using his phone signal. Dude was chilling at a hotel.
With a serious look, Charles said coolly, "Hack into the hotel's system and find out which room he's in, like, right now."
Someone on the call chimed in, "Did this guy piss you off? What's the plan for dealing with him?"
"Yeah, he did. But hold your horses. Wait for my signal before doing anything"
Meanwhile, Aaron was back at the hotel, and his secretary handed him a glass of water. "Mr. Abbott, you wanna hit the hospital?"
"Nah, I'm good."
Aaron leaned back on the couch, rubbing his temples. "Get someone to check out that research institute, pronto. I need the info ASAP."
Just then, Sam strolled out of the bathroom and looked at Aaron. "What research institute? How'd your chat with Susanna go at the charity gala?"
Aaron took a sip of warm water. "Our hunch was right. It wasn't Lillian who was sick, but another kid."
Sam was floored, plopping down on the couch and slapping his thigh. "See, no way that's just a fluke! Susanna gets back in touch, and suddenly Lillian's sick and needs bone marrow, and your bone marrow's a perfect match? This has gotta be Susanna's doing!"
Back then, he couldn't piece it together and was just guessing.
Aaron's face was a mix of emotions, and he stayed quiet.
Sam glanced over. "So, you know you got another kid. That's good news, right? Why the long face? Is the kid not yours?"
Aaron shot him a cold look. "The kid was born not breathing and almost didn't make it."
Sam's casual demeanor vanished. "What happened next? Didn't the kid get your bone marrow? Should be fine now, right?"
"Right now, the kid seems stable. But I still don't know what illness they had. That's why I sent someone to dig into it."
"Susanna didn't tell you what the kid's illness was?"
Aaron sighed. "She doesn't want me near the kid now and hasn't told me what the illness was. Plus, I don't have the guts to keep asking. I owe them big time. If I'd been there back then, things might've been different."
If he hadn't asked for a divorce back then, and if he'd been with Susanna when she had a premature birth, maybe none of this would've happened.
Sam paused. "Back then, Clementine fell down the stairs outta nowhere and was in bad shape. You couldn't be in two places at once. When you had the chance, didn't you go to the hospital to find Susanna first thing? But by then, she was already gone, and we were told she died in childbirth. We didn't even get to see her body."
Aaron thought back to what went down four years ago and went quiet.
Sam looked up. "Honestly, man, you didn't have much of a choice back then."
Aaron set down his glass. "But in the end, it's still on me."
"So, what's the game plan?"
"I don't have one yet, but no matter what, I'm gonna make it up to her and the kids."
Aaron checked his watch. "Do I have an international meeting coming up?"
The secretary nodded. "Yeah, you do. But Mr. Abbott, you look like crap. How about we push it to tomorrow? You need some rest."
"No need. Set it up now."
The secretary hesitated, glancing at Sam, hoping he'd talk Aaron out of it.
But Sam just sighed and shook his head. He got it—Aaron's headspace was a mess. If he took a break, he'd just dwell on the past. Better to dive into work and keep his mind busy.
Soon, Aaron was at his desk, firing up his computer.
Everything was set.
But as the meeting kicked off, Aaron noticed there was no sound on the video call.
The secretary was sweating bullets. "I'll get someone to fix it right away. Hang tight."
But soon, not only was the sound gone, but the participants' cameras started going dark one by one. Then, a masked clown popped up on the screen.
Aaron stared at the clown masks on his computer and figured someone had hacked the system.
Could it be someone from the Jones family?
The secretary wiped the sweat off his forehead. "I've already called IT. They'll sort it out soon."
Aaron glanced at the clown avatars on the screen, and one of them flashed a mocking grin.
A line of text appeared: [Catch me if you can.]
Seeing this, Aaron's face turned icy. The next second, he placed his hands on the keyboard, and his fingers flew over the keys, spitting out lines of code on the screen.
Sam walked over and looked at the screen. "Aaron, a hacker's messing with your computer. Could it be someone from the Jones family? I heard Arthur from the Jones family is a hacking whiz."
After all, the Jones family had even sent hitmen, so sending a hacker wasn't a stretch.
"No, the Jones family isn't this childish."
If it were really Arthur, he'd probably go straight for the kill, crashing his system and making it unusable.
He wouldn't hang clown masks to mess with him.
So the hacker couldn't be Arthur. This familiar yet childish taunt felt oddly familiar.
Aaron quickly set up a firewall and started a counter-trace.
But the attack was way stronger than last time. His new firewall got breached pretty fast, though the hacker hadn't cracked it completely yet.
Sam glanced at the screen. "This hacker's pretty good, holding their own against you."
Aaron raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, they've leveled up since last time."
