The Real Heiress Is Coming Back (Hannah Carter) novel Chapter 146

Chapter 146

Raven: [What’s going on?]

Piggy: [Whoa, legend! You’re finally online!]

Piggy: [Any longer and I’d have thought you got nabbed.]

Then he dropped a link to a hacker forum post. The headline screamed: [Satellite VER-224 Hacked, Veridia is now after the infamous hacker ‘Raven’ via Interpol.]

Piggy: [Seriously, what made you hack their satellite out of nowhere?]

Hannah tapped the link, skimmed the post, and then started typing.

Raven: [Oh, that? It was urgent. I just needed to borrow their satellite for a quick photo.]

Piggy: [Why don’t you just fly to moon and hang out with the sun while you’re at it?]

Piggy: [Just here for the gossip, honestly. Rumor has it another hacker broke into VER-224 too, but their handle didn’t get exposed, lucky them. You, on the other hand, got busted. Maybe take a page from their book.]

Piggy: [And seriously, lay low for a while. Keep your head down.]

Raven: [Alright. I’m logging off.]

Hannah saw the crazy number of views and comments on the post and felt a headache coming on. With all this hype, she wondered if Shadow had seen it yet. Maybe she should apologize before he found out himself.

She closed the chat and clicked on Shadow’s icon. Their last conversation was still the one where he’d sent her Gemma’s info, and he hadn’t bothered to reply since then.

She sent over a kneeling meme with the caption “Sorry, my bad,” but still got no response.

He probably hasn’t even logged on yet and has no idea what’s happened.

Just then, Piggy messaged again.

Piggy: [Wait, one more thing. Remember Lauren, the Baker family’s heiress? She wants you to help recover the data from a phone memory card. You in?]

‘Seriously…?’ Hannah was shocked.

‘Is she really asking me to do something this basic?’

Raven: [Why don’t you just take the job yourself? Wouldn’t you love the cash in your own pocket?]

Piggy: [Hell yeah! I already had her plug the card into her computer and tried to recover it remotely, but no dice. That card’s been encrypted so hard, it’s set to never be recovered.]

Piggy: [She looks super anxious. Told me I could name any price. She’s already tried a bunch of people, but nobody could crack it.]

Piggy: [It’s been three days, and she still hasn’t put up a reward on the forum. Whatever’s on that card must be even more hush-hush than the last time the Bakers got hacked.]

Raven: [When did she reach out to you?]

Piggy: [Let me check the logs… December 26th, 7 PM.]

Hannah glanced at the timestamp. That morning, Lauren had stormed off after seeing her, and by 7 PM, Hannah had already vanished into the mountains. Lauren didn’t come back, she went looking for someone to crack her data instead.

She suddenly remembered Yvette’s email about something buried under a tree. Her eyes narrowed, fingers itching to move.

Raven: [Alright, I’m in, but I’m not doing this remotely. Have her mail the card to you, and just hit me up when it gets there. I’ll drop by.]

Piggy: [Got it.]

While Piggy was still typing, the bathroom door suddenly opened. Hannah quickly switched her WhatsApp back to her personal account.

Barnaby stood in the doorway, undoing his cuff with one hand and rolling up his sleeve, showing off his slender forearm.

“Do you want a bath or just a wipe-down?” he asked.

With that question and the way he moved, Hannah felt like he was a parent about to give a kid a bath.

She’d been asleep for three days and was dying to move around. “A bath,” she said.

She’d just tossed off the covers and was about to get up when Barnaby strode over and swept her up in his

arms.

Hannah internally freaked out, struggling to get down. “What are you doing? Put me down!”

Barnaby scooped her up and headed for the bathroom. “You’re still sick. I’m carrying you over.”

“My legs are fine. I can walk by myself,” Hannah protested.

“Come on, you took care of me when I was hurt. Now it’s my turn to take care of you,” Barnaby said.

“Yeah, but you never let me help you take a bath when you were the one injured,” Hannah shot back.

Barnaby paused, his dark, intense eyes fixed on her.

That’s when Hannah realized, she’d really just said that out loud.

But thinking back, he honestly hadn’t let her help him with that before.

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Now that she reconsidered, was he already trying to hint at something back then?

Barnaby saw her frown and dropped his voice. “Didn’t know you cared that much.”

He flashed back to that time at the hot springs: she had leaned in close, and he had pushed her away. She must have taken it the wrong way, and even though she never brought it up, she clearly had never let it go.

‘Does she even get that I’m a normal guy? I can’t take her teasing forever, Barnaby thought.

‘But if I shut her down again, she might freeze me out for real,’ he worried.

After weighing it for a moment, Barnaby smirked, “So you wanna help me bathe? Why not make it a joint bath tonight?”

Hannah was at a loss for words.

‘Who said I wanted to help him bathe? And who wants to share a bath with him?!’ Hannah’s mind was spinning.

“Pervert!” Her ears burned as she shoved him away, darted into the bathroom, and slammed the door behind her.

Barnaby just stared at the closed door, totally at a loss.

‘Wait, wasn’t that what she wanted?’ he wondered.

He was more lost than ever when it came to figuring her out.

*****

Brynlock, in some sketchy back alley, sat a beat-up motel that looked like it hadn’t seen better days in years.

Inside the single room, the curtains were pulled tight, barely letting any light in. A busted old bulb gave off a sickly yellow glow.

The bed was tiny, maybe five feet long, with sheets and covers so faded they looked almost gray, and the whole place reeked of dampness.

Lauren huddled in one corner of the bed, clutching her phone. Her eyes were blank, and the tracks of dried tears still marked her face.

Just then, her phone screen lit up with a WhatsApp notification. She tapped it open.

Piggy: [Raven’s in. Send the card to this address.]

Lauren’s empty eyes suddenly sparkled with hope.

Seeing the address was in Brynlock, she shot back: [Can I hand it over in person? Maybe get a peek at how you guys do things?]

Piggy: [Nope.]

Lauren hesitated for a while. The cops were hunting her down, and Gemma was talking a good game about protecting her, but Lauren just didn’t trust her.

This memory card was her last hope. She had no idea what was on it, but knowing Gemma, if she went out of her way to erase the data and even tampered with it herself, whatever got deleted had to be a big deal.

If she handed it over and couldn’t get it back, she’d end up taking the blame for Gemma, and that’d be game over for her.

But if she didn’t hand it over, there’d be zero hope left. If the cops caught her, she’d be done for anyway.

She couldn’t keep running like this forever. Just three days on the run and she was already at her breaking point. She didn’t want to spend her whole life hiding, holed up in these sketchy motels.

Lauren: [Alright, but you have to promise to keep this secret!]

Lauren: [Seriously, this has to stay between the three of us. No matter what, not a word to anyone, especially not the Baker family.]

Piggy: [Relax, we keep things strictly confidential. Your secret’s safe with us.]

Lauren made up her mind: [Alright.]

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