Too Late to Hold Me Back novel Chapter 420

Mara was roughly dragged out of the café and tossed into the back of an SUV by Ethan's security team. The second the doors slammed shut, Ethan—who had always been the warm, indulgent older brother—backhanded her across the face, hard.

"You are a goddamn parasite. You came back to this family just to destroy us," he snarled.

He had tolerated a lot of her behavior, but selling out the family business and actively sabotaging his empire was an unforgivable line in the sand.

The slap left Mara's ears ringing and her vision blurring with stars. It felt like her skull had cracked.

But the girl who usually cried on command to get her way didn't dare make a sound.

Without Mr. and Mrs. Mercer there to shield her, she knew that opening her mouth would just earn her another brutal strike—and she was genuinely terrified he might kill her.

...

A short while later, Lenny Forbes sent Mira a brief message: "It's done, boss."

Mira opened the online forums and scrolled through the absolute bloodbath in the comment sections.

"Oh my god, Roxanne acts like this polished aristocrat, but she is absolute scum."

"I thought she was just a serial cheater, but she's a literal corporate thief."

"Trash attracts trash. Roxanne and Mara are a match made in hell."

"Honestly, Roxanne is just a highly evolved version of Mara. No, she's a professional manipulator."

"Porter Entertainment won the bid, but it's completely illegitimate."

"Stealing someone else's work just proves their company has zero actual talent."

"If they're relying on thieves to run their projects, I would never trust a building they construct. The Hudson Metro Hub is going to be a death trap."

"We need to demand the government reopen the bidding!"

"Boycott Porter real estate! Don't buy anything they build!"

...

The photo leak had been a localized strike against Roxanne's personal reputation.

But this café ambush had escalated the damage, plunging the entirety of Porter Entertainment into a fatal crisis of public trust.

Shane Porter's son was still a child, and they were grooming Roxanne to inherit the empire.

Earlier that day, Roxanne had been reviewing contracts when she received a text from Mara: *I have massive intel. Need to see you in person immediately.*

As a seasoned executive, Roxanne knew the golden rule of espionage: never meet a mole face-to-face.

But she went anyway, blinded by the fact that Mara had just flawlessly delivered Ethan's entire bid. She thought Mara was completely under their control.

If someone else had used Mara's name to set the meeting, it meant they had completely compromised Mara's phone.

And if Ethan possessed that kind of cyber capability, his files wouldn't have been stolen in the first place.

That was why she had gone.

But the terrifying truth was finally dawning on her. The unseen enemy hadn't just hacked Mara's phone—they had hacked hers, too.

How else could they have sent a message to Mara using Roxanne's private number to coordinate the ambush?

For the first time since returning to the country, Roxanne felt a suffocating wave of pure terror. She was up against a predator she couldn't even see.