Chapter 4 - The Ransom
Skylar stared at the glowing screen of her phone, her entire body trembling with a mixture of pure terror and blinding rage.
Derek stepped into the frame of the video, casually pouring a fresh cup of steaming coffee while standing right behind her terrified mother.
He looked directly into the camera lens and smiled that charming, psychopathic smile that had fooled her for three entire years.
He sent a follow-up text demanding that she bring the hard drives to the abandoned shipyard on the edge of town in exactly one hour.
If she involved the police, the FBI, or her expensive lawyer, he promised her mother would suffer a horrific, agonizing fate.
Marcus grabbed Skylar by the shoulders, urging her not to negotiate with a desperate, cornered criminal.
He insisted that they needed to call a SWAT team to raid her mother's house before Derek could follow through on his violent threats.
Skylar shook her head frantically, knowing perfectly well that Derek was arrogant enough to execute her mother just to prove a point.
She shoved the external hard drives back into her purse and wiped the freezing rain from her blistering cheek.
She told Marcus to track her phone's GPS location and only call the authorities if her signal completely vanished.
Skylar stole Marcus’s sleek black sedan from the underground parking garage and sped recklessly through the dark, flooded streets of Miami.
The abandoned shipyard loomed in the distance, a decaying maze of rusted shipping containers and broken industrial cranes.
She parked the car near the entrance, stepping out into the torrential downpour with her purse clutched tightly to her chest.
The area was eerily silent, save for the rhythmic crashing of the ocean waves against the rotting wooden docks.
A single, blinding spotlight suddenly flicked on from the top of a rusted crane, illuminating a small clearing in the containers.
Derek was standing in the center of the bright light, holding a heavy steel crowbar in his right hand.
He commanded her to throw the purse onto the wet concrete and walk away if she ever wanted to see her mother alive again.
Skylar slowly unzipped the bag, pretending to reach for the drives, while actually gripping the heavy stun gun Marcus had given her.
She demanded to speak to her mother on the phone before she handed over a single piece of evidence.
Derek laughed loudly, a cruel, mocking sound that echoed terribly across the empty shipyard.
He pressed a button on a remote control, and the heavy metal doors of the shipping container behind him slowly groaned open.
May you like
Skylar gasped in absolute horror when the interior lights flickered on, revealing what was hidden inside the metal box.
It was not her mother sitting in the chair, but rather Derek's own sister, Suzanne, bound and gagged with severe bruising across her face.
