Chapter 9: The Blackmail
Chapter 9: The Blackmail
Leo was absolutely terrified of going to a federal penitentiary as an accessory to attempted murder, but as he sat in his dim, claustrophobic apartment staring at his severely overdrawn bank account, he suddenly saw a twisted, life-changing financial opportunity. Operating through a heavily encrypted virtual private network and a disposable burner phone application he had downloaded specifically for this moment, Leo began to type. His hands were shaking so violently he had to backspace three times to correct his spelling. He attached a single, low-resolution, heavily watermarked screenshot from the 4K footage—a frame showing a zoomed-in, unmistakable silhouette of Tyler’s hand holding the multi-tool near the safety rigging.
He sent the anonymous, untraceable text message directly to Tyler’s personal, unlisted phone number.
I saw the raw terrace footage from camera three. I enhanced the shadows. I know you cut the high-tension wire, Tyler. $50,000 in untraceable Monero cryptocurrency transferred by midnight tonight to the attached wallet address, or the unedited master hard drive goes straight to the homicide detectives downtown.
May you like
Across town, Tyler was still sitting in his luxury SUV in the hospital parking garage, aggressively refreshing his analytics page and basking in the euphoric glow of his skyrocketing engagement metrics. When the text message chimed, breaking his concentration, he swiped down to read it.
The blood completely and instantly drained from his face, leaving his complexion a ghastly, sickly pale in the harsh glow of the dashboard lights. His pulse pounded deafeningly in his ears, completely drowning out the ambient hum of the parking structure. He was practically bankrupt, living entirely on a terrifying mountain of maxed-out credit cards to maintain the illusion of wealth; he couldn't possibly afford to pay a fifty-thousand-dollar blackmail sum. But he certainly couldn't afford to go to a maximum-security prison, where his influencer status would mean absolutely nothing. The realization hit him with chilling, purely sociopathic clarity. He didn't see Leo as a human being with a life; he saw him as a critical bug in his master plan. He needed to silence his editor permanently before the midnight deadline, and he needed to make it look like a tragic mugging gone wrong.
