Outcast Queen: Her Return from Hell novel Chapter 90

"Ah—!!"

Vanessa had just reached the bottom of the stairs when she watched helplessly as Phoebe tumbled down. She was frightened out of her wits.

"Phoebe!!" She shrieked, rushing forward and scooping Phoebe into her arms. "Are you okay? Phoebe!"

"Mom, I'm fine..." Phoebe's face was pale from the pain, tears brimming in her eyes, yet she still forced herself to act understanding. "Don't blame Phoenix. It was my own fault for not paying attention. I slipped and fell."

Phoenix stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at the scene with cold detachment, a sneer forming in her mind.

This same clumsy acting again.

Yet, it was exactly this kind of clumsy acting that had made her suffer so terribly four years ago.

When a vase broke, she was framed for it. When Phoebe scratched herself, she claimed Phoenix did it out of jealousy... Back then, Phoenix had pleaded desperately, but it was useless against a few of Phoebe's crocodile tears. All she ever got in return was endless cursing and disgust from her biological parents and brothers.

"Phoenix!!" Vanessa's furious roar sliced through the air.

"How can you be so vicious! You actually pushed Phoebe down the stairs! Even after four years in that place, you still haven't fixed your filthy habit of stabbing people in the back?!"

Phoenix smiled, but the amusement didn't reach her eyes.

"Lawrence, bring Phoebe back up here."

"Yes!"

Without a second of hesitation, Lawrence stepped forward, forcefully hauling Phoebe up and dragging her back up the stairs.

"Lawrence, are you staging a rebellion?! Do you have any respect for me as the lady of this house?!" Vanessa roared anxiously, trying to stop him, but she was absolutely no match for Lawrence's strength.

Phoebe panicked as well, completely unable to guess what Phoenix was planning to do. "Phoenix, I... I..."

"Phoebe, didn't you just say I pushed you down?"

Phoenix clamped a hand down on Phoebe's shoulder and dragged her right to the edge of the stairs. Her bottomless eyes gleamed with a bone-chilling, piercing cold.

"Phoenix, you... you didn't push me..." Phoebe was genuinely terrified now. She could see undisguised madness in Phoenix's eyes.

"No—" A cruel smirk curled on Phoenix's lips. "I did push you."

Before the words had even settled, she shoved Phoebe violently forward!

"Ah—!!"

This time, Phoebe let out a very real, bloodcurdling scream.

She lost her balance in mid-air and tumbled heavily down the stairs.

The first fall had been carefully calculated so she wouldn't sustain any serious injuries.

But this time...

Though she didn't know exactly what Phoebe had sneaked in to do, she was no longer the girl who could be easily schemed against.

Taking her seat, Phoenix finalized the design drafts and hit send, firing them off to Meredith.

Following that, she opened a black terminal window, her fingers flying across the keyboard.

Lines of complex code flashed by before the screen instantly switched to a dark, abyss-like interface.

Endless streams of encrypted data cascaded down the screen like a waterfall. A normal person would get dizzy just looking at it, but in Phoenix's eyes, this was the truest pulse of the cyber world—the dark web.

The old Phoenix had just been a naive girl brought back from the countryside.

But over the last four years, alongside the legendary designer Master Noelle, she had also met the genius hacker who had once breached the Pentagon—King.

Under King's tutelage, her innate talent had been entirely unleashed.

Today, she was the elite hacker known by the alias 'Ghost.'

Phoenix's fingers moved like lightning, scouring the sea of data for any trace of Silas Sterling.

Four years ago, Pierce's mother was killed in a car crash, and all signs pointed to Silas pulling the strings from the shadows. However, Silas was cautious and had left no direct links to the driver, Zora Quinn.

There had to be a missing 'bridge' connecting them.

Who could it be?