Chapter 3 - The First Strike
The next morning, the Kensingtons made their first public move.
They released a statement to the press claiming Maya was suffering from severe mental illness.
They painted themselves as a loving, concerned family trying to help a delusional woman.
Arthur even went on a morning news show, looking perfectly groomed and deeply sympathetic.
"We just want Maya to come home and get the psychiatric help she desperately needs," Arthur lied to the camera.
I watched the broadcast from the safehouse kitchen, drinking a black coffee.
Maya walked in, her face pale as she heard her brother-in-law's voice on the television.
"They are going to make everyone believe I'm crazy," she whispered, tears welling in her eyes.
"No, they aren't," I promised her.
"They just gave me the opening I needed."
I opened my laptop and contacted a federal investigative journalist who owed me a favor.
I sent him an anonymous, untraceable file containing fifty pages of Connor's private text messages.
The messages explicitly detailed Connor bragging about hurting Maya to his friends.
They also contained receipts of the hush-money payments he made to other victims.
By noon, the journalist published the article on a major national news platform.
The headline was explosive.
The local Virginia news stations immediately dropped Arthur's sympathetic interview.
Instead, they began broadcasting the leaked texts, completely destroying Connor's public image.
My phone buzzed with an incoming call from an unknown number.
I answered it and put it on speakerphone.
"You arrogant bitch," Beatrice's voice hissed through the speaker.
"You think a fake news article is going to ruin us?"
"We are already filing a defamation lawsuit, and we will take everything you own."
I smiled, listening to the panic hidden behind her anger.
"It is not defamation if it is true, Beatrice," I replied calmly.
"And I haven't even started on you yet."
"You are out of your league, military trash," she spat.
"Check your stock portfolios," I advised her.
Before she could respond, I hung up the phone.
While she was busy worrying about the news article, I had executed my real strike.
Using anonymous corporate proxies, I had shorted the Kensington family's primary real estate holdings.
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Their stock was currently plummeting by twenty percent.
They were bleeding money, and they couldn't stop it.
