Chapter 16 - The Digital Counter-Strike
"Hold on!" Cole yelled, slamming his foot on the accelerator as the truck slid sideways through the drift at the entrance gates.
He corrected the drift with expert precision, slamming the truck into park right beside the flagstone steps. Smoke was pouring from the ground-level windows of the master garage.
Cole grabbed the large chemical fire extinguisher from his truck bed and charged toward the garage. I followed right behind him, pulling my scarf over my nose and mouth.
Inside the garage, an old work bench was engulfed in flames. A trail of kerosene had been poured across the concrete floor, leading toward the central support timbers, but the flame had snuffed out at an insulated fire barrier I had insisted on installing during construction.
"I’ve got the bench!" Cole shouted, pulling the pin on the extinguisher and blanketing the flames in thick, suffocating white foam.
I grabbed the heavy wool utility blankets from the wall, beating down the remnants of the fire along the wall studs until the hissing died out and only acrid, stinging smoke remained.
We collapsed against the stone wall, coughing, our faces smeared with black soot, but breathing.
The house was standing. The fire barrier had done its job. The fire was out.
From the shadow behind the garden shed, a figure darted out into the snow, tripping over their own snowshoes.
"Get him!" Cole choked out, scrambling to his feet.
We cornered the arsonist against the high rock retaining wall. Cole lunged, tackling him face-first into the snow and twisting the crowbar out of his hand.
When Cole ripped off the ski mask, it wasn't a hired Denver thug.
It was Tyler—Olivia’s influencer fiancé, his teeth chattering uncontrollably, his designer jacket soaked in kerosene and melted snow.
"Don't hurt me! Don't hurt me!" Tyler shrieked, sobbing hysterically. "Olivia said if we burned the west wing, the insurance adjuster would rule it an accidental electrical fire from the generator! She said we’d get two million from the policy!"
"You tried to burn my home down, you sniveling coward!" I yelled, my voice raw from smoke and fury.
Just then, Sarah ran down the steps from the main house, holding her tablet high in the air.
"Becca! Look!" she cried out.
Sarah had kept the live stream connected. When Olivia uploaded her smear video the night before, Sarah’s tech team in Denver had managed to counter-stream the security feeds directly to a mirrored server.
"I didn't turn off the exterior cameras when we left for town," Sarah breathed, showing me the screen. "Tyler... the whole thing. The live feed has been broadcasting to half a million people for the last twenty minutes. Every word he said, every match he struck—it was streamed straight to TikTok, Instagram, and the Denver news desk."
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Tyler looked up from the snow, his eyes wide with horror as he realized his life, his career, and his freedom were gone forever.
***
