SWNOVELS Chapter 3
Chapter 3 You Scumbag
Edith, with her two children in tow, rushed out of the airport’s main gate. Then she immediately saw her best friend Bonnie Ramirez was already waiting at the roadside with her car parked.
Bonnie hurried over when she saw them and squatted down to embrace the two kids, one in each arm. “I’ve missed you two so much!”
Ruben was momentarily stunned and took a while to react. Then he looked up and recognized Bonnie, their godmother. He didn’t struggle.
With a beaming smile, Jeanne puckered her lips and kissed Bonnie’s cheek.
“Bonnie, I missed you too.”
Bonnie, utterly charmed by Jeanne’s sweet voice, laughed heartily. “Edie, your kids are just too adorable! I really want to have two kids as cute as them.”
Just after loading the luggage into the trunk, Edith heard this and was a bit speechless, tugging at Bonnie’s clothes. “Let’s go. I just saw Gideon.”
Bonnie was immediately startled.
Once all of them settled in the car, Bonnie asked, “What happened? Did Gideon see Ruben?”
Bonnie thought to herself, ‘If Gideon saw Ruben, it’s all over. Ruben looks so much like Gideon!’
Edith nodded with a complex expression. “He saw him but didn’t seem to recognize him.”
“Good thing Ruben was wearing sunglasses,” Bonnie sighed with relief, then immediately remembered something, and hesitated to say, “Edie.”
“What?”
“After you left, Gideon has been looking for you.”
Edith was momentarily taken aback, then looked away out the window, and the scenery swiftly passed by. After a while, she finally said slowly, “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
In the back seat, the two children sat close together.
Ruben frowned tightly when he heard them mentioning Gideon.
He took out his laptop from his backpack and began typing rapidly on the keyboard.
Sitting beside him, Jeanne watched his flurry of activity, even getting a little dizzy. She eventually gave up looking at him and asked, “Ruben, what are you doing?”
Ruben didn’t answer, his eyes fixed on the screen in disbelief.
Jeanne craned her neck, took a glance, and softly said, “This is that strange man we just saw, isn’t it?”
After watching for a while, Jeanne, biting her finger, looked puzzled. “How come he looks so much like you, Ruben?”
Ruben turned to look at Jeanne seriously, his voice low enough for just the two of them to hear. “He’s our father.”
Jeanne was shocked.
“How handsome our daddy is!”
Ruben was speechless, looking disdainfully at Jeanne, who was obsessed with Gideon’s handsome face.
He was just thinking, ‘Dad has abandoned Mom and us. He’s a bad guy.’
He was angry at the thought, biting his lower lip. His cheeks flushed red, and he suddenly remembered a funny video Jeanne had shown him when Jeanne laughed breathlessly. Then he quickly typed a few more times on the keyboard.
Meanwhile, inside a Rolls-Royce, Gideon, with an indifferent look on his charming face and a pair of attractive eyes, was busily handling work on his computer with his head down.
He sat with his leg casually crossed, thoughtfully turning the watch on his wrist.
Just then, his phone rang. He answered the call and heard his assistant speak seriously. “Mr. Peterson, our company’s computers have been hacked. The tech department can’t fix it or track the hacker’s IP.”
Gideon’s face darkened. He said, “I see.”
He logged into the company system, but his computer screen went black as soon as he accessed it.
He frowned slightly, a coldness in his eyes.
As he touched the keyboard with his slender fingers to take action, the computer suddenly lit up with a white light.
A few words appeared clearly on the screen.
[You Scumbag! Go Away! Go Away! Go Away!]
Gideon was expressionless.
He thought, ‘Maybe this isn’t a hack’s doing. It’s more like a virus.’
His muscles twitched at the corner of his mouth, and he swiftly began to operate his computer.
Soon, he traced the hacker’s IP address.
But he realized at one glance that the IP was a fake one.
Still, he sent a punctuation mark in response: [?]
The reply came quickly: [You scumbag!]
The message was followed by an emoji of two pink pigs wiggling their butts.
Gideon was speechless.
He thought, ‘Is this a prank? Maybe it was sent to me by mistake.’
With an expressionless face, he snapped the laptop shut.
After sending the message, Ruben turned in surprise to see Jeanne clicking the emoji twice.
Jeanne giggled, “Ruben, those two little pigs are so cute!”