Page 17 of A Cursed Heart

“Ryan, please. Since I’m being blackmailed into being here, the least you could do is use my first name.”

Salvatore laughed. “Quite. You may call me Sloane if you like. This is about business, so there is no need to use my other moniker.”

“Alright, Sloane. What is it you want me to do?”

He gestured to the comfortable seat on the other side of the desk from him. “If you remember our last conversation, you’ll remember that I did some digging into you.”

Yeah, he had searched me and found it, giving him a reason to use me. Otherwise, I’d be paying him off in other ways. I dreaded to think how I’d find a million.

“There’s a file with the FBI from when you were seventeen…”

“So? You know I wasn’t charged with anything. I’ve got a clean record.”

“And you know that hacking is a pretty serious crime. You were lucky to get away like you did. I imagine they thought you’d be more useful out here, where they can use you.” His smirk grated on my nerves. He was acting as if what I’d done was anything as serious as the many crimes he had committed.

“Like you want to do. You want me to hack again.”

“Perceptive.”

“Look, I messed around with it when I was a kid. Got caught. Took a warning. Haven’t done anything since. I think you’ve got the wrong impression of me, Mr. Salvatore. I’m a software developer, not a hacker. All that’s in my past. Now I just want to do my job and look after my kid.”

Nice work. Mal’s voice in my head was soothing to the edges of my anger. I couldn’t afford to lash out and make a mistake.

“Unfortunately for you, there is proof of much more serious crimes you have committed. Now, you wouldn’t necessarily get charged with murder because you didn’t force them to take the drugs—”

“Alright, what do you want me to do?”

“There is a mole in my organization. I require your help in figuring out who. This means you will gain access to some of my company’s files.

They are working with my competitors, so I also need you to break into their databases and extract some insider information they have about my companies.

If you happen to find other privileged information, that would speed up the timeline for repaying your debt. ”

By competitors, I bet he meant the private investigator firm masquerading as a business to get close enough to take him down and all the other similar companies circling his business like sharks with blood in the water.

“I can do that. It might take a few nights of work for some of them, depending on their security. I’ve got my job and kid during the day, I can’t lose my income or have my daughter miss me this soon after losing her mom. Besides, these things take time. I’ve got to build the backdoor—”

“Save me the technical jargon. You can have the time you need. I expect you to bring yourself here every evening at eight to work on this.”

“Why eight?”

“The rest of my employees will be gone then, and I won’t have to explain why you are here or listen to rumors of what you are doing.”

“When do you want me to start?”

“Now, if you would like.” He stood. “Oh, Ryan, there is another matter I would like you to look into. My technical team is stumped.”

“Oh-kay? What?”

“Someone broke into my office the other night and stole something precious to me. Could you try to fix the security feed? It was fried during the theft.”

Act normally. He might suspect, yet he has no proof it was you, or he would not be testing you like this, Mal coached me. You’re doing well.

“Um, security feeds aren’t usually what I do. I can try, but if your team can’t get it, I don’t think I’ll be able to.”

Sloane studied me. “Very well. I would appreciate you making an attempt.”

Over the next few hours, Sloane watched my every movement while I played with the broken feed. I could only assume that when my blood broke Mal out of the gem, it fried everything because it was totally dead. Everything since their last backup an hour before I entered the building.

Still, I put on the performance of my life trying to fix it. I even added in some choice curse words until my pretend frustration got the better of me and Sloane’s nerves, and he set me on my other task.

The first database had pathetic encryption.

I could have broken it in my sleep. My acting skills came into play once more.

I opened my program, making it look like it was a tool to get into the competitor while I siphoned off files to my phone.

It was all written in code, so unless Salvatore was a hidden code genius, who wouldn’t have needed me in the first place, then I was safe.

I was determined not to break into any of his competitors or the company trying to take him down.

The less crimes I had to hide, the better.

If I could pretend to be rusty or just incapable, all while copying pretty much everything Salvatore had onto my phone, then I’d be free and clear in about a week.

Decrypting the files on my own computer would take the longest unless Mal could help me with magic.

I can try. Mal’s voice was the only thing that got me through it all. You should be proud of yourself. Your acting was impressive.

I didn’t take a full breath until I was in the elevator heading up to my apartment. My limbs felt heavy, my mind jittery from all the stress.

When I opened the door, he was there, his arms waiting for me. I collapsed into him.

“Not sure I can do this,” I whispered, exhausted.

“You can, Ryan. And I’ll be by your side every step of the way.”