Page 8 of A Cursed Heart

Ryan

“What the fuck? How? Who? What the hell, Ryan?” I thought she was going to come out of her skin. Her fear was palpable. “Why aren’t you more panicked about this?” Lydia’s face was the picture of horror.

It wasn’t funny, but somehow I started laughing. Lydia growled at me, making me laugh even harder. After a minute, I finally calmed down enough to speak.

“It’s okay, I’ve got it under control. I’ve got a way out of this.” Rather than feeling terrified, there was a sense of certainty.

“A way out of what?” Lydia came to sit next to me on the sofa. “Ryan, you’re freaking me out.”

Without drawing it out further, I explained being ambushed by Anders and taken to Sloane Salvatore’s offices, then the conversation we had. Her face paled when I told her what he wanted me to do.

“Fuck!”

“Yeah, that about sums it up.” Instead of feeling hopeless like I had earlier, a bunch of ideas swirled around my mind about how I could do this.

Initially, my first instinct had been to run.

I thought I could take Freya, and we could move.

Out from under Salvatore’s influence, we could live a quiet life.

With my knowledge of computers and the contacts I had, I could give us new identities. All I had to do was buy us some time.

I wondered if that was the right thing to do instead of the other plan I’d concocted.

Then I looked at my sister, my best friend, my biggest support, who hadn’t even blinked when I’d admitted what I’d done.

She was still by my side, ready to defend me.

No, that wouldn’t have worked. If Salvatore hadn’t found me, she would have, and her revenge would’ve been worse than anything he could do to me.

“You can’t work for him. It’ll just get you deeper into whatever shit he wants you to be in,” she said anxiously, leaning into me. “He’s blackmailing you. That won’t end well.”

“No. It won’t. For him.” Another plan had already taken shape in my mind, I’d almost dismissed it when I was making dinner.

My knee jerk reaction was always to fight fire with fire, and where had it gotten me?

Except maybe I was the only person who could do this.

I wouldn’t be freeing just myself, but the city, too.

“What’re you going to do?” She turned to face me.

The determined set to her jaw told me all I needed.

Not only did Lydia not blame me for her friend’s death, she was ready to defend me against the city’s biggest threat.

Even better, I knew she’d watch my daughter while I enacted my plan.

Freya’s room had a pull out bed for sleepovers with Auntie, and it was already getting late to be traveling back to her student housing.

By the time I got back from my scouting mission, it could be the early hours of the morning.

“I’m going to destroy Sloane Salvatore.”

“Are you sure?” Lydia was pacing the floor in sock-covered feet while I put all I thought I would need into a backpack. She hadn’t even needed asking to stay overnight to watch Freya while I got the first part of my plan done.

“Absolutely. You’re right. He won’t let me go if I start working for him.

I need to use the chance to get close to him to gain as much information as possible about what he does in the city, what he owns, who he controls, to take him down.

All I need to do is build a solid enough case and take it to a couple of my contacts in the FBI.

” A few of my college buddies took the FBI track and I was still in contact with them.

“There’s no way outsider agencies don’t know about what Salvatore is doing here.

They just need something ironclad to take him down. I can do that.”

Bag done, I set it at my feet and checked on my sister. Just from a glance, I could tell she was struggling with all of this.

“But breaking in? Isn’t that risky?” Her arms were wrapped around her body as if trying to hold herself together, or, more likely, to stop herself from pinning me down so I couldn’t leave.

She could do it, too. Dunno where she got her build from, but she was strong!

Taller than my five-ten at six feet, and slightly wider than me, she wasn’t carrying anything extra, yet she was heavy from all the muscle she had.

Lydia was working towards a sports science degree and loved weightlifting.

If she wanted to stop me, then I’d be cooked.

Lydia would freak if I told her the truth about just how dangerous this was.

Salvatore’s office was no cakewalk. I’d seen all the surveillance he had in there earlier on.

Getting through it would be a nightmare, but I needed to do it before I started working there.

Knowing the type of people involved, I’d be under close watch whenever I was there.

I just wouldn’t get the same level of access unless I went in now.

They had biometrics, cameras, and guards to get around.

Not easy, but possible. I had the tools for the job.

“If I say I’ve done something like this before, will you judge me?” I winced at the look of horror on her face. Maybe I was pushing her too far.

“When? Why?”

I attempted a casual shrug, not really wanting to admit all my secrets in one go. This one I could give her. She would understand why I did it. “College with a couple of friends. We wanted to make sure a rapist got what was coming to him.”

“What the hell did you do?” While she sounded horrified, I could see a glimmer of pride in her brown eyes. The same eyes we shared from our mom.

“Just gathered some evidence from the professor’s office and left it with the right people. Can’t cover up what’s out in the open.”

“You were behind that professor… Stanley? Was it? Getting fired? He had tenure!” That, well, that was pride. She went to the same university I used to go to. She had to have heard the stories too.

“Turns out serious sexual assault of your students will get you fired, even if you’ve had tenure for years.”

“So he did it?”

Thinking back to the things I saw from the video footage he had from a hidden camera nearly made me vomit. “More than they said in the press. He deserved it, Liddy.”

She nodded, loosening her hold on her body and flexing her fingers. “Okay.” She sighed. “Just be careful, okay? We can’t lose you, and Scythe isn’t someone to fuck around with.”

“You got it.”

After I checked my bag once more, I checked on Freya before kissing my sister on the cheek and heading out for my car.

Only when I was away from Lydia, did I let out a shaky breath.

Doing this alone was far harder and more dangerous than doing it with a team behind me.

I just didn’t have the time to wait for someone to help, not that I could think of anyone who would.

My old friends had loved Jasmine before our divorce.

They’d never believe how far she had fallen from this perfect image they had of her without seeing it first-hand.

I couldn’t admit what I’d done to them like I had with Lydia.

The drive to Salvatore Holdings was shorter than I’d have liked. Not wanting my car on camera, I parked a couple of blocks away underneath an overhang, which hid my license plate.

Not wanting to draw attention to myself, I walked around with my face uncovered, just obscured slightly under a ball cap. The trick was looking like you belonged. I kept a steady, though unhurried pace, getting to the office quickly.

Once there, I went to the building next door, a subsidiary, which was less guarded. It also hosted a bar where many of the employees of Salvatore Holdings drank after a hard day of ripping off the city’s people.

The interior was nice. Very classy with artfully decorated booths and tasteful chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, giving the bar a low, intimate feel.

I took off my cap, put it in my bag and mussed my dark brown hair.

It was getting a little long on top, the fade needed refreshing, but I’d been so distracted I’d barely remembered to shave before the funeral.

The bartender took my order of a rum and coke, placing it on a mat in front of me moments later.

I paid with a reasonable tip, desperate not to stick out at all.

Sipping my drink, I scanned the area, trying to look like I was waiting for someone. I took my time with it, relishing the taste of the rum on my tongue. Once it was finished and my nerves were better thanks to the alcohol, I began the next part of my plan.

In the schematics for these buildings, there was a corridor connecting them. I hoped it wasn’t guarded by people, just cameras and biometric scanners. Those I could get around.

Making it look like I was just going to the bathroom, I found an empty stall and took out my tablet.

Piggybacking onto their network was far easier than it should have been.

Someone really needed to update their security.

Once in, I cloned the security feed for the building, looping it but keeping the live feed just for me. I needed to see where everyone was.

I tucked my tablet away and washed my hands before going off in the opposite direction from the bar.

The door to the corridor was easy to pick, nothing fancy on this door.

Maybe they didn’t want to draw attention to it.

When the door was unlocked, I checked the position of the guards before I rushed to the biometric lock on the Salvatore Holdings building.

A handy program I’d made called up the last result on the scanner, opening the door for me.

My stomach was in my throat with my nerves trying to cut off my air. I struggled to push my anxiety down and take in more air. I’d done the hardest bit. Once I got to Sloane’s office, I could breathe properly.

Judging by how few people were guarding the offices, they were either overconfident, or hadn’t expected anyone to attempt what I was doing. Maybe the city was so under Scythe’s thumb, no one would dare challenge him.

It took a matter of moments to get into Salvatore’s office.

That was when the real fun began. My first thought was to go to a server room, but honestly, the security would have been tighter there, or at least it should have been.

Going by everywhere else in the building, then maybe I’d taken the risk of coming for Salvatore when I didn’t need to.

Something just told me to head for him, though.

I was pretty sure there would be files on there not in the general network.

Salvatore’s office was creepy. The place was immaculate and cold. Marble covered every surface. I was conscious of not leaving a mark or moving anything out of place.

The office had almost no security on the door.

His computer was too easy to access. Most of his files were password protected, at least. I hid a program I’d designed on there.

It would upload info to my phone each time I was close enough to it without triggering any alarms. Then I could take my time at home to look through his files, sifting for the stuff I wanted instead of boring shit using keywords.

Though to be sure I was really getting everything, I might have to read every damn document I copied.

I’d have to fine tune the process. I just hoped he didn’t want me to do anything too hardcore straight off.

Though it was tempting to just copy all the files, take Freya and run, I knew we wouldn’t get any peace and I’d lose custody of Freya for it.

CPS was up my ass constantly as it was. No, the better plan was to plant what I needed to get all the information necessary.

Once I’d gone through it, I could give it over.

I’d have to break in again to replace their files with mine, minus any evidence of my wrongdoing.

I was so taking some compensation for this.

Lingering in the office was also a bad idea. All I needed was a decent guard to notice the security footage looping, and I was done for. This was a speed mission, and there was too much here to get in the matter of minutes. I was good, just not that good.

Sitting at his desk, I noticed the rug was off center. Strange for a man who neatly organized his pens on his desk. Getting up, I went over to it and lifted the corner. Underneath, I glimpsed a symbol. Moving the rug out of the way, I felt a swooping in my gut. This was bad.

The symbol on the floor was something to do with the occult, right? A pentagram? It was magic and shit. Bad stuff.

Nope. I wasn’t gonna be involved in that shit. I covered the symbol once more, this time straightening the rug, and returned to my place at the desk.

That’s when I saw it. The gem. It looked like a ruby in the shape of a heart, not the Valentine’s day heart shape, but an anatomical heart. It wasn’t completely red, either, it was black in places, and it shone with an otherworldly-ness I didn’t understand.

Drawn inexplicably towards it, I rose from the desk to reach for it on the shelf. I felt a jolt run through my body as soon as I closed my fist around it. At the same time, a light flashed from Salvatore’s computer. Was the gem alarmed? Was I about to be discovered?

Okay, I could make this look like a burglary. I grabbed other items off the shelf with my other hand. For some reason, I couldn’t let go of the ruby.

Outside the office, I could hear people getting close.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

I tightened my hold on the gem and considered my options. No. There were none. I was royally screwed.

“Shit!” I bit out when I felt the edge of the gem cut into my finger. A bead of blood welled on the surface before it vanished.

Did it just eat my blood?

There was a popping noise and a burst of smoke from somewhere else in the room. The fire alarm went off, suppressant gas flowed down from the ceiling. It didn’t touch me. I couldn’t understand why, until I looked up and saw a dome surrounding me.

An arm wrapped around my waist. “Hello, Ryan,” a husky voice purred in my ear before the world went black.