Page 3 of Beautifully Ruined

“As a gesture of goodwill, to show I’m not going to fuck with you, I’ll take his money now. The man might have been a fool, but he was loaded.”

Ivan’s greed gets the better of him. “Get his money, then do your job.”

I nod, and I drain Isaac’s accounts, the hacker breathing over my shoulder, but he won’t pick up on anything. To him, this seems on the up and up.

The transfer is smooth and takes a fraction of the time it’ll take for the next one.

But I take my time, doing it in such a way that Enzo is alerted.

I leave a very clear trail, open an account for Cancun that the money funnels through.

It’s not out of the ordinary, us setting up a dummy account, like a slush fund, or something that if the wrong people look will seem like money laundering.

The hacker explains my moves to Andronski, including the new account.

I then transfer the money to a shell company and finally into Ivan’s offshore account.

Enzo should pick up the trail. And he’ll be able to track me.

Cancun will alert him.

“Right, now for that big windfall you want.” I carefully turn to face Andronski. “Or does Igor want to check my work out?”

“He will check.” Ivan motions for me to move.

I wheel my chair back.

Right now, nothing would give me more pleasure than to take them both out.

He doesn’t have any men in here. They’ll be outside the room.

In my state, plus the fact he has a gun, Ivan’s confident he can keep me under control.

He figures I’m no threat.

And he’d be fucking right.

In this state, I’m not even a threat to a fly.

Battered. Bruised. Bleeding. That’s me. I’m a fucking mess.

But I’m not as bad as I thought.

I haven’t coughed up any more blood, and I haven’t found any broken ribs from my tentative poking.

Breathing is becoming a little easier.

Did they beat me to an inch of my life? Yeah. But I guess there’s something in being an expert. Hurt someone but don’t physically break them. Just destroy them enough to make them think they’re on their death bed.

Of course, I won’t be shocked to find I’ll be pissing some blood; my kidneys ache.

And I’m betting I have some hairline rib fractures, too.

This is the worst beating I’ve had. But I don’t think anything is broken outright.

That being said, I still move like I’m just hanging on. It hurts less, it buys time. Two things I need.

I also don’t need to take Ivan out.