Page 4 of Ruin My Life (Blood & Betrayal #1)

Before I left, Olivia handed me a plastic bag with the clothes I was admitted in—my MIT sweatshirt and grey shorts—along with a fresh set of clothes from the hospital gift shop: a light blue T-shirt, white sweatpants, and hard-bottom slippers.

I understood why the moment I looked inside.

My sweatshirt—the one Amie begged me for days ago—has a jagged hole ripped through the embroidery. It’s stiff with dried blood, the hole scorched black from the gunpowder. The back is soaked completely red, saturated from however long I lay bleeding on the carpet before paramedics found me.

I clutch it to my chest the entire way home.

Home …

But it won’t feel like that anymore.

Now it’s just a house where home used to be.

The property is still roped off with caution tape. Outside the gate, people have left flowers, candles, framed photos of my parents—probably from Dad’s fans and the handful of neighbours who cared enough to remember they lived here .

But there’s nothing left specifically for Amie.

I pay the driver, step out, and duck under the yellow tape. Every step feels heavier than the last—and it’s not just because of the stitches and cracked ribs.

The air is thicker here. Heavier. Like fog blanketing a haunted graveyard.

I guess that’s what this place is now.

I force myself up the driveway. The front door is wrapped in more caution tape, and I rip it off with trembling fingers. My hand shakes as I punch in the door code.

When the lock disengages, the sound is eerie. Like I’ve shattered through a seal I was never meant to touch, or opened an ancient door for the first time in centuries.

Part of me feels like I’m preparing to step between reality and some hopeful fantasy. One where my parents and Amie are still alive and happy.

But I know better.

I push open the door.

The entryway greets me with a crimson stain. Most of it’s been scrubbed away, but blood still lives deep in the grain of the pale birch flooring.

Dad.

I step carefully around the stained boards and make my way into the living room. The smell of bleach hits me first.

Someone tried to clean the carpet. Tried hard. But blood doesn’t come out of white fibres easily. A pinkish shadow still clings just behind the couch.

Mom.

Farther along, near the garage door, there are two more stains. Faint. A few feet apart. Just barely meeting in the middle.

Amie. And me.

I lower myself slowly to the floor—kneeling, then lying back until my body sinks into the carpet. I settle into the imprint— my imprint—like it might remember me. Like it might bring something back.

I turn my head to the side and see it all again .

Amie’s face, six nights ago. Her cheek pressed into the carpet.

Her hazel eyes locked on mine. Begging.

I reach out across the floor, trying to find her hand. Her soul. Something . But my fingers only brush the rough fibres.

She’s gone.

There’s no trace of her here.

My lip trembles. I bite down—hard—until the copper tang of blood fills my mouth.

Nothing about this is right.

Amie, just barely sixteen and so full of light and wild dreams—gone. Just gone.

And no one seems to understand what the world’s lost.

Everyone mourns Mom and Dad. Their faces were on red carpets and press interviews, always in the spotlight. But Amie and I stayed out of it. Mom said too much attention at a young age was dangerous, and honestly, we liked the quiet.

Now all I want to do is scream her name into every camera lens on the planet. To make people see her.

To make them understand.

Kill. Kill. Kill.

The thought returns like it never left.

I will kill him.

I will kill them both.

I release my lip and inhale sharply, my ribs straining, lungs burning.

But the pain in my chest is nothing compared to the hollow ache where my heart used to be.

I sit up carefully, mindful not to tear any stitches, and rise from the floor.

For the first time in days, my legs don’t shake.

They’re steady.

Planted.

Determined.

I head for the laundry room beneath the stairs and rip open the plastic hospital bag. My sweatshirt drops to the floor in a blood-stiffened heap. I lift it with my fingertips, flakes of dried red falling like ash, and toss it into the washing machine.

I pour in enough detergent, hydrogen peroxide, and baking soda to scrub away sin itself, then crank the cycle to cold and hit start.

Next, I make my way upstairs to my room.

My luggage still sits untouched at the foot of the bed. Amie had opened it the day I got back, but nothing inside had caught her eye enough to steal.

I unzip one of the side compartments and pull out my laptop, then carry it down the hall to Dad’s office.

I remember helping him set it up—choosing the specs of his computer, installing the software, teaching him how to run the security system before I left for university.

I plug into his network and open up the hard drive, pulling every second of camera footage and copying it to mine.

Every angle. Every timestamp.

And just like the police said—there’s nothing useful. No clear shots of their faces. No clear identifiers. Just two monsters in devil masks moving like ghosts through my house.

My mouse hovers over an icon in the corner of my desktop.

R.O.S.E.—Rapid Observation Surveillance Engine.

It was my final project this year. While everyone else made social networks or video games, I built a tool to help find missing people in real-time—designed to scan street cameras, CCTV footage, commercial feeds.

The idea was simple: upload a photo, and it would crawl the network and find that person in seconds.

Of course, the version I submitted for class had restrictions. A lack of permissions.

But the prototype version on my laptop does not.

This one has full police-level access. Courtesy of… less-than-legal methods.

My professor called it “brilliant but dangerous.” Gave me a B because he claimed it was too reckless—too powerful of a tool should it fall into the wrong hands .

Maybe he was right. Maybe that’s the point.

Maybe it’s time R.O.S.E. fell into the wrong hands.

Mine.

If I use it now, I’ll be hacking into the police database. I could be arrested just for owning this version of the program, let alone using it the way I plan to.

But rape is illegal.

Murder is illegal.

And those bastards are still walking free.

I chew the corner of my thumbnail, my mind ping-ponging between logic and rage.

Don’t do it.

Do it.

You can’t risk it—

But you can’t afford not to.

“Fuck it,” I mutter, and double-click the icon.

The interface boots, and the fans in my laptop ramp up to a soft hum. I type in the date, timestamp, and the zip code for Mick’s Convenience, and the feed loads immediately, pulling footage from every external camera the second Dad and I pulled into the lot.

Their hoods do what they were meant to and conceal everything that could quantify as identifiable. They move like they knew where every camera was, dipping their chins just right, staying out of view.

They’re clever. Careful.

R.O.S.E. was built for facial recognition. Without a clean face shot, I can’t use its full power. But in theory, it can trace other identifying features.

Like license plates, and the make and model of a car.

Or a tattoo …

From the security footage, I manage to get a decent shot of the lean guy with the partial tattoo—wings stretching from his sternum toward his collarbones.

I crop the image, enhance it as best I can, and feed it into the system .

The progress bar crawls across the screen so slow it feels like a taunt. I dig my nails into Dad’s cherrywood desk, leaving crescent moons in the lacquer as I wait.

As expected, the search returns way too many hits to be useful. It’s not worth my time to search through them all and hope I stumble across him. It would be like playing Where’s Waldo without knowing what the hell Waldo even looks like.

I slam my palm against the desk, my heart hammering painfully against my broken chest.

Still no answers. No names.

But I’m not giving up.

I open a browser and make it incognito.

When I was sixteen, I got in trouble for playing around on the dark web. I did it mostly out of curiosity. I wanted to see what people wanted from hackers—to test my skills.

Some asked for school records. Others wanted full criminal histories.

A few asked for... worse.

I never took a job. But I always remembered how to find them.

Now, I don’t care about the money.

I just want results.

I create a new account, hiding behind my usual alias— The Black Rose . It’s the same signature bury into every piece of code I write, kind of like a signature for the hacking world.

And I post my first job request:

Hacker for hire: Information for information. Looking for anything related to the identity and/or location of the individuals pictured below. No questions asked. No questions answered. Don’t waste my time.

I attach two grainy stills—one from the gas station, one from the house—and hit submit.

Then I slam the laptop shut before I can second-guess any of it .

It’s a reckless move. A desperate one.

I could be arrested. Thrown in prison for the rest of my life.

But they broke into my home.

They murdered my parents.

They raped and executed my little sister while I watched.

They took everything from me.

And now, I plan to take everything from them.

I SPEND THE EVENING packing the things that mean the most to me. Photo album, sentimental knickknacks.

Dad’s original script from the movie he directed in Banff National Park.

The family ring passed down through Mom’s side.

Amie’s box set of Degrassi and a few of her favourite, well-worn T-shirts.

I know I can’t stay here—not with the horrors of that night stitched into every corner of this house. Not with the ghosts haunting the walls.

By the time I drag my overstuffed suitcase and high school backpack downstairs, the house feels smaller. Emptier.

I grab my sweatshirt from the dryer and hold it tight to my stomach, steering clear of the living room entirely.

I take the long way around to avoid the stains. But I stop at the front entryway, just beside the arch.

On the wall hangs a collage of mismatched frames—Mom’s favourite method of decorating was going to a thrift store and finding things that sparked joy.

Family photos are arranged crookedly along the wall, some posed for while others are candid and chaotic.

The one in the center shows all four of us standing in Banff National Park, the summer of my parents’ twentieth anniversary. The lake behind us is crystal blue, our arms linked together as our smiles shine, effortless and bright.

Brighter than they ever will be again…

I lift the frame from the wall and cradle it with my sweatshirt.

Then I grab one more—my favourite picture of Amie .

I took it last summer on one of the hottest days of the year after she dragged me out to a farm on Randall’s Island. It took two hours to get there, but when we arrived—surrounded by berry vines and sunlit leaves—her eyes lit up like fireflies.

She made me promise to delete the photo. Threatened to disown me if I didn’t, then punched me when I sent it to Mom knowing it’d end up on the wall.

But despite the pain, I’m glad I didn’t delete it.

It will always be my favourite.

Outside, the sky is greying. The breeze carries a chill—the kind that seeps deep beneath your collar and follows you home.

I push open the gate and crouch beside the flowers and candles left for my parents. There are dozens of pictures of them, but not one of Amie.

So, I fix that.

I place her photo next to theirs, then I set my MIT sweatshirt beside it, weighing it down with one of the glass candle jars.

The hole is still there—burned straight through the embroidery. I can’t hide it, no matter how much I wish I could.

I pull out a small bottle of perfume from the side pocket of my backpack. Rosewater and Ivy . My favourite. I spray the sweatshirt until the air smells sweet.

Can I have this? None of your old stuff smells like you anymore.

I swallow the lump in my throat.

“Now it does,” I whisper.

A single tear slips free, landing on the grey fabric.

It soaks in, leaving a dark blotch that spreads for a second—then disappears.

Then I stand.

Straight.

Tall.

I wait by the curb for the cab that will take me to a hotel for the night. And just as the headlights come into view, my phone buzzes in my pocket .

I pull it out.

An encrypted message lights up the screen.

My heart clenches so tight, I half-expect my stitches to tear open.

*Encrypted Message*

I might know something about that tattoo