Page 54 of Ruin My Life (Blood & Betrayal #1)

The only reason I got in was because I stole Damon’s keys, but no one else has had theirs go missing.

But what if someone didn’t need to steal them?

What if they already had them?

My pulse spikes as the pieces start falling into place. Faster than I can catch them.

Xander said his partner was someone Damon knew.

Someone close.

Someone smart. Calculated. Patient. The kind of person who would play the long game. Who would pretend to have skin in this fight while orchestrating the whole thing behind the curtain.

My mind races, ready to ask Lee for a list of everyone on Damon’s payroll who might’ve been capable of sneaking access —

But then I see it.

Connor shifts his weight, leaning closer to Lee’s laptop. His sleeves ride up slightly. Just an inch. But it’s enough.

Four jagged red scratches mare his wrist, stark against his lightly tanned skin.

Evenly spaced. Fresh. Still healing.

My lungs seize.

Connor?

No. It’s not possible.

The man who raped me had long black hair and venom-green eyes. Maybe he shaved his head, but Connor’s eyes are russet. Brown, not green.

It doesn’t match. It doesn’t match.

But the DNA doesn’t lie. And those scratches—those could’ve only come from Jennifer, fighting for her life.

Unless… he wanted to be unrecognizable to me. Put on contacts to disguise the only feature I’d be able to clock, so he could watch his plan unfold in real time.

My entire body bristles with fear as my mind flip-flops.

My heart starts hammering. My hands tremble on the counter. I can’t feel my feet beneath me.

“Brie?” Connor’s voice slices through the fog. “What’s wrong?”

I flinch.

He noticed. I was staring, and he noticed.

He tilts his head, his brow pressing together in concern that I’m sure is fake—but there’s something else in his eyes. Something cold.

Familiar .

The press of his brows as he stares at me.

The wicked glint in the corner of his gaze.

The way his eyes crinkle when he starts to grin.

No.

I know that expression.

I’ve seen that expression.

From the floor of my childhood home. While I bled out, staring into the face of a monster who didn’t bother hiding his smile as it burned through that red devil mask, branding itself into my mind.

And now, he’s standing three feet away from me.

Smiling again.

“Nothing,” I say quickly, flicking my gaze to Lee. My voice is steady, even as my pulse jackhammers in my throat. “I think we should call Damon. Tell him what we’ve found.”

Lee nods, already pulling his phone from his pocket. “I’ll text him. See if he’s finished with Matthias—”

“He will be by now,” I cut in. Matthias will have seen my email by now. I’m hoping that means their meeting ended earlier than expected and he’s on his way back as we speak. “I can call if you want. I don’t care if I interrupt.”

I slide my phone from my back pocket and go to dial—

But Connor grabs it from my hand like a hawk snatching prey from the ground. He lifts it out of reach, toying with it between his fingers.

“Come on, Brie,” he says, his voice suddenly sounding amused. “You started this little fire, and now you’re gonna piss on Damon’s meeting with half a clue and a gut feeling?”

“Con?” Lee asks, tension tightening his voice. “What the hell are you doing?”

Lee takes a step forward, but I catch him with my arm, stopping him cold. Not because I want to—but because I’ve seen that look before.

The smirk. The gleam in Connor’s eye that says I’ve already won.

Connor’s grin deepens, dripping with malice. “There she is,” he coos. “The infamous Black Rose. Took you long enough to put it all together.”

And then—he lets my phone fall.

It hits the kitchen floor like a gunshot.

Connor doesn’t even flinch. He brings his boot down and shatters it beneath his weight, grinding the screen into dust.

“It was you…” Lee breathes.

Connor turns his head lazily toward him. “You were always a sweet kid, Lee. But sweet doesn’t survive long in our world,” he taunts. “Haven’t you heard the saying, keep your friends close and your enemies closer ?”

Lee’s eyes go wide. “But… why?”

Connor laughs—low and cold and furious. “Jesus, you really don’t know?” He shakes his head. “You’ve all been so focused on protecting Damon, you never stopped to think who he failed to protect.”

“Damon is supposed to be your brother,” I snap. My voice comes out sharper than I planned, but I don’t regret it.

Connor’s expression darkens instantly.

“The day he let them kill my sister, any chance of brotherhood between us died with her.”

I freeze.

Sister?

And then the last puzzle piece finally clicks.

“Isabella,”

I breathe.

His grin returns, lips pulling into a rotten smile despite his near-perfect teeth. “Ding ding ding!” he says mockingly. “We have a winner.”

Revenge .

It was never about me, or my family. Not at first.

It was always about Damon.

Connor is twice my size and my gun is in Damon’s bedroom. I didn’t think I’d need it in his very own fucking apartment.

Glass crunches beneath his boot as he steps forward, drawing his gun from his belt and pointing it between us, the barrel glinting beneath the kitchen lights. Lee and I both instinctively back away, our hands up slightly, eyes never leaving him.

We’re prey. And we both know it.

One wrong move and he’ll pull the trigger without blinking.

But something shifts in my chest. Something old and poisonous and feral.

I’ve spent too long letting him control me—letting him live rent-free in my head like he earned the space. I let the pain he carved into me blind me, cage me, convince me I was powerless. All so he could benefit. All so he could win.

Maybe he still needs me alive. Maybe he doesn’t. But it doesn’t matter now. Because what he doesn’t realize is—he’s already dug his grave.

And I plan to bury him in it with my own goddamn hands.

I shove Lee back, slamming my forearm across his chest, and lunge for Connor’s gun. My hand wraps around his wrist, forcing his aim down until the muzzle points at the floor.

“Lee, call Damon!” I shout, gritting my teeth as Connor fights me, his strength overwhelming mine in seconds.

He just laughs. “You think one training session with Monroe makes you a threat?”

With a sharp twist, he rips his arm free and clamps it around my throat, dragging me back against his chest. The cold press of the barrel shifts—aimed straight at Lee.

No. Lee!

I try to scream, but his forearm constricts around my throat like a snake. My feet scramble for traction as he lifts me just enough to choke the air from my lungs. My vision pulses black at the edges.

BANG!

The gunshot cracks like lightning across a dark, stormy sky. My whole body seizes.

Lee crumples. His phone skitters across the kitchen floor, and blood seeps through the back of his shirt, just above his tailbone.

No. No, no, no!

Please don’t be dead .

But then—he twitches. Pulls in a sharp, broken breath. His fingers dig at the floor.

Alive. Barely .

Relief floods my chest for a split second—until Connor’s gun drifts back toward Lee’s trembling body.

His breath ghosts against my ear.

“Here’s what’s gonna happen now,” he growls. “I know Damon took you to Block Island on your little honeymoon. And I’m betting he showed you to his extra-special hideout, yeah?”

I grit my teeth, staying silent. But his arm tightens, cutting off what little oxygen I’ve managed to get. My toes drag uselessly across the floor as he lifts me higher, his forearm crushing my throat like steel against brittle bone.

I try to push off of him with my hands, my elbows, my feet. But my back stays pinned to the wall of his chest, solid and cold as marble.

And I hate it. I hate that I’m not strong enough. That I’ve never been strong enough—not against him .

“Why are you doing this?” I manage to choke out, my voice rasping around the pressure on my throat. “Isabella was killed by O’Doyle.”

His grip tightens like a noose. My vision fades again like TV static.

“Damon put her in danger the second he brought her into this world,” Connor snarls. “She’d still be breathing if he kept his distance. He took everything from me. And now I’m going to show him what it really feels like to mourn.”

There it is.

His broken heart, spilled at my feet like it’s meant to justify any of this.

Once, maybe, I’d have seen a reflection of myself in him. We both lost everything. We both bled out in the same graveyard of people we couldn’t protect. But somewhere along the line, he stopped clawing at the dark and started becoming it.

He rebuilt his grief over Isabella in my image—cruel, calculated, jagged enough to cut open Damon’s chest and watch him choke on the ruin.

He shaped me into his revenge. Handed me to Damon like a ticking bomb.

And I played my part perfectly—until now.

A mastermind’s plan, sure. But he miscalculated one thing.

I don’t give a fuck about his grief. Not anymore .

Because I’ve lived through the pain because of him. I died and clawed my way back. And I wouldn’t wish what I’ve been through on anyone.

Except him.

So Connor can go ahead.

Press harder .

Because the second my feet hit the ground, I’m driving the final nails into his coffin myself.

Connor regains his easy composure, that wicked grin sliding back across his lips like a blade sheathed in arrogance.

“You, my feisty little hacker,” he drawls, “are going to introduce me to mommy dearest. And you’re going to come with me willingly. Unless, of course, you want me to finish what I started and kill poor, innocent Lee?”

My pulse stutters. Ice floods my veins.

I can’t take him to Rebecka.

He’ll kill her. And that alone would destroy Damon. Which is exactly what Connor wants.

But if I refuse... Lee’s as good as dead. He’s already losing blood—slipping further from consciousness with every second.

Maybe… maybe he has a chance. I survived a bullet. Maybe he can too. If I can buy him even a few more minutes—just enough for Damon to get back.

Connor cocks the gun and aims it at Lee’s slumped figure.

“Stop! Stop,” I gasp, my voice rough from the pressure of his arm against my windpipe. “I’ll take you to her. Just don’t hurt him.”

“Good girl,” Connor purrs.

He loosens his hold just enough for me to breathe—never enough to run. His fingers clamp around my elbow like shackles, steering me around the island.

My eyes catch on Lee’s motionless form. His torso rises—shallow, fragile, but alive.

Hang on, I beg silently. Please hang on. Damon’s coming.

We reach the front door. But Connor pauses.

Slowly, he turns back to the room. Raises the gun again .

A scream rips up my throat but dies against the deafening— BANG! BANG!

I flinch so hard my vision blacks out for a heartbeat. The sound echoes inside my skull, a nightmare bleeding through skin and bone—Amie’s lifeless eyes, her limp body, blood seeping into the carpet.

No. Not again.

I force my eyes open, bracing for the worst.

But Lee’s still breathing.

The shots weren’t for him.

Smoke curls from Connor’s barrel, and I realize both our laptops are destroyed—the screens spiderwebbed, processors obliterated. One bullet each.

He doesn’t want Damon to see what we found. Not yet.

Connor slips the gun into his waistband and drags me into the waiting elevator. The doors seal us inside with a hiss that sounds too much like the door of a tomb sliding shut.

My pulse hammers as the floor drops beneath my feet. Every nerve sparks alive, every muscle coiled tight around the only truth that matters now:

I’ve got just under five hours to come up with a plan.

Block Island is a long way from here, and I’ve made miracles happen with less time.

He want to see what The Black Rose can do?

Then buckle up, motherfucker .

You’re about too find out .