Page 227 of Ruin My Life

At first glance? Flawed, but in a way that fit.

But now that I know where to look, the fractures are glaring.

He never lived at that house. None of that family ever existed. There’s no trace of him before the carefully curated breadcrumbs he let us find.

No school enrolment. No hospital visits.

No history in Kings County—just a ghost wearing borrowed skin.

I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste copper, glaring at the screen like it might flinch and spill its secrets if I just stare hard enough.

I wish Lee were here. Or Brie. They’re better at this. Faster. Sharper in the code. They’d have found everything it’s taken me this long to scrape together in under sixty seconds.

I’m good with a computer—had to be to build a security company from dirt and blood—but I’m not surgical like them. Not merciless in the right ways.

“What’s our ETA?” I ask, not looking up from my screen.

“Thirty minutes to Point Judith,” Chavez replies. “How long’s the ferry to Block Island?”

“Too long,” I rasp, the words tearing from my throat like shrapnel.

Time bleeds out between my knuckles. Every second we’re not there is a second he could be breaking her apart. A second my mother might already be gone.

I filled Chavez in on everything during the drive. No reason not to. No more secrets. My mother’s life is on the line, and whatever I thought I needed to protect before doesn’t fucking matter now.

I still trust him. I trust all of them.

Even after this betrayal. Even though Connor’s turned that trust into a fucking weapon.

It feels like my chest is splitting open. I still can’t process it—can’t wrap my head aroundwhy. We’ve known each other for two years. Worked side by side. Fought for the same cause. Protected the same people.

Or so I thought.

How long has he been planning this?

Was any of it real?

Every conversation we had. Every mission. Every drink shared at The Speakeasy. Was it all theatre? Was I just the next mark?

If he wanted revenge, why not kill me outright? He’s had chances.Dozens. He could’ve ended me a hundred ways and I’d never have seen it coming.

But he didn’t.

He never aimed to kill. He wanted to mutilate. To gut me alive by gutting the people I love.

He said Isabella was his sister—but Isabella never once mentioned a brother. She used to say she was meeting an “old friend” for coffee sometimes, which I clocked as a little strange since I knew most of her friends by name.

But I never questioned it. She was warm, open—except, apparently, when she wasn’t.

We talked about her family. If he’d come up, I’d remember. I’d have reached out after she died. I called her parents. Sent flowers. Helped arrange parts of the funeral, even when they told me not to.

If he was family, I’d have known.

I glare at the screen, jaw clenched so tight my teeth ache.

But he doesn’t give a damn about any of that, does he?

This was never about closure. This is retribution. Slow, merciless retribution—making me watch everyone I care about bleed for sins I never got to repent for.