Page 12 of Bound by Passion (Ravage MC)

Screech shrugged. “Can’t divulge some shit. You know my business.”

And I did. It was how he made his money without going out of his apartment. Hacker, some called him. But I preferred information specialist. Not that it mattered one way or the other. I’d met him through dubious circumstances, so what was I to expect?

“It’s fine.” I reached into my bag and pulled out the large binder and my laptop. Powering it up, I turned to Screech. “So, what did ya find?”

He pulled out a flash drive and held it up. “It’s on here. As soon as I found it, two seconds later it was deleted.”

“Seems to be his M.O. No doubt whatever you show me on here will have no follow-up.”

Screech sighed. “You’d be right. But it might be something if you can remember.”

This piqued my interest. “Remember? What is it?”

He plugged in the flash drive, and the screen in front of me came to life. A lot of code came up, which I still hadn’t learned how to decipher. “And this means…” I egged him on, needing an explanation.

“Your mother’s name came up for the first time since we started looking.”

My breath caught, and I felt my fists clench. “What about her? She’s been gone for years.” I had left and hopped from place to place before allowing myself to settle in Sumner. I avoided my past until I decided I couldn’t run forever; knowledge was power. Hence, contacting Screech and allowing him to help me gather intel on the people who could hurt me the most.

Whatever this was, part of me didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to hear about the sick and twisted world that took her life. But if I wanted to bring it down, I had to learn as much as I could.

The bad, ugly, horrible, and unimaginable. Which I knew this endeavor would be because I’d already lived through it and still was.

It was a necessary evil.

A video came up, and I felt the world fall out from my feet, but I didn’t show a bit of emotion. I’d learned over the years how to mask emotions. This wasn’t anything new for me.

The screen showed a small room with lots of boxes along the walls that had key holes in each of them. A table sat in the center with a chair. “A safe deposit box?” I asked him, not taking my focus from the scene.

My fingers trembled at the anticipation before I was able to hide it.

“Yeah. Atlanta Mutual City Bank. In the bottom vault. I have video from the time he entered the building until when he got into the box, but it cut off. Going back to look for it, the server to that room was wiped. This is all I have.”

“He?” It was stupid of me to ask because I knew. Always knew.Hewas the reason I was here with Screech. The reason I ran away. The reason I was hiding in Sumner. The reason my hatred had grown with each passing moment.

“Miles Hamilton,” he said aloud, and I hated hearing it.

The name made my brain pulse and thrum with a headache. “And what was my ‘uncle’ doing at a safety deposit box, and what was said about my mother?” The words came out so low that I could feel Screech’s gaze come to me, but I didn’t take my eyes from the screen. The tension came off of me in waves.

Low and behold, the door opened to the small room on the monitor, andMileswalked in, alone. God, I hated looking at the man. That smarmy piece of shit ruined so much in my life. He went directly to the wall, to box three-eleven, put a key in, turned it, then pulled the box out.

“It wasn’t said,” he responded.

Screech pointed to the screen, nearly touching it even though he wasn’t as close as I was. “The paper right there?”

Sure enough,Milespulled a white paper out of his suit jacket and placed it on the table next to the box. On the paper was my mother’s name written in an elegant script.Elizabeth Anne Hamilton.And the numbers seven, three, four, nine, seven, forty-one, twelve written under it.

“I see it,” I responded, watching asMilesopened the box with a key. It opened in full view of the camera, butMilesdidn’t pull anything out. There was a dial on the top like there was a second lock.

Milespicked up the paper and started moving the dial. Right. Left. Right. Then left again. The door popped open. He reached in and pulled out…

The screen went black.

“What the fuck happened?” My words came out a bit more clipped than I’d intended, but what the fuck!

The screen showed nothing. Not even those little black and white fuzzy things that sometimes came on the television. Nothing.

“That’s all there is. It was as if the guys he wanted to scramble the feed didn’t do their job fast enough, and they cut it as soon as they pulled their head out of their asses. Because if it were me, I wouldn’t have allowed myself to have even been seen at the bank.”

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