Page 20 of Curse

Keeping my gaze locked on hers, I step back. I want to throw her over my shoulder and drag her out of here. But there’s a bigger picture to keep in mind right now, as much as I hate letting her out of my sight.

She grabs her bag, slips sideways between us, and stomps angrily down the alley without looking back. Her hips sway defiantly, just like when she took off down the dock at the lake, and I hate that I can’t tear my eyes off of her until she turns the corner, disappearing into the crowd.

“Fifty-fifty shot she calls Bennett,” Vin says, flexing andstretching his jaw where Siena hit him. He raises an eyebrow at me. “I think you put the fear of God in her. Though I thought for a minute there you might put something else in her.”

“Maybe she doesn’t even have it anymore,” I mutter, ignoring his comment. I hope she doesn’t call Franco, though I can’t say that to Vin. I run a hand through my scruffy beard. “For all we know, she already got rid of it. Either way, she won’t call Bennett,”

Vin smirks. “She won’t, or you hope she won’t?”

When I don’t answer, he shrugs. “As long as we get the flash drive back, I don’t need to see that sucker-punching bitch again.”

I give him a cold look, and he grins, punching my shoulder lightly. “Idon’t need to see her again. But youcan do whatever you want, brother.”

As we step into the street, I scan the crowd, searching for Siena, but she’s long gone. I should be relieved, but I’m not. I remind myself that she’s nothing but bait, a loose end that could lead us to the flash drive.

For now.

12

Siena

When I step off the elevator in the parking garage and first spot my car, I stop short. The doors are open, the trunk is open, and Emily’s scarf is dangling out of the backseat.

As I move closer, I realize that all the tires are slashed as well, each one ripped open enough to demonstrate that they hold nothing inside.

Of course. While that asshole was busy groping me, his goons were tearing apart my car looking for that fucking flash drive.

I sprint the rest of the way across the parking lot to the car and peer into the backseat, where the bags I’d taken from the crash site had been stashed.

All of them are open, their contents scattered everywhere. The seats are slashed, foam padding spilling out in messy clumps. The dashboard is cracked, the glove compartment yanked apart.

My breath catches as I pick up a stray lip gloss, a makeup brush, a handful of hair ties. They feel like remnants of Emily,fragments of a life she’ll never return to.

I drop to my knees, crawling across the floor to gather everything shoved under the front seat.

That’s when I see it: the flash drive.

It’s jammed into the floorboard next to the console, barely visible beneath the mat. Unbelievable. They destroyed everything, and still, they didn’t find it. Yet, it’s right fucking there.

I pry the flash drive out from under the seat, holding it delicately between my thumb and forefinger. My heart pounds in relief and anger. I don’t know why Matti wants the video and blueprints on this drive, but if this is why he—or his mysterious “third party”—killed Emily, I will make sure that he never gets it.

Shame shudders through me as I remember how Matti’s hands felt on my skin, how my body betrayed me by responding so easily to his touch. I don’t know if it was exhaustion, some fucked up grief response after losing Emily, or the fact that I haven’t gotten laid since my ex threw me out of our house two years ago, but it didn’t feel like a choice. It felt like a necessary escape.

Looking at the flash drive, I almost laugh as the thought strikes me that I should in fact wrap it back up in the plastic I found it in and shove it up my cunt as he suggested I might have done.

For a murderer, he seems to have a weird consent hang-up, and he’d never find it if I told him ‘no.’ But then the unbidden image of him doing it anyway, pushing and probing his fingers inside me, sends a jolt of heat through me.

I have to almost physically shove the thought aside and force my attention back to the disaster zone that is my car. Jesus,my head is a mess, but there is no time for that shit right now. My life is only about Emily. Finding out what happened to her. Bringing her killer to justice.

My car is fucked. It’s going to cost a fortune to fix, a fortune I definitely don’t have.

I sort through the mess to salvage what I can, fitting as many of Emily’s things as possible into the largest bags, still holding the flash drive in one hand.

Matti made it clear that possession of the flash drive put a target on my back. But if he’s the one who caused Emily’s death, then the target isn’t on me. It’s on him. Because I’m going to figure out how to use this thing to prove that the plane crash was no accident, and the person or people who did it were after this stupid piece of plastic.

But how?

I shake my head, trying to clear the storm of thoughts. It doesn’t help. My head is a fucking mess. My brain and body are empty vessels, and I can barely complete a thought before another unrelated one comes barreling through.

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