Page 84 of Bound by Vengeance
Having Austyn on display in front of everyone is a tactic we often use in interrogation.
“The night of one of the parties, I went into Buzz’s room and saved all the information you had on JK onto my flash drive. I took it home and looked through it all.” She breathes out her words, almost coming out as a long paragraph without any breaks.
“So, you stole from Ravage,” GT, the vice president and her uncle, says.
Her eyes shift. “I thought of it as sharing information.”
Buzz clears his throat. “You know that shit is encrypted with so many obstacles that no human or other computer should be able to get into it.”
“Um …”
Buzz continues, “And you were able to do it and put shit back to a point I had to really search to find out what exactly you took and when.”
This time, she says nothing.
“And you picked my fuckin’ lock.”
Austyn closes her eyes then opens them, clasping her hands in front of her. “I’m sorry. I needed to find JK before any of you did. I wanted my revenge, and I wanted him to stay quiet about everything that happened. I didn’t think of it as stealing from any of you. I’m sorry if you do. I was blinded by vengeance.” She blows out a breath, her hair going up with it then back down to her face.
“What do you think we should do about it?” Cruz asks conversationally. If this were anyone else for any other reason, he’d be in a face-off with them, no questions asked.
“You can have the money. It’s millions, Dad. It’s all JK’s. I rerouted it to an account I set up. It should be there by now. I’ll wire it to Ravage.”
“The money you hopped around went into an account for you?” Buzz asks.
Austyn nods while I lean back in my chair. I guess there was another secret I didn’t know about.
“It was payback for what he did to me. I thought I could donate some of it, and then live comfortably on the rest. But I did wrong, and as my penance, I’ll wire all the money to Ravage’s accounts.”
Cruz looks around the room. Austyn has been here her whole life. Been through more than any woman deserves. Still, I know they can’t fully let it go. There has to be some consequences or it will happen again, and that can’t happen.
“Half. Half the money dumped into Ravage’s accounts. Buzz will help you with it.”
Austyn nods, looking down at her hands.
“The rest of it, you start over—fresh. That fucker has no more pull on you. No touch. He doesn’t exist. Understood?”
“Yes,” she replies.
“Since that’s done,” Buzz says, slamming his hand on the table, “you and me are gonna have some sessions in front of the computer, because you’re going to show me how you did everything so I can make the system stronger.”
“Of course. But Tug’s the one who taught me the locks.”
“Pft!” Buzz chimes out, looking over at Tug. “That shit’s child’s play. Computers are the answer.”
“Fucker,” Tug says on a laugh, and it’s done.
Cruz gets up and hugs his daughter, along with everyone else in the room. When she gets to me, I don’t let her go. Even when she transferred the money over and talked to Buzz, she did it on my lap.
C H A P T E R
T W E N T Y -E I G H T
“Mom, seriously, I said we were coming and I mean it.” Rolling my eyes up to the ceiling does nothing to hide the irritation in my words. Even through the phone, I know my mother can sense it.
“You better be. This is family day.”
“I know. I’m not going to hide out like I did before. Everything is good.”
