Page 370 of Hell Hath No Fury
Poverty stripped people of basic human dignity.
There wasn’t anything you wouldn’t do for the right price if you were desperate enough.
But from what I’d gathered over the last year since Mum was murdered, Crystal Ramsey didn’t have a price. She had a son, and she wasn’t willing to jeopardize her safety even if it meant an influx of cash.
I rubbed my breast bone but it didn’t ease the ache behind it.
Crystal hadn’t been prideful. She loved to dance and her moves provided for us. She taught me to tease the roots of her hair so it was big and bold, a natural red so pure it shone almost orange. We’d listen to music as she did her makeup, Zeppelin and Joplin interspersed with Aretha Franklin and Bing Crosby. She’d tickle me with the big brushes, shaking her hips so sequins jingled musically. She’d been fun and free-spirited, and she’d loved me more than anything else in the whole world.
And then she was gone.
The police closed the case due to insufficient evidence.
Fuck that.
I’d enrolled in classes at UBC in coding the minute I graduated high school that spring and did a deep dive into the dark web. There were answers there if you were brave enough to go looking for them.
And find them I did.
First, Murphy’s Venus Flytrap, now a popular destination for all manner of sexual deviancy that made my stomach cramp.
Then to Dermott Herald who represented not only Murphy’s interests but a corporation I recognized without searching.
The Ventura Cartel.
As I sorted through the dozens of files I’d downloaded onto a remote server, my stomach tossed and turned with nausea.
They were using Venus Flytrap and probably countless other such organizations to traffic women and to provide cover for drug deals. A meet up for a rendezvous was the perfect opportunity to hand over illicit drugs too.
“Fuck,” I cursed in the dark, icy car.
The sound echoed back at me.
This was so fucking far above my pay grade.
My stomach growled savagely, reminding me that lunch had been six hours ago. On autopilot, I put the car into drive and swerved to get back in the long line for McDonald’s drive-thru. I was nineteen and preternaturally thin; I could eat shit daily and stay unjustly healthy.
“Hello, welcome to––” the voice through the intercom began to say before it dissolved into crackling static.
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as the noise cleared and a short, clear silence reigned.
“Hello, Red Warrior.”
I shivered so violently, my teeth cut through my bottom lip.
R3d W4rr10r was my hacker’s alias.
I’d never told a single soul about it in real life and nevereverhad someone on the dark web address me outside of that space.
Fuck.
There was a mechanical chuckle, the voice clearly distorted by an electronic masking device. “When you take your work home with you, you run the risk of letting a stray in from the cold.”
“What do you want?” I demanded through clenched teeth as I jerked my computer open again and began trying to figure out where I’d left myself open to attack.
“It’s what you want that I’m interested in,” the dissembled voice admitted. The tone was low like a man’s voice, but I knew better than to assume. Some of the best damn hackers in the world were women. I should know, one of my closest hacker friends was one of them. “It’s been…amusing to watch you fumble around in the dark. I thought I would offer a flashlight.”
“Out of the goodness of your heart?” I snarked as my eyes traced over line after line of code, searching out…
