Page 19 of Ruined

"I have no reason to tell him you said anything to me," I said. "And I know you won't."

"Of course not." He took the chance to raise his left hand, as if to promise he wouldn't say a word.

I smirked and sliced open his throat. "You might have misunderstood what I was saying." His blood squirted out onto my fingers, warm and sticky. Better his blood than his cum.

His hand dropped back down with a soft thud. He slumped back against the couch, his hand still wrapped around his cock.

"Sucks to be you," I said with no sympathy. I walked around the couch to pick up his phone. After a couple of attempts to guess the passcode, it opened.

"Sixty-nine, sixty-nine, sixty-nine." I rolled my eyes. "You shouldn't have been so predictable."

His glazed eyes stared back at me. He looked regretful, but I doubted it involved his pass code.

On the screen, one of the men grunted as he came, spilling cum all over the woman's face. I snatched up the remote and turned it off. I dropped the remote back on the table and scrolled through his phone.

His photos contained various candid shots of women. They all looked like they were taken through a window, or under the door of a public toilet. Their faces weren't visible in most of them, just a breast here, leg or pussy there.

"Looks like I did the world a favour," I said. "One less pervert." I tapped out of the photos and went in to read his messages. As I expected, there weren't many. One or two with a vague address or a thumbs up symbol. The rest were deleted, or he didn't get many.

His contacts were likewise sparse. The pizza place down the street, the number of a ride share, and a couple that might be Leon Graves, or another of Kurt's associates.

I pulled out my phone, copied the numbers and wiped down his phone with a cloth before placing it back on the table.

Leon would change his number if he knew someone took Stefan's phone. If I just had the number, I stood a chance of being able to use it.

"I'd like to say it's been fun, but I hope this was worthwhile," I told Stefan. "Don't worry, someone will find you in a couple of days. If you're lucky."

The man was a snake and always had been. He was also one of the men who carried me down into the basement. I recognised his voice as soon as he spoke. Was Leon Graves another of them? I'd met him a couple of times, and two of the men didn't say a word that night. All I had was vague memories of their faces in shadow, my mind muddled by whatever Kurt drugged me with.

From my phone, I sent a tipoff to one of Damon's contacts, giving them Stefan's name. They'd pass that on to Damon. He could come by and find him like this.

Reuben would be pissed off if he knew I wasn't telling them any of this directly, but I couldn't explain how I got into this building without telling him everything. He'd insist on knowing how I got past impenetrable security.

I wasn't ready to share that yet. Not even with him or Gianni. Not with Damon either, although I still had no idea where I stood with him. He seemed to want me as much as he disliked me.

I respected him, but I wouldn't push. There was no hurry to take things any further. Not yet. When this was over, maybe we'd find time to work things out.

I tucked my phone away and took a few minutes to search around the building. I found a locked room, but no sign of the key. I looked back at Stefan and grimaced.

His pants were down around his ankles. One side looked heavier than the other.

"Really?" I asked, not knowing if I directed the question to him or myself. Either way, I had no choice.

I had to crouch to feel around in his pockets. The heavier one contained a small ring of keys. One said Mercedes on the fob. The others looked like house keys, or keys that unlocked filing cabinets.

Stepping away from him and his now flaccid cock, I tried each of the keys until the door opened.

I half-expected to find a woman caged and chained, but the room was full of boxes.

Guns, gems, phones and cash. One contained what looked like bricks of cocaine. The street value of everything here would add up to several million, at least. This, Reuben would be happy to recover.

I left everything untouched and closed and locked the door behind me. Grimacing again, I replaced the keys in Stefan's pocket and went to rifle through his bedroom. I found nothing but the usual: clothes, shoes, an unopened box of condoms. I picked it up and checked the expiry date.

"Three months ago," I said with a smirk. "That tracks." Stefan was a slimy bastard. The women of the world wouldn't miss him. Neither would the men, for that matter.

I knelt down beside his bed and shone my phone light underneath.

"What do we have here?" I said to myself. I set my phone aside and pulled out the box. Metal and maybe thirty centimetres wide and just as long, it was fitted with a basic padlock. The kind quickly unpicked with the lock pick I kept in my pocket.

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