Page 61 of Ruin
A physical reminder that I belong to a murderer.
That every kiss, every touch, every whispered endearment was contaminated by blood.
My parents' blood.
I grip the kitchen counter until my knuckles turn white, fighting another wave of nausea.
Hours ago, I woke up in the arms of the man I love; tonight I'm planning his destruction.
The transformation should feel empowering. Instead, it feels like I’m dying.
But sometimes you have to die to become something else.
Something stronger, something capable of justice.
The box of my father's files sits in my bedroom closet like a shrine to the dead.
I've kept everything from his study—every note, every photograph, every piece of evidence he was building for his RICO case.
The police returned most of it after the investigation stalled, claiming lack of evidence and dead leads.
I've hoarded it like a grieving child clinging to toys that smell like a lost parent.
Tonight, it might save my life. Or end it.
I spread everything across my living room floor—police reports with details that still make me sick, autopsy photos I can barely look at without seeing their faces superimposed over the clinical documentation, my father's meticulous handwritten notes in the margins of legal documents.
His handwriting, neat and precise, documenting every piece of evidence he'd gathered against organized crime in the city.
One name appears over and over, circled in red ink: Wolfe.
My hands tremble as I pick up a legal pad covered in his writing.
At the top, underlined three times: Cassius Wolfe—priority target.
Below that, a timeline that makes my blood run cold.
Dates, locations, criminal activities.
Murders disguised as accidents.
Judges who refused cooperation and turned up dead.
Witnesses who disappeared before they could testify.
And at the bottom, in my father's careful script:
C. Wolfe has assumed increasing control of the organization following his father's retirement. Extremely dangerous. Has been murdering witnesses and potential threats to operation. Judges Romano and Kowalski likely targeted for refusing cooperation. I may be next.
I may be next.
He knew. My father knew Cassius was coming for him.
He knew he was living on borrowed time, yet he kept investigating, kept building his case, kept fighting even when he understood the cost.
I run my fingers over his words, these final thoughts of a doomed man.
Did he think about me in those last weeks?
