Chapter 5 - The True Architects of Ruin
They emerged into the cool night air near the salt marshes, both of them drenched in stagnant water, sweat, and soot.
In the distance, the sirens of the Charleston Fire Department wailed against the quiet Southern night.
Blackwood Estate stood high on the bluff, its lower eastern windows glowing with an angry orange light that illuminated the Spanish moss like hellfire.
Damian pulled Alara into the deep shadows beneath an ancient live oak, his hand resting on the small of her back as she coughed the smoke from her lungs.
Clutched tightly against her chest, wrapped safely inside her waterproof canvas bag, was Arthur Cross’s lockbox.
Alara looked up at Damian, her face streaked with soot and her eyes burning with an intense, furious light.
She told him that the fire was not bad luck, nor was it the wrath of God striking down another Cross associate.
She pulled out the audit report and pointed to the faded signatures under the moonlight.
Her father had discovered an internal embezzlement scheme amounting to tens of millions of dollars funneled through shell corporations owned by Damian’s own board of directors.
Arthur Cross had been preparing to purge his own inner circle when his brake lines were cut on Highway 17.
Her father had been eliminated three days later to ensure the financial records were never decoded.
The so-called curse was nothing more than a brilliant, ruthless cover story manufactured by the syndicate’s elders to execute anyone who got too close to the balance sheets.
Damian stared at the document, the horrific reality settling into his bones like lead.
For seven years, he had lived as a pariah, shouldering the guilt of every death and believing his very soul was poisoned by fate.
He had allowed himself to become a ghost in his own life, isolated by a lie crafted by the men who smiled at him during board meetings.
He looked down at Alara, whose hands were shaking not from fear, but from the raw adrenaline of a survivor ready for retribution.
A car’s headlights swept across the tree line as a black town car crept slowly down the marsh road, searching for survivors.
Damian stepped in front of Alara, his posture shifting from a brooding outcast to the lethal, undisputed ruler of the Lowcountry.
May you like
He took her hand, his scarred fingers locking tightly around hers, and promised her that the men who murdered her father and cursed his name would pay in blood.
Alara met his gaze without an ounce of hesitation, squeezing his hand in return as the hunt began.
