I’m looking through some of the last of the recorded footage leading up to Katy’s death. It was a bitch to find. The original recording had been deleted, but I managed to scavenge the data from the hard drive, which had been corrupted almost beyond repair. I could have simply checked the approximate date and time of her murder and looked for it at the first opportunity I had, but something held me back. I wanted to see if I could understand the why behind the ruthless and cruel act that took her from my family.
My stomach clenches as I begin to run through the night of her death. Some of the footage is completely corrupted, and it’s not possible for me to repair it. Eventually I find a clear portion of the recording showing the masquerade ball which would end up being the last night of her life, ending in bloodshed and tears. I almost don’t want to watch, and had I not seen the photo Mom had taken of Katy all dressed up for the night, I wouldn’t have known which of the girls she was beneath the mask, not on the CCTV footage, that is.
My mouth is dry, and as I fast forward through the recording I spot something that makes me pause and rewind to watch at normal speed. Katy is dancing and laughing with a young man in a mask, who I’m presuming is Sebastian if the fact she kisses him is any indicator, but I spot at least two people whose gazes don’t leave Katy and Sebastian for a single second. I can’t tell who they are, but when Katy leaves the dance floor, one of them swoops in and takes her place. The other stalks her out of the room. Frantically, I switch to find the next camera, and load up the recording, zooming in as best I can.
She’s arguing with the masked man, who looks to be getting more and more annoyed by the second. I curse the lack of sound as I watch closely with my hands clenched tightly around the arms of my chair, my knuckles white and strained with tension. When he releases her, I see Katy say something before she turns to walk away and he grabs her by the arm, stopping her in her tracks. He grabs her by the throat, pushing her up against the wall while he speaks.
I silently praise her when she fights against him. They start to struggle and my blood runs cold when I see her movements stop. I watch helplessly as he checks her over, for signs of life maybe, but even here I can see the blood pooling beneath her skull. She must have hit her head in the struggle, or when he pushed her up against the wall. Another man enters the room and drags the man who killed my sister away from her dead body, leaving her alone on the cold marble floor bleeding out her final moments.
My hands are shaking with rage, as I pull up more of the footage from that night, searching desperately for any other recordings that may shed light on the culprit responsible. Finally, I locate the two men who I’d seen on the other camera in a nondescript, yet familiar hallway. My heart is pounding as I watch the two of them argue, and the one who had his hands wrapped around my sister’s neck slams his palm against the wall in anger, before tearing off his mask and throwing it at the other man’s feet and storming away from him. I clench my teeth, fighting to regain control so I don’t burst out of this room and put him in his own grave as I hit pause, and stare at the face of a man I know all too fucking well—Devin.
Chapter Fifteen
Devin
The Society is in fucking disarray. The whole network is down, and I can’t find Ethan anywhere. I’m doing my best to rebuild the firewalls and eradicate the bots and viruses that tore through it.
“Fuck. Where’s Ethan?” I growl, frantically typing in an effort to slow it all down and get some kind of protection back in place.
I don’t know exactly what’s been hit, but as far as I can tell there’s been a localized cyber-attack that has ripped through everything Ethan has spent weeks rebuilding. Thankfully, it seems that we’ve been the worst hit by it, not that it makes me feel any better. My phone has been vibrating on the desk for the last ten minutes, with my father's name flashing across the screen, but I’ve been ignoring it while putting out the technological fire that’s been raging for the past hour as the viruses wreak havoc on everything.
I shake my head in frustration as I finally manage to create a weak firewall so I can work on stemming the flow until Ethan gets back from wherever he’s disappeared to. I’m trying hard not to let my suspicions get the better of me, but something tells me he’s not coming back, and that the reason why is in front of my very eyes. I pick up my phone and swipe across the screen before holding it to my ear.
“What?” I snap at my father, as I sit down in the chair and drop my head over the back of it, looking up at the ceiling.
“Son, check our accounts. Am I seeing this correctly?” my father snaps right back, not bothering with the formalities.
As I straighten in my chair I hit the loudspeaker and put the phone beside me on the desk. I bring up the accounts, and check through every single one of them, getting angrier by the minute as I see zero after zero on each of the balances.
“Yes,” I grit out, rapidly tapping keys and loading up programs to try and track down where it’s gone, and wishing I were better at this than I am.
“Devin,” he
