Chapter 6
Sebastian
When my monitors inform me of Lizzy’s return to her house, my heart finally slows to a normal rate.
It’s not that I distrust Tom and Betty. It’s just that when she’s not home, she’s out of my reach. Not only am I not there for her if she needs me, but I wouldn’t even be aware of any harrowing situation she’d encounter.
Overnight trips are especially hard to cope with, because it’s even longer that she’s away. She doesn’t go on many, and they’re solely reserved for the Colemans.
As soon as she enters her house, she disrobes her outerwear. Then she beelines directly to her pets. She feeds the few who are scheduled to eat, then begins speaking to them as she scurries around.
“You’ll never believe what Betty ambushed us with!”
My ears perk. Betty Coleman’s typically nurturing, benevolent, and mild-mannered. She’s certainly not one to ‘ambush’ Lizzy with anything. They love her like family, which is why they’re authorized to be around her.
“She set me up!” Lizzy shrieks, as she walks to her pantry. When she returns, she’s holding her broom.
My head cocks as I try to decipher the meaning. How did she set Lizzy up? In what manner? Surely, she didn’t do anything to upset Lizzy.
But my Lizzy doesn’t keep me guessing.
“The man was horrible!”
The hair on the back of my neck rises. What man?
“He was saying the worst things!”
Sweat pools on my back. What was he saying to her?
“The most arrogant and conceited man I’ve ever met!”
Dizziness overwhelms me. She met a man?
“And not even in a sexy-Mr.-Darcy sort of way!”
My world tilts on its axis. Sexy? Darcy? Fitzwilliam Darcy?
“He was horrible! I just couldn’t believe it!”
My feet can’t stop pacing. What did he do to her? How could they let a man near her?
“The gall of him! Accusing me of cheating at chess! How about learn the most basic checkmates!”
The blood roars in my ears, creating a pounding in my mind. How dare this miscreant question Lizzy’s intelligence?
“He told me I need to starve myself to have a waist he approves of!”
Everything in me tenses, freezing me in my steps.
Give me a name, angel. I just need a name.
“He… he said he wouldn’t even fuck me if I begged for it. That I wasn’t even nerdy in the sexy-librarian kind of way!”
My fists clench as her breath hitches. How fucking dare he.
Tell me who he is, so I can make him pay.
“Garrison, grandson of Norris, can rot in hell! When Tom escorted him out, he was pissed…”
Gotcha!
Listening with half my brain on her spiral, I use the other half to do my research. I start with the obvious connection. Betty knows Norris, this Garrison’s grandmother. Within a minute, I have the identity of her bingo buddy. Norris McGaffrey.
Locating Garrison Humphrey, grandson of Norris McGaffrey, takes only seconds. Soon enough, my screens display his whole life. Bank accounts, correspondences, address, employment, insurance… I access everything.
Then I take it all.
I start with his job as an attorney at a private firm.
A few clicks of my keyboard reveal the clientele he represents.
Of course the reprobate would be morally corrupt and conceited enough to defend the abominable vermin of this city.
Rapists and abusers. But the ones with wealth and power. The ones who get away with it.
It’s unacceptable. This degenerate was in my angel’s presence. Tarnishing her with his scummy personality.
The job is the first to go. With an anonymous tip to the Massachusetts State Bar Association, his penance begins. I funnel money from client accounts into his personal ones, then leave another tip to his partners. Being fired isn’t enough. He needs to be destroyed.
Now, I can’t let him just keep that money. So, I empty his bank accounts into terrible bets across many sports gambling apps and donate the rest to women’s shelters. They deserve it after the harm he’s brought by proxy upon victims of those he defends.
The next retribution is his lovely home. I hack his mortgage, empty what he’s paid, and reset it with a higher interest rate. Then I send an automated alert to his bank that he’s gone into overdraft. By the end of the month, his house will be repossessed.
My final move is a gamble. But I’ve always been great at calculating the odds. So, of course, when I bet that the egotistical bastard would make a sex tape, I knew I was right. I post it to his personal website. Then, email a copy of it to his entire contact sheet, both personal and professional.
With each click of my mouse, with each act of vengeance, the tension eases from me.
After twenty minutes when justice has been served, my shoulders relax on their own, and my heart slows.
Cecilia’s breathing exercises may calm my brothers, but nothing satiates me quite like revenge.
Especially against those that wrong my angel.
It’s not the first time I’ve cyberattacked someone in her defense. I do it for her. Well, and for anyone that wrongs my family. But only when it’s justified. Only when the target is truly wicked and deserving.
There’ve been a few guys who tried to date her. One that didn’t abandon the date when cornered in the bathroom. Last I saw, he was suffering in his parent’s basement. He’s fallen from pediatrician to janitor.
On my lesser days, men who upset her at work, the ones who make her cry, or flinch, or fear, or blush, or giggle, or anything… they pay too.
They all should pay.
And I intend to make them.