Caged By Them (Descent Into Darkness 1)

“Get in touch with a woman named Abigail Winthrop. She works at Jackson Investments—or did—I’m sure she’s found a new job by now.” I nodded. “I’ll have Mauro contact her and she’ll get you what you need.”

“Thank you.” A look of relief swept over her face. “I miss you.”

“You do?” I tilted my head to the side. “I have to say—I’m surprised to hear that.”

“Once you get out of here, we’re going to talk.” She put her hand up to the glass and nodded before hanging up the phone.

I stared at her hand for a moment—confused—before finally pressing mine to the glass as well. I couldn’t believe Lizzy was trying to help me, especially considering what I did to her in the name

of misguided vengeance. But, for a brief moment, before she walked away—I saw something in her eyes. It was a longing—a need—the same one she had when she begged for my cruelty the last night we spent together. I couldn’t give it to her then because she didn’t deserve it. Perhaps I had been wrong—maybe she was more than just a girl in a cage—a toy to be broken.

Maybe she was my path to salvation.

The only woman capable of taming my beast—while still begging for it to destroy her.

Lizzy

Two days later

I was able to get in touch with Abigail, Mauro’s assistant at Jackson Investments, and she gave me a key to Reynard’s house. She also told me that Wyatt’s laptop would be in his safe and provided me with the combination. It was strange to walk into Reynard’s house again—and as much as I wanted to run straight to the safe, I needed something else more. I needed the darkness. I just needed to feel that one more time—even if it wasn’t the same as it was when terror filled my thoughts. I walked down the hallway to the room where I spent most of my time. The cage was still there—a true sight for my sore eyes.

I never thought I would miss it—but it’s not the same knowing that the door isn’t going to open—that Reynard or Mauro won’t walk through it and give me a taste of what I truly crave.

I sat alone in the darkness with the cage door closed for nearly an hour—just savoring the silence—the nothingness—but it wasn’t real. It was just an illusion without the Jackson brothers nearby. I couldn’t even pretend that they were lurking somewhere in the house, ready to exact vengeance. I had to change that—I had to bring them home.

I left the cage and found Reynard’s safe in his library, hidden behind a painting of Jackson Investments, just like Abigail said it would be. Wyatt’s laptop was dead, so I hooked up the power cable and waited for it to get enough juice to turn on. It was an older laptop, and definitely not a reflection of the wealth that the man who owned it possessed. I wandered around the house while I waited for it to have enough juice to power on without shutting down immediately.

Reynard’s playroom. A night of agonizing bliss.

I opened the door and stared at the implements on the wall—the things he used to torture me—the ones I wished I had felt on my skin. The wooden paddle was there—the one Mauro used when he finally succumbed to his own desires and gave me a taste of the beast lingering inside him. I would have given anything to feel his wrath again—it wasn’t calculated like Reynard’s was. Mauro was chaos and as much as Reynard’s concise attention to my demise intrigued me, I couldn’t help wondering how much more there was to Mauro that I hadn’t seen.

I’m going to save them—I have to.

Once I returned to the study, I was able to turn on the laptop and it connected to Reynard’s network immediately. I started digging around in Wyatt’s files—looking for something that could reveal what I needed. The last document that had been accessed was a will—one that appeared to mention splitting the Jackson family assets amongst four siblings. There was a letter that went along with it, but it didn’t tell me much about Hannah. It just mentioned that she was the result of an affair. It appeared that Reynard was telling the truth when he said he wiped everything that mentioned me—all of his chat logs were gone—and he it didn’t look like he ever recorded any videos.

Wait a second—what is this?

I saw an icon that I didn’t recognize on Wyatt’s desktop. I clicked it—and my eyes nearly bulged out of my head. It was a program designed for hackers—one that created a back door directly into the chat servers where I talked to all of my victims. I began to understand how Reynard was able to learn so much about me. With a few clicks, I was able to access all of my chat logs, Wyatt’s chat logs—everything. The only thing missing was the video files, which would have been stored directly on the computer of the person who recorded them. I assumed Reynard got most of the information from my laptop, but he didn’t even need it—he had it all at his disposal.

This program—I could have done so much damage with something like this.

The power of the program surprised me. I could access chat rooms, Skype profiles, Facebook profiles—anything I wanted—and I could see the private messages people shared. It wasn’t as concise as finding people on my own, but it definitely gave me access once I knew who they were. I looked at the name of the program and a quick search on Google led me to a website where it could be purchased—and the price wasn’t cheap—plus, it appeared to be customized and slightly different than the one they advertised to the public.

Reynard would have had the funds to get them to give him a lot more access than everyone else got—but how wide is that access?

I never considered myself much of a hacker. I was good with computers and understood how to dig into the stuff people left open to the public, but the program gave me unlimited access to a lot of things I wouldn’t normally be able to see. It was a lot better than the investigation I was doing at my apartment. I started searching through archives, looking for more information, and cross-referencing everything I knew about Josef Weber with the online profiles. It felt like an endless rabbit hole once I started digging, but then I hit something that appeared to be useful. It wasn’t Josef Weber, but it was one of his employees—an employee that appeared to love chatting with women online.

Okay, let me download all these logs.

I grabbed all of the logs and quickly scanned them, but while I fantasized it would lead me directly to the truth, he appeared to just be a pervert. Still—it was something-something that could lead to more. I found a company directory for Weber Acquisitions and started to create profiles for everyone that worked there. The screen wasn’t big enough. I laid paper out on the desk and started taking notes, taping them to the wall in front of me as soon as I got enough information to link someone with their online persona. Hours went by—hours that felt like minutes as I kept digging. I just needed one of them to say something-something about a deal—a casual brag—the kind of details people shared with me when they were trying to convince the girl I pretended to be that they were god’s gift to my gender.

This guy looks interesting. Hank Matthews.

Hank Matthews was the kind of guy that I would have targeted when I was searching for victims, and I didn’t even have to spend time getting to know him before I knew what he liked. I was able to read his chat logs—very dirty chat logs—and he was definitely searching for a girl that would cater to specific dark fantasies. I ran to the living room and grabbed Reynard’s laptop. I needed another one to work on—one that I could use to build a persona while I kept Hank’s information at my disposal on the other screen.

Okay, he likes to brag. He tells people where he works. I just need to create a profile that’s sweet, innocent—and extremely tempting for a man like him.

I became Sarah Winters, a girl from Chicago who had just turned sixteen. My interests were guys—guys that were a bit older than me. I added celebrity crushes that were much too old for an innocent sixteen-year-old girl, added a few naughty books to my reading list that were sure to be conversation starters, and took a few pictures with my cell phone that hid my face, but showed my curves. I was laying a trap—a trap that I had laid so many times—but this one was different. This one was meant to snare only one man, and I knew where he hung out most of the time when he was online thanks to the software on Wyatt’s laptop.