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Spitfire
By Sara Cate
Sara Cate
Spitfire
Revenge is a dish best served in flames.
I ruined his life.
Eight years ago I was just doing my job when I revealed his family’s money was rooted in controversy. It was my investigation that sent his father to jail and my fault his mother killed herself shortly after.
I’ve regretted it every day since.
Now Cullen Ayers wants to make me pay. When he shows up in my Journalism class, I know I’m in trouble. His torment becomes my life, and I endure every moment of it because I deserve it for what I did. Cullen is hellbent on revenge and I’m terrified by how far he’ll go.
What started as revenge quickly turns into lust. He’s only eighteen, and I should be ashamed of how good this hate feels when we’re alone, but I can’t help myself. I’m in too far now, and I’m starting to discover his family’s secrets go far deeper than I first thought.
The more I uncover, the more ways he finds to punish me.
Cullen wants to ruin me for life, and I’m afraid he already has.
Spitfire © 2021 Sara Cate
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Prologue
Everly
My hands are shaking in my lap. This is it. After months of research, and my life being turned upside down, I’m finally sitting here in the courtroom, waiting to watch the judge sentence the monster I helped put behind bars.
It was just a graduate project. As part of my internship at the Florence Times, I had to write an investigative piece on someone local to the city. I had no idea what I would find when I started digging into what I thought was a little under the table tax fraud at the Ayers hotel chain.
What I really uncovered was a major human trafficking operation that spanned the nation. George Ayers was responsible for kidnapping, displacing, and harboring thousands of minors. And he made millions off it. Once the FBI took the case, it was out of my hands, but as far as the world sees it, I was the one who brought this giant down. A real life David and Goliath.
My best friend, Thomas, is sitting next to me, grasping my hand to hide the way they are shaking. I don’t know why I’m nervous. I’m not afraid of him, but something just isn’t settling right. I feel a strange sense of guilt, although I know that’s insane. I’ve done nothing wrong. In fact, I’ve done everything right, and yet, there's a dense weight on my heart.
Then the courtroom doors open and a man in black ushers in a red-faced Mrs. Ayers. Bombshell blonde and about twenty-years younger than her husband, Valerie Ayers looks the part of a woman grieving the loss of her fortune far more than the loss of her husband. She’s clutching those pearls pretty close as she takes her seat.
Just behind her, like a shadow, her ten-year-old son trails in stoically without expression. There’s something about that boy that sends chills down my spine. Throughout this entire case and even before, he was so emotionless, it just felt eerie. Maybe it’s those blue eyes beneath that dark brow and jet black hair that appears all wrong to me.
As he sits next to his mother on the opposite side of the aisle from me, I can’t help but glance his way every few moments. It’s not lost on me how every time I look at them, the foreboding sense of guilt aches a little sharper.
The voice in my head tells me they are not innocent in this. With their mansion and their money, they have reaped the benefit from the suffering of thousands. They don’t deserve the clothes on their backs, and I hope they suffer once that man is in prison. I know it’s an awful thing to think, but they’ve both spent their lives knowing no hardship, no struggle, no pain.
I want Valerie and her son to know pain now.
Just then, his ghostly blue eyes travel my way, and I freeze.
I know Cullen Ayers hates me, judging only by the look in his eye, but I don’t blame him. I’ve taken everything from him, and I don’t want to feel bad about that. I want to feel good about it. Because whether he’s just a kid or not, the truth of the matter is, I hate him too.
1
Everly
The students start piling into their seats about five minutes before the actual start of class. My hands are shaking as I open my laptop, trying to appear as natural as possible even though I could literally throw up at any moment. In my smooth black dress belted at the waist and covered with a rich green cardigan, I attempt to look the professor-type.
This is my first class at Florence University, and with all of those faces peering down at me from the ten rows in the lecture hall, I’m starting to rethink this decision. I need a fresh start, something new and different than another writing job at another publication. Instead of trying to constantly live up to the peak of my journalism career, I figured teaching at the local college would be the change I desperately need.
The seats fill up fast, and I take a look through my updated roster list again. Last I checked there was only one empty spot in my Journalism 101 class. But as I hit refresh again, I notice the number goes from 199 to 200 students. Looks like we had a late registration. I feel a sense of pride at having my first class fill up so fast.
Peering down the list of names again, something familiar catches my attention. It’s a new name, definitely not on the list when I checked it last night.
Ayers.
A chill runs down my spine. I’d know that name anywhere. Eight years ago, my first investigative article, a thesis for my master’s program, broke the mold. My discovery for that writing contributed to a major federal investigation against George Ayers, a multi-millionaire hotel chain owner, convicted of running an underground, black market human trafficking scheme.
It was huge news at the time. Not only did it launch a federal campaign, but it put my name on the map as far as up-and-comers in the industry were concerned—a high I’ve been chasing ever since.
Of course, I would have an Ayers in my first Journalism class.
Clicking on the name just as class is supposed to start, my curiosity gets the better of me. I wonder if I would recognize this specific Ayers or if there is any family connection. They were local to the area, so it wouldn’t be super surprising. And at first, I assume it’s a distant cousin or something.