Better when He's Bold

I replied easily, “He’s a lucky guy and I think he has more than nine lives.”

Stark muttered his agreement and then looked up at me with a frown.

“There is all kinds of trick software loaded on this computer, Race. The hard drive ate a bunch of it when it went down, but there are traces of it all over the place.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s key-tracking software on here, there’s code written in here that allows someone to remotely view whatever the front camera is looking at. There’s mirroring software on here so that whatever she was looking at on her monitor was being projected onto the other user’s computer. Whenever she used this computer every single thing she did was being tracked. This is a wide-open doorway into your lady’s life.”

All I could do was stare at him stupidly. How had I missed all of that when I went digging in there for her school stuff?

“You’ve got to be kidding me?”

“No way. If anyone tried to track where all the stuff that was sent out from the fake her was coming from, it would point back to this computer and her IP address. Who is close enough to her that they could install all of this on here without her knowing it or questioning it? Programs like this take up a lot of space, and take forever to install. She would’ve had to hand over her computer willingly for them to download this stuff.”

“I can’t believe this.”

“Me either. This is some serious Big-Brother-eyes-everywhere-shit on here. I haven’t seen anything like this outside of military or government use. This is one obsessed freak you are dealing with.”

I wanted to grab the laptop and smash it into a million and one pieces, but more than that, I wanted to find whoever was behind terrorizing and violating Brysen and choke the life out them with my bare hands. Once I found out who it was, a tire iron and some broken kneecaps would look like child’s play.

“Is there any way for you to backtrack to the other computer?”

“If the hard drive wasn’t a wasteland I probably could. She’s lucky this thing is old and crapped out on her. There’s no telling how long all of that software was running in the background.”

There really was no telling how long Brysen had been in the crosshairs, and that made me feel murderous. I always liked to use my head first, but right now my heart and the most primal part of me were calling for blood. I would do whatever it took to keep her safe, brains be damned.

Chapter 15

Brysen

THIS WAS A LOT harder than I thought it was going to be. My mother had long since ceased being one of my favorite people. However, my heart still twisted as I watched her sign all the paperwork that would lock her away in this facility for three months with no contact from the outside world. She looked scared and her hands were shaking, Karsen was trying to unobtrusively wipe tears off of her cheeks, and I was just trying to hold it all together. This was the only time the facility had to process her in, and Karsen and I still had a full day of school looming in front of us right afterward.

The guy Race had set all this up with was begrudgingly helpful in expediting the process of getting my mom into treatment. It was clear he was breaking some major rules and could get into some serious trouble if anyone found out just how my mother had scored a spot in this treatment facility. I think he reiterated no less than five times that if she broke any of the rules, didn’t stay on her meds, or slipped up in any way, she was out on her ass and the debt he owed Race was still going to be considered clear. My mom just nodded like a puppet and assured anyone who would listen that she was ready to get help.

I wondered if she realized getting help meant delving into the fact she had stolen a man’s life with her actions and coming to terms with the fact there would be nothing left for her to return to by the time she was out of the facility. I hadn’t seen much of my dad since the gambling revelations, but now there was no trying to hide the foreclosure notices and warnings filling up the mailbox from the various banks and mortgage lenders.

It had been two weeks since things had turned into something different between me and Race. Two weeks in which he had maneuvered things so that my mom could get into this place. Two weeks in which he had insisted that a monster of a man with a scar on his face and a permanent glower—who simply went by the name Booker—follow me to and from every single place I went. Two weeks in which the bank had sent the final notice of nonpayment on the house, letting us know we had only to the end of the month to pay or get out. And maybe most importantly, it had been two weeks in which I realized that when I didn’t see my golden god it really sucked and made me miss him something fierce.

Between handling things with my mom, trying to figure out what I was going to do about where Karsen and I were going to go, and getting everything squared away with school now that I was a hundred percent back on track, there hadn’t been any time to see Race. I wanted to this weekend, but it was fight night at the Pit and there was some kind of playoff game going on, so he hadn’t been around. When I did manage to get him on one of his many phones, I was happy to hear that he didn’t seem any more pleased with the separation than I was, and then he demanded that if anything felt off I tell Booker about it. I had already had to hand my new laptop over to the giant and wait anxiously while he pawed at it and searched for God only knew what. If there was spyware downloaded on this one, the giant couldn’t locate it, which seemed to make Race a little less anxious, but didn’t make me feel any less violated.

It wasn’t that I was opposed to having a man at my back who looked like he could rip someone’s head off simply because they looked at him wrong, it was more the fact that he didn’t talk and didn’t seem too stoked at being my babysitter that bugged me. He was a few years older than me and way taller than both Bax and Race. He had short dark hair that he slicked up off of a high forehead and made the scar that started above his eyebrow and cut straight down the side of his face to his jaw look even more prominent. It was really a shame considering he was a really handsome man. His eyes were a pretty, sharp, gunmetal blue. They were so pale they looked silvery and reflective, and they sat in a face that was strong, defined, and chiseled in a supremely masculine and hard way. If it wasn’t for that scar, he could give Race a run for his money in the heartthrob department, and I wasn’t excited that my little sister kept sneaking furtive glances at him when she thought no one was looking.