Not that I had lived like a saint at any point in my life, but from the second I met Dovie, took her under my wing, I made sure that any girl I hooked up with, messed around with, knew the score. I was in it for one thing and one thing only and they had to be okay with that. That was one of the major reasons I knew Brysen was different from the get-go. She hadn’t bought into my charm, into my practiced flirtation, and that alone made me want to get to her. But it was the fact that even with her feigned dislike of me, I knew, just simply knew, that I wanted her for way more than just sex. I wanted those sky-blue eyes to look at me like I was her hero, I wanted her to smile at me because I made her happy, and I wanted all that pretty, pale skin to get pink and warm because I turned her on and she wanted me just as much as I wanted her.
“How is Dovie?” More rapid tapping on the keys followed by a noise and his eyebrows dipping under the rim of his glasses.
“Good. She has a job she loves and makes pretty good money doing it. She’s going to school to get a degree, and despite everything I thought I knew about her and Bax, they seem to be a perfect couple. They’re making it work. She’s happy, she makes him happy—well, a Bax version of happy—and I guess that’s all I can ask for as a friend and a brother.”
He shook his head and laughed a little. “You getting serious about a girl is surprising, Bax settling down is downright unbelievable. I thought for sure he would be in prison for the rest of his life by now, not playing house.”
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.
“Don’t be nervous, Mom. They’ll get you on the right meds and help you get straight.” I put a hand on her shoulder and tried not to
flinch when I felt her shake under the light touch. “It’s what has to happen.”
Karsen nodded and bit her lip. She looked so young, so fragile, that I hated that she had to be part of this. My mom saw where my gaze shifted and whispered so I was the only one that could hear her, “What are you going to do? The house . . . there is no money.”
She sounded genuinely distraught about the circumstances, so it took every ounce of self-control I had not to remind her that this was all a little too late. Maybe if she hadn’t been drinking and driving in the first place, maybe if she had fought harder to stay medicated, maybe if she had left my oblivious and selfish father before it all had reached this point, I would be able to buy into her regret and shame. Now it just made my stomach hurt and had disbelief and aggravation struggling for dominance under my skin.
“Don’t worry about us. I’ll figure something out.”
She finished the paperwork and handed off the thick stack to a woman dressed in scrubs who had been lurking off to the side watching our awkward family moment. The employee told us that we had five more minutes to say our good-byes and then Mom would be assigned a room. Karsen stopped trying to hide her tears and wrapped her arms around our mom’s shaking frame. I heard her tell her that she loved her and my mom echoed the sentiment. When they separated, my mom turned to me and I just shook my head. I wanted her to get help and to be able to offer my sister some kind of healthy parental figure, but I wasn’t about to pretend like we weren’t here at this place without reason.
I reached out and squeezed one of her hands and told her, “I really want you to get the help you need, Mom. Please don’t waste this opportunity. You won’t get another one.”
Race was eventually going to run out of people he could wiggle favors out of, and if my mom squandered this chance at patching up her disrupted life and mental state, there was nothing else I could feasibly do to try and set this family to rights.
Karsen leaned against my side and I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and we watched as my mom was led away. She looked back at us over her shoulder and I felt the way Karsen’s thin body quaked against mine. She was too soft for this. How on earth was I going to drag her away from a nice suburban home into a dive located in the heart of the city if she couldn’t even handle the reality of who our mother really was?
“It’ll be all right.” I wanted to sound reassuring, but I just sounded tired and sad.
“I hope so. Things haven’t been all right in a long time.”
Hearing that twisted my guts into knots, so I tugged her closer. “I’m so sorry for that.”
She sighed and jabbed me with her elbow like we used to do when we were younger and roughhoused with one another.
“You’ve always done whatever you could to make it all seem okay, Brysen, but if no one else in the family is willing to keep up the façade, then the cracks show. It’s not your fault.”
“No, but I’m not giving up on us.”
Her mahogany eyes flashed at me. “I know you won’t.”
I guided her out of the waiting area to the front doors of the facility. It looked less like a hospital and more like a nice spa that middle-class ladies would spend an afternoon at. When we hit the parking lot I put my sunglasses on and noticed that Karsen’s gaze immediately went to the big black truck that was parked a few spaces over from my BMW.
“Why is that guy following you around again?”
She made no secret of the fact she was staring at the brute in the driver’s seat and I didn’t like the way he flashed his teeth at her like a hungry wolf. She had asked me repeatedly why the darkly brooding man and his massive truck always seemed to be around when we went anywhere, and pat answers weren’t cutting it anymore, so I told her the truth.
“Because Race is worried about me. Someone was spying on me through my old computer and then tried to hurt me after work. Race knows some pretty scary people, Booker is apparently one of them, and he’s hoping that having a pseudo bodyguard will keep my stalker at bay.”
The news about my computer had literally made me break down. I cried for an hour and then yelled at Race when he asked me who could’ve possibly downloaded the spyware onto it. If I knew the answer to that I wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. After I hung up on him and then paced a hole in the floor, I started to feel guilty for taking out my frustration on the one person trying to help me out. Before I could call him and apologize, he had sent me a text with Booker’s picture attached and told me I had a new shadow. The mountain of a man was going to follow me everywhere whether I liked it or not. Then Race texted that if I ever hung up on him again, he would be at my door within ten minutes and I wouldn’t love the results. It irked me that he was threatening me, but I got where he was coming from, so I just said I was sorry and told him I couldn’t wait until he did show up at my door.
Of course, Karsen, with her romantic and unfettered mind, focused on the part of my statement that was the least important.
“So Race is like your boyfriend now?”
I cut her a sideways look and popped the locks on my car. After we slid inside and fastened our seat belts, I told her, “I don’t really think Race is the boyfriend type.”
She rolled her head to the side and looked out the passenger window. It took me a second to realize she was staring fixedly at the mirror and the truck behind us.
“But he has someone protecting you and he helped you with Mom, plus he calls and texts you all the time, and I know those nights you don’t come home after work you’re staying with him. So if he’s not your boyfriend, what is he?”
I wasn’t really sure I had an answer to that question. He was a lot of things, not just to me, but in general.
“He’s important to me and I know he cares about me. I’ve had a pretty big crush on him for a long time, but he’s from a different type of world than I am, and I’m still trying to figure out if I can fit into it.”
She turned her head back to look at me and I saw her start to pick at the threads on her jeans where there was a hole on her knee.
“Because he lives in the Point?”
I snorted. If only it was that easy to explain.
“No. Race didn’t start out in the Point, but now that he’s there, he’s kind of decided that he’s going to be in charge of what’s going on in the place. He’s not exactly a law-abiding citizen, and even though I think at his core he is a good man making hard choices, those choices suck and they affect more than just him. I’m not sure I can be part of that, even if I want to be with him.”
She shifted her gaze back to the mirror and her voice dropped.
“If he’s nice to you, takes care of you, and makes you happy, the choices he has to make that affect others shouldn’t matter. People are always hurting each other, and if you have a guy going out of his way to not hurt you, well, that’s what matters. Rich, poor, and everything in between.”
“That’s a pretty bleak view for a sixteen-year-old girl to have, Karsen.”
She tucked her hair behind her ear just like I did and turned back to look at me.
“Mom and Dad loved each other at one point, but they ended up hurting each other and us. The boys from my school think they are entitled to anything and everything they want because they live in a particular zip code and they don’t care who they hurt. Dovie almost died because of bad men and other people’s actions that had nothing to do with her. Pain is everywhere, Brysen. I’m not blind. Everyone’s choices affect other people. Look at where we just left our mom.”
Well, fuck me. Here I thought I had been insulating her and protecting her from all the evils at our doorstep and she was looking at them far clearer than I ever had.
“That’s a very good point.”
She lifted the side of her mouth in a little grin that turned my heart over. I just adored every single thing about this kid.
“Besides, Race is a total babe. You’d be an idiot to pass on your chance to get with someone that hot.”
&nb
sp; That made me laugh, mostly because she wasn’t wrong. I would be an idiot to pass up on taking advantage of everything Race seemed willing to offer me, his sexy self included.
As we got closer to her school so I could drop her off, her words nagged at me. Karsen was a peacemaker, a girl who just wanted everyone to get along and be happy. Her statement that the boys at her school felt entitled made me uneasy.
“Hey, that boy you liked, whatever happened with him?”
She lifted a shoulder and let it fall. Her eyes locked firmly on the mirror and the truck.
“He wasn’t as nice as I thought he was.”
That made my jaw clench and my hands tighten reflexively on the steering wheel.
“What does that mean, exactly?” My voice was sharp and I saw her flinch from the lash of it.
“It means that because I don’t really live on the Hill, just at the base of it, I’m good enough to fool around with but not good enough to date. Once I figured that out and walked away, he got kind of nasty. He was mean and tried to drag me down to his level time and time again.” She whipped her head around and met me stare for stare. “Guys like Parker are exactly the kind of young men the world doesn’t need making the hard choices, Brysen. He’s a terrible person through and through, and he’s just going to end up more evil and more hateful as he gets older. We’re all better off when the bad things in the world are being managed by guys like Race. At least he has good somewhere inside of him.”
We were finally at the high school, and as we rolled to a stop, she leaned over and gave me a smacking kiss on the cheek. She shoved open the door and ducked her head down to look at me one last time.
“From the outside looking in, Race is giving all of us a chance at a new start. Take the advice you gave Mom and don’t squander it, Brysen. Love ya.”
She slammed the door and I turned to watch her blend in with the crowd of similarly dressed teenagers. I didn’t miss the jaunty wave she shot, not to me but to the behemoth in the truck behind me. There was no clean slate for the Carters. Not with the spectacular way our parents had managed to break it.