Razor: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance (14 page)

“
I
need
a secure passage to Mexico,” I said, pacing back and forth in the small living room of Shadow’s apartment.

He looked up from his screen and scratched at his chin, staring at me through his wide-rim spectacles. “You sure about that?”

I stopped my pacing to regard my fellow hacker. Shadow, real name Peter Hall, was a scrawny little thing that fit a stereotypical hacker profile. Despite that, he was one of the best I knew, and was one of the few that I could actually call my friend.

I’d went up to his house after I left from Carly’s, knowing he could give me up to date information on my trackers and help me with mobility.

I nodded. “Yeah. I’ll be able to lay low for a while, get a plan together.”

Shadow appeared thoughtful. “Hmmm. I’ll see what I can do.”

“And I’m going to need you to help lead Maddy on a wild goose chase. As in, the complete opposite direction.”

Shadow nodded. “I can do that.”

“That goes for Anonymous too,” I added. “With how close Aubrey got, I don’t want to take any chances.”

Shadow frowned. “Razor, you’re asking me to betray the people that I work with. I told you already that I don’t want to get involved in that.”

“They’re basically one in the same. I know Maddy technically isn’t Anonymous anymore, but she still has friends that are. You’re already involved just by helping me anyway. Besides, they don’t deserve your loyalty anymore. Anonymous is more and more becoming associated as an online terrorist organization.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Shadow said thoughtfully. “The leadership is becoming just like the people we set out to expose. It’s made a lot of the hackers involved take more liberties, giving us a bad name. But still, it’s hard to turn my back on them.”

“Well, it’s time to choose. It shouldn’t matter that I exposed the information on my own. If anything, all they should be angry at is not getting recognition for it. But what I saw from Aubrey, they don’t see it that way.”

He let out a sigh and shook his head. “Fine, I’ll do what I can. Just know that I don’t like it. I have no problem fucking with Maddy though. That bitch is off her rocker.”

I nodded. “What happened with her by the way? You said she was hot on my trail.”

“Not exactly sure. I know I interrupted her and Andre’s tracking several times, but for the past few days, it’s been really quiet on their front.”

“That’s not good,” I muttered. I knew without a doubt that when Madeline Bona was quiet, trouble soon followed. I hated that I’d ever met that crazy bitch. Even worse that I got involved with her.

Shadow shook his head. “Nope, not at all. All I can hope to do is draw them out onto your fake trail.”

“It’s going to have to be more than
hope
. I can’t afford her finding out about Carly.”

Even speaking Carly’s name brought up fresh pain. I hated leaving her all alone. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done, but I knew it was the right thing to do.

“Razor?” Shadow asked, breaking me out of my reverie.

“Huh?”

“You okay? You were just staring off into space.”

“Oh. I was just thinking about what I was going to do next, you know, planning ahead.”

He stared at me hard, not fooled. “You really care about this girl, don’t you?”

“She’s my stepsister,” I explained. “Of course I do.” Obviously I wasn’t about to tell him all the little details about how I was in love with her.

“I can see that.” Shadow turned his attention back to his computer screen. “Alright, well, I’ll do everything I can.”

“Thanks man. I knew I could count on you.”

Shadow gave me a toothy grin. “Although, my reasons for helping aren’t altogether altruistic.”

I scowled. “Seriously? You really gonna do this now?”

“Hell yeah I am. Why wouldn’t I? You’re a talented man, and I want to be able to call on you when I need it.”

I sighed. I couldn’t believe this guy. But you know what they say — nothing in the world is free. “I should’ve known. What is it this time?”

“It’s this fucking gaming company, Vetcom,” Shadow hissed with venom.

“Vetcom?”

“I just said they’re a gaming company! Well, I might, sorta, wanna hack into their database system.”

“For what?”

“Demand that they make changes to the game or else.”

I quirked an eyebrow.

“The latest expansion patch sucks ass and they took away all the cool abilities from my favorite class that I always play.”

“Dude, you really need to get out sometime. Find you a girl or something.”

“Hey! I’m serious!”

There are far worse things in the world that could happen
, I thought.

“The nerd rage is strong.”

“Screw you!” Shadow giggled, looking slightly embarrassed by his overreaction. “So can I depend on you to help me? I don’t mean right now — later on, if you don’t get caught, thrown in jail or killed that is.”

“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Shadow grinned. “Don’t worry, I have faith in you.”

“Sure you do.”

“I’m waiting for an answer, Razor.”

I sighed. “Provided that I make it through this, yes I’ll help you.”

Shadow smiled widely. “Good, ‘cause you owe me. Big time.”

I
fucking hate him
. I fucking hate his guts.

I was pacing the living room the next morning, my eyes red from having cried the entire night away.

I felt horrible, like a worthless pile of shit.

How could Mason abandon me like that after we had just shared something so beautiful together? And the way he left really bothered me, sneaking off while I was asleep and leaving a stupid letter behind to explain himself.

How cowardly. How fucking cruel. If he was going to leave, he should’ve at least given me the chance to say goodbye.

I had a phone number, but he told me to only call it if it was an emergency.

I’m not going to call him and leave a message
, I thought.
He doesn’t deserve to hear me crying and begging him to come back
.

What I needed to do was forget Mason, forget that he ever waltzed back into my life and forget the feelings I thought I felt for him.

Except that it was easier said than done. Especially after I’d just given my v-card away to him. And I saved it just for him too, and he took it and left. Just like I’m sure he’s done with plenty other girls.

It made me feel like a used soiled rag.

“I need to get my mind off of him,” I muttered, sniffing. My nose was stopped up from all the crying and it was never going to get better if I didn’t stop.

I needed something, anything, to change my focus. I didn’t want to give Mason another second of my time.

My eyes fell on my laptop. Mason told me stay away from it, at least for the time being. But he was gone now, and I didn’t have to listen to him anymore.

Besides, I’d been itching to log on to see what my blog looked like ever since the video was uploaded and see what the general response was.

I sat down at my desk and logged onto my laptop. For a moment, I felt a twinge or foreboding at going against Mason’s orders, but I pushed it away. I wasn’t going to live in fear no matter what happened. I’d done nothing wrong in helping Mason expose a fraud and a murder, so I didn’t fear the police. If Anonymous wanted to get to me, well, if people in the organization were as good as Mason, me logging on won’t matter and they’ll find me anyway.

I typed my blog address in the address bar and got this:

404 ERROR – Sorry the page you were looking for was not found.

WTF
, I thought.

What asshole took down my blog? I suppose I should’ve been expecting it. It could’ve been any number of people. But after what we saw on the news, it had to be everywhere by now and it didn’t matter.

“Damn it!” I yelled, banging on my laptop keys in anger.

I began typing in the search bar, “Mayor Bradley murder video” to see if it was anywhere else on the internet and images of a screen capture of the footage came up in the results, but when I tried to go to any of them, I was met with the DMCA notices and 404 messages. I tried every sort of video site, YouTube, Livestream and a few others, but all had the same results.

“This is ridiculous,” I muttered. “They’re really trying to cover this thing up.” As mad as I was at Mason, it only went to show how right he was about the corruption that was rampant.

Eventually, I found a place where the video was still being circulated, on Reddit of all places. The sentiment there was as I expected. People were calling for the Mayor’s head and complaining about a mass coverup and only a few gave him the benefit of the doubt.

After I had my fill of reading comments, I checked my e-mail inbox. The screen froze for several moments before it loaded.

“Jesus,” I whispered at all the results. My inbox was almost completely full, two gigabytes worth of mail from people who were interested in talking to me for posting the video on my blog.

There were even offers from news stations who were willing to pay me in exchange for an interview. Some even offered me a job.

Normally, this type of news would have filled me with joy. I mean, it wasn’t exactly a far cry from what I’d been hoping for when we released the video. Hell, I’d been looking for a serious journalist gig since graduating college. I should have been over the moon.

But I felt nauseous. Sick to my stomach.

None of it meant anything without Mason. Now that we’d expressed our feelings for one another, the need for him had grown exponentially.

I paused for a moment, another one of Mason’s warnings coming back to me. Ignoring it, I powered on my cell, when my ringtone immediately went off.

“You knew!” Rosemary cried with accusation as I answered. “You knew this whole time and you didn’t tell me.”

Why in the hell did I answer the phone?
I thought with exasperation. I could also see that I had about two-hundred voice mail messages from Rosemary, Brian, Mom and some unknown phone numbers.

“I’m sorry, Rosemary,” I said my mouth dry. “I couldn’t contact you in time before the video went—”

“Three months!” she wailed. “Three months I agonized over Ashley’s death, wondering who killed her, and the whole time you knew.” She sniffed and then a rush of air followed as if she was blowing her nose. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you!”

“Rosemary, if you’ll just give me a chance to explain—”

“But you know what? It doesn’t matter anyway. My lawyer says that the Mayor will go to jail, no thanks to you.”

“Rosemary please—”

Click.

The nerve of that woman. She didn’t even give me a chance to speak. I didn’t understand her. Shouldn’t she have been happy that the video was posted on my blog, even if I hadn’t told her before it went live? She now knew who murdered her daughter, and hopefully she would finally have the closure she deserved.

I had no time to ponder her ungratefulness, because no sooner had I hung up, my mom was calling.

“Carly!” she snapped shrilly. “Where on earth have you been? I’ve been calling you for days!”

I gritted my teeth. I really didn’t feel like having this conversation right now. “Mom, I can’t talk right now.”

She ignored me. “Brian is furious. He says Mason is on the run from law enforcement and that you’ve been abetting him.”

“I know nothing about it,” I lied. “And if all you’ve done is call me to bitch and complain, I think I’ll be hanging up right about now.”

Cause I’m not in the mood for this shit
, I thought.

Hanging up would be a good thing, because with the mental state I was in, it wouldn’t take much for me to go nuclear on my overbearing, over-critical, always-blame-me-for-everything-even-though-it-wasn’t-my-fucking-fault mother.

“You disgust me,” Mother hissed. “This is all your fault. Had you been nicer to Mason when he was growing up, he wouldn’t have turned out the way he did.”

I knew it
, I thought.
I knew this was coming.

If I didn’t hang up now, she’d be blaming me for her separation with Brian next.

“You know what, Mom? You can fuck off!”

“Don’t you dare hang up on me Carly Belle Washing—”

I clicked the hang-up button and rolled my eyes. Right as I hung up, Brian rang in.

I stared at his number and smiling face on my cell screen for a moment, wondering if I should answer it. Mom had just said that he was aware of me helping Mason. What would be the use in talking to him?

Because, if I can convince him Mason was doing the right thing, he might be able to help us get Mason out of trouble.

I knew Brian was mad at him for many reasons, but surely if he knew the truth of what was really going on, he would soften up.

On top of that, the man had money and connections. He wasn’t Donald Trump, but he was well off. Surely if I could get him our side he would be able to pull a few strings, at least when it came to Mason’s impending legal troubles.

Brimming with hope, I answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“Where is Mason?” Brian demanded, not bothering with a greeting.

“What makes you think I know where he is?” I asked coyly.

“Don’t play games with me, Carly,” he snarled. “I know you’ve been harboring him.”

“He’s done nothing wrong,” I said, surprised at how ardent I sounded in support of Mason considering how pissed off I was at him. “The police are only after him because he exposed a murder done by the Mayor and massive corruption.”

“He’s a felon, that’s what he is!” Brian snapped. “And you have no business consorting with him or trying to cover for him.”

“You just misunderstand him,” I accused. I couldn’t understand why he was so hard on Mason. He was his son. You would think he was talking about a thug off the street. “You’ve never given him a chance.”

“That’s bullshit!” Brian raged. “The boy has had plenty of chances and has been nothing but trouble since the day he was born. I need to know where he’s at now or . . .”

His words trailed off, but I understood his meaning. If I didn’t tell him where Mason was, he was going to get the authorities involved.

I bit my lower lip, thinking. I couldn’t tell him where Mason was because I didn’t know where he went.

Still, I held out hope that Brian could see reason. Surely, if I could show him the video, he would finally understand.

I just need to show him the truth
, I thought.
Just show him he’s wrong.

I had the flash drive containing the damning footage. Mason must have left it for me as a parting gift.

“Haven’t you seen the video?” I asked.

“What video?”

“The one of the Mayor murdering the prostitute, the video Mason stole. It’s been all over the news.”

“No, I haven’t,” Brian replied tersely. “And from what I understand, this supposed video was a fake.”

“That’s the coverup at work.”

“Jesus, Carly, listen to yourself. You sound just like that damned idiot Mason.”

“I have the video.”

Brian grew quiet. “Do you now?”

“If I show you, do you think you could see reason? Mason could really use your help.”

He was a long time in responding, but when he did, he sounded more cooperative. “Send it to my email and we’ll see.”

Relief swept through me. Maybe I could finally get some help.

“Okay.”

And then he hung up.

“
M
r. Keller will see
you now,” said the leggy blonde secretary standing in the doorway. Dressed in a black skirt, white blouse, and glossy heels, the woman carried herself as if she was high-class, when in reality, she probably had the self-esteem of a gutter rat.

I stood up from my seat and glanced at Andre. He appeared to have nodded off. I hadn’t noticed because I was too engaged with texting a few friends, trying to find out if anyone knew of Razor’s whereabouts.

Those fuckers probably wish they still had my talents right about now. Or should I say, Andre’s.

I kicked Andre sharply in the ankle and whispered out of the side of my mouth, “Get up you big oaf!”

Startled, his head snapped to attention and he wiped at the saliva that cornered his mouth. “Crap. Sorry Maddy.”

I sneered with revulsion. I swear I must’ve done something wrong in a past life to be saddled with Andre.

He got up and followed me to the door of Brian Keller’s office. As I passed the secretary, I cut my eyes at her and was rewarded with a flash of fear in her eyes.

I grinned wickedly. Bitch better be scared. I always let women who I saw as a challenge know that I was the alpha female.

The blonde led us into Brian’s office and I did a slight double-take.

He looks just like him,
I thought with awe.

Seated at a giant desk in the middle of the swanky room, was a man who highly-favored Razor. He looked so much like him that anger knotted my stomach.

Brian looked up from a paper he was studying and nodded at the blonde. “You may leave now, Cindy.”

Tossing a nervous glance my way, she hastily fled the office.

As soon as she was gone, I adopted my most pleasant smile and came forward, extending my hand out. “Mr. Keller,” I purred, “it is so nice to meet you.”

Brian studied my face for a moment and then glanced at Andre, who stood beside me, before taking it. His grip was warm and firm as he shook it and his eyes bore into me with an intensity that made even my cold heart shiver.

I knew right then that this man was powerful, cold, calculating and ruthless — just the type of man I liked.

Brian let go of my hand and leaned back into his chair. “So what can I do for you two?”

I cut right to the point. “We have information regarding your son. Information that we are sure you will pay dearly for—”

Brian raised a hand to silence me. “Wait a minute. First of all, who are you and how do you know my son?”

“Your secretary didn’t tell you?” I asked with some surprise. “We are Razor’s friends . . . or ex-friends I should say.”

Brian frowned with confusion. “Who is this Razor?”

I almost laughed. He didn’t know who Razor was? But then I remembered, Brian had little contact with his son over the last few years.

“I’m sorry, sir, Razor is Mason’s
hacker
name.”

Brian grunted. “Sounds stupid as hell to me.”

I chuckled. “That it does.”

Brian remained unamused. “As I said before, how do you know my son?”

“We were a part of a hacker group called Anonymous,” Andre answered before I could part my lips. I shot him a venomous glare for talking in my place, but the oaf was too dumb to know when to shut up. “Mason was one of the best hackers we’d ever seen. That’s why we call him Razor, because his focus and concentration is so sharp it can cut you.”

Oh my God,
I thought at Andre,
go lick his ass why don’t you?

Begrudgingly, I knew Andre’s words were true, but I hated Razor so much that I refused to give him credit for his talents.

Brian was unimpressed by Andre’s praise for his son. “So you mean to tell me that you people are the reason for my son turning into some wannabe rebel?” he snarled.

“No,” I said quickly to stave off his anger. Judging by how quick he seemed to nearly fly off the handle, I could tell that Brian had an anger problem like me, though I doubted he was on my level. “Anonymous has been around for a long time, long before we joined. It’s likely that Razor, er, Mason, just agreed with Anonymous’ principles and wanted to join.”