Razor: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance(44)

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 f*cking 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.”





Chapter 17





Carly




I f*cking hate him. I f*cking 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 f*cking 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 * 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.