Page 20 of Mason

“Shit.”

“Exactly. Look, I’ll call you back later. I need to work on this problem before I can concentrate on summer plans.”

“It’s cool, man. You take care of your family shit first. If there’s anything I can do, you let me know, and I’m there.”

“Thanks. ’Preciate it. Talk soon.” Mason hung up the phone and tossed it on his desk. He opened his laptop and typed in the password, but it came back invalid. “What the shit?”

He put the password in and was again denied.

What was this new fuckery? He had half a mind to call Keith back and see if he had done it to be funny, but then he remembered Keith couldn’t hack his own self, let alone Mason, who had more firewalls than most.

This was not what he needed today.

It took him an hour to get control of his laptop. Whoever fucked with it either didn’t know Mason was a hacker or didn’t care. “Finally,” he said when got past his own fucking firewalls. He was gonna back hack the fucker and…

Whoa.

His wallpaper was no longer the same. He’d had a picture of Jo smiling for the camera. This wallpaper was a collage of images of him and Jo with his face scratched out in every single one. What the fuck was this?

The note from this morning. Had to be connected.

He dialed his girl and let out a breath when she answered. “You okay?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“I just…” As disturbed as he was, she didn’t need to know about this. It would only upset her. “I just needed to hear your voice and know you’re safe. Makes me feel better.”

“I’m fine, Mason.”

Why did she sound so nervous? “Are you?”

She ignored the question, and it only heightened his spidey-Josephine senses. “You still coming over to playResident Evilwith me?”

“You have to ask me that?”

Jo laughed. “Bring me food?”

“You got it, baby. What do you want?”

“Um…Subway?”

He hated Subway, but he’d eat that healthy shit if made her happy. “Whatever you want, baby.”

“I’ve got everything set up, so come on over whenever you want. We’re set.”

“Okay, I need to make a call, then I’ll be over. Love you, Jo.”

“Love you too.”

He let out the breath he’d been holding when she hung up. She was safe. Relief swept through him and made his knees weak. He called Viktor as soon as he was able to make his hands work.

“What?” Viktor barked into the phone.

“I got a problem.”

“Problem?”

Mason explained about his laptop and about his suspicions linking Jo’s message this morning with this new fuckery.