Page 28 of Wicked Games (Silvercrest U #1)

KILLIAN

I’m not surprised when Natalie comes flying out of William’s room in a blur of designer clothes and glossy hair the moment I step into the hall.

“What the fuck?” she screeches and waves at my door like she’s trying to land a plane on a runway. “How could you do that to me?”

I flick my gaze to William, then back to her. “Is there a problem?”

“A problem?” she shrieks.

Several doors open, and a bunch of guys peek their heads out, searching out the source of the drama.

“Inside.” I point to William’s room. “Now.”

She opens her mouth, ready to unleash a tirade on me.

I grab her arm and pull her into William’s room. “Fuck off,” I tell him when he tries to follow us and close the door in his face.

“How could you do that to me?” She pulls her bag off her shoulder and smacks me in the chest with it.

“Do that one more time,” I say, my voice deadly calm compared to her hysterics. “And see what happens.”

“You’re seriously threatening me after that ?” she splutters indignantly. “You cheated on me.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“What the fuck do you call shoving your dick in some guy’s mouth?”

“Having a little afternoon fun.”

Her eyes fill with tears, and her lower lip trembles.

“Those don’t work on me, babe .” I inject as much mocking into the word as I can. “Especially since you cheated first. I’m just matching your energy.”

Her tears vanish, and I watch as her expression goes from shocked to confused to fearful before finally settling on fake innocence. “What do you mean? I haven’t done anything.”

“Are you sure about that?”

She shakes her head but quickly switches to a nod, like she’s not sure which one means she’s innocent. “I’ve been nothing but loyal to you.”

I arch one eyebrow at her.

“I have!” she insists.

“So loyal that you’ve been fucking William behind my back?” I ask calmly.

Her face pales under her layers of makeup.

“Yeah, I know all about your library meet-ups.” I glance around William’s room and pause when I see his unmade bed. “How many times have you fucked him in that bed?” I tick my chin toward it. “Did you get off knowing I was right across the hall when you were with him?”

“I…I…” she stammers.

“You what?” I ask, already bored with this entire situation. “You didn’t mean to cheat on me? Let me guess, it just kind of happened, and you fell on his dick?”

“What did you expect?” she bursts out. “You’ve been ignoring me for weeks. Of course I’m going to find someone who treats me right since you were so busy sticking your dick in some random guy to pay attention to me.” Her face twists up in disgust.

“Keep thinking you’re the victim here, sweetheart. You don’t get to cry about the consequences of your actions.”

Her eyes narrow in a glare. “Who is he?”

“No one you need to worry your pretty little head about.”

“Who?” she demands, stomping her foot like a toddler having a tantrum.

I say nothing. I don’t give a shit if people find out I’m fucking around with a guy, or that the guy is my stepbrother, but I’m not about to share that information with her. Not knowing will drive her crazy, and that’s the least she deserves after all this bullshit.

“I’m going to tell everyone about you,” she hisses.

“And what are you going to tell them?”

“That you cheated on me with a guy .”

“Fine.” I shrug. “Go ahead.”

“You don’t care?” she asks incredulously.

“Nope.”

“You’re not even bi.”

“No, I’m not.” I give her a pointed look. “Now imagine what everyone will say when they find out that you not only cheated on me, but you were such a shitty lay you made me switch teams.”

Her jaw drops like it’s been unhinged.

“And you might also want to think about the optics of outing me and using it as a weapon against me. The only person who’s going to look bad is you.”

She snaps her jaw closed and glares at me again. I can tell she wants to light into me, but she’s smart enough to keep her trap shut. Hopefully she keeps that energy. Otherwise she’s going to find out exactly what happens when you fuck with me.

“Think about that before you go and spread my private business around.” I give her a pointed look. “I’m willing to walk away and let all of this slide as long as you don’t do anything stupid. And trust me when I say you don’t want to see what happens if you do something stupid.”

She stands there, staring at me like she can’t decide if she wants to burst into tears or whack me with her purse again.

I give her another pointed look, then leave the room.

The hallway is empty except for William, who’s standing in front of his door with panic written all over his face. He looks at me, then glances over my shoulder and into his room.

“Strike two,” I say in a low tone.

His brow furrows. “Two?”

“Strike one was the night you stepped over Felix when he was hurt.”

“What?” he yelps. “He’s not even a member!”

“Neither are you,” I point out. “Not yet.”

He pales.

“You don’t want to see what happens if you get a third strike,” I warn. “And I will end you if you ever disrespect either of us again. Understood?”

He nods quickly, his eyes wide with fear.

“Now get the fuck out of my sight before I change my mind and give you exactly what you deserve.”

He lets out a little squeak and scurries into his room like the rat he is.

When his door closes behind him, I jog down the hall toward the stairwell. Hopefully Natalie and William heed my warnings and leave me the fuck alone, and this is the end of it. I have enough shit going on. I don’t need to add ex-girlfriend drama on top of it.

It doesn’t take me long to jog up to the top floor, and I don’t bother knocking when I reach their door and just walk in.

Their room is identical to mine, only they have ornate canopy beds and arched ceilings and windows that make the room look a bit like a cathedral.

Jax is stretched out on the couch, looking at something on his phone, and Jace is at his desk, studying his laptop.

“Anything?” I ask, settling on the couch next to Jax.

“Maybe,” Jace says, his attention still on his screen.

“Maybe?” I ask when he doesn’t elaborate.

“Whoever did this is good.” Not looking up from his computer, he lifts Felix’s phone and wiggles it. “But they were sloppy.”

“How so? And explain it to me like I’m five,” I add.

Jace and Jax are two of the smartest people I’ve ever met, and Jace forgets that not everyone is a self-taught hacker who can follow his computer speak when he explains this stuff.

He spins in his chair so he’s facing me. “I found a flaw in the code that I can use to reverse engineer how they got into the system.”

“So you can you track them?”

“I should be able to once I follow the breadcrumbs back to the source.”

“How long will that take?”

Over the years, I’ve learned that hacking isn’t as exciting as it looks in the movies. Most hack jobs take weeks, if not months, to even get a foot in the door, and most of that time is spent trying to trick some moron into giving you access to their systems.

The active part of hacking comes after, but even then, it’s a lot of coding and trial and error, and not the big, dramatic hacker battles the media shows us.

“No clue.” He blows a bubble with his gum and pops it with a loud snap . “But there’s something weird about it.”

I glance at Jax as he leans forward, his forearms on his thighs. “What do you mean?” he asks.

“At first glance, it looks like an error in the code, but the deeper I look into it, the more I’m positive it was deliberately put there and disguised to look like an error.” He rocks back and forth in his chair, pushing himself in a slow arc with his feet.

“You think they purposely added a way for you to track them?” I ask.

He snaps his gum loudly. “Yup.”

“Why would someone do that?” Jax asks. “Why would they deliberately add something to the code that would make it easier to get caught?”

“One thing you have to understand about hackers is that we love to fuck with each other.” Jace leans back in his chair and blows a quick bubble.

“This kind of shit is like when a serial killer writes letters to the police, giving them just enough clues to drive them crazy, but not enough to actually solve the case. Or when a bomb maker puts their signature on every bomb to claim it and taunt investigators.”

“So they’re giving you a way to track them because they think you won’t be good enough to track them?”

“That would be my guess.”

“Or maybe they want to get caught.”

I glance at Jax.

“Think about it,” he continues. “The videos from the pool and the hallways were completely clean, but they added a backdoor into the phone? That’s a huge deviation in their MO.”

“Do you think you missed something in other videos?” I ask Jace.

“It’s possible.” Jace swings back and forth in his chair. “Unlikely, but possible.”

“I think we need to look at the motivation behind the jobs and not the jobs themselves,” Jax says.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“The first hack was them working with someone to take Felix out. They’re just as culpable as the guy who tried to drown him, so it makes sense they’d be sure to cover their tracks since they were involved in an attempted murder.”

“The thing with the car is the opposite. They helped Felix and went against whoever they were working with. It’s possible they put backdoor or mistake or whatever it is in there because they want us to follow it.”

“Could be, especially if they were forced into helping with the pool thing and feel guilty about it now,” Jace says thoughtfully.

“But there’s really no point trying to figure out why it’s there until I know where it leads or what we’ll learn from it.

For all we know, it’s a decoy, and I’ll run into a dead end. ”

“So we have a hitman gunning for Felix and a hacker with a possible change of heart trying to help us, who may or may not be asking for help but could also just be fucking with you for funsies,” I sum up.

“Pretty much,” Jace confirms.