Page 11 of Wreck Me

The program had been given to me by Jeremy Wheeler, a former subordinate of my dad’s during their time in the military. He’d been out for a couple of years now after a particularly brutal mission that had left most of their unit dead, my dad and Jeremy being the only survivors. He’d suffered from some nasty trauma as well as a massive hit from a shrapnel blast that had fucked up his right arm and required months upon months of physio just for it to be functional again. Now he was working private security in Rossun.

He'd come out to see me with my dad when I’d been at the institute and that was when he’d given me this program. My dad had found out about my extra-curricular activities after tailing me and while he hadn’t freaked like my mom would have because he liked me being strong and capable, always trying to raise me to be a badass, he did still want me protected. So, having his crazy capable hacker buddy give me this program had been his way of doing that.

You could enter anybody’s name and the few details you had on them, such as their place of employment, the school they were attending, their license plate, whatever, and it would pull up every single mention of them, their entire digital footprint, leaving no stone unturned.

It was hella illegal because it could even pull police reports, medical records, and redacted information, personal details that were only meant to be known behind closed doors.

It was amazing, an invaluable tool.

It was what I’d used to discover who Jett had been connected to.

And it was a good fucking thing I had, considering how bad it was.

I had gotten that same ugly, unsettling feeling from Damien, Sebastian, and Caleb during that weird-as-hell parking lot interaction.

And so, I was now researching the fuck out of them.

Simply turning the cheek and keeping away might not be an option.

Especially when I didn’t know what or who exactly I was dealing with.

The more information I had, the more likely I could control the situation to my liking—or, preferably, prevent it from becoming a situation in the first place.

As I slid onto my rolling chair, a knock sounded at my bedroom door.

Shit.

I hastily minimized my current window and pulled up the notes I’d taken today in my Building Construction course.

Tomorrow would be much more up my alley, because I had the Design Studio course starting then.

“Come in,” I called out.

The door opened and my dad walked on in.

He took in my room as he kept doing, still not used to having me back here.

Or it could be because it was a lot to take in.

A mishmash of colors and patterns. One wall was covered in zebra-print with vibrant fuchsia. Another was royal-blue with swirling silver spirals. Another was damask wallpaper. My bed covers were a rainbow of paint splashes with a variety of embroidered cushions on top, none matching, all bold and making different statements. The gray hardwood floor was covered in shag rugs, with a high-heeled black and gold shoe chair in the corner in what I called my sketching zone. Said sketches filled a bookshelf beside it, along with my favorite pencils and pens where I sat beneath the window when I was in a creative mood and sketched and doodled for hours at a time.

Across all the walls were frames of my favorite artwork—mostly my video game characters that I’d started creating long before I’d even attended the institute.

I tensed as he zeroed in on one missing and breaking up the pattern of the other silver-framed works.

Relief sung through me when he didn’t call attention to it and just looked away and eyed my screen.

“That looks a little dry.”

I chuckled. “I suppose. The construction part isn’t my favorite, but I have the design element coming up soon, so there’s that.”

“Yeah, there’s that.”

I took him in, his salt and pepper overgrown crew cut, his large arms folded across his chest in his go-to all black—a pair of slacks and a ribbed sweater. For a man in his fifties, he was in impressive physical shape. He still got up every morning and ran for several miles and worked out, as though he was still in the military. Old habits, I guess.

His tone didn’t escape my notice. “Dad, I’m fine.”

“This isn’t you.”

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