Page 2 of Forbidden Game

I startle when he waves the blue LED mask in my periphery.

“As if I would. It’s only been three months. We haven’t gotten that used to life without them yet.” Parker tucks the mask under his arm while he toes on a pair of loafers.

Three months.

It’s only been three months since Aleks, Parker, and Jackson took off their masks and revealed their identities to the world.

For years, these three men rose to the top of the video game world as the most popular faceless streamers—wearing matching LED masks as part of their brand so no one knew what they looked like.

Then, another streamer tried to blackmail them…and they decided they were sick of hiding. They were ready to step out of their own shadows. Level up their careers.

It was a mild PR nightmare for me, though.

I didn’t sleep for a week after the reveal went live. My phone never left my hand, not even when I remembered to shower.

Sure, I’ve spent the last five years eating, breathing, and sleeping everything that is The System, but the way their fame has skyrocketed since the reveal is unlike anything I expected. With their faces out in the world, my job has become eight times harder, making sure that they don’t get into trouble and that no one leaks private information.

Hell, just last week I had to stop a story from one of Jackson’s exes from high school trying to get her five minutes of fame by telling one of the major news networks that he screwed her in the locker room after a swim meet.

The elevator arrives and we step in. I press the button for G2 and prepare for my ears to pop during the descent. We live in the tallest apartment building in California. It was only built a few years ago and has sixty floors.

“We’re going to be late,” I tell Parker as we rocket down to the private parking garage.

“You know, if I drove, we could get there on time.”

My pulse races just at the mere mention of him driving, anticipating the fear and the adrenaline. The man has a tendency to drive forty miles over the speed limit.

How he has never gotten a speeding ticket blows my mind.

If I wasn’t too chicken to get my own license renewed, I would drive us places, but the idea of being behind the wheel again sends spiders across my skin.

“Francis is perfectly capable of driving us,” I tell him as the doors open. “Besides, I informed the company that we were stuck in traffic and would be a little late.”

The one good thing about living in Cali is that you can always use traffic as an excuse. No one bats an eye.

Our personal driver, Francis, opens the door to a white BMW. Parker holds his hand out to help me into the backseat, and I graciously accept it. No matter how sarcastic or boyish he can be, Parker Covington is, to his core, a gentleman.

Once we are settled, Francis begins our forty-minute drive to the studio. Parker mutters under his breath a few times at the slow pace, but I let my head loll against the headrest and shut my eyes. The exhaustion over the past few months has been unrelenting.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I let out a deep huff.

The world never stops spinning long enough for me to breathe more than one peaceful breath. I pull my phone from my purse and swipe it open without looking at the caller ID.

“This is Sydney Lake.”

“Sydney, how are we doing?” Justin Rivera’s taunting voice filters through the speaker, and I instantly feel the tingles of a migraine forming.

Justin calling is rarely a good sign. As one of the lead reporters for Gamer Weekly, he always has his pulse on the latest news, good and bad.

Although, in my case, it is normally bad.

My brain begins to whirl, filtering through the past forty-eight hours and questioning if there is anything my men have done that could have landed them in hot water.

Aleks and his girlfriend, Stevie, are in New York for a gallery showing, which I would have attended if I didn’t need to monitor Parker and this shoot. Jackson hasn’t left the apartment and has been grinding out stream hours to make up for the week he took off for his mother’s birthday earlier this month. Other than attending a penthouse party Friday night, Parker has had a relatively quiet weekend for once.

My eyes slip to the man in the seat beside me.

Did something happen at the party that I missed?

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