Page 63 of Kade

Max: We have school tomorrow.

Me: So?

Max: I can’t.

Me: You’re still mad at me?

Max: IT HAPPENED TWO NIGHTS AGO! You ignored my request and made mego there. It’s not even been a full forty-eight hours. Leave me alone.

I tried blinking back my tears. Forget him then. He wanted me to leave him alone?

Me: Message received.

Everyone was standing in front of the stairs so I went the other way down to the basement and crawled onto one of the couches. I let some tears fall. I hated crying so I’d just let a few fall. After that I was stopping.

I wasn’t that kind of girl.

24

MASON

“How do you know this kid is a hacker?” I asked.

Logan groaned, sitting next to me in my Escalade. “I already told you.”

We were sitting outside the house of my stalker. Zeke Allen. Who was also a hacker, according to Logan, which was a big fucking surprise considering nothing about him on the outside said computer nerd. Douchebag. Wealthy. Prick. Fraternity A-hole. That’s what everything about him yelled to anyone who gave him a look, but Logan insisted there were layers. I’d done what I could to keep him away from my life and my family over the years, but he was best friends with Nate’s brother-in-law, so that boundary could only go so far. And in fairness, the kid hadn’t pushed for anything except to be friendly with me.

I’d had other stalkers over the years. Most of them were women, and a few were arrested when they tried to break into our home. These days, only this guy and one woman were left. I was out of the spotlight for football now, so I was hoping that kind of attention would fade.

“Tell me again.” I stared hard at my brother. “He drew the attention of a crime lord to our front doorstep. I need to knowthere’s no way we’re wrong. Because if we do what we’re about to do once we step inside his house, we can’t be wrong.”

Logan sighed. “Like I said before, I can’t tell you how I know. I just know.”

“He’s a client?”

Logan didn’t reply, not because he couldn’t tell me that, but because he already had. I needed to make sure. He hadn’t been the one who had Kai Bennett cut me off behind my daughter. If that had been Logan and Maddy had been Sammy, I don’t think he would’ve reacted the same way.

“He’s not a kid, Mason,” Logan added after a moment.

“What?”

He shook his head. “We need to remember that he’s in his thirties. He’s married. They have children. He’s not a kid.”

We couldn’t hurt him. Logan swore by this guy. Others did too, but I still wasn’t sure. After a few phone calls, though, it seemed I was the only one. Nate had stood up for him, saying Zeke Allen was a good guy now. He was someone we wanted on our side.

Our side. Christ. We didn’t even know who the other side was anymore. We’d had a name before, Kai Bennett. Now we had no name. Our enemy was faceless and nameless. How did we fight someone like that? A wave of exhaustion crashed over me. Why was there always a battle? An enemy?

When we didn’t live here, we didn’t have this.

But now we were back, and here we were once again. Sitting outside a house, preparing to break in and do what we needed to do. In that past, that meant blackmail, violence, maybe arson.

We’d had so many enemies. So many battles.

My father.

Sam’s mother.

Budd Broudou.

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