by Box Set
Chapter 65
~ Brittney ~
“How was the ride back?” Nash sets the birdcage on the kitchen counter and places both hands on my shoulders, looking at me as if I’ve been diagnosed with a terminal illness.
“It was okay.” I sweep his hands off me. “I need to go to Samantha’s right now.”
My emotions are in turmoil, and the ride back with Ben was pure torture. The man’s hurting, in deep pain, but he’s determined to hurt me back. Maybe I wasn’t as important to him as he’d thought. It had to have been the magic of the Christmas cottage filled with memories and love. I can’t look back now that we’re in the real world.
“Why Samantha’s?” Lacy cuts in, her brow creased with concern. “Are you really okay? What did Ben say to you? What happened?”
Nosy, nosy. All my life I had to endure Lacy poking and prodding. She even admitted to reading my journal. Is nothing sacred in our family?
Even though my heart’s shattered on the inside, the last thing I need is for Nash to unleash his charm and my sister to go into her patronizing mode of sympathy for the unpopular and dorky sister—me.
“I need to catch the hacker. Remember?” I strengthen my voice and stand up straight. “Let me feed the bird and get going.”
“Don’t tell me you and Ben are okay,” Lacy says, not hearing a word I said. “Because he looked seriously pissed off when he left. Burning rubber and all that.”
“Nah, he’s just a dumbass trying to look like a badass,” Nash said, dismissing Ben’s display of male anger. Nash hooks an arm over my shoulder, but I sidestep him.
I go to the kitchen and scrounge for food. There’s nothing truly fit for a cockatoo, but I have a bag of unsalted nuts and dried fruit. That’ll have to do before I get the parrot mix from Grandpa Powers’ pet store. Maybe Lindsay, his only remaining employee, would take him in.
“Sorry Blizzard,” I say, filling the food dish.
He bobs his head and bounces on his perch to the dish. “Hungry, hungry. Eat. Eat!”
I manage a weak smile. I’m numb, only moving like a zombie because I have to stay above water. If I let myself go, let any part of me crack, I’d shatter into a million pieces and crawl into a hole, never to see the light of day again.
Meanwhile Lacy’s at my side, hounding me, asking me to do sisterly stuff like going Christmas shopping together.
“Sorry, can’t …” I put on my most bored attitude to make her think there’s nothing to worry about. “I need to go to Samantha’s so we can track the hacker. She still has access to the ScrapCloud network. She can let me log in with her credentials.”
“Something happened after we left. Look at you. You’re shaking, pale, and hardly breathing.” Lacy is at her most persistent when she senses pain, agony, and devastation. Why can’t she put her superpowers to better use? Like hostage negotiator, romance writer, or prison psychologist?
There’s no way I’m sharing the utter devastation of having my heart ripped to pieces. The way Ben dismissed what we had after trying to manipulate me burns like acid through my gut. I have to act normal. Calm down. Not let them suspect. Besides, I don’t have the time to deal with more drama, and if I know anything, Nash is Mr. Drama King, milking every conflict to its full potential.
Holding it together, I force my vocal chords to relax, to operate mechanically as I hear myself say, “My first priority is my career. I was derelict in running off and now I really need to get back at the hackers. I’m going to Samantha’s so we can figure out how to catch the real hackers and prove my innocence.” I turn to Nash and point to him. “When I return, I expect you to be gone.”
“Why? Did my brother do something to you? Give an ultimatum? It’s him or me?” Nash gives me his surly bad boy pout—one that used to melt me into giving in. It’s not working this time.
“I’m not going to discuss it with either of you.” I rummage through the kitchen drawer for the car keys.
Lacy takes a deep breath. “Nash, it might be better if you moved out of Brittney’s apartment. She has to solve the hacker problem and also get the lewd misconduct charge dropped. She has a lot going on.”
Finally. My sister’s doing her job.
“I’m here to help.” Nash rubs my shoulder. What used to feel comforting now feels coercive. “I thought we could pick up where we left off.”
Is he trying to prove something to his brother? Come on. I’m not fooled. Nash has never been that into me. I’m just Brittney, the bestie, an apartment he can sack out at in between his drunken orgies—a place to drop off his equipment and a forwarding address for his fan mail.
“That’s not possible. Ever.” I disengage Nash’s hand from me. “There are some lines that once crossed, can’t be uncrossed.”
“Don’t tell me you’re bending to Ben’s will. I thought I meant more to you. We go back a long time.”
“We did, but we crossed a line when we slept together. Sometimes, no matter how much you want to pretend it didn’t happen, the fact remains that it did happen. Now that the gloves are off, and it’s in my face all the time, I’m not sure I can be around you without being reminded.”
“What?” Nash flings his hands in the air. “We acted as if nothing happened all year. Now, because Ben’s jealous you want to throw our friendship away?”
“I’m not throwing anything away. If you’re going to continue to use our friendship to antagonize Ben, then we don’t have much of a friendship, do we?” I blink back tears and gather my laptop bag. “I told you what I wanted, and you seem determined to ruin it.”
“You want Ben?” Nash’s eyes widen.
“Ben’s special.” I hiccup and swallow the building lump in my throat. “If you want to be in my life, you’ll have to accept it.”
“Fine. I’ll follow your agenda,” Nash says with a drawl. “But if that brother of mine ever does anything to hurt you, I’m killing him with my own bare hands.”
Right. A country-western singer against a man who tackles and slams guys to the ground for a living.
“I don’t need you meddling, Nash. Let’s take a break on the friendship bit. I need to step back and get my life back on track again. Thanks for coming to do the benefit concert. I appreciate it, but it doesn’t mean you’ll get any benefits from me.”
Nash’s face turned red to the tips of his ears. “Don’t worry. I don’t share, least of all with my brother.”
Chapter 66
~ Ben ~
“I don’t think you’re up for drop sets today,” Alonzo, the trainer at the club, said. He helped place the barbell on the uprights. “You haven’t worked out in days. I recommend circuit sets.”
“Doing drop sets until I drop.” Ben sat up and wiped his face with a towel. “Take five pounds off.”
“I don’t agree with what you’re doing.”
“Fine. I’ll take it off myself.” Ben grabbed a pair of weights off the bar.
“This is not the way to deal with your problems,” Alonzo said. “Punishing your body. You’re supposed to be building up for training camp.”
Ben lay on the bench. “Spot me.”
He pushed through a higher number of reps until he couldn’t move the bar even an inch.
“How’s this helping?” Alonzo removed more weight and helped him push the bar up and onto the upright. “You screw off for a few days and come back to kill your muscles?”
“I don’t care.”
“Actually, I’m kicking you out of the club. You follow the rules, and that means sticking to a training plan.”
“Fuck you.” Ben threw his towel and stomped from the weight room. “Fuck all of you.”
He slammed the door to the locker room. Two faces turned toward him. Josh Carter and Greg Marsh, pro linebackers with the Oakland Brigands, sat on the bench slapping sunscreen on their arms and legs.
“What’s crawled up your craw?” Josh, the guy who was from Ben’s college, smirked. “You should have gone to the Strip Zone with us.”
>
“Heard your lawyer’s kissing that sexy elf’s lawyer’s butt,” Greg added. “What’s that all about? I thought she was going to sue the elf and get you off?”
“Ha, ha, get you off,” Josh said. “Or did the elf do that already?”
“Stop referring to her as the elf.” Ben slammed his locker door. It bounced back so he slammed it again. Dammit.
“Don’t tell me you boned the elf.” Greg snickered and gave him a condescendingly sympathetic leer. “Isn’t it a coincidence both of you dropped out of sight in the middle of a busy news week.”
“I don’t have time for this.” Ben changed from his gym shoes to running shoes. “Conditioning camp’s coming up.”
“He boned the elf.” Josh elbowed Greg and they both chuckled. “The elf who screwed up Santa’s Christmas list.”
“What the hell are you two talking about?” Ben wanted to wipe the smirk off their faces.
“You don’t know who she is?” Greg shook his head. “Seriously? Her company fucked up Mississippi.com’s Christmas list. Yesterday, a hacker got in, and people who bought stuff got their entire Christmas list made public. Heck, they’re suing her ass big time. She ruined everyone’s Christmas surprises. The hackers posted all the shopping lists to a website along with the email addresses of the buyers, and everyone’s searching to see what they might have gotten for Christmas.”
“Oh, and that actress who’s suing? She says her career is ruined because of the sex toy purchases.”
“Actually, my mom found out my dad’s cheating when he bought lingerie not in her size.”
“That sucks, maybe he can join the class action lawsuit.”
Ben tuned out the assholes and ran from the locker room. He didn’t even want to think about Brittney and how she’d ripped his heart to shreds when she chose Nash over him.
He hit the pavement hard and fast, running until his lungs ached for breath and his thighs screamed. He ran for miles and miles, through the Mission District, the Tenderloin, down Marina Blvd, and through Chrissy Field.
The Golden Gate Bridge loomed on the right as he clambered up the steps and turned toward the pedestrian path. The wind had picked up, cooling him from the eight-mile run, and the sun peeked from the lifting fog.
By the time he walked to the middle of the bridge, where the large suspension arches were at their lowest, he’d stopped cursing his life. Stopped feeling sorry for himself. Just a little.
He leaned over the edge and stared at the rough waters below. He’d read about people who’d stupidly jumped near one of the suspension towers and fell at the footing, not making it into the water. Talk about not being able to do anything right. He reached up and touched the heart of the bridge—the main cable which supported half of the bridge’s weight. It was alive with the life and hum of the bridge, vibrating and pulsing from the traffic clicking over the suspension joints.
But as strong as this cable was, it was only one of two. The cable on the other side of the bridge had to be equally as strong. He bent over the rail and stared at the sea below.
He’d thought Brittney and he were the perfect pair meant to be together. The way his grandparents were—helping and supporting each other as equals. Long ago, they’d brought him here and explained about the twin cables and the twin towers of the famous suspension bridge.
The towers held everything up, and the cables held everything together. Hard work and determination held things up. Friendship and love held a family together. Two equal partners and two hearts beating as one.
Ben and Brittney. It would have been perfect.
Chapter 67
~ Brittney ~
Sammie opens the door of her apartment, her hair wrapped with a towel.
“What are you doing here?” she drawls lazily. “I thought you left town.”
“Sorry. Came back as soon as I came to my senses.” The more I think about the Powers brothers, the angrier I get. Ben had no business telling me to cut off Nash, and Nash was being an ass by rubbing me in Ben’s face.
Meanwhile Ben hurt me on purpose, telling me I was a little bit of fun—a distraction from his problems. Well, fun’s over, and I have a company to save.
“Came to your senses? What about, that hunk, Ben Powers?” Samantha breathes his name as if he were a god. “Did you get a piece of him? Is he as hot as they say?”
I squeeze through the doorway, ignoring her speculations about Ben. “Let me onto your wifi, and I’ll be out of your way.”
“Can’t you do that at your apartment?” She’s still standing too close, like she doesn’t want me to go past the entrance. No wonder. A pair of men’s motorcycle boots are sitting on the tile floor in front of the umbrella stand.
“Someone I don’t want to deal with is over there.” My voice trembles despite my heroic effort to focus on catching the hackers.
“Sure, go ahead. Password’s on the router. I’ve … ah … got to take care of some business.”
“Take your time.” I roll my eyes and set my laptop bag on the kitchen table. I look exaggeratedly at the wall clock. “Don’t mind me, I’m not your boss anymore. What does Marlena have you guys working on anyway?”
“Oh, we’re cleaning up. Mostly sending logs to the auditors and lawyers. They’re still trying to figure stuff out.” She waves her hand carelessly as she practically skips out of the kitchen and back to her room.
No wonder she didn’t want to room with me when my aunt asked me to keep an eye on her. She’s a recent grad and having trouble landing a job because she majored in math instead computer science. The liberal arts college her mother insisted she attend to become well-rounded and balanced didn’t offer it as a major.
I boot up my laptop, then peek on the kitchen counter for the router. She not only has the wifi password written on a sticker, but she also has the router’s management password in plain view. I’ll have to speak to her about this breach. Hopefully I’m the only one who noticed, or even knows the difference between the two.
After going to the refrigerator and pouring myself a glass of orange juice, I log in to the router. First thing, I’m going to leave myself a tunnel through her router VPN, since she so conveniently provided me the management password. This way, I can access her system and use it to get back to ScrapCloud. I shouldn’t have gotten distracted by He Who Shall Not Be Mentioned. During the two days I’ve been gone, the perp could have destroyed evidence.
I select the router configuration menu to set up port-forwarding on the VPN client. This will allow me to tunnel into ScrapCloud whenever I want.
What the fuck? Someone has already set one up. I quickly copy down all the details. Who the hell’s been using Samantha’s unsecured router to hack into my company’s network?
I make quick work of downloading her entire configuration and all of her log files. If a hacker came into our network cloaked with Samantha’s credentials, it would never have set off any alarms. They could have altered the code, and did any number of bad things under her user name. No wonder we hadn’t found the breach.
A quick glance down the hallway assures me that Samantha’s busy burning up the sheets with someone, maybe even the asshole who tunneled into our network. With access to our source code, who knows what other vulnerabilities he or she might have put in?
Ice freezes my veins. From Samantha’s account, the hacker could also have gotten into Shopahol and through them to Mississippi.com. A red tide of anger sweeps through me like wild fire. Whoever violated my company had violated me. This is quantum leaps worse than what He Who Shall Not Be Mentioned did to me this morning. That ass had only plugged himself into one hole. This jerk could have opened up more holes than Tiger Woods on a golf course.
Quickly, I bring up the code editor and copy my new, improved attack worm into it. Last year, when I unleashed a reverse attack, my worm was quickly disabled by the genius Jen Jones Jewell and her anomaly detecting virus checker.
A sneaky giggle sizzles through my teeth. I learned a few tri
cks myself, emulating biology by cloaking my worm with signatures making it look like a harmless image file, but able to adapt and change its outer shell if probed. Most virus checkers don’t dig deep enough.
Now for the payload. I’m not some stupid hacker who’s going to announce myself. Oh no, none of these “April Fools, you’ve been hacked” messages. What I want is information. Who messages who, and what they talk about. Emails and text messages would provide the most embarrassing and potentially exploitable information. If I can gather enough, I can force the hacker to stop exposing people’s wish lists and shopping histories. Even better, if the attacker has access to porn sites, which these dweebie computer guys no doubt frequent, I can get a complete sexual trail of all their perversions, and if I hit pay dirt like child pornography, they’re toast.
Nobody better mess with me and my company.
I’m tapping quickly at my keyboard when footsteps stop next to me. Shit. I ‘x’ out of the code view window and look up at my cousin.
“Yes?” I feign a normal voice.
“What are you doing sitting there with that sneaky smile on your face?” She pulls up a chair. “Tell me about Ben’s love nest. You slept with him, right?”
“You have anything to eat here?” I close my laptop partway. “Sorry to barge in on you. I’ll get out of your way if you’re busy.”
She smiles and her eyes narrow to slits. “You’re so funny, Britt. You look like you got caught in bed with a nun. So, tell me about Big Ben. Granny says he stopped by and spoke to them. She said, ‘Mark my words, that boy’s in love with Brittney.’ When I saw the way he looked at you in the parking lot, all moony and love struck, I just knew you two were meant for each other.”
The last thing I can stomach is listening to speculation about Ben being moonstruck by me. Sure, he spoke a good game, did all the classic vulnerability act, the boy who lost his mother, and dammit, the tender way he wondered if I were the ‘One’—complete with quivering lower lip. And I fell for it, because oh … he’s so damn sexy and if I scored him, every woman would be jealous of me. Except I did score a fuck with him and now I feel depleted—empty, dead—and totally confused because no matter whether it was a hookup or not, I still love him.