She thought I was just smart, the golden boy who got into MIT and two Ivy League schools. She thought I didn’t have depth, that I just played ball.
She didn’t know the truth, that my dad had taught me to hack before I could drive, that I’d been breaking firewalls and building bots since I was twelve. That I lived in an online world she didn’t even know existed.
I had done it before I even realized what I was doing. I had a clean, easy doorway into a life I was dying to be part of.Hers.
When I helped her set up her phone, I accidentally hacked in. Okay, notaccidentally,I knew what I was doing.
I was discreet about it.
I wasn’t supposed to use my skills for stuff like this. Dad had told me this was just for fun, and one day I would use my skills for something useful. Was that day today? Probably not. But I was going to tell myself it was.
I couldn’t stop. Not with her. I needed to know what was happening. Every threat, every secret, every shadow she didn’t want to say out loud, I was going to know about.
I was always going to be one step ahead in whatever game Jackson was playing with her.
It was a little harder to hack his phone than hers. He was good at covering his tracks, but while he had been busy stewing about Mackenzie earlier, I had grabbed his phone and jailbroke it. I had made sure the little backdoor left no obvious footprints. Now, I could watch Jackson’s accounts, trace his IP hops, catalogue his messages, log his times, and view his browser history.
I was browsing through his files when I discovered it. In his documents, a file labeled “Game_2_MK.”
MK. Mackenzie? Or Max McKinnon?
The file was encrypted, even with the backdoors I had built. That meant he wanted it hidden. I couldn’t open it, but I didn’t need to. The name alone told me what I already knew: Jackson was planning something, and we were being watched.
I think part of her suspected something was off with him, but I don’t think she realized the full extent of his psychosis.
In his files, there had been pictures I’d managed to retrieve. They were so grotesque I almost threw up when I saw them. There was a weird crest on all of them, though—thirteen-pronged. It kind of looked like a star.
I didn’t know what that meant, but I wasn’t going to think about it much.
Jackson was a fucking psychopath. And my job now was to keep her away from him. The only thing that would keep me from ripping his throat out was her.
Every second she spent near him, every smile she forced in his direction, I wanted to tear him apart. He thought he had her, but I had the chess piece.
She was the only thing he and I had in common. The difference was that I actually knew how to protect her. Psychopaths are predictable. They follow patterns. Jackson was no exception. Jackson wasn’t a threat. He was a variable. And variables can be eliminated.
I wasn’t just some golden retriever trailing after her. I was a Doberman. Her Doberman.Hers.
I was starting to scare myself with the lengths I’d go for her. I mean, fuck, we had only been back at camp for less than 24 hours, and I was already turning into a raging, reckless lunatic thinking about killing her psychopath ex-boyfriend. Something was changing in me. I didn’t want to fight it because she needed me. I was her personal vigilante.
She didn’t need to know how far I’d go. Not yet. But one day, she’d see that every insane, fucked-up thing I was about to do was because I was in love with her.
She was my entire purpose now.
My soulmate.
She had always been.
And I die before letting her go.
8
MACKENZIE
The cabin was quiet, safe from the cicadas’ lazy symphony outside. Fifteen minutes after Max had climbed into his bunk, I noticed his breathing had evened out. My eyes drifted to the small light he’d left on for me.
I felt like such a fool.
He was the kindest, most patient person I’d ever known. He didn’t understand why I feared the dark; he’d only asked once, casually. Yet here he was, making sure I felt safe.
