Page 21 of Wicked Games

I shift my attention to the top of the feed. The loop starts over again, and three seconds into it, just as Felix is diving under the water in his first stroke, the position of the door shifts. In the first few seconds, it’s closed tight. In the last two, it’s slightly ajar.

“Check the hallway and the other pool feeds and see if they’ve been fucked with too.”

Jace spins the laptop back around. “Already did. And all the ones between the basement door and the pool. They were all fucked with,” he confirms. “We’ve been hacked.”

Jax pulls his phone out of his pocket and stands. “I’m calling Jordan.”

“Is Carter still on that job?” I ask Jace as Jax walks a few paces away to make his call.

He nods grimly.

“Of fucking course.” I rake my hand through my hair. “This isn’t just someone fucking with him.”

Jace shakes his head.

Until now, a part of me believed that what happened to Felix was a prank gone wrong and whoever attacked him was just trying to mess with him.

But the hacked security cams say otherwise.

Our system is one of the best out there, and as far as I know, it’s been years since someone successfully hacked it. Carter is the only person on campus who has access to the entire system, the only one who knows all the layers of security and exactly what systems are in place and where. Not even Axel, who’s in charge of security, knows as much as Carter.

Only a black hat hacker could do what this fucker did, and that goes beyond a prank or someone trying to fuck with Felix.

“The swipe logs,” I say as Jax sits beside me, his expression grim. “Were they fucked with?”

“Looking right now,” Jace says as he types something into his keyboard.

“And?” I ask Jax.

“Jordan and Axel are coming to look at the cameras and see what we found.” He slips his phone back in his pocket. “And Nico wants a full report so we can figure out what the fuck happened since Carter is still MIA.”

“They got to the swipe logs,” Jace says, his eyes moving as he reads something on the computer. “I can’t see what they changed, but there’s evidence someone got in here and fucked around.”

I look between the twins. “This was a real hit.”

Jax nods. “Yeah. But something doesn’t feel right.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“The whole thing feels sloppy.”

“How so?” Jace shoots his brother a curious look.

“Hacking the system is giving professional, but the way they tried to take Felix out is amateurish.”

Jace leans back against the couch. “Yeah, I’m getting that vibe too.”

“There are dozens of ways to drown someone that don’t require putting hands on them,” Jax continues. “A pro wouldn’t put themselves in a vulnerable position like that, especially not with a mark that can swim as well as Felix. That would be like trying to outshoot a marksman. It’s a rookie mistake.”

“You’re right,” I agree. “And you’d think they’d want to avoid leaving any evidence on him. There’s no way in hell anyone would believe he accidentally swam into the side of the pool and drowned himself. And even if they did, that would disappear the second they saw the video feed.”

“I can’t be sure,” Jace says, clicking away on his keyboard. “But it looks like they hacked the feed after the attack and not during.”

“Yeah?” Jax asks.

“I’ll need Axel to take a look and make sure he sees what I’m seeing, but it looks like it.” He glances up from his screen. “I’m guessing they weren’t expecting him to fight back and instead of scrubbing the logs and feed completely, they just took out the parts where their guy was visible and Felix is hurt.”

“But why would they leave proof that they hacked the system?” I ask. “Why not just wipe everything?”

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