Page 75 of Playing for Keeps

That anger I’d been trying to tamp down? Yeah. It came roaring back. “What did you do?”

Both Jen and Levi jumped as the words burst from my mouth. The kid threw his hands up, as if he expected me to leap across the coffee table and beat his ass.

“I hacked into your server,” he cried, his words speeding out, his palms up. “I snagged the pictures and got out as fast as I could.”

“Impossible,” I spit. “There haven’t been any breaches—”

“It was weeks ago!”

My mind spun, my thoughts drifting back. Weeks ago, Ford had mentioned someone had been sniffing around. At the time, he thought we were safe. He beefed up our security and went along his way. It was a day he’d had to see his ex. I knew I should have checked in on him, but I didn’t.

Jen squeezed my hand, glancing at me before turning back to the kid. “But one of them was time-stamped with Wednesday’s date.”

Levi shrank in his seat, his fingers playing with the tab of his can. “I might have put in a back door?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I raked a hand down my face, then grabbed my glass off the table and downed it in one quick gulp. My phone buzzed in my pocket, but I left it there, unable to deal with anything but this.

“I wanted to help you,” Levi said, voice shaking as he stared at his lap. “I knew Jen was with you last year, and I figured if you were following that schmuck around, you were looking to get back with her. I didn’t know they broke up before I sent them, I swear! I was just trying to get him out of the way.”

“Get him out of the way?” I seethed. “Levi, the guy is dead!”

“I know.” The kid pulled his head up, the motion slow, as if it weighed a thousand pounds. His watery eyes trained on Jen before he hauled them over to me. “I saw it happen.”

Beside me, Jen gasped, her fingers yanking from mine as she brought both her hands to her mouth.

“What are you talking about?” I asked as he fumbled his cell phone out of his pocket. He swiped the screen a couple times, then handed it over to me. “What the hell is this?”

“Just watch it,” Levi pleaded, sounding like he was going to cry.

And the bags under his eyes, his disheveled state, finally started to make sense.

On screen, Aaron knelt on the ground, his hands tied behind his back. Around him in a wide circle stood a handful of men, all holding guns. Levi must have been hiding behind a wooden crate, as the slightest movement of his camera caused the wood to come into view.

“We’ve had enough of your bullshit, Parker,” said a man from off screen. “You were supposed to bring her in months ago. And now this?”

“Please.” Aaron shook his head, eyes darting to someone else off to the side. “You have to understand the problems that would cause. There are too many connections—”

“Enough!” A man stepped into view, the image too blurry to make out his face. “Even now, you’re defiant. After all the warnings, you still won’t listen. I won’t stand for this anymore.”

“You don’t need her!” Aaron continued, his voice frantic. “I won’t let you do this to her!” He shifted to the side, then sat back on his feet. “Don’t let them do this. Please, you’re better than this. Don’t let them do this to you.”

Another man appeared on screen, his lanky body stopping in front of Aaron. As he raised a gun to point at Aaron’s head, his body shifted, turning toward the camera, giving me a full view. Jen’s hands gripped my arm, her slim fingers digging in as she cried out, “That’s Jim Parker!”

“I’m sorry, son. You give me no choice.”

The gun popped.

Jen squeezed harder at my arm as she buried her face in my chest, the whimper coming from her making my heart hurt. I could do nothing more than wrap an arm around her and pull her close.

Because my eyes were still locked on the screen.

“What is it?” Levi asked as I rewound the video a few seconds and played the ending again.

Jen jumped beside me as the gunshot went off. And again when I rewound it once more. By the fourth time, she was peeking up, still jerking at the sound as she peered at the screen. Watching with me as Aaron Parker’s father shot his son in the head.

“What is it?” Jen questioned, but I couldn’t tell. Couldn’t voice the words that felt like a heavy weight on my chest.

Rising from the couch, I wove my way to my office, replaying the end of the video over and over again, ignoring the constant buzz of my phone in the pocket of my pants. My computer booted up and I plugged a wire into Levi’s phone, flipping through files until the video was pulled up on the screen.