1. Eddy

Chapter one

Eddy

T he ideas on the screen were pretty good, though disjointed. There had to be a way to make it more cohesive. Vampire-like aliens and they also turn into zombie-type creatures. And there's the twist that you end up a shifter instead of a vampire if you're bitten. I felt like there were a lot of familiar-feeling things mixed up here, but…

I was missing something. With arms crossed over my chest, I rolled my chair away from the desk. How could I rearrange my calendar so I could get more time to think?

The door to my office slammed open, and Brittany stuck her head in. She was Kurt's assistant, and if Kurt had anything to do with it, I'd never have time for anything. Why had he been such a prick lately? We were now a well-established family-run business. My first game, Splash Zone, had propelled Queen Gaming to a new level. Plus, the other games were doing well. Not as well as Splash, though. And, as my stupid brother-in-law Kurt kept reminding me, one hit did not make a company. I had to come up with something better.

"Sorry to interrupt." Brittany smirked. I doubted she was sorry at all. "Kurt's called a meeting. The board and top developers." That meant me on two counts as head of the board and developing. "Conference room two."

I glared at her, wondering why I had to jump every time Kurt snapped his fingers.

"He means now," she barked at me but thankfully turned and left.

I saved my work and headed to the conference room. This was going to suck. What the hell was he up to now? Most of the time, Kurt's meetings were a complete waste of time.

My brother Greg, who had the unfortunate luck of being married to Kurt, bumped into my shoulder before entering the room. "Come on, bro. I'm sure this won't take long."

"Really? What's it about?"

Greg shrugged. "I don't know. Let's find out."

Kurt stood at one end of the table with his hands on his hips. He wore designer slacks and a button-up shirt with the top two buttons open, and he tucked it into his slacks behind a designer belt and buckle. Even without a jacket and tie, he was the best dressed in the room. His dark hair was all perfectly in place. And his face was masked into a scowl. Though, I wasn't sure how fake that actually was.

I sat beside Greg as if he'd protect me in this situation where I shouldn't need protection but felt like I did anyway. Like when we were kids, and I got bullied. Greg had always been there for me. I wanted to slip my hand into his like I did when we were young, but we were adults now. I folded them together and sat them on the shiny table in front of me to keep from reaching out and embarrassing us both.

"Alright, let's get started." Kurt called this little meeting of his to order. All eyes were on him, but I was watching everyone else. "Basically, we need a status report on this thing you're working on, Ed."

No one called me Ed but him, and I hated it, but I didn't correct him either. I glanced at the developers across from me before looking at Kurt who still stood in front of the table instead of sitting. "What?"

"The project. Where are you with it?" He loomed over the table toward me.

"Uh, well, I."

"Ed. You've been spending a lot of time on this." Kurt held his hands out. "The rest of us could use your help on other things if you're not doing anything with this ." The corner of his lip lifted in a little snarl.

"No, I'm making progress, but it needs more work. It's not like it will just pop out fully formed." I didn't answer to him or the other developers in this room. The only one I felt I owed anything to was Greg. I looked over at him, but he was smiling at Kurt. "It'll be done when it's done."

Kurt pulled his chair out and finally sat down. "Now, now. I only want a progress report. Don't get defensive."

I ground my molars. "Fine. I have some great ideas and storylines, but I need more time making it more cohesive as a whole."

"Okay. Good. What's the main idea here?" Kurt asked as if he cared.

"It-It's kind of an alien invasion, but they're not your average aliens. More like vampire-zombie things. There's a familiarity for all three."

"Alien invasion? That's been done to death." Kurt glared at me and looked around the room. The other developers nodded and hm'd. Fuck them.

"It's classic and reinvented." I would defend my ideas with this—they were good. I had a feeling about it, the same as I did with Splash Zone. "Yes, familiar, but completely different at the same time. This is going to be big. I know it."

"I hope you're right."

The rest of the meeting was normal scrum updates, and I honestly tuned out. I didn't pay much attention until everyone was getting up to leave.

"A minute, Ed?" Kurt asked as I pushed away from the table.

"Sure. What's up?" I tried to put a bit of cheer in my voice to mask how much he rubbed me the wrong way. For Greg's sake. To keep from making waves. It didn't matter.

Kurt plastered on a fake smile. He kissed Greg on the cheek as he left without looking back. Once everyone else left the room, he glared at me. "You're useless. I can't believe you embarrassed yourself like that. If it wasn't for me. And for Greg. You would be nothing."

"Wh-What?"

"Wh-What?" he mocked. "I-I don't know." He rolled his eyes. "You're pathetic, and you have nothing but shit with this new idea, and I'm beyond tired of covering for you." He shook his head. "Greg thinks the world of you, but if you don't start pulling your weight, I don't know if I can help you."

"H-Help me?" I was flabbergasted. I didn't need his help. I owned the majority of the company, and he knew it.

"Don't stutter. Stand up straight. This is what I'm talking about." He tsked and shook his head. "You are pa-thetic. Seriously. Pathetic. If I didn't know who you are, I'd think you were homeless. Get your shit together." He turned and left, still shaking his head, leaving me standing there wondering what had happened and feeling like shit. He stopped at the door and turned around. "You're letting your brother down."

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. What could I say to that? Letting my brother down? Maybe I was. He sure as hell hadn't stuck around to help me. He wouldn't listen when I told him how shitty Kurt was treating me. Maybe I was failing to live up to Greg's standards. I watched Kurt leave. He shut the door. And I stood there alone with my doubts.

Am I crazy? Is he right?

I signed in at the front and made my way upstairs to my mom's apartment. It was nice but small. I could have afforded a lot more, bigger or nicer, but this was what she wanted. She had friends here, and she was comfortable. And she was stubborn as hell, so I gave up that fight. I rang the Ring doorbell—at least she had security.

"Hello," came her scratchy voice through the speaker.

"Hey, Mom." I waved.

"Hi, Honey. I'm coming to open the door. Hold on."

"Sure." I waited a few minutes until she showed up with a huge hug. She smelled of lavender and peppermint, reminding me of childhood with scraped knees and Band-Aids and cookies at the kitchen counter. I had a great childhood, and I wanted to make sure my mom had everything she needed and wanted to show her how much I appreciated her and loved her. "Love you, Mom." I was pretty sure she knew.

"Love you too, bubby." The nickname came from Greg when we were little and stuck through most of my life, but I hadn't heard it in a while. Greg didn't use it anymore. "How are you?"

"Eh."

She shut the door behind us and moved to sit in the living room. She still got around fine. She was healthy and happy, and I loved seeing that. She only lived in the assisted living center to make sure she had a support system should she need it, and of course now she had friends here. She was more social like Greg and thrived on interactions with others. "You fighting with your brother again?" She patted the seat beside her.

I dropped down to it beside her. "No. Not really. He's kind of ignoring me, but it's his stupid husband that I'm not getting along with." That was an understatement. I was beginning to hate him. "He's mean."

"Did you talk to Greg about that? Tell him how you feel?"

"No. I told you, he's ignoring me. He's not listening."

She wrapped her arm around my shoulders and snuggled me closer to her. "I'm sorry, bubby. You don't deserve that." She ruffled my hair. "You'll figure it out. I know because you're so smart. Things have a way of coming together. Don't forget Greg's family, and he loves you no matter what." She reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. It was getting too long, but I hadn't had it in me to get it cut, so it tended to fall around my face.

"Thanks, Mom." She was right about my brother. I had to remember he loved me, but my doubt was growing. I shouldn't have to remind myself, but I wasn't feeling the love from him lately. "I guess I'm under a lot of pressure with this new game."

"Eh…you'll figure that out too. I have no doubt."

"Why?"

"I raised smart and handsome young men." She kissed the side of my head. "Now, let's order some lunch." She rubbed her hands together like Greg often did and gave me that look that meant she was on to the next thing, so I let it go. The three of us were a lot alike, not only in how we acted and things we said but also in how we looked. We both had mom's nose and face shape. Yeah, we were family. But she didn't really need to hear my whining, so I pushed my issues to the back burner and ordered us some lunch from her favorite restaurant. I only wanted to enjoy my time with her.

When I was leaving, she said something that surprised me. "Tell Greg he needs to come see me. He hasn't been in a while, and I'm starting to worry about him."

"Has he called?"

She shook her head. "I know he's busy, but he needs to check in."

She didn't say that he wasn't answering her calls, but I could tell. If he had, she wouldn't be asking me to reach out. I didn't like that at all. He shouldn't be ignoring her. That thought niggled at the back of my brain all the way back to the office.

But it was quickly forgotten when I settled at my desk and opened my laptop. I had new emails to go through, and most were junk, but two were from anonymous addresses. At first, I was going to ignore them and send them to the SPAM file but the subject lines caught my eye.

One said: You're not as smart as you think you are.

The other said: You can't develop a game to save your life .

What ? I opened the first one, and it was vile. I deleted it and opened the other. It was not only vile, but it threatened me. Give up and get out of the gaming business before you end up dead. I'll find you when you're alone and slash your chicken-neck throat .

My heartbeat sped up. Someone wanted to kill me. Wanted me dead, and it scared me. What should I do about it? I sent the email into a secure file to save until I figured out what to do. I dug the deleted one back up and saved it too. Should I call the police? I thought about it, and I even reached for the phone. But then I heard Kurt's voice in the back of my head calling me a baby, telling me I was making a big deal out of nothing and how dare I upset Greg with all this drama.

I wrung my hands together. The drama was escalating, and it wasn't my doing. Was it?

I shut my laptop. I didn't want to even think about it, so I packed up and went home. Spending too much time glancing at the rearview mirror, wondering who was behind me. Was anyone following me?

Thankfully, my apartment was in a secure building with an armed security guard at the gated entrance to the parking lot below the building. My heart rate slowed as I parked, but no one unauthorized was getting in here.

I still hurried to the elevator, and at my floor, I sped-walked to my door, and locked it behind me before I totally settled. Fuck my life .

The next day at work, I jotted down a few notes, then switched over to the main game engine I'd started creating for this new project. An alarm surprised me, so I clicked on my security app. Someone had tried to break into my engine. I flipped over to my access log, and it looked like there were a few other break-in attempts on my regular file drive.

Someone was hacking me.

Or trying to. I immediately moved all my work to a partitioned, secured drive. I should have done that to begin with. It was a new type of drive designed by the best security programmer in the world. Before she died. Maybe I hadn't initially used it because I missed her. And no one outside the few people in my organization knew I was working on something like this, so I didn't think I needed it. In fact, I was pretty sure these unauthorized access points had come from inside the company.

It could have been innocent. Someone was curious. Wondering if they could do it. Wondering if I would notice. Or they wanted to see what I was working on. But. It was a violation. And now I couldn't trust anyone in the organization. My own company was turning against me at all levels.

Pushing away from my desk, I ran my fingers through my hair and pulled it away from my face. My hands shook. Had I taken my meds last night? My breath felt shallow and my heart felt heavy. The last thing I needed right now was a panic attack. I rubbed my chilly arms. The walls were closing in on me. I needed to get out of there. I could work from home.

A knock on my door drew my attention. Who was going to come in and confront me now? "Eddy?" It was Greg. Wonderful. He opened the door and stuck his head in. "Hey. Got a sec?"

"Y-Yeah. Come in." I slid closer to my desk and locked my screen. I didn't want to talk about what I'd found. He wouldn't listen to me anyway.

Greg pulled an extra chair up. "How's everything going?" I glared at him. He hadn't given a damn how things were going for weeks—months. "Okay…Hey. I'm here for you."

"Are you? When was the last time you visited Mom? Or called her?"

He tucked his head down. "I know. I need to. I will. But right now, I'm worried about you."

"I'm fine."

His eyes narrowed. "I'm not so sure about that, bubby." Pulling out my childhood nickname was a low blow. He hadn't called me that in years. And I wouldn't be treated like a child.

"No. Don't bubby me. Do you actually care that things aren't going well? That Kurt is being an asshole, and—"

"Hey. Wait a minute. He's not trying to be an ass. He cares about this company. About us. You. He's concerned that this game is going nowhere, and he wants to help you get on track, but you're shutting us out."

"I don't trust him." I didn't trust anyone anymore.

"Bubby. Don't shut us out. Do you need to make an appointment with your doctor?" At least he didn't ask if I was off my meds. Hell, it wasn't like I was on anything strong.

"Greg. I'm fine."

He didn't believe me, but he left me alone. I wasn't sure if I believed me either.

When I went to the cafeteria to grab something to eat, Kurt's eyes were on me the entire time. When I thought he was coming over, I left, rushing back to my office to avoid him. Another email waited for me. Very similar to the first two. And…

I needed to do something drastic. I wasn't going to get this game done when someone here was after me, and although I didn't want to connect those dots, they were connecting anyway. To Kurt. And maybe Greg was in on it with him. I didn't know. What I did know was I needed to get the fuck out of town. Fast.