by A. M. Myers
“We’re good, little sis,” he assures me before we all sit down together. Travis pulls his chair closer to mine before sinking into it and grabbing my hand. Storm sits in the middle of the group before scrubbing a hand down his face and sighs.
“I’m not going to lie, y’all. This is… fucking bad.”
Ali grabs his hand in between both of hers and gives it a squeeze. “What is it, baby? Why are they here?”
“They have a video of a man… a man who looks and sounds exactly like me but he’s saying shit I didn’t say, shit I wouldn’t ever say…”
“Like what?” Travis asks as he grips my hand tightly. Storm blows out a breath and shakes his head, the stress of the situation showing in every movement of his body.
“He talked about how hard the club had worked to be an asset to the community but that, despite everything we’ve done, we were still treated like second-class citizens. Then he started talking about if the people of Baton Rouge wanted to be afraid of us then we were going to give them something to be afraid of. He said we were going to start attacking the city for their neglect and carelessness…”
“Jesus,” Chance hisses, leaning back in his chair. My heart races as my mind struggles to wrap itself around everything he’s saying.
“How did they get this video?”
Storm scoffs. “A concerned citizen brought it to their attention after it was posted on the internet.”
“This is so fucking bad,” Travis groans, dropping his head back and closing his eyes as he grits his teeth. “Fucking Warren. It’s got to be.”
“How, Streak? How in the fuck does this person in the video look like me and how the hell am I ever going to clear my name when they have what looks like concrete evidence? I’m totally fucked and if this is Warren, this club is fucked, too. He just fucking won.”
Chapter Twenty
Travis
Sighing, I scrub my hand down my face and lean back in my chair as the computer screen in front of me blurs but it doesn’t matter because the moment I close my eyes, the video of Storm threatening the city of Baton Rouge plays in my mind. I’ve probably watched it close to twenty times since last night and I know the whole damn thing backward and forward. Not that it helps us any because as it turns out, the video is exactly what I thought it was – a deep fake. Albeit a very good one and if I didn’t know Storm personally, I might not have even noticed that it wasn’t real. Which is why my newfound knowledge will be no use to us in clearing Storm’s name.
Last night, Sergeant Williams and her merry little band of psychos spent hours in the clubhouse, first interviewing each and every one of us, including Rowan who has only been here for like two weeks, before having her team execute the search warrant they obtained while they were questioning us like terrorists. They tore the place apart, looking for any evidence of the attacks she is convinced we have planned or weapons to bring those plans to fruition but in the end, they found jack shit. But that’s just because all of our guns are very well hidden. Finally, after four hours of dogging us, Williams breezed out of here but not before promising us that this was far from over and that she would be keeping her eye on us.
As soon as she was gone, Blaze called Rodriguez to see if he knew anything or had heard anything but he’s almost as much in the dark as we are when it comes to this case. He did say that Williams has been sniffing around the club for about a week but he couldn’t ask any questions or dig into it for us since the top brass knows about his involvement with the club and they’ve been watching him. It’s nice to know that with as much good as we’ve done and all the people we’ve helped, we’re still looked at like criminals in this town.
Fuck.
Maybe fake Storm has a goddamn point.
“You got anything for me?”
I open my eyes as Blaze marches into my room and sinks into the chair next to my desk and I shrug, pointing to the video paused on my screen. “It’s a deep fake but that’s not going to help us.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” he asks, his brows furrowed as he studies the screen. Sighing, I sit forward again and press play. The video begins playing but I’ve slowed it down significantly and when we get to the right spot, I pause it, pointing to fake Storm’s blurry face in the frame.
“See this?”
He nods. “Yeah.”
“It happens so quick in the real time version that you wouldn’t even notice it or you would think it was a camera malfunction but it’s not. This is proof that this video is a deep fake…”
“Yeah,” he sighs, cutting me off. “You keep saying that but what does it mean? What the fuck is a deep fake?”
“Basically, someone took a shit ton of pictures of Storm and then ran it through a program that used artificial intelligence to analyze his face and make a copy of him.”
He scowls at the screen. “So this video is… what?”
“This video is someone, who is not Storm, standing in front of a camera and mimicking his voice to say all this shit and then on the computer, they swap the other face for Storm’s to make it look like he is the one threatening the city and promising violence when really, it’s someone else.”
“Okay,” he murmurs, scrubbing his jaw as he stares at the screen. “And how hard is this to do?”
I shrug. “Just depends on the person.”
“How hard would it be for you to do?”
“Fucking cake,” I tell him, shaking my head. “This video is really well done, so well done that in order to get it dismissed as evidence, we would need to bring in fucking experts and shit.”
Sighing, he turns to me. “You think it’s Warren?”
“I do. He’s shown before that he is skilled at computers or working with someone who is and he’s had the time to watch us and get more than enough photos of Storm to make a deep fake this good. From there, he just finds someone with the same body type as Storm and he’s fucking golden.”
“But what about the voice?” he asks. “And his tattoos. How did they get all of this put together?”
“With enough time, anything is possible and he’s had two fucking years, boss. I mean, have you seen the shit they can do in movies now? This is nothing,” I tell him, pointing to the screen and he blows out a breath as he drops his head into his hands.
“And there is no way to dispute it?”
I shake my head. “Like I said, you’re gonna need an expert. I noticed some things that didn’t fit Storm but I know him very well and I see him almost every fucking day. To Williams, this looks like a perfect copy of him. Plus, people don’t really know about deep fakes and the harm they can do. When someone sees a video of something, they believe it as fact and that’s going to be fucking hard to fight.”
“Fucking Christ,” he breathes, falling back in his seat as he closes his eyes and massages his temples with his fingers. I can see the stress of the past month weighing down on him and I wish I could do something to help. It’s my fucking job to find answers for this club and I can’t even fucking do that anymore. Finally, he opens his eyes again and sighs. “Keep digging, okay? Anything you can think of, go after it. There has to be answers or clues somewhere.”
I nod. “I will.”
He stands up and slaps my shoulder before walking out of the room like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders and I whisper a curse as I turn back to my computer and turn the screen off. I’ll keep digging into everything, just like he asked, as soon as I get some goddamn sleep. Grabbing my phone off of the desk, I unlock it to text Rowan and see if she wants to come take a nap with me when it starts ringing. A familiar number pops up on the screen and I grit my teeth as I press the green button.
“Warren.”
“You remembered me this time,” he answers, the sound of the smile in his voice grating on my nerves. God, what a cocky motherfucker. “I’m so honored, Travis.”
I scoff. “Don’t be.”
“Don’t be like that. I just wanted to call to catch up… and I heard yo
u guys had an unexpected visitor last night,” he prompts and I press my lips into a thin line, my blood boiling. It’s all the confirmation I need that I was right - Warren was behind the police raid and the video but knowing that doesn’t really do me any good since I can’t prove it. “But then again, I suppose you’re used to late night police raids, aren’t you?”
“Shut the fuck up,” I snarl. There is a pounding in my ears and just like the last time Warren called, all I can think about is putting my fist through a fucking wall. He knows what he’s doing and his words hit the exact bullseye he wanted them to but knowing that doesn’t lessen my anger. In fact, it only amplifies it. The memories that have been haunting me all damn night, the memories I’ve been shoving back down, rise to the surface, resurrected by his words and I’m drowning in pain I’ve been ignoring for as long as I can remember.
“Or what? Face it… you don’t have a fucking leg to stand on. Tell me, how does it feel to know that you can’t stop me? To know that all you can do is sit back and watch as I tear this club apart?”
“I’m not going to let that happen, you fucking monster,” I shoot back but it only makes him laugh. It’s fucking condescending and infuriating. Raking my shaking hand through my hair, I blow out a breath as lights flash in my vision and the room spins. I fucking hate this. I’m never out of control, never this unstable, and all I want is to go back to the way things were before Warren ever walked into our lives, whenever that was.
“Funny thing about monsters, Travis, is that they are made, not born but then you already knew that, too, didn’t you? Your momma made your daddy what he was and your club has created me. You have no one to blame but yourselves for the pain and destruction that is coming.”
My heart hammers in my chest and it’s hard to breathe as the memories flood my mind again, pulling me down with the current and there is only one person in the world that can help me right now. Rowan’s face pops into my mind and just her memory soothes a part of me like the princess taming the dragon in all those stupid books my mom used to read me but it’s not enough. I need her. Opening my desk drawer, I grab my burner phone and punch in Rowan’s number, saving it in my contacts before I start typing out a text to her to ask her to come up to my room.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Warren says, the warning clear in his voice and I pause halfway through typing my message, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
He scoffs. “How dumb do you think I am? I’m talking about the second phone in your fucking hand that you’re trying to text someone on. Put it away… or I will take some of this anger I’ve been keeping a tight lid on and let it out. Didn’t I promise to pay a little visit to Rowan?”
“Don’t you even fucking mention her, you son of a bitch,” I growl, every single muscle in my body tightening as I think about him coming near my girl and he laughs, overjoyed by my outburst.
Fucking cool it, asshole.
You’re giving him what he wants.
“Again, I have to ask… or what? Are you going to stop me, Travis?” He scoffs. “I don’t think so. I’ve got you chasing your fucking tail and when I don’t… Rowan certainly does.”
I grit my teeth at the mention of her again as I imagine plunging a knife into this fucker’s chest, anything to keep him away from her, to keep her safe. My hands shake as other images enter my mind, images I thought I’d burned from my memory but this time, it’s Rowan in the center of it all – bruised, broken, and bloody.
No.
No.
No.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to force the horrific scene from my thoughts but the more I try to make it leave, the more prominent it seems to become, looming over me and taunting me with a collision of my past and my future and looking a whole lot like destiny
“I must say, it’s been entertaining to watch the two of you together,” he muses but his voice is just background noise now as the pictures in my head taunt me with the possibilities. Possibilities that make me want to throw up and rage all at the same time. “She certainly is talented, isn’t she? Think she’ll show me some of those moves she’s always promising you?”
Fuck no.
Those are our thing, you fucker.
Taking a deep breath, I shove the images back enough to gain a little bit of control but my knee still bounces as I look around the room, wondering how the hell he has been keeping tabs on me, how he knows so much about Rowan and me. I would have noticed new cameras around the clubhouse and there is no way in hell he got into my system so how the fuck is he doing it?
“No thoughts on us sharing sweet little Rowan, Travis?” Warren asks, his voice full of a sick glee that makes my stomach turn and a wave of heat rushes over me as I clench my fists again.
“Over my dead body.”
“Oh, that can be arranged, my friend,” he answers, laughing to himself. “In fact, I like that idea a whole lot. Want to know what I’ll do to her once you’re out of the picture? I’ve put a great deal of thought into it…”
Shoving myself out of my chair, I kick it and it skates across the floor as Warren laughs in my ear.
“Well, that made you mad, didn’t it?”
“Go fuck yourself, Warren,” I growl and the silence on the other end of the line is heavy as I wait for his response. Finally, he takes a deep breath.
“No, Travis. I’m not going to fuck myself but as soon as you’re out of the picture, I’ll be helping myself to your little firecracker as much as I damn well please and there won’t be a single thing you can do about it. I’ve spent most nights dreaming about the first time I’ll slide inside her sweet little pussy since the moment she got to town. Tell me, is it even better than I imagine it is?”
My chest aches as the pictures try to worm their way back into my thoughts and his words burrow underneath my skin. “I will fucking kill you myself before I ever let…”
“Enough,” he snarls, his mask slipping for just a second before he calms himself again. “We both know you don’t have what it takes, Travis. Now, I’ve got to get going but remember what I said last time, you tell anyone about our little chats and next time, you’ll have a whole body to deal with instead of just a head.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Rowan
“This is a terrible fucking idea,” Blaze grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest as he scans the mall’s parking lot. Tate hooks her arm through mine and flashes him a look of annoyance along with a heavy sigh.
“We have to keep living our lives, Blaze.”
He shoots her a glare. “We fucking won’t if we get killed by a madman.”
“We’re not getting killed. You have your gun and I have mine, too. Plus, Rowan’s got my taser so you need to take a chill pill. We’re prepared for anything. Besides, how upset would your sweet grand babies be if they woke up on Christmas morning and there were no presents? They have no idea what’s going on with the club and they shouldn’t.”
“Those kids are the only fucking reason I agreed to this little shopping trip but we still need to be quick. In and out within an hour.”
She scoffs. “Yeah, okay. Good luck with that.”
“Goddamn it, Tate. Why don’t you take this more seriously?” he snaps as we make our way across the parking lot to the mall doors and she sighs again. When Tate first ran the idea of doing a little Christmas shopping past me this morning, I was in agreement with Blaze but the more I thought about it, the more a little piece of normal in the chaos of everything else sounded like just what we needed. If I thought people were on edge before the raid of the clubhouse, it has nothing on the mood hanging over all of us now. And it’s not that we’re not taking this threat seriously but we all desperately need a break from it.
“I do take the threat seriously but Warren didn’t put in all this work just to take some of us down in a fucking mall. Also, how would he be able to achieve that? It’s five fucking days before Christmas,
this place is packed to the fucking rafters and it would so insanely stupid to come after us with this many witnesses.”
He rakes his hand through his hair. “That’s just it, Tate. In a crowd this size, he could easily get lost in the chaos and I’m not even sure he wouldn’t do something as drastic as taking out innocent civilians to get to us.”
“Blaze, I know we haven’t always has an easy relationship but I say this with love… you need to relax. The way all of you are going, you’ll keel over from strokes or heart attacks before Warren ever gets to you and then what is it all for? We’ll be as quick as we can and we’ll be careful if you promise to just fucking take a breath.”
He meets her eyes as we reach the mall doors and after a tense moment, he sighs and nods. “Okay, but keep an eye on our surroundings, you hear?”
“We will,” she assures him before pulling open the door. Christmas music and the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg smacks me in the face and as we step inside, it’s like stepping into another world. Tate was right, this place is packed and there is a little twinge in my chest as Tate starts pulling me along with her. Right inside the doors is a large food court, bustling with more people than I’ve ever seen in one place, and as we pass various vendors, new scents greet me and my stomach growls. Tate stops in front of a large mall map in the center of six different hallways and she turns to look at us. “Where to first?”
“I need to find a toy store,” Blaze says, scanning the mall. “As you mentioned, my grand kids will riot without toys on Christmas morning.”
She nods, pointing to a store down the hallway to my right. “Let’s save that one for last since it’s right here. Anyone else have somewhere they need to go?”
“Nope,” I answer, shaking my head when she glances at me. I’m just along for the ride and if I happen to find something that I think someone will like, I’ll grab it. Otherwise, I’ll just order something online for my brother and Tate.
