Bayou Devils MC: The Complete Series

by A. M. Myers

  “Thank you for this, Travis,” I whisper, turning my head to look at him as he does the same. He smiles and butterflies flutter around in my belly.

  “Anytime, Princess.” He leans down and steals a quick kiss before pulling back and meeting my eyes. “I have a question for you.”

  I nod. “Shoot.”

  “I’ve noticed the tattoo on your ribs and I’ve been trying to figure out what it is since the first time I saw it but I’m at a loss,” he says with a laugh and I smile, despite the pain in my chest, as I cuddle into him. I toy with a loose thread on the sleeve of his t-shirt as I think about the ink embedded on the side of my body and tears sting my eyes.

  “It’s the mountain range where my dad died.”

  He sucks in a breath and places his hand on my cheek, directing my gaze back to his as his brows knit together and pain flashes through his eyes. Just like last night when he shared his loss with me, he doesn’t anything. Instead he just presses his lips to mine again in a soft kiss that says everything that sounds so trivial when spoken out loud.

  He’s sorry.

  He knows what I’m going through.

  He’s here for me.

  Somehow, when he utters all those things with a kiss instead of words, they mean so much more and my chest constricts as I squeeze my eyes shut, a few tears trickling down the sides of my face. When he finally pulls away, the emotion staring back at me in his green gaze steals the air from my lungs and I can’t cope. He shakes his head before pressing his lips to my forehead and I fucking melt.

  “You have got to be one of the strongest people I’ve ever met, Rowan.”

  I shake my head. “I’m not any different from anyone else. I’ve lost a lot but there are people who have lost more or they were born with no one in their corner fighting for them. I think that would be worse than loving someone only to lose them.”

  He leans in to kiss me again and just as his lips brush mine, a clinking sound echoes through the air, breaking us apart as we look at each other with wide eyes.

  “What the hell was that?”

  He shakes his head before jumping up and creeping over to the edge of the building. When he gets to the edge, he peeks out into the parking lot before hissing a curse and running back over to me. He grabs my hand, his mouth pressed into a thin line, and his eyes hard as he meets my gaze. “We have to go.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask and he sighs, running his hand through his hair.

  “The cops are about to bust in downstairs.”

  My eyes widen. “The cops?”

  “Yeah,” he answers, his gaze flicking everywhere like he’s searching for a threat. “They’ve got fucking S.W.A.T and everything. This is bad, Row… really fucking bad.”

  My heart hammers in my chest as he pulls me off of the mattress before tucking me into his side. We walk back over to the door and duck inside. Once in the stairwell, we hear the front door of the clubhouse slam open and several people yelling and my hands start to shake. He stops halfway down the stairs and presses me against the wall, slamming his lips to mine. It gives me something to focus on, something to distract me from the fear running rampant through my body and when he pulls away, he meets my eyes.

  “I’ve got you, baby, you hear me? You have nothing to be scared of. Okay?”

  I nod even though I have my doubts. “Okay.”

  He kisses me one last time before he laces his fingers with mine and we walk the rest of the way down the stairs, stepping into the hallway. Before we can move in either direction, three police officers charge up the stairs decked out in tactical gear with their guns drawn.

  “Get down!” the first one screams but I’m frozen in place, shaking as I stare at the large weapon pointed at my chest. Travis gives my hand a squeeze, tugging on my arm as he sinks to the floor and I follow his lead as everything swirls around us in slow motion. I can hear yelling in the main area of the clubhouse and someone is crying… “Get on your fucking stomach!”

  I try to catch my breath as I sink to my belly and Travis grabs my hand as two of the officers move on down the hallway, searching for more people, while the one who screamed at me stands over us, his gun still trained on my body. Laying my head flat on the floor, I look at Travis as tears streak down my face. Fury lights up his eyes and his gaze flicks to our babysitter but I give his hand another squeeze to stop him from doing anything stupid.

  “I’m okay,” I whisper, soft enough that the cop standing over us won’t hear me and he searches my face for a moment, desperation and anger shining in his eyes, before nodding.

  “I got you.”

  I nod. “I know.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” the cop hisses, nudging my arm with his boot and Travis’s gaze flicks up toward him as his nostrils flare and his lip curls back in a snarl. My heart hammers in my chest at the thought of him getting hurt because of me and I squeeze his hand again. When he looks back at me, I shake my head and it stops him but it doesn’t do much to quell his rage.

  The other two officers step back into the hallway with Moose, Juliette, Fuzz, Piper, and Nix walking in a single file line in front of them as they train their guns at their backs.

  “Up,” the officer guarding us orders and Travis stands up before helping me to my feet and wrapping his arm around me as I glance at the officer’s last name printed on his name tag.

  Riley.

  He grabs my arm, his fingers digging into my skin as he jerks me out of Travis’s grip and I let out a squeak of pain as tears sting my eyes. Holy shit. That really fucking hurt.

  Travis steps forward, his hands balled into fists at his sides and that snarl on his face again. He looks ready to murder someone and I get the feeling that he doesn’t give a single shit if he goes to jail or gets shot. The thought sends a powerful wave of pain crashing into me and I shake my head as his gaze meets mine.

  “Please, no,” I whisper, still shaking my head. His gaze flicks to mine and he searches my eyes for a moment before he nods but his muscles don’t relax one bit as he falls in line behind me. The three officers lead us down the stairs and into the bar area before instructing us to line up along one wall, opposite from everyone else, and press our backs against it.

  “Keep your hands where I can fucking see them,” Officer Riley orders so I splay my hands flat against the wall as my heart climbs into my throat. Another officer leads Quinn and all of the kids out of the movie theater. Her eyes are wide with fear as she holds baby Magnolia in her arms and the kids are all terrified, some of them screaming as tears run down their chubby little cheeks and others trying to pull away from the group in an attempt to escape. It all breaks my fucking heart.

  “Get your hands off of me,” Emma snarls, pulling the attention of everyone in the room as she and Ali try to step forward to get their children but an officer has a hand on both of them, pushing them back. Nix and Storm both look ready to tear someone’s head off but two other officers have a gun trained on each of them, daring them to make a move. Emma tries to shove the hand away but it’s no use. “I am going to get my children.”

  The officer trying to restrain them glances back at Riley, who nods in approval so he releases them. They march across the room, their heads held high like they are daring one of them to take a shot. When they reach their kids, Ali takes Magnolia from Quinn and gives her arm a reassuring squeeze before walking back over to the wall. Emma crouches down and all four of her kids rush her, throwing themselves into her arms. Her boys, Grady and Corbin, cast very pissed off glances at the officer who tried to stop her and despite the situation, a small smile stretches across my face at their fierce protective streak. No doubt something they learned from their daddy and grandpa.

  “Listen up,” a severe looking woman calls as she walks into the room in a tailored pantsuit and I instantly dislike her. Maybe it’s the blatant arrogance rolling off of her in waves or her smug face as she looks down at all of us but I can’t stand the bitch and I don’t even know her name yet. She stops i
n the middle of the room, crosses her arms over her chest, and flashes us a cold smile as her gaze flicks over the faces around her. “My name is Sergeant Williams. I’m looking for Logan Chambers.”

  Storm steps forward and raises his hand. “That’s me.”

  “Excellent. Come with me, Mr. Chambers, and the rest of you, wait here.” She snaps her fingers, expecting him to follow her like a dog as she starts walking toward the war room with all the swagger of someone who knows they are in complete control. Storm fights back a snarl as he walks behind her and once they step inside, she shuts and locks the door but it feels like a jail cell slamming shut.

  “Are you okay?” Travis asks as he inches closer to me along the wall, concern in his eyes as he hooks his pinky finger with mine. I nod but despite that, he still scowls and glances down my body before he gaze flicks to my arm where Riley grabbed me. “Did he hurt you? ‘Cause I swear to God, I’ll fucking…”

  “Travis,” I snap and his gaze meets mine again. “Don’t do anything stupid. I’m okay.”

  He nods, his body sagging with relief. “Good.”

  “What do you think this is all about?” I ask and he shakes his head before scanning the room.

  “I don’t know but you don’t bring this much fire power for something small.”

  Uncomfortable silence descends over all of us as we wait for Storm to come back out of the war room and my belly flips as my mind screams for relief.

  I want out of this room.

  I want to get away from these damn cops.

  Oh, and also, I hope to never see Officer fucking Riley again.

  Yelling reaches us through the door of the war room but it’s not Storm losing his temper in there and as I listen to Sergeant Williams demand answers from him, I rack my brain for what any of us could have done that would have brought this level of persecution down on us but I’ve honestly got nothing. These people, despite the biker club reputation they get saddled with, are some of the kindest, most down to earth people I’ve ever met and every single one of them has accepted me into their family, as I am, with no reservations or conditions. They don’t seem like the kind of people who would ever do anything to warrant a fucking S.W.A.T. raid let alone a police investigation.

  The door to the war room swings open and Storm marches out, a scowl on his face and rage in his eyes, followed by Sergeant Williams looking smug as shit as she glances around the room. “Malcolm West, you’re up next. Everyone else can have a seat somewhere and I’ll get to you eventually.”

  As soon as Blaze walks into the room and the door closes, we all congregate around the tables in the middle of the room. Lincoln walks up to me and pulls me into his arms as he releases a sigh.

  “Are you okay?”

  I nod, glancing behind him as Tate walks up. “I’m fine. What about you guys?”

  “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.”