Chapter 35
Calloway
The evidence that will bury her is a twenty-second loop of a grainy video.
It plays over and over on the main screen of Xander’s command center, a high-tech surveillance hub humming with the quiet power of a dozen servers. I watch Jiya enter the elevator, her face perfectly clear, and the walls of the world closing in on me.
“She checked for cameras outside,” I mutter, the words a useless autopsy of her mistake. “She missed this one.”
“Hidden in the light fixture,” Xander says, his fingers a blur across a keyboard that glows with alien symbols. “High-end buildings use them as a failsafe. They’re not supposed to be accessed unless there’s an incident.”
“Make it go away, Xander.” I drag my hands through my hair. “Erase it. Corrupt it. I don’t care how, just get it out of their hands.”
“It’s too late,” Xander explains after studying the evidence. “It’s been logged, copied, and sent to the DA’s office. Deleting it now would be like trying to un-fire a bullet. It just draws more attention to the hole.”
“Then what?” My voice cracks, the sound of a man at the absolute edge. “You’re the digital ghost. The master of the machine. Do something.”
Xander stops typing. He swivels in his chair, and for the first time since I arrived, a slow, dangerous smile spreads across his face. “Oh, I’m going to do something.” He gestures to the looping video of Jiya. “Their entire case is built on a single, fragile premise. That video doesn’t lie.”
I stare at him, not following.
“The prosecution has this footage. They think it’s their smoking gun. But what if we could make them doubt the authenticity of their own evidence?”
He turns back to his screens, pulling up multiple instances of the same footage. “Digital evidence is considered rock-solid in court because people believe what they see. But that faith is eroding, thanks to AI.”
I move closer, trying to follow what he’s doing as he brings up sophisticated editing software.
“The legal system is having a full-blown panic attack about AI,” he explains, his voice buzzing with a sudden, manic energy.
“Deepfakes, fabricated evidence… The courts are terrified of looking like fools. They’re primed to see digital ghosts everywhere.
” He zooms in on the footage, isolating the exact moment Jiya turns.
“I’m not going to erase her. I’m going to give them an impossibility hidden in plain sight. ”
I watch as he manipulates the footage, not removing Jiya, but making a series of impossibly small alterations.
“What are you doing?” I ask, leaning over his shoulder.
“Watch,” he says, zooming in on Jiya’s hand as it reaches for the button.
With the meticulous precision of a surgeon, he alters the image, adding a sixth finger to her hand.
It’s not a crude Photoshop; it’s a perfect, anatomical detail, complete with a nail, knuckle, and a shadow that moves with the light.
“Jesus,” I breathe, watching as he renders the impossible digit. “That looks real.”
“It’s better than real,” Xander says, making a micro-adjustment to a shadow.
“It’s a perfect, anatomical lie. A detail so flawlessly rendered and so utterly impossible that when their forensic experts find it—and our expert will make sure they do—it won’t just discredit this video.
It will cast a shadow of doubt on every piece of digital evidence they have. ”
He plays it back. Jiya enters the elevator. She turns. Her hand, just for a fraction of a second, reveals its impossible secret. It’s so subtle you’d never see it unless you were looking for it.
“That’s fucking brilliant,” I say, a crack of hope appearing in the suffocating darkness.
“I’ve already seeded the altered file on the BPD’s internal server,” he says, leaning back with a theatrical stretch.
“Used that little backdoor I installed last month when I was ‘auditing their cybersecurity.’” He makes air quotes, looking pleased with himself.
“Now I just need to breach the DA’s office and replace their copy.
Their firewalls are basically made of wet cardboard. Piece of cake.”
I shake my head, a genuine laugh escaping me. “When I first met you, I thought you were just some IT nerd who was good at hacking.”
“And now?” He raises an eyebrow, his fingers already dancing across the keyboard again.
“Now I see you’re an IT nerd who’s good at hacking and wears the most ridiculous socks I’ve ever seen.”
He wiggles his feet, showing off a pair adorned with cartoon cats shooting lasers from their eyes. “Shut up. Oakley got me these. They’re a collector’s item.”
“You’re a menace to society, Rhodes.”
“Says the man whose entire wardrobe is fifty shades of black,” Xander retorts, not missing a keystroke. “At least my socks have a personality beyond ‘brooding artist.’”
The jab makes me laugh despite everything. “Hey, I’m a tortured artist. Get it right.”
“Oh, excuse me—”
The door swings open, and Oakley bursts in. She drops her backpack, throws her arms around Xander’s neck, and kisses the side of his head.
“Got your text,” she says, pulling away. Her eyes take in the screens, the tension in the room, and finally, me. The concern in her gaze hardens into pure determination. “She’s going to be okay, Calloway. If anyone can get her out of this, it’s Xander.”
My head snaps toward Xander. “You called her?”
“I wanted her to write an article on the murder, add some doubts into the mix.”
Oakley is already pulling a notebook from her bag, her focus absolute.
“I’m already writing it in my head. A full-page spread in the Beacon on the deepfake dilemma.
How AI is making video evidence obsolete.
I’ve got a source at MIT’s forensic lab who’s been screaming about this for years.
He’ll give me quotes that will make the DA’s blood run cold. ”
“The article needs to drop before the preliminary hearing,” Xander says, not missing a beat.
“My editor has been begging me for a tech-crime piece,” Oakley scoffs. “She’ll give me the front page.”
I look between them, at this seamless, efficient machine. “So even if the video isn’t thrown out…”
“The jury will have read my article,” Oakley finishes, a predatory glint in her eye. “They’ll walk into that courtroom already believing that seeing isn’t believing anymore.”
“This might actually work,” I say.
“It had better,” Xander mutters. “Plan B involves me faking a city-wide power outage while Lazlo performs a prison infirmary extraction, and my schedule is already packed this week.”
Oakley hip-checks him. “You’d look terrible in prison orange.”
“You said you loved my pumpkin costume at Halloween.”
“I lied to protect your fragile ego.”
I interrupt their banter. “Focus, please? The woman I love is facing life in prison.”
They both freeze and turn to look at me, identical expressions of stunned silence on their faces.
“What?” I demand.
“You just said ‘the woman I love,’” Oakley points out, a small smile forming. “Not ‘a woman’ or ‘that woman’ or ‘Jiya.’ You said ‘the woman I love.’”
Heat creeps up my neck. “It’s a figure of speech.”
“No, it’s not,” Xander says, looking far too pleased. “You’re in love with her.”
“Can we please focus on keeping her out of prison instead of analyzing my word choice?”
“The great Calloway Frost,” Oakley says, settling into a chair, “actually admitting he’s in love. Someone check if Hell just froze over.”
I shoot her a glare. “I’m standing right here.”
“Oh, we know,” Xander chimes in. “That’s what makes it fun. You’ve gone all soft and mushy for a woman who tried to kill you, what, four times now?”
“Three,” I mutter. “And the sniper incident was more of a warning.”
Oakley’s eyes widen. “She tried to snipe you? And you’re still calling her ‘the woman I love’? That’s either the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard or an excellent reason for therapy.”
“Both,” Xander adds.
I pace the length of the small room again, my shoes squeaking on the polished floor. “You two are enjoying this way too much.”
“Sorry,” Oakley says, fishing in her bag and pulling out a crumpled package of cookies.
I stop pacing and lean against the wall, something settling in my chest despite the teasing. “My woman,” I repeat quietly, testing how the words feel in my mouth. “I’ve never said that before.”
“No shit,” Xander says, but his tone has softened.
A strange warmth spreads through me. I’ve spent my entire life cultivating detachment, from my parents, from lovers who never got past my facade, from everyone except perhaps this strange little group of vigilante killers I call friends.
And then Jiya happened.
“I want her to be okay. I want her safe. I want her happy. And I want to be the one who makes her happy, if she’ll have me.”
“Oh my God,” Oakley whispers, a hand pressed to her chest. “That’s beautiful.”
“It’s basic,” Xander corrects, but he’s smiling. “That’s literally the minimum requirement for love.”
“Shut up,” Oakley says, throwing a cookie at him. “It’s sweet.”
“It’s terrifying,” I admit. “I’ve never had this much to lose before.”
Oakley gets up and comes to stand in front of me. She places a hand on my shoulder, her gaze firm. “Listen to me. We’re going to get her out. The video is compromised. The cops have no poison, no weapon, and a story I am about to tear to shreds in front of the entire city.”
Her certainty is like a lifeline. I grasp onto it. “What if it’s not enough?”
“Then we go to Plan B,” she says without hesitation. “But we’re not there yet. Right now, we focus on this plan. She’s going to get through this.”
Xander’s phone buzzes on the desk. The screen lights up with a single name: DARIUS. He puts it on speaker.
“Tell me you have good news,” Xander says.
Darius’s voice is tight, stripped of its usual measured calm. “The DA is making a move. He just came out of a closed session with the judge.”
A cold dread seeps into the room.
“And?” I press.
“He moved to expedite the preliminary hearing,” Darius says. “His argument is that the case has already generated ‘significant media interest.’ He’s claiming any delay will allow for speculation that could ‘irrevocably taint the jury pool.’”
Oakley lets out a sharp, frustrated breath. “That son of a bitch. He’s using our own strategy against us.”
“How expedited?” I ask, my voice flat, already knowing the answer.
There’s a pause on the other end of the line, a dead silence that stretches for an eternity.
“The judge agreed,” Darius says. “He wants to be seen as protecting the integrity of the trial. The hearing is tomorrow morning. Nine AM.”