Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Darhg
I pull into the snow-crusted diner lot, my breath forming white clouds as I step out into air that bites at exposed skin. A bell jingles as I open the narrow diner door, and the heat mixed with the smell of fryer oil hits my nostrils. It doesn’t take me long to find him.
Malcolm Bridgeman sticks out in the old-fashioned joint like a sore thumb.
He rises from a corner booth as he sees me, a tall, lanky troll in an oversized hoodie, hood up over his pale-green hair, his bright-yellow eyes squinting against the harsh fluorescent lights.
Seeing the expression on his face, I know he doesn’t want to be here a second longer than he needs to.
I knew he would. He rarely ventures outside his secure penthouse in the city and even more rarely outside the city.
"Thanks for coming," I say, sliding into the cracked vinyl seat across from him.
“Small towns creep me out. Cozy diners creep me out more.” He snorts, casting a baleful look around. “I'm driving right back to New York the second we're done.”
“Let’s get on with it, then, shall we?”
I place Rona's phone on a napkin and slide the device across with the leaked video queued.
Malcolm watches once with a concentrated frown, then returns to the footage, inspecting it frame by frame with lightning-quick thumb-and-forefinger flicks.
I remain silent as the minutes pass and I watch his frown deepen.
The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, casting harsh shadows across his angular features as he works.
“It’s a fake, alright.” He looks up at me with a triumphant grin. “It’s a good one, but not good enough to fool me.”
“Show me,” I demand, leaning over the table.
“Here.” He pauses on a crowded background and points to one partygoer’s hand. “Extra finger. It flashes for two frames on the guy in the denim jacket, then it’s back to normal.”
Relief floods through me, even though I already knew the video was fake. Having technical proof feels like the first real weapon we've had in this fight.
“Is this enough to stand as proof?” I stare at the still image of the extra finger.
"For anyone who knows what they’re looking for, yes.
" Malcolm continues, his voice higher now that he’s getting excited.
"But to the general public, I doubt it. Anyone can say it’s just a trick of the light or something.
It’s not like the court of public opinion has a high threshold for truth.
I’d say this is good enough for what it was intended for, ruining that girl’s reputation. "
The weight of this limitation settles in my chest like lead. He’s right. Technical proof isn't enough to clear Rona's name. That video made the rounds on the evening news. Nothing can be done to erase that. People will believe their own eyes over some nerdy expert like Malcolm.
After all, the truth doesn't matter if no one believes it.
“There’s more.” I push the phone back toward the troll.
“I think there’s a bug in that phone. I turned it off completely when I went dark with Rona, but I gave it back to her to text her mother two days ago.
Some greasy reporter from The Sizzle arrived in town looking for her not eight hours later.
Then this morning, her entire private life was turned into public Asterion posts.
She’s so upset about it, she swears she’ll never go on the internet again in her life. ”
Malcolm’s eyes narrow to slits and his mouth twists into a scowl.
This is the real reason I called him. Because no one is better than him at planting bugs on people’s devices.
This means no one is better at flushing them out.
Malcolm examines the phone again, his fingers holding it delicately like it might explode.
"Could be implant, could be app telemetry, could be account-level fuckery," he mutters. "I can’t give you a good answer right away. I'll have to tear it down."
“Take it. Do whatever you need to do.”
He slips the phone into a Faraday sleeve from his bag, the metallic fabric crackling. "Give me twenty-four hours. If someone bugged that phone, I’ll find it."
I trust that he will. There’s a reason Malcolm owes me a favor. He’s insanely good at what he does. Meaning he has enemies with deep pockets. Meaning I was once paid to keep those enemies at bay.
I may not be a tech genius like he is, but I’m smart enough to know when someone owing me a favor can come in handy.
We shake hands, Malcolm's grip dry and quick. I can see he wants to slip away and pour himself into work.
“Thanks, Malcolm,” I say as we both get up. “I will remember this.”
“You saved my ass back when I needed it.” He smiles, the corners of his lips lifting in a boyish grin. “Consider this interest payment on that debt.”
Malcolm ghosts out, his steps hurried as he walks out of the diner and toward his car. I sit alone for a moment, processing the implications of what we've learned.
I’ll have some useful information to share with Senator Quinn. There will be no doubt in her mind that the video is fake after I tell her what Malcolm told me. Even if it won’t be enough to clear Rona’s name from public opinion, I know it will matter to her that her mother knows it’s a fake.
And then I will find who betrayed her. Who had access to her phone and tracked her, only to sell her to the likes of Gribble Nix.
I pay the waitress for our coffees, leaving a generous tip, then step out into the cold. I’ve been away from Rona for too long. I yearn to tell her what I found. To hold her against me and soothe her.
I drive on autopilot, my mind circling around what Malcolm told me.
Around this whole affair. The timing is a red flag, for sure, with Senator Quinn’s committee on safety and trust in social media.
But there’s more to this than just politics.
If someone truly wanted to get to Senator Quinn, they wouldn’t release an embarrassing deepfake of Rona and they certainly wouldn’t release screenshots of her private texts. They would attack the senator directly.
This means that whoever leaked this video and tracked Rona all the way to Saltford Bay has a personal vendetta against her. And this means I have a personal vendetta against them.
No one targets my mate and gets away with it.
Time passes as I drive through familiar snow-covered roads. I have no idea how long I’ve been driving when I blink, suddenly aware of where I am.
Familiar houses appear, small and neglected on a side street, tucked away from the main road.
I slow down, a stone settling in my throat, making it painful to swallow through the tightness there.
But I don’t turn around and I don’t stop until I arrive in front of a small blue one-story house with peeling paint on its white door, standing like a bruise at the end of the block.
My hands grip the steering wheel hard enough that my knuckles scream in pain as buried emotions surface with all the rage of my broken childhood.
It’s been almost twenty years since I’ve looked at that house. Almost twenty years since I spoke to the man who called himself my father.
I idle at the curb, watching the decrepit house, a storm brewing in my chest. Everything is the same as I remember, only slightly worse. Peeling clapboard siding, tilted porch step, half-bent blinds obscuring windows. I’m about to peel off when the door opens.
A tall ogre shuffles out, stomach pushing his belt line, robe gaping over a yellowed tank top. He walks down his driveway in the direction of his mailbox, muttering to himself.
I feel it deep in my soul the exact moment Farmouth Rooke looks at me. He stares straight at the SUV as if sensing me through the tinted glass. Long moments pass as I fight the battle going on in my chest until I kill the engine and step out.
I stand beside my car for a few seconds that feel like years.
"You gonna stand there freezing or come in?" Farmouth finally breaks the spell and jerks his chin toward the door. He doesn’t wait for me to follow; he just shuffles back up his crooked steps and inside his home, leaving the door ajar for me.
A moment later, I follow.
Inside, the air is thick with the stench of stale beer and dust. I cast a wide glance around the crowded space of the living room, where a space heater is humming dangerously near tangled extension cords.
My boots crunch on something that used to be a magazine.
Empty bottles line the kitchen table like a broken militia, visible through the open-concept space.
The familiar smell triggers something visceral in my guts and my stomach twists with a sudden, sharp pain.
"Didn't expect to see you," Farmouth says, not looking at me as he shuffles toward the kitchen. "Heard you haven’t been back in town since your grandma passed."
I don't ask how he heard. In a place like Saltford Bay, news travels fast.
"Just passing through." I remain standing near the door, every instinct telling me to leave.
"Your ma," he says with false casualness, rummaging through a cabinet. "How's she doing?"
"Dead."
I don't soften the words, watching him sag with the news he should have learned years ago. For a moment, something like grief flickers across his features before hardening into familiar resentment.
"You could've told me about your ma." His hand stills on a bottle, and he flicks it open with his thumb. I watch the all too familiar motion, a sick feeling settling in my stomach. “She was my mate after all.”
His mate? What did that man ever do to deserve that title?
"You don't deserve to call her that.” I’m surprised by the even tone of my voice when I feel so unbalanced inside. “And you don't deserve anything from me."
His face hardens, and he takes a long swig of the beer. Some liquid drips from the corner of his mouth where his chipped tusk protrudes. I watch it leak down his chin and add to the stains on the front of his tank.
"Did you come here just to judge me? Thought you were too good for this house."
My gaze catches on the bottles, the cracks in the drywall, the old dent in the doorframe shaped like a fist. The same dent that's been there since I was twelve, when his jealous rage got the better of him and I stepped between him and my mother.
The final straw in a string of final straws that finally gave my mother the courage she needed to leave.
“You’re still drinking before noon. Not much has changed in twenty years, I see.”
"Mind your own business." His mouth takes on that mean curve that used to make me shiver in fear. "Do you even got a mate yet? Someone to warm your bed and put up with your self-righteous bullshit?"
“I do,” I tell him, but I give up nothing more. I don’t ever want Rona’s name in his mouth. “And I would never treat her how you treated Mom.”
“Oh, you’ll see.” He leans in, his top lip lifting in a snarl. “You’ll see how you feel when she wants to run around town, flaunting herself at every man around like bait on a fishing line. I bet you won’t let her.”
The old patterns of his manipulation attempt to surface, but they find no purchase. I'm not the frightened boy who used to cower in this house.
"Like father, like son," he sneers when I don't answer.
The words hang in the stale air between us. Once, they would have cut deep. Once, I would have believed them. Once, I was terrified of them.
"I am nothing like you." The words come out slow and certain, a belief snapping into place with crystalline clarity.
Standing in this rot clarifies everything. Years of fear and distance crystalize into a final realization.
I am not him. I will never be him. The fear that has haunted me dissolves like morning mist.
I think of Rona's trust, her belief in my goodness, and I know she was right. I think of the way she looks at me, like I'm someone strong and dependable. The way she melts into my arms without fear, without reservation.
My father is a broken man who chose violence over love, alcohol over family, isolation over connection. I chose differently every chance I got. I always will.
I turn away from Farmouth Rooke, walking away without looking back. I leave him behind and with him, the ghosts of a past that never truly belonged to me.
I step back out into air so cold it scours my lungs clean, not looking over my shoulder as I walk away from the house that filled my younger years with fear. I climb into the SUV and turn the key. The engine coughs, then steadies, and so does my breath.
The house shrinks in the mirrors as I drive away, and a thought lands with the weight of revelation and relief. I’m ready. I’m ready to be the man my father never was.
A man Rona deserves. A man that perhaps I deserve, too.