Chapter 24 Catfish
CATFISH
“So, we’re about two hundred thousand short, but if we keep Wren with us for at least four months, we can cover that, even if Wren doesn’t find the rest of the money,” Grudge says, resting his hands on the top of his head.
We’re in his office the following day, finishing up the conversation we started yesterday but had to end prematurely because of Lucy’s arrival and the tree-cutting competition.
Out in the clubhouse, it’s a hive of activity as we get ready for the tree-decorating family party.
Wren is helping Babyface and Taco put out extra chairs and tables while the old ladies make a fuss in the kitchen.
“Yeah, that’s about the size of it. If we get that money from King, we’ll make it to spring.
Or we can take on a few more runs in the trucks in January and February.
Maybe even speak to some of the clubs in the south, see if they need a little extra manpower for anything they got going on.
If we could off load a couple of our guys from our books and shunt them onto someone else’s for the winter, that would help reduce the risk too. ”
Grudge nods. “I’ll ask around. Was going to chat with Knox in Florida later this week, anyway.”
Knox, also known as Fort Knox, because he’s utterly impenetrable.
He grew up running moonshine through the swamps and citrus groves north of Tampa.
But he rose through the ranks of the Iron Outlaws by proving himself a genius at planning ambushes and escapes.
He’s regarded as one of the best former road captains; he’s fiercely loyal and a quiet tactician.
It’s no wonder he was tapped by national to lead a chapter.
“Sounds like a plan.”
“I think Michigan had some shit they needed help with. I’ll ask there too.”
My mind flips back to what Wren told me.
About the foster parent who tried to assault them.
It makes me feel sick to my stomach that a man could think, even for a second, about getting into bed with a child.
If there’s trouble in Michigan once Wren is safe, I’d be happy to help.
I wonder what the chances are of me doing a detour to Lansing if I do go.
“You and Wren. You’re keeping it professional, right?”
“Don’t you have enough problems of your own to deal with without getting in my face?”
“It’s not that. It’s just…fuck, I worry that King won’t pay us the fifty grand a month if he thinks one of us is fucking or claiming Wren.”
“Does everything have to be that mercenary?” I ask.
His brow furrows. “To be certain it’s a non-issue, I’m gonna switch Jackal and Shade out. They can stay in the house with Wren. I want you unpacked and out of there tonight.”
“Fuck you. There’s no way I’m—”
My sentence is cut off by the sound of Grudge’s phone ringing.
And thank fuck it does, ‘cos there’s no way I’m moving away from Wren.
We understand each other. Some of the brothers talk about how the person you end up with should be your soft place to land.
But I like the idea of having someone in my life who’d want to protect me too.
I want someone who feels like we’re in something together.
Someone I don’t have to keep secrets from or sugarcoat things with.
Someone who wants to be part of the solution with me.
“King,” Grudge says. “I’m here with Catfish.”
I hadn’t realized it was a video chat.
“Brothers,” he says. “I need to speak with Wren. Catfish, are you with them?”
“They’re outside in the clubhouse. What’s going on?” I ask.
“Grudge, can you get them while I talk with Catfish?”
Grudge looks at me like he just grew a second set of eyes, but I shrug. I have no idea what this is about.
“Please. Go get them,” King says.
Grudge looks unhappy but he does as King asks.
Once he’s out the door, I look back at King. “Quick. Wren told me everything. Only me. The FBI. The cartel. All of it. What do I need to know before Grudge gets back in here?”
“You’d go behind your president?”
“You asked this club to keep Wren safe. I’ve done that.
I’m assuming you’d want them mentally in one piece, so I made sure they are somewhere that can happen too.
I assume if you wanted me to trust them, you would trust them too.
So, if they chose to confide in me, I assume you’d want me to not blurt that information to the rest of the club, even if that’s my president. ”
King smiles as he shoves his dark hair back from his forehead. “Point made. But Grudge already knows that the FBI wants them. Glad to see I can trust both of you. Because he obviously never told you he knew, and you never told him that Wren told you.”
A flicker of anger sparks in my gut. “Was this all a test of our club?”
King shakes his head. “If it were, you would have passed. But this life throws too many tests our way for me to be wanting to add to the stresses. Now, I can tell all three of you what I need you to know.”
“Got what you asked for, Prez,” a voice says, and Vex comes into view on the screen. “Catfish, how’s it going?”
Just the man I wanted to see. “Can I ask for a favor? I’ll pay.”
“You can ask. Depends on what it is.”
I glance through the door opening where Grudge has interrupted Wren, who was setting up two chairs at a table Taco had just constructed. “DeWitt. North of Lansing, Michigan. Can you find out where Wren lived and who they lived with there from juvenile foster records?”
Vex raises an eyebrow. “Wren told you about their past?”
I nod. “Can you do it?”
“Does Wren know about it?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“You fixing wrongs?” King asks.
This time, I nod.
Vex looks at King, and King nods his head a fraction of an inch. Vex replies, “I’ll see what I can do. No promises. And no fee.”
“And I’ll help, if you need it,” King says.
“Thank you,” I say, just as Grudge and Wren walk through the door.
We sit, and Grudge takes back his phone and holds it so we can all see it. It’s a tight squeeze, and Wren’s thigh is pushed tight up against mine. I can feel their warmth through our denim. It feels illicit to bring this kind of energy to the room where we discuss the darkest of club business.
But when Wren reaches beneath the table to squeeze my knee, it’s all I can do to not take their hand and squeeze it right back.
They bite down on their lower lip, as if they know what they’re doing to me.
“Hey, guys,” Wren says when they see who we’re talking with.
“One sec,” Vex says, and reaches out his hand, and a woman with pretty eyes and long hair up in a thick ponytail appears. He tugs her onto his lap.
“Jesus Christ,” King mutters as Vex elbows him in the process.
“Calista!” Wren says. “Shit, this must be bad.”
“Hey,” Calista says. “No. It’s just information, at this point. It’s only bad if action is taken. Just tell Wren what it is,” she says, encouraging King to speak.
“Don’t know about your club,” King says. “But we’ve got one too many feisty old ladies who seem to think they give the orders around here.”
Calista looks straight at him. “Bet if your old lady were here right now, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
I wonder if King realizes that, despite his care for Wren, the concept of old ladies leaves no room for someone like them in the role of a biker’s partner. There’s not much room for queerness at all.
King rolls his eyes. “Fuck my life. Listen. I’m aware that all of you know about the possible FBI threat.”
For a moment, it’s a bit like a comedy show on our end. I look at Grudge, giving him a, you kept it from us glare. Grudge looks surprised I know. And Wren looks from King to me, wondering how the fuck King knows we all know.
“We do,” I say calmly as Wren grips my knee tightly.
“I just got a call from a contact who works at the private airfield we flew from. An FBI agent, Dorian Chase, has been sniffing around, trying to find out details about our flight. Couldn’t remember the name of the guy you said had emailed you. Is that the one?”
“Yeah,” Wren says. “That’s him. I got another message from him this morning.”
“It seems officious and official,” I say. “Wren ran all kinds of tests on it.”
Grudge gives me side eye, like we’re going to be having a conversation about all this later. Which, fair. I wanna know why he didn’t tell us Wren was at risk from the FBI when he clearly knew.
“What was he asking?” Wren asks.
“He’s suspicious about the flight manifest and details,” King says. “He wanted to know who was on it. He showed an image of Wren, an older one from before you came out.”
Wren takes a deep breath beside me, and I find myself desperate to put my arm around them and reassure them the world is going to be okay. But given the conversation I was having with Grudge before the call, it’s best that I keep my hands to myself.
“Did they give him anything?” Wren asks.
King shakes his head. “My guy deals with refueling and shit. Happened to be inside to pick up some work orders. Overheard as much as he could. They wanted to see any security video. Heard them say that one of the key requisites of running a private airfield is client confidentiality. They told him that if his request was legitimate, he should come back with a warrant, because that would be the only way they’d surrender the intelligence. ”
“Shit,” Wren whispers.
Vex raises a hand. “Cool your heels, Wren. I wasn’t going to leave you out in the wind. I went into their security files and deleted footage.”
“That won’t be enough. If anything, the day of my departure being missing is going to look suspicious.”
Calista chuckled. “Have I not trained you better than that? We went in and deleted periodic windows over the eleven days before your departure and for a few days after. An hour here, two hours there. That way, if he does get a warrant, it will look like the system has been glitching for two weeks, and it’s just bad luck your video is missing. ”
I blow out a breath of relief. “Thank you,” I say.
“This guy is tenacious,” Vex says. “Doesn’t mean he won’t try to get footage from around the airport in the lead up to the flight departure time, which is publicly available.
There are tons of warehouses with security cameras and street cameras.
We dropped you at the airport in a convoy.
If they picked us up on one of them, they might be able to get a line of sight on Wren, although, we told them to stay in the middle of the truck and stay down. ”
“I just want it to be over,” Wren says. “I wonder if there’s any harm in talking to this guy. Like, if he’s just going to keep trying to find me, anyway. Make it happen sooner rather than later.”
Various forms of no echo over the video line and from Grudge.
“How?” I ask Wren. Because I’m starting to believe that if they think it’s possible, it is.
“I have three options,” they say. “I can set up a hardened, single-use signal relay. I’ll bounce the call across multiple country jurisdictions using virtualized nodes in countries with no mutual legal assistance treaties.
The encryption can reset every thirty seconds.
No traceable packet headers. No embedded metadata. No GPS leakage.”
Vex shakes his head. “But you’ll have no fallback if something goes wrong with the call.”
Calista leans forward. “But Wren could make it time locked. Have it automatically shut down if they try to trace it.”
“Well, option two is I go in under deep fake. Maybe spin up a fake visual shell. Let’s add flights out of Colorado, about twenty minutes after I arrived, that make it look like I flew off again.
Tokyo or somewhere. I mask everything, including my voice, through digital modulation.
He’ll think he’s talking to me but he’s talking to my shadow. ”
Grudge shakes his head. “Call me old-fashioned. But if I couldn’t see you, if I couldn’t hear a real voice, I’d question whether it was you. I’d be looking for some kind of proof of life that I’m talking to a real person.”
Wren huffs out a frustrated sigh. “So, what do we do? Because the third option is to wait while he tries to track down leads to find me. While he possibly paints me as a villain. He’s already put me on the Most Wanted list.”
“Did you speak to Krillbyte?” Calista asks.
“I did. They’re on it. But I can’t just sit here, waiting for Special Agent Dorian Chase to find me. And how long does this go on for? I mean, it’s nice here, but I don’t want to feel like a caged animal for the rest of my life. This feels like retreating and not attacking.”
A silence fills the room. “I think we let Wren try,” I say.
And I make my own plan B to move them to safety in case it all goes to shit.