Page 147 of Controlled Burn
Talia
The footage dropped like a bomb.
Grainy. No audio. No timestamp. Just her with Jake’s face between her thighs. The camera angle was cruel—cropped tight, context erased. The footage made it look like submission, not control.
The camera had been tucked above the dryer vents. Hidden. Known only to McKenna. And now, apparently, someone else.
The link hit her inbox at 3:07 a.m.—anonymous, encrypted, set to auto-delete after thirty seconds.
She watched it from her bunk, propped against the wall, sweat cooling on her collarbone. No flinch. No panic. No delete.
The window was cracked. The room was dark. The air smelled of ozone and diesel—storm coming.
The video had been edited—cropped for impact. Thirty seconds of slutty suggestion. No lead-up, no after. Just her. Just Jake. Just enough to twist the narrative.
It was bait. And she knew exactly who it was for.
Brooks.
She closed the file. Set her phone on the windowsill.
Jake was going to try again.
And this time? She was going to let him.
Hastings
Jake Hastings wasn’t suspended anymore. The city made that clear.
Too much risk after the Maddox incident—his bruised eye, Maddox’s punch, the whispers of lawsuits. So they let him come back. Technically. Quietly. But warned him: he was under a microscope now.
Didn’t matter. He wasn’t sleeping anyway.
He sat in his truck behind the grocery store across from the station. The glow of a burner phone lit the cab. One of Brooks’s—preloaded with videos, screenshots, edited clips.
He’d stared at the footage of Talia a hundred times.
She wasn’t just the problem. She was the infection.
She made him feel wanted. Powerful. Then worthless.
He hated her.
But he still wanted her.
And Brooks? Brooks knew that. Knew exactly how to feed it.
Jake slammed his fist against the steering wheel, veins sharp in his forearm. Maddox’s punch still throbbed under the skin, a reminder of the humiliation. But also of the fact that he wasstill here. The brass hadn’t fired him. The suspension hadn’t stuck.
If anything, they were more afraid of him now.
And maybe… maybe Talia was, too.
That thought lit something ugly and electric in his chest.
He turned the burner phone over in his hand. The case was scratched, cheap, heavy. Like it didn’t matter if it broke. Just like him.
But inside it was power.
