Page 126 of Claimed By My Biker Daddies
I upload.
I do not miss.
Second, the identity.
I draft affidavits that say what they need to say without ripping the scab.
Fraudulent inquiries, unauthorized accounts, VOIP shenanigans.
I include the header data and the IP block.
I send the packet to a contact in the city who triages identity messes and does not lose sleep when a form arrives with sharp edges.
She replies with a case number in six minutes and tells me to exhale.
Third, the noise.
The complaints to the Health Department cannot harm her now, but they can slow her.
I call the inspector for our county, a woman who has eaten at our table and understands what clean looks like even when the sink is full.
I walk her through the timeline.
She says she will annotate the file and will require photos if any more come in.
She also tells me to tell Marisa that the kitchen smells like heaven and that she is welcome to add a food safety class to her spring schedule for optics.
I write it down.
Fourth, the men. Jonah Pike.
Nico Conte.
I print the photo and pin it on the cork board with a push pin that squeaks.
I write their names under it.
I circle where the silver button glints.
I add the board replies from Crow and the cached posts from Kingsley.
I draw a short line from Jonah to Nico, and a long one from both to our south hinge and our skipped camera.
Roman comes up from the basement as I am labeling the last string.
He sees the board.
He knows the shape already because he sits in that cold room and looks at the same angles until they stop being questions.
He taps the silver button photo once with his finger and says nothing.
That is the confirmation I needed and did not want.
Cruz arrives with sleep and coffee on his skin.
He does not ask for theory.
He asks for the pieces, then does the thing he does best, which is translate the cost of all this into the currency we actually live on.
