chapter 2 : The Set Up
1357 Words
Elsewhere…
Liam slammed the office door shut, yanked the curtain closed, and turned the volume up on the white noise machine.
His hands shook.
Not from fear.
From rage.
He stared at the folder on his encrypted laptop. The doctored footage had worked—for now. It bought him time. But the fact that Arya had even gotten her hands on the original…
That was the crack.
He’d underestimated her.
Again.
A knock came at the door. He snapped, “What?”
Elina poked her head in, eyes bloodshot. “The school suspended me. Someone sent them everything.”
Liam didn’t look up. “Then maybe you should’ve been more careful.”
“You said you’d take care of her!” Elina hissed.
“I am,” he muttered. “But she’s smarter than before. She’s not playing the victim anymore. She’s planning something.”
Elina crossed her arms. “So what now?”
Liam stared at the laptop screen. An encrypted live feed flickered briefly of the alley outside Arya’s hideout.
“Now?” he said slowly. “We wait. And we watch.”
But even as he said it, the flicker turned to static.
Then black.
The cameras had gone dead.
She found them.
Liam swore under his breath.
Arya wasn’t just coming.
She was already inside his game.
---
Back at the print shop…
Arya pulled the last cable free from the small, disabled surveillance drone and tossed it on the table. “Two more hidden outside. One in the dumpster. One under the power box.”
Jaxon stared. “He had eyes on us?”
She nodded. “Not anymore.”
Jaxon exhaled. “Alright. So how do we bait him?”
Arya tapped the notebook.
The video had to feel real. Sloppy. Like Arya had reached her breaking point and rushed to expose him.
But underneath, every frame would be intentional.
She sat in front of the camera wearing the same hoodie from the night of the party. No makeup. Hair unbrushed. She looked tired. Hollow. Real.
“Do you want it to sound like you’re breaking down or building up?” Jaxon asked from behind the lens.
Arya didn’t answer right away.
Then she said quietly, “Both.”
The red light blinked on.
She stared into the lens.
“My name is Arya Keller,” she said. “And this is the truth they never wanted you to see.”
Her voice trembled—just enough. “A year ago, I went to a party. I trusted my best friend. I trusted him.”
A pause. A glance down. Swallow the knot.
She looked back up, eyes shining.
“And he hurt me.”
Cut.
Jaxon lowered the camera slowly. “That’ll do it.”
Arya nodded. “Now we wrap it in panic. We act like it leaked too soon.”
They edited in rushed breathing, shaky transitions, muted background noise—like she’d filmed it hiding in a bathroom. They blurred just enough. Faked timestamps. They even left a “mistake” in the metadata.
Jaxon uploaded it to a dummy account, private but traceable.
They sent one email.
To: Liam_Morgan_23@email.com
Subject: You think we’re bluffing?
No body. No explanation.
Just a link.
Then they waited.
Liam was halfway through a set at the gym when his phone buzzed.
Unknown sender. One line.
You think we’re bluffing?
He tapped the link without hesitation.
The video loaded instantly.
Arya’s face filled the screen.
Raw. Broken. Dangerous.
He paused his workout, stepping into the stairwell where no one would see his hands tremble.
He watched the whole thing, jaw clenched, pulse ticking in his ears.
She hadn’t published it—not yet.
But it was close. Too close.
He recognized the backdrop. The chipped blue wall. The cracked tile.
“Bathroom. Old school building,” he muttered.
It was where they used to sneak off senior year. A detail too specific to be coincidence.
“She wants me to see this.”
He rewatched the video, this time paying attention to her eyes.
They weren’t scared.
They were baiting him.
“She thinks she can play me.”
He texted someone. A single word:
“Pull her location.”
Then another:
“Make it look like an accident.”
But as soon as he hit send, his phone screen glitched.
Flickered.
Then the camera activated for half a second—click.
A photo. Taken from the front-facing camera.
His own face.
Then: Message sent.
But not by him.
Liam’s eyes widened.
“…What the hell?”
Liam stormed into the warehouse office near the docks—his unofficial headquarters, away from eyes that asked too many questions.
Caleb was already there, feet on the desk, scrolling through Reddit like he had nothing to lose.
“Where is it?” Liam barked.
Caleb glanced up. “Where’s what?”
“My phone just turned on me,” Liam snapped. “Sent a screenshot. Accessed my camera. I didn't do it. Someone’s in my network.”
Caleb sat up slowly. “You think it’s Arya?”
“I think someone gave her access.”
Caleb laughed once, sharp. “And you think that someone’s me?”
“You’ve been sloppy before. You still use public Wi-Fi. You leave your laptop open.”
Caleb’s smile faded. “Careful, man. I’ve backed you since day one.”
Liam stepped closer. “You’ve backed me because I kept you out of jail.”
“Right. And maybe I’m getting tired of being your fixer while you play king.”
Tension thickened.
Liam’s phone buzzed again. New email. No sender. No subject. Just an attachment.
He opened it.
A screen recording. Caleb’s laptop. A transfer—one he thought was encrypted—of files from Liam’s archive to an anonymous cloud.
Timestamped. From two days ago.
“...You stupid bastard,” Liam whispered.
Caleb’s face drained. “That’s not real.”
“Oh, it’s real,” Liam said coldly. “You just never thought I’d check the cameras.”
Then, a bang.
The door to the office blew open.
But it wasn’t Arya.
It was someone else—one of Liam’s runners, bleeding from the forehead.
“They… they knew we were watching,” he gasped. “They just wiped our entire backdoor. All of it.”
Liam turned slowly, the last flicker of control slipping from his eyes.
“They’re not just coming for us,” he said.
“They’re already inside.”
(ayra's scene)
Jaxon refreshed the dummy email account again.
“Got him,” he muttered.
Arya looked up from her laptop. “He opened it?”
Jaxon nodded. “Opened, watched, tracked, and tried to trace back. Typical Liam. The ego on that guy is like a neon sign.”
Arya’s eyes gleamed as she leaned forward. “Did he take the bait?”
“We're in,” Jaxon confirmed. “His IP bounced through three layers of proxy, but he got lazy. One of his pings hit local—same warehouse hub you flagged last year. And get this—he tried to send a wipe command to his own team.”
She smirked. “He’s panicking.”
Arya turned her laptop to show a clean live feed of Liam’s base. The one they installed after disabling his drones.
“He thinks we’re chasing a video,” she said. “But we’re watching him unravel.”
She pulled out a flash drive—a real one this time, not bait.
“This has everything Caleb transferred before Liam caught on. Names. Payments. The video logs.”
“Enough to bury him?”
Arya hesitated, then nodded. “If we time it right.”
Jaxon crossed his arms. “And the plan?”
“We let him chase us one more time,” she said. “Make him move desperate. Get him to show the world who he really is.”
Jaxon gave a crooked grin. “And what about Caleb?”
She stared at the feed showing the warehouse.
“We’re about to find out whose side he’s really on.
- Writer
