Deeply, darkly disappointed.
What the hell is happening? I look around the room for other clues, finding one instantly on the desk in front of him, where a laptop is open, facing out. The general manager and Keely, our PR rep, are on the screen. Keely looks like she’s about to vomit. The GM is a statue carved out of sour disapproval.
They aren’t looking at me like a valuable trade asset.
They’re looking at me like I stepped in shit and am even now tracking it all over their best rug.
“Sit down, Baylor,” Merwood says. His voice is flat. Dead.
I drop my bag by the door but stay where I am. “I prefer to stand if that’s all right. I’m not sure what’s happening here, but I’m already positive there’s been some kind of misunderstanding. I?—”
“Sit or don’t sit,” the GM cuts in. “Doesn’t matter to me. Just show him, Merwood. Now.”
I frown as I step closer to the desk. “Show me what?”
Merwood nods at Liam, still hovering beside me. He holds out his phone, where he already has a website pulled up.
It’s a major news outlet, and “my” headline is halfway down the page, just under a handful of stories explaining why the U.S. economy is fucked. The banner screams in bold, black letters—Rock Star claims NHL Enforcer Holding Fiancée Captive.
Below it, the first few teaser lines of the article twist the knife:What happens when the woman you love suddenly goes missing under suspicious circumstances? If you’re Kai Morrison of the popular band, Violet Widow, a man well aware that violence against women often begins in childhood, you go hunting for answers. “Sibling abuse isn’t something peoplelike to talk about,” Kai told reporters outside the Mobile Police Station this weekend, “but it’s real. And dangerous. And it doesn’t always stop when kids grow up.”
The floor beneath me shifts, making my head spin. Meanwhile, my heart pounds against my ribs so hard, I’d be worried about a heart attack if I had any family history.
But I don’t, not of heart disease or “sibling abuse.”
“This is a lie,” I say, my voice too thin, too soft over the blood rushing in my ears. “It’s all a lie.He’sthe abuser. Kai’s the one who was hurting Beatrice. Call her. Ask her. She’ll tell you. She’s in New Orleans and totally fine. She’s staying with my?—”
“Stop,” the GM, Fisk, breaks in. “We aren’t here to play detective. We’re here to present you with the evidence. All the evidence. Play the audio file.”
Liam switches to his email app with a sigh, keeping his gaze on the floor as he mutters, “Morrison released this to the press an hour ago. Or someone did. It hit right after the press conference in Atlanta. His rep sent us a copy of the file, too.”
He presses play on an audio file, and a tinny, crackling voice echoes through the small room,“You’re a piece of fucking shit, Kai. You always have been.”
I freeze, my eyes flying wide.
What the actual…
That’smyvoice. My grit, my intensity, my cadence. Even the way I drop the “g” in my “ings” when I’m angry.
But I never said that! Any of it. I haven’t spoken to Kai in years, and even at my most volatile, I’d never be dumb enough to leave a threatening voicemail. I’m impulsive and hotheaded at times, but I’m not stupid.
The recording continues, “my” voice growing lower, more menacing.“No one in our family ever liked you. You treat my sister like shit, and it’s past time for this thing between you to be over. You’re poison. We all know it. Bea will realize it, too. Intime. So, give her time, motherfucker. Stay the hell away from her. She’s with someone who loves her now, and she’s never coming back to you. That’s not happening. No matter what. And if you try to come after her, you’ll regret it. You are never getting her back. Never. I’d rather Bea stop being with anyone, period, than go back to a man like you.”
The clip ends.
Silence fills the room, thick and suffocating.
I have to fight to pull in enough breath to wheeze, “That wasn’t me, guys. I swear. I know it sounded like me, but it wasn’t. I swear on my life. Please, you have to believe me. That was…” I trail off, shaking my head as sweat breaks out on my upper lip. “That was crazy. Maybe the craziest thing that’s ever happened to me. Because I didnotsay that.” I stand up straighter as my shell-shocked brain connects the dots. “That was something Kai made. Or somebody made. With AI or something. It has to be.”
“This is exactly what I thought,” Keely pipes up, looking relieved. “The second I heard the recording, I told Fisk this had to be a deepfake. You aren’t the kind of person who would threaten a family member, not even if you didn’t mean it. Even if you were just trying to scare this guy away. You wouldn’t do that.”
“I didn’t think so, either,” Merwood says, but he doesn’t look nearly as happy about it as Keely.
“But it doesn’t matter one way or the other, Baylor,” Fisk says, his voice devoid of sympathy. “The league has a zero-tolerance policy regarding domestic violence. Especially in the current climate.”
“But I didn’tdoanything.” A jagged laugh bursts from my chest. “I didnotkidnap my sister. I’m not holding her against her will, and I would never hurt her. Like I said, you can just call her! Right now. Bea will clear this all up in two seconds.”
“The problem is that Morrison is saying Beatrice is scared to come forward,” Keely says softly. “That you have her phone. That you’re controlling her social media and have intimidated her into going along with whatever you say. He’s spinning a narrative thatyou’rethe abuser, Baylor. I don’t believe it for a minute, but with your history… And what happened with that man on Bourbon Street…”
