Identity Fraud Maze 2 Novels & Stories

"I severed the connection. I rerouted the trace through a server farm in Russia and then bounced it to a dead terminal in Singapore. They lost the trail." I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding, sinking back against the leather seat. My hands were shaking. "Did they get anything?" I asked. "No," Maya said, checking her monitors. "They got a few corrupted files and a fake IP address. Your identity is safe. For now." "Who was it?" I asked. "Was it Mark?" "Mark?" Maya scoffed, though her eyes remained serious. "Mark can barely open a P*F without help. This wasn't him. And it wasn't Zane—she’s too impulsive for this kind of precision."

“It’s like K. Strauss existed for five minutes and then vanished off the face of the earth.” “Could be fake identification,” Jared said, grunting as he performed a series of lunges near the fountain. He was sweating. His shirt lay on the grass, showing the tight bandages across his shoulder. “No,” Beck said immediately. “It’s too clean.” Myla looked up from her book. “Too clean?” “That’s the problem.” Beck leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Fake identities usually leave sloppy trails somewhere. Tiny inconsistencies, old metadata, or timing issues. Something.” He rubbed his temple. “This one is wiped perfectly.”

“Freeze all associated accounts before 9 a.m.” Roe moved quickly, sending digital authorizations through the internal banking network. Marcus kept time. “We’ll have a chain reaction once the accounts lock,” he warned. I didn’t care. “Better reaction than depletion,” I said. The command went through. Within minutes, transactions pending under false IDs failed mid-process.

He simply made them disappear into the gray, indifferent depths of Lake Como. ​Do it, a cold voice whispered inside my head. You didn't survive the first twenty four years of your life to become a footnote in a monster’s ledger. ​I reached out, my fingers trembling slightly as I pressed my palm against the brushed-steel plate beside the woody doors. This was a gamble. The estate logs had noted an upgrade to identity base two months ago, but in grand, sprawling historical houses like this, full integration was infamously sloppy. For three unbearable seconds, the panel flashed a harsh, pulsing amber. I held my breath, tasting the metallic fear at the back of my throat, ready to bolt.

Catching sigh of his cute dimples, I gasped, as emotions swirled within me. "They'd be bigger now," I mumbled, brushing the screen without thinking. It magnified the image of Jace, his dimple spreading all over the screen. "Yeah," Zara replied a bit dryly. "That was the last time we caught signal of them. And believe me we'd have gotten them under our claws but..." I didn't get her last words, as my thoughts were already on the stats and digital footprints and biometrics that were along the pictures. But the most catching of it all, their fake IDs.

Morningstar’s assistant’s eyes dropped to my name tag. “A. Moretti,” she read aloud. The real Alessandra stepped forward and pulled her own identification badge from her bag. “Here. My credentials were processed weeks ago. I have clearance.” Morningstar’s assistant took the badge, scanned it with her tablet, and whatever she saw there hardened something in her expression. She looked back at me. “You are not Alessandra Moretti.” It was not a question. It was a conclusion. And the room felt smaller than it had moments ago, though nothing had physically changed. I became acutely aware of the borrowed suit on my shoulders, the borrowed identity clipped to my lapel.

A few days before Mia's arrival, Joseph is in his office doing his regular overseeing work when his office phone suddenly rings. A frown crosses his face as he takes a glance at the caller ID and sees no name or number on display, which isn't supposed to be possible. Thing is, all of Joseph's phones are tagged with a caller identification app that can hack into any signal- even military- and get him an identity, but the fact that it seems not to be able to work for this particular incoming call can only mean one thing: trouble.

That's why I took out the loans using your identities. Mable was the first to react. "That's impossible!" she snapped, pointing at me angrily. "I had no idea! That's fraud!" I shrugged innocently. "How can you say that, Mable? You all voluntarily gave me your passports. Besides, I gave you all the loan money. I didn't even use a penny. How is that fraud?" All three of their faces turned livid with rage. They clearly hadn't expected me to strike back so firmly.

Her voice was like she was reading a grocery list. "Aria Chen. Sage Chen. Identity fraud, breaking and entering, theft." Each charge landed like a physical blow. Mom's hand found Dad's under the table. Their fingers interlocked, knuckles white against skin. Walsh slid papers across to Sarah. "You all have options today. I'm here to present them." Sarah scanned the documents quickly with professional mask in place. But her jaw tightened slightly. I saw it. She didn't like something she was reading. Walsh sat back and looked directly at each of us in turn.

Power ran through their veins like poison, and one wrong move could unravel years of preparation. I closed the email and pulled out the neatly stacked folder of Camille Martins’ forged life. Degrees. References. Bank statements. All pristine. All untraceable. I’d used this identity for years to bring down others. Now, it was about to face its greatest test. It was Saturday evening, which meant I had less than 48 hours to turn myself into the perfect candidate with the perfect disguise.