My mind was already running faster than I could breathe. She was gone—and we had nothing. No leads. No time.
I brought the phone back to my ear. "Anthony. Talk. What else do you know?"
He cursed under his breath. "Not much. I got to her apartment the second I saw movement on the tracker—but it was too late. Place was empty. Like, eerily empty. No sign of a struggle. Not even a hair out of place."
I gritted my teeth. "Then how do you know she was taken?"
"Because the tracker was thrown out the window into a garbage truck that was heading out of the district. Classic misdirect. I pulled some street footage—" I could hear keys clacking, the scraping of a chair. "There's a black van, unregistered plates, tinted windows. It's like someone copy-pasted the textbook on abductions."
I paced in front of the window, watching the reflection of the city lights flicker in the glass. "Any idea where they went?"
Anthony hesitated. "We traced the traffic cams to the outer checkpoints. They got clearance to cross the eastern perimeter. Destination looks like..." he paused. "Somewhere in another country. Hostile ones towards us."
I turned slowly. "Which one."
"No idea, not to mention that it doesn't matter which one, boss. None of them are exactly fans of yours."
I took a deep breath. "Get me everything you can. Satellite paths, check-in manifests, everything from the last 12 hours. Use whatever you have to."
"Got it. And boss... be careful. They're getting bold."
"So will I." I ended the call.
When I turned, the girls were waiting. Silent. Watching. Sienna's fingers were laced tightly together. Camille looked like she wanted to punch something. Alexis already had her tablet out.
"Evelyn's gone," I said flatly. "Taken across the border. To a country that probably has orders to kill me on sight."
Camille exhaled sharply. "So are we going after her?"
"We will." I met their eyes. "But it won't be simple. I can't just storm into a foreign nation, especially not one that knows who I am. Not with my face."
Sienna nodded, quiet but determined. "Then what do we do?"
I pulled the files from my bag again and tapped the top page. "We go public. Or at least... I do."
Alexis blinked. "Public how? You want to go loud?"
"No," I said. "I want to go seen. There's a difference. I just unlocked a new Job. Journalist. Not a powerful rank, but... it gives me access."
Sienna tilted her head. "Access to what?"
"To stories. To borders. To places I normally couldn't get into without triggering alarms." I knelt by the table and pulled up the Job menu again in my mind. Conflict Zone Reporting (Lv. 5). It wasn't flashy, but it was sharp.
"You're going to journalist your way into a hostile country?" Camille asked.
"Yes," I said. "If I can pose as a freelance war correspondent, I can get into their cities, poke around, make contacts. My presence will be noted, but with the public being informed of a kidnapping, they can't publicly take me out. And while I'm there—I report. On corruption. On the people. On the silence. Anything that could help us find Evelyn."
Alexis narrowed her eyes, calculating. "You're turning infiltration into exposure. Making the world watch them while you search."
"Exactly. The more eyes I can gather, the harder it'll be for them to attack me and also the easier it'll be to find her."
"But it's not like you can simply go there as Reynard Vale, you'd need a new identity. Creating another member of the masked syndicate."
"Then I'll need a new mask," I said simply.
Camille's lips curled into a smirk, like she'd been waiting for that exact line. "Say no more."
She disappeared into her room.
Sienna looked after her, confused. "What is she—"
Camille burst back out thirty seconds later, holding something cloth-like in her hand.
She tossed it to me. I caught it and unfolded it slowly.
Colorful. Chaotic. One side grinning, the other frowning. Jester bells hung from the corners like little ticking time bombs. The patterns were asymmetrical, clashing colors in perfect, maddening harmony.
Camille placed her hands on her hips proudly. "I call it the Jester. I figured we might need him eventually."
Alexis tilted her head, unimpressed but curious. "It's... a lot."
Sienna stared at it with a small smile. "It fits him."
I stared at the mask. And something clicked.
The world thought it could play me. Hide its sins behind bureaucracy and borders. But what better way to expose a system of lies than with laughter? What better way to burn down a farce than by becoming part of the show?
I slipped the mask over my face.
"Then let the show begin."