Page 88 of K-Pop Double Life

Now Liam and I were in our room, and my phone was buzzing.

Text from Richard: Interpol received your tip. They’re investigating but it’s not priority. White collar crime, no immediate physical threat (yet). Don’t expect fast action.

I showed it to Liam.

“So we’re on our own,” he said.

“I’m thinking about São Paulo versus Seoul. What if all the things that have been happening are just appetizers, with the main meal planned for Pryzm’s homecoming show in Seoul? If Sara Yoon was going to make her big stand, that’s where it would happen. In front of a hometown crowd, with maximum chaos and maximum impact on Starhouse. She’s betting that the fallout from a show like that will get Starhouse scrambling, put off the audit, and give her time to secure her assets and disappear.”

“An interesting insight,” Liam said. “But we have no way of knowing if that’s true. And we can’t sit back and wait to see what small bit of chaos she wreaks here.”

“I know. It’s just something to keep in mind.”

“I have other things on my mind, Aidan. Like keeping a musical group and all the people around them safe from an adversary who’s been a step ahead of us all the way.”

Liam and I didn’t often argue. Sometimes he wanted to trample over a client in the interest of safety, and I stopped him. But we had different strengths. He planned everything like a military operation, based on his SEAL training. I focused on not just keeping the clients safe but helping them understand what they were up against.

“You’re a tactical thinker, Liam. I’m just adding something to your list of considerations.”

He looked at me, and for a moment I saw all that we had gone through together, starting with introducing him to love and to a life he had thought impossible. “I know. And I appreciate it.”

My phone buzzed. Another message from Richard: Found Sara Yoon’s travel plans. She booked flights to New York (there for the concert) and São Paulo (arriving tomorrow). Both under false identities, both paid in cash. She’s following the tour.

I showed Liam. “She’s coming,” I said.

“She’s been coming all along. Now we just know when.”

36

FORTY-THREE THOUSAND

SANG-HOON — SÃO PAULO

Thursday June 4, 2026

São Paulo hit us like a fever dream—humidity that made breathing feel like work, Portuguese rolling past in rhythms I couldn’t parse, and exhaustion so deep it had settled into my bones like an ache I couldn’t shake.

We had left Seoul over two weeks before to start the tour. Airports and hotels and venues that blurred together. Since Cannes, I’d been looking over my shoulder, watching Jin walk onto stages where someone might be waiting to hurt him, lying awake in unfamiliar beds listening to him breathe and wondering if tomorrow would be the day something went wrong.

Except for the fan breaches, at Genesis House and the Madison Square Garden garage, New York had been clean. Too clean, Liam had said. Like whoever was after Jin had been testing our response, learning our patterns.

I caught my first glimpse of Allianz Parque as our convoy rounded a curve in the avenue, en route for our morning tech rehearsal. The stadium rose above the surrounding buildings like a massive silver ship run aground in the middle of São Paulo. Its broad roof with open center floated over the seating bowl.

I’d worked stadium shows before with Pryzm, but this one felt different. Bigger. My stomach tightened. To everyone else, this was a celebration. To me, it was forty-three thousand variables I found frightening. Every gate, every loading dock, every maintenance tunnel, every credentialed worker represented another opportunity for someone determined enough to reach Jin.

I found myself studying the building instead of admiring it. The elevated VIP entrance. The television trucks clustered near the service road. The security fences channeling fans into narrow queues. Until a few weeks ago, I’d watched concerts thinking about choreography and timing. Now I found myself calculating sightlines, escape routes, and the distance from Jin to the nearest cover. It was a miserable way to watch someone you loved do the thing he loved most.

I stood in the wings and looked up instead of out. Blue sky filled the opening above us, framed by the sweeping roof that circled the stadium. It felt strangely exposed, as though there were nowhere to hide. The next evening, forty-three thousand people would fill those seats, but for now only technicians moved through the cavernous space, their voices echoing off the concrete.

Pryzm began with a vocal warm-up, and then a partial run-through of several songs to set sound levels. The stage was configured differently, with a longer runway and three different spotlight areas, so they ran through full choreography for several key numbers.

I watched Jin move through the choreography with the mechanical precision that came from running the same routines thousands of times. But his shoulders were tight, his smile didn’t reach his eyes, and when he thought no one was looking his gaze would drift to the exits like he was calculating escape routes.

“He’s holding up better than I expected,” Sun-hee-noona said quietly beside me.

I glanced at her. “You think so?”

“I’ve known him since he was a trainee. I know what he looks like when he’s falling apart.” She nodded toward the stage. “He’s scared, but he’s functional. That’s all we can ask right now.”