Page 93 of K-Pop Double Life

“So we prepare for the worst.”

“Always.”

Richard responded then; all the paramedic credentials were clear.

With my phone beside me, I turned back to the monitors. Aidan had moved to the other side of the operations center, coordinating with the São Paulo police liaison. I watched him work—calm, professional, that easy charm he used to make people want to help him—and felt the familiar mix of pride and concern that came from loving someone who was very good at a very dangerous job.

My phone buzzed. Text from Richard: Problem. Sara Yoon’s gone completely dark. No company system access for 48 hours, no credit card usage, no phone activity on her registered number.

I told Jason. “She may have another identity, credit cards and phone under another name,” I said. “The fact that she’s dropped out probably means she knows we’re on to her.”

“Every indication is that she’s smart, and an excellent manager. So she’s running her operation remotely, staying invisible. It keeps her hands clean, maintains deniability.”

“Until one of her assets gives her up,” I said.

“Which is why she’s using people with limited information. They only know their specific task, not the larger plan.”

I looked at the security monitors again. Thousands of seats, hundreds of crew members, dozens of access points. A massive space that would be packed with forty-three thousand people in a few hours.

“One show at a time,” I said, more to myself than Jason. “That’s all we can do.”

As soon as we hung up, my phone rang. Sunny.

“What’s wrong?” I answered.

“Jin cornered me. Demanded to know what we’re not telling him.” Her voice was tight. “He refused to do the show unless I told him the truth.”

“What did you say?”

She sighed, and I heard the exhaustion in her voice. “I told him everything I know, which isn’t much. That Sara Yoon has it in for Pryzm to cover up other crimes. Nothing personal, as far as we know. That hurting any member of the group could cause the kind of chaos she needs. That Jin may be the center, and that’s why it looks like he’s the target, but he’s not the only one.”

“What did he say?”

“I guess he was satisfied. These kids have been training for this their whole lives. They’re not going to back down from one show.” She paused. “But I told him, and I’ll tell the others, that if they do want to cancel, we support that decision. Their safety is more important than any performance.”

After she hung up, I stood in the operations center, surrounded by security monitors and threat assessments and the machinery of protection.

I wanted to feel reassured. The security was tight, the protocols were solid, the venue was as locked down as any space hosting forty-three thousand people could be.

But Sara Yoon was still out there. Invisible, untraceable, running an operation we only partially understood.

Aidan appeared next to me. “What’s your gut say?” I asked.

He was silent for a moment, watching the action around us. “My gut says Sara Yoon has been ahead of us this whole time. Cannes, Paris, the barricade breach in New York. She’s patient and methodical and she’s not going to waste an asset on a low-probability attempt.”

“So tonight’s a feint? A distraction?”

“Or she’s gathering intelligence. Watching how we respond, learning our patterns, preparing for the real attempt later in Seoul.” Aidan met my eyes. “That’s when she’ll move. When the tour’s almost over and she’s running out of time.”

My phone buzzed. Text from Richard: Interpol update—they’ve issued a red notice for Sara Yoon. But with no confirmed location and multiple possible false identities, it’s not worth much. She could be anywhere.

I showed it to Aidan.

“Anywhere,” he repeated. “Fantastic.”

“We work with what we have.”

“Which is what, exactly? A name, a motive, and a ghost we can’t track?”