The lights come back slow like a reluctant witness, and for a second everything tastes of static and lemon cleaner, he blinks and the studio looks the same and not the same, chairs askew like they remember a fight, cables like veins, and Maya is gone, gone like a curtain pulled mid-scene, and Jace hears the blood in his ears like a metronome ticking down
"Where did they take her," he hisses at the nearest producer, a man with stage fatigue written on his face, the man's smile is all professional pity, "we have a right to know"
"We were told it's procedure, sir," the man says, voice even, "we have to comply"
"Procedure for what, nicking the woman who didn't take the money" he says, and the man doesn't meet his eyes, as if the room is full of mirrors and no one wants to see their reflection
Leo is half running down the corridor when Jace finds him, hair a mess, grin gone, "Mate, I followed the exit cameras, it looks like three guys, private kit, vans with no plates, they moved fast"
"Who are they"
"No idea, some lot called Argos on a ragged manifest, they were polite but quick, like undertakers with manners"
"Argos," Jace repeats, the name a pebble that slides inside him and finds cold, he remembers the tattooed wrist, the small symbol on the man's cuff, same as a watermark he'd once seen in an anonymous file, "who's Argos"
"Private security, runs clean, runs quiet, rumours they do extraction work for deep pockets, the sort that don't like noise," Leo says, voice thin, "they're not on the books, mate, you don't call them, they call you, or they don't call at all"
They go to the back of the studio where the doors smell like bleach and fear, Maya's camera bag is still there, strap snapped where someone grabbed, and he lifts it, fingers finding the little tripod he bought her months ago and a scrap of paper tucked into the pocket, a single word scrawled in blue ink, "remember," he pockets it like a relic, the same word from the supplier photo, and his stomach drops like a trapdoor opening
"Someone's sewing a pattern," Amira says, appearing like a lighthouse keeper, she moves without fuss and looks at the studio like it's a wound, "they want you to bleed in public and they'll sell the tickets"
"Who benefits" Jace asks, and she shrugs, "anyone who wants a story to sell, anyone who wants to turn your confession into a crucifixion, or a man who wants you to squirm while he counts his advantage"
He thinks of Ethan and Sienna and the feed that made a roof look like a stage, but there's a colder hand here, a professional neatness that tastes of money laundered through muscle, and he knows his rivals play dirty but rarely that clinical, "They took her because she's the easiest lever," he says, "they want leverage, to make me move, to pull me where they can take me further"
"Or they took her because she knows something," Leo says, "you said she was listed, maybe she had a name you didn't expect on her contact list"
Jace rubs his face with the heel of his hand and the studio light hums, the sound like a distant train, "She knows everything about people through pictures, she takes their faces and makes them honest for a second, maybe there was a picture she shouldn't have taken"
They tear through the CCTV, but the footage is chewed like film left too close to a candle, the backdoor feed is cut for six minutes, the van plates are smeared with grease, the audio track has a hole where the word "Argos" would have been, and someone has left a card on the control desk, a small white rectangle with a logo, the same tattooed symbol printed clean as a coin and under it one line, "phase four complete" — the card is clinical, no flourish, no return number, just a promise that someone else is playing God
"Do we go to the police" Leo asks, voice pitched like a boy on a rope, "or do we go to the kind of men who peel tiles back and find the springs"
"Police first," Jace says because he knows the choreography, "appear respectable, then pull threads quietly, find which wire leads to the hand that signed the checklist"
He phones a lawyer, calls a favoured contact in PR who owes him a favour, he texts a handful of people who used to move mountains for him and winds get answers that are polite and thin, then a message from an unknown number arrives, image attached, a photo of Maya blindfolded, her camera beside her like a child, and a short line beneath, "asset secure, comply or lose more" — the message is clinical, like a doctor's note, not a threat in the common way but colder, as if someone had already calculated the cost of his breath
"Where did you get that" Amira asks, eyes not leaving his face
"Unknown number," he says, and the phone doesn't feel like a tool anymore, it feels like a live animal in his hand, "they're not playing at drama, they're playing at logistics, at pressure, they will escalate if I go after them the wrong way"
"Then what" Leo says, hands in his pockets like a boy waiting for the punchline, "we don't have the time to be moral about this, we need action"
They split, a plan made in fragments, Jace to dig his old contacts for any link to Argos, Leo to burn through hostel mates and local forums, Amira to talk to her guide network, find drivers who know vans that don't exist on maps, and Jace moves like a man who has watched the tide rise and knows the boat is heavy and likely to list, he moves through Lisbon in a fog of rain and diesel and the city feels slightly unreal, colors a bit too bright, as if someone has dialled saturation up to watch his life like a hyperreal film
At three in the morning a call cracks his phone, unknown number, no text, a voice, muffled, "Jace" and for a second he believes it is Maya's, small and human, "they kept me upstairs with windows like mirrors, I can't see out, there's a humming, I'm not hurt, they asked about the camera, they asked about you" — the voice is thin, she sounds too young in that moment, like someone using courage as lipstick, "please don't come, they said, don't try and find us, they'll make it worse" and then the voice breaks, "I heard them say a name — Dean" and the line dies like a candle with no one to shield it
Dean — the word lands like a stone, a name that was not supposed to belong here, a sheriff with a badge and a grin, the kind of man who can make papers bend and policies cough, and Jace hears the word and knows the shallow theatre of rivals is less dangerous than the neat corridors of power, "Dean," he says aloud, a name that tastes like old blood, "which Dean"
The caller ID flashes again, a number, he punches it, there is nothing but a muffled hiss, the line dead as yesterday's rain but the word is in his head like a drum, and he knows now that they're playing chess with pieces that wear uniforms and tie themselves to law
He goes to the one place that never sleeps, the docks where things are moved under cover of fog and men forget faces by morning, he finds a foreman who remembers vans with no plates because he remembers anything that moves money, "Argos came through at night, took a crate and some people, paid cash and asked for discretion" the foreman says, "they've got a base, west side, an old cold store, name never on a manifest" and Jace writes it down like a map of a bruise
As dawn comes the city looks bruised and honest, and Jace stands at the edge of the dock and thinks of the man who taught him to count coins and hide grief behind deals, he thinks of Maya's small fierce face and the way she held his wrist earlier like a claim, not a demand, and he realises this isn't just about proving he's human, it's about what kind of man he wants to be when the lights are off, who he is when there is no audience
He texts one line to Ethan, cold as a blade, "Who signed Argos on the manifest" and watches the dots appear and disappear like someone thinking too long about a lie, the reply comes, quick and exactly what he'd feared, "I don't know what you mean" and beneath it a photo, Ethan's grin at a gala, nothing else, and the chill in Jace's lungs feels like glass
Then his phone rings, the unknown number again, he answers and a voice, smooth and smiling like a salesman, says, "Mr Kavanagh, we admire a man who confesses, it's so rare these days, unfortunate that people get carried away, please don't make this about Dean, he'd hate the publicity" and the line clicks, someone has anchored Dean's name in the water and pulled the rope taut, and Jace hears in the silence after the click the sound of a door opening somewhere else, the sound of a lock turned, and his hands close into fists so tight his nails bite down and the last thing the chapter leaves is a single plane ticket on his kitchen table, stamped Hoi An, economy, one way, and a note tucked beneath it in Maya's handwriting, three words, "Don't come looking" and then the page goes black like a curtain.