Gasps filled Club Zero.
The laughter had died. The music cut off mid-beat. Champagne flutes hovered in midair as the guests turned toward the wall of VIP screens—now hijacked, replaced by chilling footage. Grainy, timestamped clips. Women slumped over velvet couches. Faces blurred, but bodies limp. Movement sluggish, drugged. The sound was muted, but the horror was unmistakable.
Onscreen, masked men leaned in too close. Passed drinks. Whispered. Disappeared into back rooms.
The club's golden glow felt colder now, the polished floor like a trapdoor.
In the center of it all, Evelyn Drake sat poised.
She didn't flinch. She didn't turn to the screens.
She watched Seong Jae.
His jaw had gone rigid. His hand still gripped the champagne glass, unmoving. Around them, the crowd began to shift—from confusion, to shock, to outrage.
"What the hell is this?" "Is this real?" "Oh my god, is that... is that here?"
The club staff scrambled, trying to kill the feed. Too late.
In the blink of an eye, the illusion cracked.
And Evelyn Drake stood up.
"Excuse me, everyone," she said, voice carrying through the stunned quiet. "There's been a slight... change of program."
From beside her, the towering bodyguard in the sleek tuxedo stepped forward. With a flick of his wrist, the projector control was disabled, locked. Then he turned—and the camera caught a fleeting, clear glimpse of his face.
Damian.
To the guests, he was just a figure out of nowhere. But to those who'd been watching closely, the ones who had tracked this war in shadows, the face meant something. A name spoken only in rumors, in low, fearful tones.
And beside him, Evelyn Drake turned.
She looked different now—sharper. Less the poised diplomat and more something ancient in disguise. A thread of familiarity weaved itself through her tone, her stance, her gaze.
The pieces started to fall into place—but not with certainty. It wasn't the voice, or the face, or the way she stood like steel wrapped in silk. It was the pause before she spoke, the way her eyes flicked—not in fear, but in calculation.
The way Damian stood beside her, no longer just a nameless guard but unmistakably him.
And then her expression—calm, unwavering, so achingly familiar.
The mask hadn't slipped.
It had been peeled away.
Evelyn was Audrey.
And her reckoning had begun.
Evelyn's voice softened.
"This is not a gala. This is a reckoning."
And with that, the illusion shattered.
Three days earlier.
The safehouse hummed with tension.
A wall of monitors blinked with building schematics. Guest lists. Firewall breakdowns. Video fragments from recovered hard drives. In the corner, Hana meticulously trimmed security passes while Kenzo ran code through three layers of encryption.
"He took the bait," Kenzo said without looking up. "We got confirmation from the club servers. RSVP from Seong Jae came in at 03:14 a.m. He thinks Evelyn Drake is real."
Audrey stood over the table, arms folded. Her hair was tied back, no makeup, her eyes focused like scalpel blades.
"He thinks this event legitimizes him. That it resets the narrative."
"He wants to remind people he's still in control," Damian added. "Typical narcissist playbook."
"Which is why," Audrey said, "we're going to let him play the lead role in his own destruction."
Hana set down a stack of folded brochures. "You sure about being the face of this? If he catches even a whisper that you're connected to Club Zero—"
"He won't," Audrey said simply.
"But if he does—"
"Then we make sure it's too late for him to recover."
Back in Club Zero, security was frozen. One guard reached for a comm unit, only for his radio to buzz with static. Kenzo had killed the channel.
"Camera loop's holding," Hana's voice came through the comms. "Feeds inside the server room are jammed."
"Guests are panicking," Damian observed, stepping closer to Audrey. "And you haven't even made your speech yet."
"Then lock the exits," Audrey said under her breath, her tone like ice breaking. "Not shut—just enough. Let them see what he's built."
Damian gave a short nod and peeled away into the crowd, already reaching for his comm.
Audrey turned slightly, her posture relaxed, but her words were razors.
"Seong Jae," she said, addressing him directly now, "I came here tonight because I was told you cared about youth empowerment. About protecting the next generation."
He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.
"Instead, I found a man who preys on that trust. Who collects influence like weapons. Who thinks blurred faces will keep him safe."
The room was dead quiet.
"But victims talk. Records remain. And justice?"
She smiled faintly.
"Justice sees in the dark."
Flashback.
"We need a way to mask the girls' identities," Audrey said, pacing the length of the safehouse floor. Her voice was low, tight. "If this leaks before they're ready, they'll be retraumatized."
Kenzo didn't look up from his laptop. "We blur the faces, but not the facts. Timestamp overlays. VIP booth numbers. Identifiable staff. We show the truth without exposing the victims."
"And the delivery method?" Hana asked, leaning over a half-assembled surveillance jammer. "Leak it? Or live-stream it?"
Audrey stopped pacing, her eyes narrowing with focus. "Live," she said. "We don't just release it. We let them feel it. In real-time. While he's still in the room. While he's still convinced he's untouchable."
She turned toward the table, picking up a remote clicker from the projector set. Her fingers gripped it tightly.
"Let him feel the walls closing in," she added, voice like steel. "Let him realize—too late—that he's been trapped in a cage of his own design."
Now, in Club Zero, it was exactly that.
A cage.
The exit doors had quietly sealed. Not locked. Not barred. But guarded—by off-duty officers sympathetic to the cause. By two survivors who now stood at the base of the VIP stage.
One stepped forward. Her voice trembled like glass balancing on the edge of a fall, but she didn't let it break.
"I was told it was a scholarship event. My professor personally recommended me. Said it was prestigious, selective. I felt honored. I was excited to belong to something bigger."
She swallowed hard.
"But I never made it to the dinner. I woke up in a strange room. My dress was torn. My body ached. There were bruises I couldn't explain. And my memory... it was missing. Like someone had ripped out entire pages."
Her eyes glistened, but her chin lifted.
"Then the photos surfaced. Online. Sent to my inbox. My name wasn't attached, but I knew. It was me. It was me. And I couldn't remember any of it. I thought I was crazy. I thought it was my fault. I tried to disappear."
Another girl stepped forward. Her voice barely a whisper.
"I was sixteen when I first came here. I thought it was an honor. I thought I was safe. They said I was chosen. They said it was a scholarship event. They lied."
Audrey didn't move, but her eyes shone like a blade unsheathed.
"You were never alone," she said softly. "And tonight, they'll know that too."
Audrey watched Seong Jae's expression crack.
Then the sirens came.
Not club noise.
Real sirens.
Outside, flashing lights bathed the velvet-curtained windows. Inside, the crowd split, parting like water as officers entered the room.
Damian tilted his head. "Time's up."
Seong Jae didn't move.
He looked like a cornered animal—chest tight, sweat at his brow. His voice finally cracked through the silence.
"This—this is a mistake. It's propaganda! I've never seen those girls before! This is all edited—twisted—"
"Liar!" someone from the crowd shouted.
"You preyed on us!"
"My roommate was traumatized after your so-called scholarship event!"
A chorus of boos erupted. Someone threw a cocktail glass against the stage wall. It shattered like the last thread of his credibility.
Seong Jae raised his hands in desperation. "You don't understand! I built this place to help! To mentor—"
The crowd didn't flinch. A ripple of disgust spread across the room.
"You built it to hunt," Audrey said, her voice carrying like a bell toll in a ruined chapel.
"You're wrong!" Seong Jae turned to the audience, eyes wide, frantic. "This is a smear campaign! Look at her! She's manipulating you! This footage is fake—it's deepfake tech, I can prove it—"
"Shut up!"
"My sister was traumatized after coming here!"
"You ruined lives!"
The crowd erupted. The once-curious donors now looked sick. One woman was crying. A man snapped a photo of Seong Jae, then turned his back.
Seong Jae's desperation cracked through. He stumbled forward, sweat beading at his temple. "Please! You've got it all wrong! I was helping! Empowering! These girls— they misunderstood! It was meant to be safe! It was meant to be—"
"It was meant to be yours to control," Audrey said, stepping forward, her face carved from steel.
He turned to her, frantic. "Why are you doing this? Who are you people?!"
Audrey leaned in, whispering just loud enough for only him to hear:
"You thought we were just ghosts. But we are the reckoning."
And with that, she turned away.
Behind her, Seong Jae's voice broke into a scream. "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING! I CAN FIX THIS! I CAN FIX ALL OF THIS!"
But no one listened.
And he drowned, not in silence—but in the roar of justice.
Back in the safehouse, hours later, the team sat in silence.
Kenzo tapped his laptop. Onscreen, dozens of news reports scrolled by.
[BREAKING: Seoul Philanthropist Event Hijacked With Evidence of drugging, forced nudity, and the non-consensual photographing of women for sale]
[Club Zero Tied to University Abuse Network]
[Anonymous Whistleblowers Deliver Digital Cache to Authorities]
Audrey leaned back in the chair, her Evelyn persona peeled away like armor. Her heels were off, her blazer draped over a chair, but her eyes—still sharp.
"They won't know who did it," Hana said, settling onto the arm of the couch, a rare glimmer of satisfaction in her voice.
"But they'll know what was done," Kenzo added, his eyes fixed on the screen, reflection of the headlines dancing in his lenses.
Damian raised his drink. "To truth. Even when it bleeds."
"Even when it screams," Hana murmured.
"Even when no one wants to hear it," Audrey finished.
They clinked their glasses.
Kenzo smirked faintly. "Remind me never to play chess against you, Audrey."
"Good call," Damian added. "She wiped the board tonight."
Audrey gave a small smile. "We all did. This was all of us."
Damian leaned back, stretching his legs. "Still... damn. Watching him crack like that? That was art."
Kenzo nodded, solemn. "And justice. Real justice. Not the kind they hand out in courtrooms."
They fell into a comfortable silence. But it was the kind of silence that hummed with meaning. The kind that follows storms—and births revolutions.