The room smelled of burnt coffee and tired suits. Phones vibrated like trapped insects, and Ivy's nails clicked on her laptop keys, making small, frantic music. Damian's jaw was set so hard it looked like it would split. Ezean stood by the window, hands in his pockets, a man built of decisions and now fraying at the edges. Alondra's hands wouldn't stop shaking. She felt hollow, as if someone had taken out the middle of her and left the shell to carry on.
Damian pushed a tablet toward them. "We traced a mobile uplink," he said, voice taut. "It's live from outside Marisol Jiménez's address. The feed's coming from a van parked two streets over. License plates are being relayed through proxies, but I've got visual on the vehicle. It's on the corner of Calle de la Cruz right now."
Alondra's stomach fell in a way that made her knees go weak. "My mother's street," she said, the words like stones. "That's the street name. Calle de la Cruz. That's where she lives."
Ezean closed his eyes for half a breath, then opened them. "Get me a direct line to local law enforcement," he said. "Now. And pull Damian's team, private security on the ground. I want boots at her door in five minutes."
Damian's mouth thinned. "We've already pinged local contacts. They're mobilizing, but response times vary. The van's moving. Someone is streaming, and they're likely the same people who've been mirroring the content." He tapped the screen. "I've got a tracker on the source. It's switching servers again. Someone's good at hiding."
"Then intercept the van," Ivy snapped. "Get anyone to block the route. We have to stop that feed before whoever's outside gets a clear shot."
There were maps and calls and a flurry of arrangements that felt like organizing soldiers for a war they'd never asked to fight. Ezean barked orders, his voice thin with focus. Alondra listened and tried to breathe between instructions, to remember how to be rational when the world wanted to shove her into panic.
She called her mother. The line went to voicemail twice, then a third time and Marisol answered like nothing had been happening. "Mi vida," her voice warm and sleepy, "are you all right, niña?
It's early."
"Ma," Alondra said, and her voice broke. "They're outside your street. There's a van near your house. Don't go out. Lock everything. Do not open the door to anyone you don't know. Call me and don't speak to strangers."
Marisol's tone shifted instantly, the calm replaced by worry that rose like a tide. "What? Who is it? Are you there? Where are you now? Oh my God, menina, tell me you're safe."
"I'm safe," Alondra lied because she thought it would keep her mother steadier. "We're handling it. Just lock the door. Stay inside. If anyone knocks, don't answer. Call me immediately."
"I will. I will lock it. I will not open. Don't worry, darling." Her mother's voice trembled on the last word, and Alondra heard the kettle click in the background, the ordinary home sound that suddenly sounded fragile and endangered.
She hung up and felt stupid for clinging to a phone like a talisman. "I need to go home," she said at once, desperate. "Now. I need to be there."
Ezean's face was unreadable. He'd wanted her safe here, away from the mess, but the sight of Marisol on the screen was a gasoline-slick fear. "You'll be a target in Madrid," he said quietly.
"They'll use you as bait. We can't risk both of you being there without protection."
"I don't want to be told to hide by you or anyone," she shot back, then immediately felt the sharpness of it. "I want to go to my mother."
Damian looked at them both like he was measuring the weight of a decision. "We can send a team with you," he said. "Secure transit, discreet. If you go, we go with you. But we have to move now. We also need to keep you from being exposed en route."
Ezean's shoulders tightened, and then he nodded. "Pack quickly." He turned to Ivy. "Book two private seats, take the next available departure, and get the Madrid contact on the phone. We move in twenty minutes."
Alondra didn't want to waste time pretending she could pack calmly. She grabbed a bag and shoved things in, hands careless, fingers numb. Rafael texted, "On my way." What do you need? She replied with three words: Don't come yet. She didn't have the heart to write why, and anyway, the logistics of getting him into the chain of security would complicate everything.
Outside the wing, the corridor smelled like rain and plastic. The car waited, engine a steady purr. Ezean's team moved with practiced silence—no swagger, no wasted motion, only efficient steps. Damian gave Alondra a curt nod, and she felt gratitude like warmth.
On the drive to the airport, the city was a blur of grey glass and puddles. Ezean's phone was a constant hum at his ear, and every so often he would mutter a single word and hang up: no, not yet; push now; keep pressure. The world he lived in was one phone away from collapse, and already they were holding it at the edge.
At the private terminal, they were met by a security umbrella — vehicles, more calls, and a flight crew that moved with quiet competence. The private jet smelled of leather, and Alondra closed her eyes for a second as someone handed her a coffee that tasted like survival.
Someone from PR whispered in her ear as if the words were a bandage. "Stick to the statement.
Do not add personal details. The more you say, the worse they will make of it."
Alondra nodded because she could feel her own voice break if it went too near the truth. Her hands found Ezean's in a small, human clasp, and for a beat, they were just two people holding on. He squeezed, firm, then released.
They flew, and the miles between London and Madrid felt both too many and not nearly enough. Ezean monitored every channel, every feed, and Ivy sat with her laptop open like a surgeon at a table. Damian coordinated on the ground with a Spanish team, his voice tight and sharp.
When they landed, the flight was a study in controlled haste. Local police were briefed and waiting. A security van escorted them through streets that looked ordinary but felt dangerous, and everywhere their arrival was met with people who knew the drill: eyes scanning, radios whispering.
They reached Calle de la Cruz, and the world narrowed to a single block. Police had cordoned off traffic, and a woman with a rain-slicked ponytail pointed with urgency. The van they'd tracked was there, a dull white, doors closed, plates blurred by design. Two men in nondescript jackets stood leaning against a wall, faces obscured by beanies. Police moved with careful speed and called to them. The men slipped away into narrow alleys like ghosts slipping through fingers.
"Get the cameras," Damian said. "Canvas the area. Has anyone seen them?"
A neighbor shouted from a doorway. "They were here! They were here; with large lenses, they kept looking at the houses." Her voice trembled, and she clapped a hand to her mouth as if to quiet herself.
Alondra's feet felt heavy as they walked toward her mother's building. The air smelled of frying oil and wet pavement. As they approached the door of the apartment block, a dozen eyes turned like a chorus of concerned birds. The doorman, an old man who'd been in the building forever, leaned on his cane and stared.
"Is Señora Jiménez home?" Ivy asked, voice crisp.
The doorman nodded, pointing toward the third-floor window where a curtain shook like a small animal. "She is inside. But she seems frightened. She will not open for anyone."
They'd rehearsed a thousand scenarios on the plane, and none of them were simple. Damian took the lead, producing his ID and speaking to the doorman in slow Spanish, asking for access under the guise of assisting with a welfare check. The doorman's expression softened only slightly before he stood and led them through, body twitchy with worry.
On the third-floor landing, the air smelled faintly of old spices. Marisol's door was painted a soft blue, and there was a wreath of dried flowers hanging crookedly on it. Her nameplate was polished by habit. The door was locked, and it had been bolted from the inside.
Ezean motioned to the police captain, who held up his hand and spoke fast into a radio. "We have to be careful," he said. "If someone is watching, a forced entry will alert them. We need to secure the inside first. We need to make sure there's no one inside that could be harmed."
A uniformed officer knocked gently and then louder, announcing himself. "Señora Jiménez, policía. Are you inside? We need to speak to you for your safety." There was an echo of silence, a flutter of curtains.
Marisol's voice called out, high and wavering, "Who is it? Who is at my door?"
"It's the police and friends," Ivy said in quick Spanish, heart trying to sound steady. "We are here to help. Please open the door."
There was a pause that felt like an hour, and then the bolt clicked. The door cracked open, and a sliver of Marisol's face appeared—eyes wide, mascara under the lower lid where she had already cried, hair in a messy bun, her robe wrapped tight like armor.
"Alondra?" she whispered, recognition and fear tangled. "My niña, is that you? Are you—" Her voice broke.
Alondra moved forward and pressed a hand to the doorframe, not crossing, because protocol met instinct in the same line. "It's me, Ma. I'm here." Her voice sounded small in the tight stairwell.
Marisol opened the door a little wider and the smell of oregano and coffee hit Alondra like a memory. The apartment looked almost unchanged from the photos she'd sent to friends, small and tidy and full of things her mother loved: a lace curtain, a chipped teapot on the stove. But the television was on, paused on a frame that made Alondra's stomach turn — it was a still taken from a corridor camera, and the caption under it was an ugly question about identity.
"Who are they?" Marisol asked, hands trembling around the door. "Who is showing this? They say it's you. They say your face is like the woman on the screen."
"They're liars," Alondra said, voice high. "Stay inside. Don't open to anyone. No neighbors, no deliveries. We're with the police, they'll keep you safe."
Marisol's face crumpled, and for a moment she looked forty years younger, a child again under the weight of something she could not understand. "My house," she whispered. "Why would anyone do this? Why my kitchen?"
Alondra swallowed hard. She wanted to say it was because of power or envy or money. Instead she bent and kissed her mother's forehead, tasting antiseptic and warmth. "They want to hurt us," she said. "They want us to be afraid."
Voices floated up from the hall. The police captain leaned in and whispered to Damian. "We have footage of a man on the block," he said. "Appears to be dressed as maintenance, badge clipped to his belt — same temp ID we saw in the logs. We've got a car parked two buildings away with its hazard lights on. He moved toward this door fifteen minutes ago, then retreated when patrols came through."
The world tightened. Alondra's mouth went dry. "He was here," she said, small. "Fifteen minutes ago."
"Could be scouting," Damian said. "Could be trying to psych people out. But if they're doing this now with house images, that means they want us to feel exposed."
A neighbor edged closer, eyes wide. "I saw a man with a vest and a badge," she said trembling, "he knocked on my door and said he was from utilities. He asked about my pipes. I told him no, we didn't call you. He left."
Marisol closed the door a little and leaned her back against it, as if the wood could keep the world out. "I told them not to open for anyone," she said, voice hoarse. "But then they rang and they said they had a delivery and I thought—" Her words dissolved into soft sobs.
Alondra felt a hot, furious thing rise. She wanted to grab the street and yank out the people who used other people's fear like currency. She wanted to scream, to make the world illegal for those who made privacy a product. Instead she breathed and said, "We'll find them. We will stop them."
Damian moved to the doorway and peered out, voice low into a radio. "Can we get a sweep around the building, canvass CCTV from the corner shops, and check private cams? Someone's inside this network, and we need to start closing holes."
They worked like a hive, quiet and methodical. Officers took statements, typed them into devices with official gravity, neighbors pointed out suspicions and a timeline. An officer walked Alondra into the flat and sat with Marisol, offering blankets and calm, and for a moment the tear-streaked face of her mother looked like something Alondra could actually protect.
They stayed until dusk pulled a cold line across the windows. Ivy found snippets of the stream and scrambled to file more takedown notices. The tracker on Damian's tablet blinked and then froze — a stall in the server hops like a footprint in snow.
Damian's finger hovered over the screen, and then he zoomed. The image that filled the tablet was a grainy, ugly still of a man in a maintenance vest, badge clipped to the breast pocket. There was a tilt to his head Alondra didn't like, something casual and rehearsed. She recognized a gesture in the photograph, a way of carrying weight, and then a cold clarity struck her—this was the same type of stoop in the corridor clip, the same cropped sleeve, and the same hand angle.
"Enhance that badge," Ezean said, voice low and sharp. "Cross-check the ID with the maintenance roster used by the building."
Damian scrubbed the frames and the image sharpened like a knife pulled across paper. Under the plastic badge the name blurred but a number glinted, a sequence Damian fed into a search.
His face went hard. "This badge shows up," he said. "On an access log from a maintenance crew who did work for one of Ezean's contractors last month. It's the temp we flagged earlier.
The same ID that was scrubbed from the logs."
Alondra's breath left her in a thin sound. The world seemed to tilt. "So it's him," she whispered. "The same one you found."
Damian's jaw worked. "Either he's doing this, or someone is using his credentials. Either way, he's the link."
Marisol's hands gripped the counter like a lifeline, knuckles white. "What does that mean?" she asked, voice small and brittle.
"Means we've got someone with inside access," Ivy said. "Means someone knew where to get images and where to plant them. Means they know how to move without being seen."
Outside, a car horn sounded like nothing. Inside, someone texted, and the phone flashed like an alarm. A new message scrolled across Ezean's screen, and the words were simple and cold:
WE FOUND A DOOR WE DIDN'T HAVE TO KNOCK FOR. PHASE III STARTS SOON.
Alondra read it and felt as if someone had opened a window in her chest, and the wind came in sharp and loud. She looked at Marisol, at the chipped teapot, at the lace curtain, at the neighbor's watchful eyes, and she realized the truth of it like ice: privacy had been weaponized against them, and the people who held the map in their hands were not done.