Chapter 229

“So what now? Is there even a way to meet Gezar?”

Baekgyeong turned to Isaac with the question. Isaac nodded.

“The method’s complicated, but the result is simplest: break Gezar out of prison and torture him.”

Siron and Baekgyeong both stared, stunned. Baekgyeong let out a laugh of disbelief.

“Don’t you think that plan lacks, I don’t know—subtlety?”

“Why? It’s the most straightforward. Clean, too. Just like your style. Of course, I’ll need your cooperation.”

Baekgyeong frowned. “My cooperation?”

“Yes. All you’d have to do is approach the designated coordinates from the sea and dismantle the high-pressure underwater lock.”

Baekgyeong’s mouth slowly fell open.

“...Me?”

“You’d need to learn deep-sea navigation by coordinates, underwater welding and cutting—quickly. A week should be enough.”

“He can’t. He doesn’t have the brain for that.”

Siron cut in sharply, stopping Isaac mid-sentence.

“Why not? He said a week’s training—”

“Shut up and stay still. I’m not worried about you. I’m worried you’ll screw it up. Isn’t there an easier way?”

Isaac watched Siron as he pretended to dismiss Baekgyeong but in truth was straining to shield him. His face was impassive, but behind the slow blink of his eyelids burned a sharp impatience. He leaned back in his chair, folded his arms, and put space between himself and Siron.

“We could go through a prison staff member instead.”

“Staff?”

“Say... the warden. If Hybris sees him as a thorn in their side, that could work to our advantage.”

“Right. They said the warden granted Gezar special privileges.”

Normally, death row inmates were limited to family and lawyer visits. Requests for interviews or sensational content were refused outright. Yet the warden had allowed Gezar a memoir interview. The three of them guessed he must know something deeper about Gezar Bazelli’s identity.

They agreed to target prison staff, starting with the warden, and divided tasks. Siron took a laptop and began combing through online articles and records on Somora Prison. Baekgyeong focused on surveillance, replaying recordings from the governor’s mansion and the commissioner’s Cadillac, bookmarking relevant clips. Isaac would head to Éclavis first to probe for traces of Joseph Elliott.

Isaac pushed the restaurant door open and stepped inside. The place was styled after a romanticized Paris, chanson drifting softly through the air, the scent of shallots sizzling in butter hanging heavy. Dark wood furniture and marble tables gleamed under dim, warm lights. Through the wide glass windows the evening sun slanted in, painting everything gold like an old book illustration.

A young staffer behind the counter glanced at him—brown lenses, fake beard, Isaac’s disguise. When he gave the name he’d reserved under, the host led him to a corner window seat, positioned to survey both entrance and dining floor. He sighed as if waiting for a partner who hadn’t come and opened the menu.

He ordered a prix fixe with trout, and twenty minutes later beckoned a waiter.

“I’d prefer if the dishes came out quickly. And a wine recommendation, please.”

Harried from service, the staffer still bowed politely, moved to show kindness to this courteous man abandoned by his date. That was when he noticed the folded hundred-dollar bill and a photograph slipped between the wine menu’s pages.

“Excuse me, have you ever seen this man?”

Isaac’s voice dropped low as the waiter glanced at the picture. The young man leaned in, frowning as he studied it: an Asian man, early-to-late forties, striking but indistinct.

“He visited quite some time ago. I believe last fall, he dined here with another man.”

The waiter smiled politely, but without pause added, “I’m sorry, though. I wasn’t working here then.”

Isaac slid the hundred across anyway. The waiter, startled, looked up as Isaac asked calmly:

“Is there anyone here who has worked longer?”

“Unfortunately not. We opened a second branch in Atlanta, and the senior staff were transferred there.”

“Second branch?”

Atlanta—seven hours’ drive from Baggers City. A round trip would eat more than half a day.

“They’ll be back by the end of the week. I could ask them for you.”

Isaac slipped another bill from his wallet, tucked it under a memo with Kim Seontae’s photo and his contact information, then slid it back across in the menu.

“If anyone remembers who this man was with, even the smallest detail, tell me.”

The waiter nodded naturally as he closed the menu. Their gestures returned seamlessly to routine, as though nothing had happened.

Isaac sipped the wine the waiter poured, checked the time, and when the last of his ordered dishes was finished, he rose and left without a flicker, as though he’d never been waiting for anyone at all.

Meanwhile, Siron and Baekgyeong sat across a table big enough for ten, each absorbed in his work. Siron glanced up now and then, eyes skimming Baekgyeong’s hard, concentrated face. Baekgyeong sped through audio from the bugs planted at the governor’s mansion and the commissioner’s Cadillac, replaying at double speed, bookmarking important fragments.

With Baekgyeong quiet for once, the silence pressed heavily. He wasn’t exactly talkative, but somehow Siron always ended up in conversation with him. Now, the hush felt unnatural. Determined not to be outdone, Siron turned back to his own research.

Public records gave him basic information on the warden. His name was Malcolm Knox, a broad-shouldered, middle-aged Black man of mixed descent, built like a pro wrestler. He had made a name for himself in his youth on the Helso state police force, dismantling crime rings, before moving into corrections and working at several prisons.

He was known as a strict administrator who never allowed inmates to consolidate power inside the walls. At Somora, his policies had sharpened further: he strengthened rehabilitation programs and cracked down hard on corruption between guards and prisoners.

Reading the articles alone, he looks like the picture of integrity.

Siron dug deeper. Knox was also a progressive abolitionist. Though he’d never given direct interviews, his name appeared alongside other liberal figures in coverage opposing the death penalty. In that sense, he stood in direct opposition to the conservative governor who supported executions.

They’re polar opposites. But who appoints the warden, anyway?

As he searched, Siron realized how little he actually knew about political systems.

In Helso, the governor controlled the state administration: police chiefs, attorneys general, health directors, and state prison wardens—all appointed by him.

But Somora Prison was an exception. Somora was a federal facility, run by the U.S. government. Its warden was appointed by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

In other words, the governor had no sway over the warden of Somora.

Even so, that didn’t magically present them with a way to reach Gezar Bazelli. Targeting a prison employee—especially the warden—still felt like a grasp at smoke. Siron couldn’t shake the sense that their plans were castles in the air.

The gray concrete building in the city center looked like any ordinary office. But past the main entrance, on the third floor hallway, a sign read: Traffic Violation Processing Center.

Standing before the security door beneath its faded red warning—No unauthorized entry. ID required—Anna stared flatly, then knocked and walked through without hesitation.

Boxes of documents were stacked everywhere. Rows of metal filing cabinets held folders arranged by date. The subcontracted office processed ALPR data—traffic tickets, penalty points, photographic evidence—and the air reeked of old paper.

It was quiet as a library. Most of the staff had gone out to eat in the park, leaving few inside. Anna exchanged quick nods with those she recognized as she crossed the floor. Luckily, the woman she sought was still at her desk.

“Last time you said you didn’t like donuts, so I brought handmade vegan tarts. Thought we could have lunch together.”

She offered the dessert box to the middle-aged woman in the corner, headset hanging around her neck.

Rachel looked up. Short, with frizzed hair, she was the complete opposite of Anna’s biker type. Her skin was pale to the point of sickly, her curls dyed a ruddy red, her makeup homemade, her clothes homespun and awkwardly old-fashioned. She looked like she belonged in a rocking chair on a porch, knitting to pass the time. Anna still couldn’t fathom how a woman like her ended up in a job this stark. She shook the dessert box again.

If she wanted to trace the trail of the car Baekgyeong had vanished in, she needed this rustic woman’s cooperation.