By five in the evening, he had attended two seminars and participated in a library induction. At so point around noon, he had eaten Petricia’s sandwich while reading an assigned paper that was more engaging than the typical readings from the places he had studied before.
He wandered through the campus for a while after the last session of the day, a habit he maintained in any new environnt. He wandered aimlessly, constructing a ntal map and uncovering the most frequented paths and unmarked shortcuts.
The campus in the early evening felt different from how it had been at nine that morning. The vibrant energy of orientation day had given way to a more ordinary atmosphere.
People were leaving through the gates, and a group was playing sothing in the far corner of the quad. And the library lights were on.
He was heading toward the main gate at around six-forty-five when he spotted a classmate from the economics cohort. He recognized the face but hadn’t caught the na during the afternoon introductions.
The classmate was moving along the path ahead of him, which Mike noticed even before he consciously decided to pay attention.
The man was scanning his surroundings, not like a first-day student taking in the new environnt but rather with the quick, purposeful glances of soone assessing whether they were being watched. He looked left, then right, glanced behind him, and finally focused ahead, moving faster.
Mike slowed his pace without coming to a stop.
’That looks not suspicious at all, yeah...’ Mike thought. ’Since I don’t have anything else to do, maybe I’ll start following him to see if he’s eting soone important.’
’Well, I heard he might already have a girlfriend, so I guess... he’s going to be my first victim, hehehe...’
The man exited through a side gate instead of the main one, leading to a quieter street along the campus’s eastern wall. Mike followed at a distance—close enough to keep him in sight but far enough that a quick glance behind would reveal nothing noteworthy.
He had done similar things in four different countries, where the stakes were significantly higher, including instances of surveillance and evasion that required careful planning and execution to avoid detection.
But this one was simple.
The street where the classmate had turned extended for two blocks before opening into a small square featuring a bench, a closed fruit kiosk, and a narrow alley entrance on the left. This type of small urban space, common in every city, often goes unnoticed by passersby, which likely contributed to its selection for whatever purpose was at hand.
Mike paused at the corner and observed.
The classmate had stopped in the middle of the square and was standing with the tightly held body language of soone waiting for sothing they’re slightly nervous about. His hands were in his jacket pockets, and he kept looking at his phone.
’Yeah... he’s looking for soone...’
Then a figure ca in from the alley side.
’She’s eting up with her girlfriend, huh? Let’s see how she looks.’
She was wearing a long, dark coat and a hat pulled down and a scarf to cover the lower part of her face. She moved quickly, crossing the square with her head slightly down.
They t in the middle.
The body language changed the mont they were next to each other; his shoulders dropped about two inches, and her posture shifted from the careful stance of soone trying not to be recognized to sothing looser and more genuine, as they stood close in the way that people do when they have been waiting to be near each other.
’Let just...’ Mike had his phone out already.
He took three photos from the corner, careful with the angle, keeping his hand low. The distance was enough that the faces weren’t fully clear yet, which was fine.
Then the wind ca through the square from the alley side, the kind of cold, directional gust that the gap between buildings produces, and it took the woman’s hat off her head before she could catch it.
It skidded across the square.
She made an involuntary sound, a mixture of a gasp and a laugh, as her hand instinctively went to her hair—long, blond hair cascading around her face and shoulders in the loose, carefree manner typical of hair that has just been freed from a hat.
’What the fuck...?!’ Mike was surprised seeing the woman was actually...
...Madison Reed, but she was in a perfect disguise.
’This fucking coincidence... it’s fucking insane!’ Mike thought. ’It defies fate itself, but I think it supports !’
The classmate went after the hat.
The woman turned her face in the direction it had gone, which was also the direction of the corner where Mike was standing.
’Oh yeah, I’m going to take a lot of pictures and videos with this one...’
Mike’s phone clicked three tis.
He had all the confirmation he needed, but he continued stalking, switching to video and keeping his hand steady. She and the classmate were laughing about the hat, sharing the effortless comfort that cos from having enjoyed small monts together many tis before.
He returned with the hat, and she put it back on, tucking her hair underneath once again. They walked toward the bench and sat close to each other.
Mike watched for another twenty minutes.
He could see enough to understand what he was observing. It was not ambiguous, nor was it based on fan forum speculation from blurry farrs’ market photos.
’I can’t believe it... this is what I fucking need to blackmail that actress.’ Mike laughed slowly. ’And why did she choose that fucking scrawny-looking sad excuse of a man...’
’Just because of this surprise... my brain acted fast and knows that the fucking wimp is nad Kyle Hudson...’
’He’s acting all silent in the class, but he got a smoking hot actress girlfriend, which is insane...’
The evidence was clear video footage, well-lit by the ambient street lighting of the square, with both faces visible at several points. The classmate—Kyle Hudson, his na now recalled from the introductions on the first day—sat near the front, exuding slightly anxious energy.
He was clearly at ease with her in a way that only cos from spending significant ti together. Madison Reed, for her part, was entirely different from the woman who had sat in that poker room three days ago. The polished, unbothered deanor was gone.
She laughed freely and engaged wholeheartedly in the conversation. In this square, during the evening, with soone she apparently trusted completely, she was simply herself.
Mike made sure he had captured enough of that, too.
When they stood to leave twenty minutes later, he slipped back around the corner and moved quickly through a parallel street to co out ahead of them.
Kyle Hudson peeled off at the first intersection, heading one way with the reluctant backward look of soone who doesn’t want to go but has sowhere to be. Madison went the other way, alone, toward the parking area that the university maintained two blocks east of the main campus.
Mike cut through a shortcut the evening walk had shown him and arrived at the parking area before she did.
He stood near the entrance under a light, with his hands in his pockets, simply lingering by the parking area entrance without any particular reason.
She ca through the gate thirty seconds later, keys in hand, and then...
She saw him.
She did not stop walking, which was the giveaway. A person who truly believed he was a stranger would have slowed down when noticed by soone standing still in a parking lot.
Instead, she maintained her pace, knowing that stopping would imply she recognized him, and recognizing him posed a problem.
"Excuse ," Mike said.
She kept walking. "Sorry, you’ve got the wrong person."
"The poker room last Thursday," he said. "Seat three."
She stopped and turned slowly, with the controlled expression of soone deciding how to play this mont.
"I think you’re confusing with soone else," she said, with the practiced ease of soone who had said this before.
"Don’t fucking act like you’re in a drama or so shit," Mike said. "I know who you are."
He held up his phone.
He showed her the first photo. It was a square image of her face, hat off, hair loose, captured just as the wind had taken hold of it, looking in his direction.
"Your diehard fans will probably know right away just by seeing this picture, you know?"
She looked at the photo without moving.
He showed her the video. "And look... I caught all of it from the start until this evidence is strong enough that you can’t even deny it anymore."
He didn’t need to play all of it. He let it run for about fifteen seconds, which was enough for the picture to be clear, and then he lowered the phone.
"With all those rumors... I don’t think it’s safe for you to act ignorant towards ," Mike laughed. "And this is really my lucky day to finally talk with you for more than one minute."
The carefully controlled expression remained on her face, but the tension beneath it was no longer subdued. He could see it in the tightening of her jaw.
He noticed how her grip on the keys had shifted.
"That’s not—" she started.
"Kyle Hudson," Mike said. "First-year postgraduate student. International Economics."
He let that sit for a mont. "I’m in the sa program, and I was trying to see what kind of girlfriend he got..."
"Then boom! It’s Madison Reed herself."
The silence in the parking lot felt heavy, as if it carried an unspoken weight.
"You bastard..." She said it in a low tone.
"What was that?"
"W-what do you want?" she asked, her voice steady despite the tremor beneath the surface.
She was skilled at maintaining control, yet the question revealed a sense of soone who had already weighed her options and found them severely limited.
"Like... right now?" Mike said. "To have a conversation, of course."
"Please delete all of those pictures and videos right now... in exchange for my autograph that can cost you a lot of money."
"Nah, fuck autographs." He pocketed the phone. "You know what’s on there is worth more than just an autograph and even millions of dollars... or should I say dollahs..."
"Weird ass na for a currency."
"Anyway, you know what your fans would do with it." Mike crossed his arms. "You also understand that Kyle Hudson is not involved in the consequences he would face if this information were released without any managent."
She couldn’t say anything when Mike said that.
"I’m not going to post it," Mike said. "Not tonight, well, probably not ever, if this goes the way I think it can."
He tilted his head slightly. "But I’m not going to delete it either... Not imdiately nor for free."
She gritted her teeth.
"Who the hell are you...?" she said.
"Just your boyfriend’s classmates," he said.
"And what is it you think you want from ?"
Mike smiled at her, a smile he had worn in various forms across different countries and industries. It was a smile that conveyed, ’I already know where this is going, and you’re going to figure that out very soon.’
"I’ll tell you that," he said, "once you’ve agreed to listen."
Madison Reed stood in the parking lot under the evening lights, looking at him with the expression of soone who had just realized that the chess ga they believed they were playing was actually a different ga entirely, and that the person across from them had been aware of this for much longer than they had.
She had not answered yet.
But she had not walked away.
Mike looked around and saw a towering building that was clearly a hotel.
"Let’s talk about this privately in that hotel, shall we...?"
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