Day eleven. Two targets, one night. I'm ready.

  The first target's a Kingdom financial operation in Kensington - one of those "consulting firms" that's really money laundering plus loan sharking. I've had it documented for months but never hit it because it's high-profile, lots of foot traffic during business hours, security cameras everywhere.

  But Crossroads says tonight it's quiet. Fifteen-minute window. The office closes at eight, everyone gone by nine, security guard does one sweep at ten-thirty.

  I'm in position at eleven.

  The lockpicking takes eighteen seconds - I'm getting faster, muscle memory taking over, the jiggler just sort of knows where to go now. Inside, the office is exactly what I expected from the exterior: cheap furniture trying to look expensive, motivational posters about "success" and "opportunity," filing cabinets that probably have records they're not supposed to keep in physical form because it's 2025 and everything should be digital but criminals are often stupid about operational security.

  I photograph everything. Not just loan documents this time - I'm looking for the financial structure. Wire transfers, shell companies, the network that moves money from street-level extortion up to Kingdom leadership. The kind of intelligence that maps how they actually operate, not just what they do.

  Flipping through papers. Paper, photograph front, flip, photograph back, next paper, photograph front, flip, photograph back. I think it would be easier to just videotape things and then pull the frames out, but that's a future me thought. I push it away. Snap, flip, snap. I'm not even looking.

  My timer says six minutes. I'm ahead of schedule, calm, methodical, this is what competence feels like when you've done something enough times that your hands know the work before your brain catches up.

  There's a safe behind a painting - so cliché I almost laugh - and I don't have time to crack it but I photograph the model number, the positioning, make a note to look up the default codes later, because half the time people don't change them.

  Nine minutes. I'm photographing the last filing cabinet when I hear it - footsteps outside, wrong rhythm for the security guard, too early anyway. I freeze, blood sense sweeping outward but nobody's bleeding so I can't track precisely.

  The footsteps pass. Whoever it is isn't coming in.

  I finish the cabinet, pocket my phone, move for the exit. The back door's exactly where I left it. I'm through and gone in eleven minutes total.

  Crossroads said fifteen-minute window. I had four minutes to spare. The satisfaction hits warm and solid - I've gotten so much better at this, so much faster, every operation smoother than the last like I'm finally understanding the rhythm of it all.

  I'm in the Bridesburg safehouse by midnight, eating the last couple of cold pierogies from Kate's dad and reviewing the photos. The financial records are good, really good - this is the kind of documentation that proves systematic operation, not individual crimes. Shell companies in Delaware, wire transfers to the Cayman Islands, loan documents with interest rates that would make a loan shark blush except that's literally what they are.

  This is the kind of evidence that matters. Not "Kingdom sold some pills" but "Kingdom runs sophisticated financial operation that touches city council, real estate, construction contracts." The web of it, the structure, the way it all connects.

  But I've been taking photos scattershot for a week now. Hundreds of them. Most are probably useless - random invoices, blank forms, photos where the lighting's bad or the text is blurry or it's just not actually incriminating. I need someone who knows what they're looking at.

  I pull out my actual phone, the one I've been keeping mostly off. Open the encrypted chat with Jordan.

  Sam: you up?

  Three dots appear almost immediately.

  Jordan: It's midnight on a Tuesday. I'm at MIT. Of course I'm up. What's wrong?

  Sam: need your help sorting through some documents. financial stuff. need to know what's actually useful vs noise

  Jordan: ...how many documents

  Sam: like 300 photos maybe?

  Jordan: Jesus christ sam

  Jordan: ok send them over. this is kingdom stuff?

  Sam: Yeah. I've got a plan.

  Sam: So obviously the DVD and the PPD can't do anything with random illegally obtained evidence from a fugitive that shouldn't be working.

  Sam: Right?

  Jordan: right

  Sam: Remember what we did at school? With the expose site?

  Jordan: i do very well

  Jordan: it was a wonderful time in my life

  Sam: Well, do you want to help me cause a little more uproar?

  The three dots appear and disappear a few times. Then:

  Jordan: you're sure about this?

  Sam: yeah

  Jordan: ok. sending you a shared folder link. upload everything. give me 30min

  I upload the photos in batches - tonight's haul, yesterday's, the whole week's worth of documentation. My phone's hot in my hand from the processing, and the reception in this safehouse is shit so it takes forever, but eventually everything's up.

  Twenty minutes later my phone buzzes.

  Jordan: ok so good news and bad news

  Jordan: good news: you have REALLY damning financial records here. like genuinely prosecutable stuff if anyone cared to prosecute

  Jordan: bad news: most of your photos are of the wrong pages

  Sam: what do you mean wrong pages

  Jordan: you're photographing cover sheets and blank forms. the actually useful financial documents are like every 5th photo

  Jordan: which makes sense, you're working fast, you're just flipping and shooting

  Jordan: but it means i'm having to sort through a lot of noise

  Sam: Can you pull out the good ones?

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Jordan: already doing it. making you a highlights folder

  Sam: Yeah

  Jordan: they're gonna eat this up. shell companies, wire transfers, loan sharking with documentation.

  Jordan: is there anything like prosecutable with names and faces on it?

  Jordan: wait you should be the one asking me.

  Sam: Well?

  Jordan: give me like ten minutes

  So I do. Ten minutes. I finish the pierogies and then cram down a power bar just for good measure.

  Jordan: good news and bad news again.

  Jordan: good news: a lot of extremely aggressively worded NDAs that are probably illegal

  Jordan: a lot of random stuff tying down a lot of companies that are either shells or complicit in criminal activity.

  Jordan: a couple of names

  Jordan: bad news: no fun names

  Jordan: no city council, no mayors, no nothing. but it's still pretty solid evidence that there's an organized crime ring sharing resources and deliberately targeting northeast philadelphia.

  Sam: Cool.

  Sam: I mean, not cool, but.

  Jordan: right its not cool that it's happening. i'm trusting you know what you're doing. i'll send you a link to the highlights.

  Jordan: highlights folder is up. 47 photos. these are the ones that actually matter

  Jordan: i'm also putting together a quick guide for what each doc shows. so they doesn't fuck up the reporting

  I open the folder. Jordan's organized it beautifully - categories for financial records, loan documents, city connections, Kingdom operational stuff. Each one has a little note: "shell company formation docs," "wire transfer to caymans," "loan with 80% interest rate wtf."

  Sam: You're the best

  Jordan: i know. don't get arrested doing anything i wouldn't do

  Sam: I'll try

  Jordan: sam

  Sam: I'll be fine, Jordan. ILY.

  Jordan: i love you too idiot

  I close the chat, open a burner email account I set up three days ago. Start drafting.

  Subject: Bloodhound - Impersonation Evidence

  Body:

  This is Bloodhound. You've maybe heard someone's been impersonating me. Not the first guy. He's legit. Someone in my old costume pretending to be me. Or maybe you've been writing about me going around shoving over grandmas. Well, it's an impersonator. I don't read you guys, sorry.

  I can't send this to the police or the DVD - it's all illegally obtained evidence from a fugitive who broke into private property to get it. They can't use it even if they wanted to, and it would just get me arrested faster.

  I don't have any journalistic connections. You're going to have to take it on faith that I'm the actual Bloodhound and not the impersonator. You can verify the evidence if you want - it's all real.

  Can you pass this on? Financial investigators. The Philadelphia Inquirer. Whoever actually investigates organized crime. I'm putting this in the public record because the people who are supposed to handle this stuff can't or won't.

  Attached: Timeline of alleged incidents with my documented alibis. Pattern analysis showing systematic impersonation. Evidence of organized crime operations in Northeast Philadelphia including financial crimes, loan sharking, and political corruption.

  People deserve to know.

  I attach Jordan's highlights folder - all 47 photos, plus the guide they wrote, plus my timeline documentation, plus some screenshots of a Philadelphia map I've been marking up, just to show geographic connections.

  The email address is CapeWatch Philly. Not because they're good journalists - they're superhero paparazzi, gossip and drama and clickfishing. But they have reach. They have connections to actual news outlets. They'll know who to forward this to, even if it's just to avoid getting scooped on a story this big.

  And if they verify it first, if they check the evidence before passing it on, that's fine. That's better, actually. Means it'll have more credibility when it hits real investigators.

  My finger hovers over send.

  This is it. This is what the whole week's been building toward. Every operation, every photo, every risk - it was all for this. Going public where Maya can't suppress it, can't contain it, can't make it disappear. Force her hand, make her respond, make her deploy Alice again in a situation where we're ready.

  Maya will have to respond. Probably aggressively.

  I hit send. There's a little sort of sailing noise as the email vanishes into the internet.

  I sit there for a second, staring at my phone. Whatever happens next, I started it. Or I'm finishing what Maya started. Or we're both just playing our next moves and this was always inevitable. Either way. It's done.

  My phone buzzes.

  C: Second target confirmed quiet. 1 AM window. You good?

  I text back:

  Sam: Confirmed. On my way.

  The second target's in Tacony, another warehouse situation but this one's weapons, not drugs. Crossroads confirmed the Kingdom's been stockpiling - bats, knives, some guns though those are expensive and harder to move. The kind of stuff you need for soldiers, for muscle, for street-level enforcement.

  I'm in position by 12:45 AM. The approach is familiar now - empty lot, blood sense sweeping for threats, goggles down, scarf up, just another person in winter gear that nobody's going to remember.

  The street's quiet. Normal one-AM-on-a-Tuesday quiet. Nobody around except a few parked cars and the distant sound of someone's TV through an apartment window.

  I get to the warehouse. The lock's easy, I'm inside in twenty seconds, the layout's familiar because I've seen this setup before - industrial storage, metal shelving, boxes stacked to the ceiling. Same contractor, probably. How many warehouse building companies could possibly exist in Philadelphia.

  I photograph everything. Crates of bats, boxes of knives, and then -

  Guns.

  Not just a few in a locked case. Actual firearms. Handguns, maybe a dozen of them, plus ammunition. I photograph the serial numbers, the make and model, the quantity counts on the inventory sheet. Notes - obvious notes, "Joint" distribution points, "Beach Vacation" mentions. Obvious coded language, too.

  This is new. I've seen Kingdom operations for two years now - drugs, extortion, loan sharking, the occasional stolen goods. But never guns. Not like this. Not stockpiled. Only ever one at a time, in the hands of individual enforcers.

  What are they preparing for? No, that's a stupid question, Sam. Beach Vacation. It's Rogue Wave.

  My stomach drops. They're preparing for war with Rogue Wave.

  My timer says six minutes. I finish photographing - hands shaking slightly, forcing myself to be thorough - pocket my phone, head for the exit. Clean. Easy. Nobody around.

  Outside I immediately text the photos to Crossroads instead of saving them for my stockpile. He's gonna want to know. I don't care if this doesn't lead to arrests because of chain of custody. They need to know.

  Sam: Found guns. Lots of them. Distribution plans. Something big coming.

  C: How many?

  Sam: Dozen plus ammo. Coded references to distribution points.

  C: ...shit. Good work. I'll let it into the chain.

  C: Be careful.

  I'm back at the safehouse by 2 AM, exhausted, running on fumes and adrenaline and the last dregs of whatever's been keeping me going all week. The sleeping bag looks incredibly inviting.

  I check my phone one more time before crashing. Email confirmation that CapeWatch received my message. No response yet - it's 2 AM, even gossip bloggers sleep sometimes.

  I set an alarm for 8 AM. Six hours. Not enough but better than nothing.

  I'm asleep in minutes.

  The alarm jerks me awake at eight. My whole body aches - not injured exactly, just the accumulated soreness of a week of operations, climbing, running, sleeping on floors. My regeneration handles the acute stuff but chronic fatigue still builds up.

  I check my phone.

  Three new emails. The first is from CapeWatch, timestamped 6:47 AM:

  Received your message. We've forwarded the financial evidence to several investigative journalists at the Philadelphia Inquirer and some independent financial crime investigators. They'll verify and follow up. Thank you for trusting us with this.

  We're running a story this morning about the impersonation angle. People need to know.

  Huh. That's... actually professional? I was expecting them to just publish everything immediately for clicks. Instead they're being responsible about it, passing the heavy stuff to people who can actually investigate while running the public-interest angle themselves.

  The second email is a link to the article, published at 7:15 AM.

  I open it.

  BREAKING: Multiple "Bloodhounds" Operating in Philadelphia - Original Costume Confirmed as Impersonator

  CapeWatch Philly has received credible evidence that the recent "Bloodhound" sightings connected to criminal charges are NOT the original vigilante. Analysis of documented alibis, security footage timestamps, and operational patterns suggests at least three individuals using the Bloodhound identity - the retired original, the current Bloodhound II (operating with different costume), and an unknown impersonator using the original costume to commit crimes.

  The real Bloodhound needs your support. If you see anyone in the original Bloodhound costume (black and red, full face mask, older style), please report sightings to CapeWatch immediately at...

  I skim the rest. They don't mention the financial evidence - that's not in the article at all. They're keeping it clean, focused on the impersonation angle, asking for public help identifying the fake.

  It's smart. It's way smarter than I expected from a superhero gossip blog.

  The third email is from an address I don't recognize, timestamped 7:52 AM:

  Ms. Small - We received your evidence package via CapeWatch. Philadelphia Inquirer, financial crimes desk. We're reviewing the documents now. This will take time to verify and investigate properly, but preliminary assessment suggests this is credible. We'll be in touch. Do not respond to this email.

  I stare at my phone. I fist pump a little and almost fall over.