I’d already marked two others on the floor before the blond got to him—part of a small, loose group working the crowd with quiet coordination. They didn’t stay together, didn’t acknowledge each other, but their routes overlapped with purpose. Watches, wallets, cards, anything that could be lifted without drawing attention. One brushed past a man near the bar, fingers light at the wrist, then gone before the reaction formed fully. Another moved through a cluster of dancers, hand dipping into a back pocket with ease. They weren’t here for anything beyond that.
The man watching Caleb was different.
He didn’t drift. He didn’t take what was available and move on. He stayed with Caleb, patient, waiting for the moment when distraction tipped into opportunity.
He’d chosen Caleb for more than just lifting a wallet or taking a watch. I recognized the selection pattern because I used it myself—identify the mark, assess access, wait for the moment when attention slips and proximity does the rest. Same method. Different outcome. I didn’t take from Caleb, I protected him.
I adjusted my position, closing the angle without stepping into the light, and kept my focus on him. The others working the floor were irrelevant. This blond wasn’t.
When the music peaked and the crowd surged, Caleb turned with it, laughing at something I couldn’t hear, and let the smaller man pull him closer, bodies aligning in a way that blocked his view of everything behind him.
Decision point. Caleb let himself be led and that changed the parameters. Caleb bent to listen to something, swaying, grinning, allowing the other man to drag him off the floor, to the bathrooms, one of the other two with him taking photos of Caleb, and then the bathroom door closed behind them.
I found the one with the phone before he saw me. If it had been anyone else, I wouldn’t have moved. He stood half in the spill of light from the corridor, pretending to watch the door, but his attention was on the screen in his hand, thumb moving, camera still open. When he glanced up and caught sight of me, there was a flicker there—interest, quick and assessing, the same look I’d seen on the floor when he’d marked Caleb as worth the effort.
“Why are you taking photos?” I asked, stepping into his space and driving him back into the darker section of the hallway where the light didn’t reach cleanly.
He smiled, easy, practiced. “Hey, big guy?—”
I crowded him harder, one hand braced beside his head, the other bringing the blade up under his jaw before he could finish the sentence. The metal kissed skin, just enough pressure to register.
“Why the photos.”
The smile slipped.
His pulse jumped under the edge of the knife. He tried to angle his head away, but there was nowhere to go. The wall at his back, me in front of him, and no audience to witness what was happening. His breath hitched, shallow now, calculation breaking down into something less controlled.
“We—we’re just having fun,” he said, but his eyes flicked to the phone, then back to me, and the lie didn’t hold even to him.
I pressed the blade a fraction closer. Not enough to cut. Enough to promise it.
“Try again.”
He swallowed carefully, feeling the edge move with it, and this time the answer came quicker, less polished. “We look for g-guys who look like they’ve got something to lose. Corporate. Money. People who don’t want their faces showing up in the wrong place.”
I waited.
“Blackmail,” he added, the word coming out thin. “It’s just leverage. Photos, videos of them… like they’re paying for sex… if we can get it. We don’t hurt anyone.”
Incorrect.
“You targeted him.”
He hesitated, just long enough to confirm it. “It’s business, man, no one was watching his back.”
Also incorrect.
“What’s it to you?” he asked, jutting his chin.
“I need your phone,” I said.
“I’ll delete the photos,” he rushed on, voice tightening as the knife didn’t move. “Everything on there, it’s not a problem, I can?—”
I took the phone from his hand before he could finish, his fingers resisting for a fraction of a second before instinct told him to let go. I didn’t check it there. I didn’t need to. Deletion meant nothing. Data didn’t disappear because someone panicked.
“I’ll wipe it,” he said again, desperate now. “Cloud, everything, I swear?—”
I pocketed the phone.
