The dining room fell into a dead, suffocating silence.
Diana slowly lowered her teacup, her crimson eyes reflecting the faint glare of the overhead chandelier.
Over the line, Andrew’s voice was flat, carrying the seasoned exhaustion of a cop who had seen too many crime scenes go cold before the ink could dry on the dispatch log.
“Somebody got to her first,” Diana repeated, her voice dripping with an ice-cold curiosity.
Marvin stared across the table, his face turning an ash-gray color.
“What do you mean, *somebody got to her first*?”
Andrew’s voice crackled clearly through the phone speaker, grounding the room in a grim reality.
“Her house is a complete mess.”
Diana listened quietly, her fingers tapping a slow, rhythmic beat against the porcelain of her saucer.
“Signs of a fierce struggle,” Andrew continued, his tone clipping the ends of his words.
“And Marvin…
there was blood on the floorboards.”
Jean instantly covered her mouth with a trembling hand, her eyes widening.
“Oh my God…”
Andrew didn’t slow down.
“No body.
No suspect left behind.
No witnesses on the street.
Neighboring properties didn’t see or hear a single thing.”
Diana leaned her head back, her sharp gaze drifting over toward the massive glass window.
The very last remnants of the orange day were actively fading beyond the mansion grounds, leaving the sprawling estate entirely swallowed by the encroaching night.
“So she’s officially missing,” Diana murmured.
“Looks that way,” Andrew replied heavily.
Diana nodded once to the empty air.
“Stay there.
Secure the perimeter until we arrive.”
The call clicked shut.
The room remained profoundly quiet for several seconds, the gravity of the update hanging over the rich tablecloth.
Finally, Garin broke the tension, her voice dropping into its small, tentative stutter.
“I-I thought she was the primary suspect.”
Marvin looked equally confused, rubbing the back of his neck.
“So did I.
Everything Edward uncovered pointed straight to her financing those syndicate thugs.”
Diana leaned far back into her plush chair, steepling her gloved fingers.
“Maybe.”
Marvin’s brow furrowed deep.
“Maybe?”
Diana raised a hand, pointing a finger straight at him.
“Let’s look at the timeline.
Let’s assume for a second that she genuinely wanted your inheritance.”
Marvin nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
“Then why wait until today?” Diana asked flatly, her eyes narrowing.
“Your father passed away months ago, Marvin.
If she wanted you removed from the board, she had plenty of quiet, uncomplicated opportunities to make it look like an accident while you were traveling or working late at the corporate office.”
Jean looked thoughtful, her grip on Marvin’s arm tightening.
“That…
actually makes a lot of sense.”
Diana folded her arms over her chest.
“Instead, the coordinated assaults only started recently.
Right around the time the anomalies began acting up in the lower districts.”
Marvin slowly sat back into his chair, the sheer weight of the logic sinking in.
“And the exact moment we discover a legal paper trail connecting her to the early hits, our primary suspect conveniently disappears into thin air.”
Garin tilted her head, her analytical mind spinning.
“So…”
Diana looked directly at the young girl.
“So, either Matier Silverstein knew the law was closing in and she’s currently hiding in a ditch somewhere…” She paused, her voice dropping an octave.
“…or somebody else entirely removed her from the board to keep her from talking to Andrew.”
The dining room became incredibly quiet again.
Nobody in the room liked the second possibility.
If someone was powerful enough to snatch a wealthy woman from her own secured home without a sound, they weren’t dealing with a simple street-level syndicate anymore.
Garin looked down at her notebook, her eyes scanning her neat bullet points from earlier.
Then, a spark of realization hit her.
“The demon.”
Diana glanced toward her corner.
“Aye?”
“The one hidden inside the kitchen walls,” Garin said, nodding rapidly.
“It was actively spying on the staff.”
Diana smiled, a sharp, validating flash of teeth.
“Exactly.”
Marvin looked back and forth between the two of them, completely lost.
“What does a dead rodent in my kitchen have to do with an assassination plot?”
“The spy demon wasn’t attacking anybody, Marvin.
It didn’t try to poison your soup or slit your throat while you were sleeping,” Diana explained, casually picking up another sugar-dusted pastry from the silver tray.
“It was watching.”
Jean frowned, her posture stiffening.
“Watching what, exactly?”
“The mansion layout.
The security guards’ rotation schedules.
The internal routines of the house.
The specific moments you and your wife are left unattended.” Diana shrugged her shoulders, biting into the pastry.
“Standard spy work.
Classic intelligence gathering.”
Garin’s eyes widened to the size of saucers.
“So…
somebody has been gathering information on the entire estate for weeks?”
“Yep.” Diana chewed slowly, swallowing before speaking again.
“Which means whoever is running this show is actively planning things.
They’re calculated.
Methodical.”
Marvin suddenly didn’t feel any better.
In fact, the elegant dining room felt distinctly colder.
For several minutes, nobody spoke a single word.
The only sound echoing through the wide space was the quiet, casual crunch of Diana finishing her pastry.
Then, abruptly, Diana stood straight up.
Her heavy chair slid back against the polished hardwood with a loud scrape.
Marvin immediately looked up, his survival instincts flaring.
“Where are you going?”
“To see the Silverstein house myself,” Diana stated, wiping her hands on a napkin.
“Now?” Marvin blinked, checking the grandfather clock.
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
Marvin glanced outside at the pitch-black lawns.
Diana grabbed her long white trench coat from the back of the chair, throwing it over her shoulders in one fluid motion.
“The house won’t disappear in the dark, Marvin.
If anything, the shadows make the magical traces easier to spot.”
Cammy entered the dining room at that perfect, coordinated moment, her hand resting naturally on the hilt of her blade.
“Leaving already, Boss?”
“Yep.
Field work.”
Bruce and Felix appeared right behind her in the doorway, their massive frames instantly filling the entrance.
The three veteran hunters didn’t need a formal briefing; the moment they saw Diana’s coat, they immediately understood the shift in tempo.
Jean looked visibly worried, her hands flattening against the tablecloth.
“Do you really need to go out there tonight, Diana?
Can’t the police handle the initial sweep?”
Diana glanced over at her.
The question sounded innocent enough—the standard, deep concern of a stressed wife worried about the progression of a violent investigation.
Still…
For some strange, inexplicable reason, Diana’s inner radar caught the tone.
It was only for a microsecond.
A tiny, fleeting instinct that flickered at the back of her mind before vanishing entirely into the background.
“Yep,” Diana replied simply, her expression remaining unreadable.
Jean smiled politely, her demeanor perfectly soft and supportive.
“I understand.
Please be careful out there.”
Diana adjusted the heavy, custom katana strapped to her back, ensuring the latch was secure.
Then, her crimson eyes scanned the room before landing squarely on the corner table.
“Garin.”
The young girl immediately sat upright, her spine turning rigid.
“Y-Yes!”
“Grab your notebook and your tactical gloves.”
Garin blinked, her momentum stalling.
“My…
my notebook?”
“Yep.” Diana checked her cuffs, her voice entirely casual.
A brief pause hung in the air as the realization slowly hit the girl.
Garin’s eyes widened to absolute limits, her jaw dropping slightly.
“I-I’m coming along too?”
Diana nodded, her answer simple, direct, and unyielding.
“You found the first real clue in the kitchen walls, kid.
That earns you a spot in the van.”
Garin’s heart nearly exploded out of her chest.
Diana smirked, her eyes crinkling.
“Let’s go see if you can find the second one at the crime scene.”
For a split second, Garin simply stared in absolute, stunned disbelief.
Then, she scrambled for her leather notebook and pen so fast she nearly knocked her entire chair flat onto the floorboards.
“I-I’ll be ready in less than a minute!” she squeaked out, bolting toward the hallway to grab her gear.
Bruce let out a deep, booming laugh from the doorway, his chest shaking.
Cammy chuckled and shook her head, while Felix simply grinned, adjusting his heavy shotgun.
Marvin watched the incredibly excited girl sprint out of the room, and despite the lingering terror of the situation, a small, genuine smile touched his face.
For the first time all day, somebody on the property looked completely, purely happy.
Meanwhile, Diana headed toward the grand double doors of the mansion, her boots clicking in a steady, lethal rhythm.
The entire board was changing.
The human suspect was missing, the spy demon had cleared out, and an unknown player was actively making violent moves in the shadows of the city.
Which meant it was officially time to stop reading legal files and eating pastries.
It was time to go look at the blood with her own eyes.