35. Choke Points
CHOKE POINTS
AIDAN — AIR
Liam closed his laptop. “We need to tell Eun-ji and Jason,” he said. “This can’t wait until landing.”
“Agreed. But not Jin. Not yet.” I looked at my husband.
“He’s got three days of press in S?o Paulo.
If we tell him we suspect one of Starhouse’s own managers is behind this, but we can’t prove it and the person’s still out there, he’ll spend every interview wondering who’s watching him. That kind of tension shows on camera.”
“So we lie to him?”
“We tell him we’re following leads. Which is true.” I sat back in my chair. “What about Sang-hoon? He notices everything. He’ll know we’re not telling him something.”
“Then we tell him enough to keep him sharp but not enough to make him panic,” Liam said. “He’s good in a crisis; we saw that in Cannes. If something goes wrong, I want him alert and ready to move, not paralyzed by fear.”
Fortunately the private jet had a small conference room at the front of the plane. Liam unbuckled himself and stood, banging his head on the bulkhead. A minor problem of being six-four. The only one on the team with that kind of issue. He strode up the aisle to the conference room.
I followed him as far as where Jason and Eun-ji sat, across from each other, both with headphones on, intent on their laptops. When we stopped in front of them, they both looked up and unhooked. “New information,” I said. “We need to review it.”
They both followed me to the conference room, where Liam had already set up his laptop. “We have a suspect.”
“Who?” Eun-ji asked.
“Vanta manager Sara Yoon.”
For a second neither of them moved. Then Eun-ji said flatly, “No. No,” she repeated, sharper this time. “I know her.”
“Knowing someone and knowing what they do under pressure aren’t the same thing,” Liam said. “As far as we can tell, she started embezzling money from Starhouse soon after she was hired, by using shell companies. Once the corporate audit was announced, she knew she had a limited time to get out.”
“That audit was announced a month before our tour began in Cannes,” Eun-ji said.
I leaned forward. “If she simply disappears, the audit reveals what she stole and Starhouse comes after her. Causing corporate chaos would delay the audit. While Starhouse is dealing with the fallout for whatever she accomplishes on this tour, she can disappear and use the time to move her money around so it can’t be found. ”
Liam tapped the authorization trail. “We can track her paying the fireworks guy in Cannes and Sophie Tran the photographer. Richard found the Instagram post regarding the Madison Square Garden loading dock, and connected it to an influencer who has posted a lot of content about Sara’s group, Vanta. ”
I added, “That same influencer posted about the Genesis House dinner, where that one crazy fan broke in. We can’t prove the connection, but it’s there.”
Eun-ji’s face had gone from disbelief to something colder by the time Liam finished. “If you’re right,” she said, “she’s been using Starhouse money to attack our own artists. She sat in on every corporate meeting. She knows everything we have planned.”
Jason sat back, his eyes narrowed. “If this is true,” he said, “she has access to far more than budgets.”
“Walk us through it,” Liam said.
“Tour schedules. Credential requests. Vendor approvals. Local staffing recommendations.” His face hardened. “Transport manifests.”
Eun-ji swore under her breath in Korean. “She approved portions of S?o Paulo logistics before we left Seoul.”
“Meaning what?” I asked.
“Meaning if she wanted unauthorized personnel inside our perimeter, she had opportunities.”
That put a whole new shape on the threat. I glanced at the secure alert still sitting in the corner of Liam’s screen and turned the laptop back toward them.
“One more thing.”
Eun-ji read the flagged post aloud. “This will be a performance they’ll never forget.”
A calculating silence settled over the compartment.
Jason was first to break it. “We cancel.”
Eun-ji whipped toward him. “Absolutely not.”
“If she has active assets in S?o Paulo—”
“Forty-three thousand tickets sold. International press. Contract penalties. Insurance exposure. How could we handle fan containment outside the venue if we announce a cancellation with no explanation?”
“Better angry fans than dead artists.”
From the cabin behind us came a burst of laughter. Woo, probably, reacting to something Min-kyu had said.
The sound vanished almost as quickly as it came.
Eun-ji lowered her voice. “You think I don’t understand the stakes?”
“I think sentiment gets people killed,” Jason said.
Her expression went glacial. “These are my artists.”
“Then protect them,” Jason said.
“By rewarding her?” Eun-ji shot back. “By proving one credible threat can collapse an international tour?”
I stepped in before this turned into a pissing match. “Cancellation may not solve anything.”
Both of them looked at me. “If this is an active operation, the venue may only be one delivery option,” I said.
“To start, landing at the executive terminal doesn’t make us safe.
It just narrows the choke points. Tarmac transfer.
Drivers. Ground handlers. Anyone with the right credentials gets close.
And that’s long before the actual concert.
Unless you cancel the whole tour and take everyone back to Seoul, cancelling an individual concert doesn’t do enough. ”
Eun-ji folded her arms.
“So what do you recommend?”
I thought about Cannes. The barge. New York. Controlled access failures. Paid intermediaries. About Richard’s post.
“She knows we’re coming,” I said. “Which means whatever she’s planned may already be in motion.”
No one argued. “We proceed,” Liam said. “But assume every piece of local infrastructure is compromised until proven otherwise.”
“I’m contacting our ground team now,” Jason said. “Credible possibility of sabotage. Take all necessary precautions.” He looked at his watch. “I still have time to set up alternative transport to the hotel.”
Jason held my gaze for another second, then gave a curt nod. He stood up and walked back toward his seat.
Eun-ji looked at both of us. “What do you need from me?”
“Access to Sara Yoon’s Starhouse accounts—everything,” Liam said. “Email, calendar, expense reports, personnel files she’s accessed. I want to see what she’s been looking at.”
“You’ll have it within the hour.”
“And we need to keep this contained,” I added. “Jin and the other members don’t know yet. We’re keeping it that way until we have more evidence.”
“They have a right to know.”
“They have a right to stay alive,” I interrupted. “Right now, Jin’s job is to do press and perform. If he knows a Starhouse manager is trying to kill him, he won’t be able to focus. Fear shows on camera, and we can’t afford the distraction.”
Eun-ji was silent for a long moment. “I hate this. Keeping secrets from the people I’m supposed to look after.”
“So do I,” I said quietly. “But sometimes protection means making hard choices they won’t understand until later.”
She nodded reluctantly. “Okay. But the moment you have proof—the moment you can move on Sara Yoon—they need to know everything.”
“Agreed.”
“And I’ll have her locked out of every internal system she can touch.”
“Not yet,” Liam said.
She stopped. “Why?”
“Because the moment she knows we’ve identified her, she changes the plan.”
Eun-ji stared at him, furious because she knew he was right. “You’re asking me to let her continue?”
“I’m asking you to let her think she’s invisible,” Liam said. The plane engines hummed beneath our feet.
Eun-ji exhaled slowly. “Fine.”
Not agreement, but a temporary surrender.
We landed an hour later. The convoy moved from the S?o Paulo executive terminal to the Tivoli Mofarrej S?o Paulo in forty minutes flat.
Three vetted SUVs, service entrance, secured floor, same protocol as London, Amsterdam, and New York.
Jin looked wrung out in the vehicle, dark circles under his eyes that no amount of makeup could quite hide, shoulders tight with tension he was trying to mask.
Now Liam and I were in our room, and my phone was buzzing.
Text from Richard: Interpol received your tip. They’re investigating but it’s not priority. White collar crime, no immediate physical threat (yet). Don’t expect fast action.
I showed it to Liam.
“So we’re on our own,” he said.
“I’m thinking about S?o Paulo versus Seoul.
What if all the things that have been happening are just appetizers, with the main meal planned for Pryzm’s homecoming show in Seoul?
If Sara Yoon was going to make her big stand, that’s where it would happen.
In front of a hometown crowd, with maximum chaos and maximum impact on Starhouse.
She’s betting that the fallout from a show like that will get Starhouse scrambling, put off the audit, and give her time to secure her assets and disappear. ”
“An interesting insight,” Liam said. “But we have no way of knowing if that’s true. And we can’t sit back and wait to see what small bit of chaos she wreaks here.”
“I know. It’s just something to keep in mind.”
“I have other things on my mind, Aidan. Like keeping a musical group and all the people around them safe from an adversary who’s been a step ahead of us all the way.”
Liam and I didn’t often argue. Sometimes he wanted to trample over a client in the interest of safety, and I stopped him.
But we had different strengths. He planned everything like a military operation, based on his SEAL training.
I focused on not just keeping the clients safe but helping them understand what they were up against.
“You’re a tactical thinker, Liam. I’m just adding something to your list of considerations.”
He looked at me, and for a moment I saw all that we had gone through together, starting with introducing him to love and to a life he had thought impossible. “I know. And I appreciate it.”
My phone buzzed. Another message from Richard: Found Sara Yoon’s travel plans. She booked flights to New York (there for the concert) and S?o Paulo (arriving tomorrow). Both under false identities, both paid in cash. She’s following the tour.
I showed Liam. “She’s coming,” I said.
“She’s been coming all along. Now we just know when.”