A man around his 20s was in a dining room, waiting for his midnight snack to be prepared.
His butler is concerned and tries to oppose his master's decision, but no results.
"Prepare a cup of tea for our Scottish friend."
The butler nods and prepares the tea pot. *BEeeP, BEeeP* The man goes to the microwave and takes out popcorn. He puts it in a bowl and goes to his office, he goes up the stairs and opens a big metal door. The office was filled with servers, monitors and 3 pcs. He sits in a comfy gaming chair, and looks at the surveillance cameras. He notices Samantha going to his house. She was nearly at his door. He cleans up some shady pages 'GUNS FOR LOVERS' 'Оружие с черного рынка' (black market weapons) 'We love Hentai' were some of the pages he closed.
The doorbell ring is heard in the house.
He gets out of his office to welcome his guest.
The rain didn't stop. He went down the stairs and in front of him was Sam Gray.
"Evening little black riding hood"
"It's a cloak!"
She takes off her cloak and hangs it in a hanger.
"It's bloody freezing outside!"
The butler brought tea for both of them.
"Let's talk in the living room." He said. The three move to the living room. The butler leaves the tea cups on the coffee table and backs up towards the kitchen.
"Thank you Tommy!"
He grabs the tea cup and takes a sip before placing it back down.
"Maxwell, I need your help. I know last time it didn't work out as planned. I don't blame you for what happened."
Maxwell looks at his fingers, they are trembling.
"Listen, Sam, I blamed myself enough, I blamed you enough. We couldn't do anything about it. Let's just not bring up the past and move forward, afterall it was all a year ago."
He nervously chuckled.
"What can I help you with Gray?"
"Detroit's best detectives are dead. They were onto something, but they were cut off fast."
Max scratches his head.
"And why do you want to risk your life?"
"Because that's what masterminds do. Am I wrong?"
"You want to bring back the old formula, me and you?"
Sam nods. She then looked around and everything looked depressing.
"How long has it been since you left the house?"
"13 months…"
Sam takes a sip from the tea and holds it in her hand, it keeps her warm.
"Yorkshire tea… My favorite."
"It was not my decision Tommy chose this tea in particular. Anyways, show me the notebook."
She gives him the notebook and he looks through it.
He gets up and runs upstairs. Sam drinks her tea and follows him up the stairs.
Both of them get into Max's office. He pulls out a UV light from under the desk and holds it above the paper.
"I see… Who owned this one?"
"Dale Mikeson."
"He wasn't dum, he knew he'd die, but he left this notebook to you."
Samantha gets closer to the notebook and sees lots of details about the whole operation. A list.
"At the first page is the most interesting"
He goes to the first page.
"If you are reading this it means either you mafia bastards know how I write notes or my precious duo of masterminds found it.Should I read more?"
"Go ahead!"
"I ask for your help, Sam, Max to take down an infraction group that if you guys won't stop no one will. In here you'll find the names, aliases or both of different individuals that work for or assist this criminal organization. Your main task now is to take them down. Hope my masterminds won't fail! Good luck, you'll need it."
Sam started crying. Max noticed and hugged her. This was the last message from their friend.
After a few good minutes, Sam calms down. She cleans up any remaining tears.
"So where do we start?" Said Max.
"Let's set up the board, we have a long case to unfold."
Sam goes to the left corner of the room to grab a large cork board and a bunch of pushpins.
Max prepares his pc for monitoring.
"Who is first?"
"Monika 'red lady' Ivanov. Known as the lady with the most connections with former soviets and russian politicians."
Max pulls up his own AI search engine and starts giving it prompts. As he starts to gather information, Sam starts pinning up photographs and documents related to her on the cork board.
"Looks like she's been under the radar for a while now," Max said, scrolling through the results on his computer screen. "But I did find a recent article about her attending a charity event next week."
Sam nods, "Charity event? Ain't that a cliche of bad guys masking some shady business?"
"Indeed it is."
"We need to get there."
Max agrees, "I'll make the arrangements, as no one knows who i am under the table. I'll be the one that will participate, you'll be my nervous wife who hides her face from people because of her religion."
Sam ignores him and looks at the cork board and starts connecting the dots. "Ivanov is linked to several businesses in the city, we can start our investigation there as well. See if any of her associates can give us any leads." Said Max.
Sam nods in agreement, starting to put up the names of some business officials, "I'll start digging into the businesses and see if we can find any weak links." Max said, Sam didn't get enough sleep. She was feeling dizzy and could barely stand on her legs.
"Aight miss detective. Go in my room, have some sleep."
"I~ I don't need sleep!" Her eyes were read.
Max gets up and goes with her to his room. He puts her in his bed and takes her shoes off.
"Still wearing these types?" He chuckled.
"Get your eyes off my feet, I know some of you men have that fetish" She laughed. "Enough with the jokes, get some sleep you earned it."
Sam gives Max a grateful smile and soon drifts off to sleep. Max watches over her for a few moments, making sure she's comfortable, before heading back to the cork board. He takes a closer look at the connections between Ivanov and the businesses she's linked to, searching for any patterns or inconsistencies.
As he's poring over the information, Max's phone buzzes. He checks it and sees a message from his contact who works for one of the businesses. It reads, "I think I have something for you. Can we meet?"