Gutierrez and Co.
The soft hum of the central air blended with the rhythmic tap-tap-tap of manicured fingers tapping keys like a jackhammer.
The office was immaculate — open, smooth and antiseptic, as if it had been excerpted from an architecture magazine.
The walls were adorned in soft greys and marble whites, with nothing excessive except for the commanding presence that sat there, behind the black glass desk at its center.
SuzzanneGutierrez, the name inscribed on a gold plaque affixed to the desk, she looked every bit of the empress of the empire she oversaw.
Her jet-black hair was slicked into a tight knot, eyes keen behind narrow-framed glasses and lips pursed into an unmistakable line of unbothered concentration.
Her phone buzzed quietly. She ignored it. Her inbox dinged. Still nothing.
Two days had passed since the incident at her charity event.
Two days since someone's blood had pooled on the floors of luxury.
And Suzzanne hadn't even blinked.
The silence shattered like glass.
"Suzzanne! Suzzanne—!"
Maximiliano came rushing in, his voice winded, his face wide with worry.
He froze before her desk like a kid who had been called to the principal's office, uncertain whether it was to be scolded or slaughtered.
Suzzanne didn't lift her gaze. Her fingers keep dancing across the keyboard.
The quiet encircled him like a noose.
"Um..." Maximiliano faltered, shifting his weight on his feet. His courage — if any had indeed existed — was evaporating by the second.
"About the incident that … that took place at the charity —"
"—Event?" Suzzanne completed the thought, her tone still eerily tranquil. She glanced up from the screen she had been typing into, glasses low on her nose and her piercing stare connecting with his.
He blinked rapidly. "Yes, that... Are you—?"
"— Asking if I killed him?" she said plainly.
The words hit the room like thunder.
Maximiliano's mouth fell open. His body went rigid.
A pause.
A cold, pulsing silence.
He didn't know whether to laugh nervously, deny the charge or run from the room screaming.
Suzzanne tilted her head just a bit, examining him like a scientist looking at a petri dish.
"Maximiliano," she said, her voice as cool as glacier water.
"Do I pay you to stand there... or to act like the man that you told me you were to be when you begged me for this job?"
"N-no... Of course not," he said, stammering. "You don't."
"Then let me make one thing crysta clear."
She rose slowly from her chair, not in anger, but with that dread elegance that turned power into poetry.
"Next time you walk into my office unannounced, with no reason to be there, and especially without spine —" she stepped forward, the heels of her shoes clicking ominously against the flawless marble floor.
" I will make sure your name is made blacklisted from every executive boardroom in this goddamn city."
The faintest of a smile creased on her lips. A deadly one.
"You will be a ghost in the very industry you want so badly to belong to."
Maximiliano's breath hitched. He took a small step back, his hands tense fists. "I... I understand. I-I'm sorry."
Police Headquarters
The soft roar of traffic hummed outside as Detective Eduardo Ramirez leaned over his desk and the fluorescent lights of the precinct above glared down on stacks of reports and grainy CCTV stills and a blown-up photo, freshly printed from the autopsy lab, of an eagle tattoo.
Next to him, his younger partner, Lucas, leafed through the thick binder of missing person reports.
They were set up in a side office at the LAPD Homicide Division, insulated but charged with distant sounds of phones ringing and officers yelling updates down the hall.
Eduardo drummed hid pen across the desk.
Staring at the tattoo sketch for over an hour.
"It's not just an eagle," he finally muttered.
His partner Lucas who was resting against the desk with his arms crossed furrowed his brow.
"I've read a lot of tattoos in my years, but this one … " Eduardo murmured, peering close to the ink. "It's not just art."
Lucas stepped forward. "Yeah, the details are precise. That's not the sort of thing you get on a whim. The wings, the talons… and then the dagger it's holding."
Eduardo pointed at the spiral that spiraled into the wing. "That pattern. I have only seen it once before, on a guy we pulled from the docks last year. No ID, but same ink. Same precision."
Lucas narrowed his eyes. "So what are we talking here? Gang affiliation?"
Eduardo's jaw tightened. "Worse. It's not public. No known cartels have this mark logged in any police database."
Lucas looked at him. "You mean it's private?"
Eduardo nodded slowly. "Private. Off the grid. A syndicate. Something that does not wish to be found."
Lucas faced the evidence table, yanking over a folder full of intel they'd gathered in the past 48 hours.
"So a private gang with a logo that connects back to another corpse. And now they've dropped one at a high-profile charity event in the middle of the day?"
"No," Eduardo said, voice low. "They left a message."
Lucas looked unsettled.
"Well, someone powerful enough to hack into a charity backed by the high profiles and take a life without leaving a trace."
Eduardo moved back and gazed at the board. "We're not just talking about a homicide. We're looking at a calculated warning."
Lucas pointed to the evidence bag holding the silver rose brooch, currently resting carefully in a tray.
"And what about this? It still screams personal."
Eduardo studied it in silence. "If this brooch here is the killer's, then they wanted it found. A signature... or a breadcrumb."
Lucas looked at him. "You think we're being led?"
Eduardo kept his eyes on the board. "No. I think we're being challenged."
Just then, Lucas' phone buzzed. He picked up and his eyes moved over the screen. "We've got something."
Eduardo turned. "What?"
"A match on the tattoo symbol. A match from a confidential source linked to Interpol's private records.
The eagle is a member of a secretive group called
Silueta del estilete — silhouette
of the stiletto."
Eduardo raised a brow. "Didn't think they were real. Just a ghost story passed around cartels."
Lucas swallowed. "Well, they're real. And it says they've only ever tattooed their members with this, after they've killed for the organization."
Eduardo's expression hardened. "So this wasn't just anyone, the victim. He was one of them."
Lucas nodded. "But if one of their own was found tortured and murdered, it means only one thing …"
"They have turned on each other," Eduardo concluded.
He grabbed his coat.
"Let's move. This murder is going to put a ripple in— and we need to find out who's working the strings before another body falls."
Author's Note:
Thankyou for reading<3
Have a Good Day/Night<3<3