-Berlin, Sept 2003-

I took a deep breath, and fixed the dress on me, making sure that the deep cleavage was visible. I was wearing a dark red long dress with straps, that had an open back. It wasn't something I would wear on a normal basis, far from it actually, but I had to meet a connection at this party and I had certain assets I was using to make myself noticed and other things less noticeable. In simpler words, to diverse the attention from what was important.

"I'll see you later Karl. I should be in and out within one hour." I was talking to my butler Mr. Karl Dubois who was driving the car.

"Be careful, miss Beth"

"Of course." One quick glance in the mirror and I fixed my lipstick as we were reaching the destination. Personnel from the location opened the door for me and slightly bowed as I exited the car. I nodded to him in thanks. I placed a big smile on my face. Not entirely genuine, but not entirely fake either. I had been on this undercover mission for two weeks now and I was very close to getting to learning who the chain of command was and putting a stop to teenage girl abductions from all over Europe.

I have been chasing the head of this operation starting in Poland, then France, then finally led to Germany. The organization was very large, very secretive, and no one would give names of the superiors, just nicknames and coded locations. I had been tracking their movements, intercepting their messages and decided to go undercover to finally get evidence for an arrest to be made.

"Hallo, Ich heiße Sofia" I said to the doorman meaning Hello, I am Sofia. He looked my name on the list and asked me "Sofia König?"

I nodded.

"Bitte" he said and pointed towards the door.

I replied with a "Dankeschon" as I entered the house.

Bitte is such a versatile word, I thought to myself. It can mean anything from "please" to "thank you" to "you're welcome". The only way to tell the difference is by context.

As I entered the huge lobby, I noticed the huge crystal chandelier in the middle of the room hanging from the upper floor, and a rounded staircase was on the back wall. According to house plans, the room I needed was just upstairs. Sadly, just as many people were downstairs, were upstairs as well. Getting there unnoticed wasn't going to be easy.

I smiled at one of the servers walking by and I took a glass of sparkling wine.

"Bitte" I said in German, in this case representing a thankful expression.

As I slowly walked around, I noticed the rooms surrounding the lobby. One of them seemed to be a library, though I doubt it was ever used by such scum. It was probably for appearances. I had noticed a few more rooms, all fancier than than the previous one. Among all the ruckus of the party, I heard someone speak English to a group across the room and it piqued my attention. He was the informant I was counting on. Not that he knew he was an informant to me, but rather a boyfriend. A boyfriend of two whole days, mind you. I smiled and slowly walked to him. "My dear Sofia, how lovely to see you here" he said in a perfect north American English. "Hello tzhere, Kevin" I said in a fake English accent with German nuances to it. To him, I was just a young German girl looking to have some fun. To everyone at Wammy's, I was known as detective Z.

My English was perfectly fine, and I could speak it with various accents, but I had to keep up my image. I went to him and he wrapped an arm around me, lightly kissing me. It took every ounce of me to not fight him then and there. This guy was a scumbag, a second in command to the real boss. Why would he think a woman would date him when he was doing the things he was doing? I was utterly disgusted.

To keep up the appearances of a naïve and clueless young girl, keeping quiet was the key. Why do people think you are stupid just because you are quiet? Also, just a tip, smiling helps with the image just as much.

"And then he said "Duude, you can't do that to her, you can get in trouble" and I said to him "Watch me"" he proceeded to explain to the group a certain situation and they were all laughing. I was trying really hard to not show disgust on my face. This guy was the worst there could be. He thought he was all right and mighty because he was an American, second in command to this shitty human trafficking organization. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe Americans are cocky or arrogant, but this guy was cocky about his nationality and always reminded people he was an American. Like sorry, I totally forgot you saying your nationality since you just have mentioned it three times in just 15 minutes. I tried to zone out the discussion that was taking place, and payed the least amount of attention I could, just in case anything important was to be shared.

A few more minutes of that, he said to me in my ear. "I was waiting for you. Let's go find a room", making me bashful, please note it was a fake emotion. "Ja, of course" I said whispering in his ear. "Lemme grab you a drink."

I was prepared and waiting for this. I noticed a butler holding some drinks to come my way, and grabbed a wine glass for him. Very carefully and unnoticeably, I spiked his drink with the drug they liked to use on girls. I was not planning on performing intercourse with him, and a taste of his own medicine will do him well. It will help me achieve my goal and I will be able to leave him and the party unnoticed.

"Here you go" I handed him the drink then added "Follow me" as I grabbed his hand and dragged him up the stairs.

"I think this room is available" I said mentioning to the office I wanted to get to. The boss of this organization was old fashioned and everything was on paper. A bunch of people saw us enter the room and gave us all-knowing looks. I smiled to them as I locked us in the room. He got me on the desk and started slowly kissing my neck, whispering in my ear "oh, the things I cannot wait to do to you". It gave me a shiver in disgust as I knew the things that he was capable of doing, but also because neck kisses were one of my weak spots. Something I literally just found out. He turned me around with my back to him and started kissing my back. Come on, drug, please take effect soon I thought as I was feeling horrible under his touch and all I wanted to do was bash his skull in ... with anything I could get my hands on.

As soon as I thought that, he lost his balance "Oh, I feel dizzy".

"It's all good" I said as I put him on the sofa in front of the desk. He slowly lost consciousness. I unbuttoned his shirt, messed up his hair a little bit, a put a few lipstick marks on his neck using the lipstick from my pouch. I wouldn't touch him unless absolutely necessary. Maybe a baseball bat would be good for right now. I smiled at the thought of that. I would love to get him to pay for the things he has been doing, but this is not the way. The reason I put lipstick on him was to keep up the appearances of what he thought we would do. Luckily enough, things will have just work out for me exactly as I planned. While I was against using drugs, I deemed it absolutely necessary in this case. With a little bit of suggestion, he would think certain things took place, when in fact, they did not.

I waited one more minute to make sure he was out of it entirely, looking at his face. As I turned around, he was mumbling something. I looked at him once again unsure if he was conscious and decided to put three ounces of pressure to the vagus nerve, just to be certain he was indeed unconscious.

The reason I was doing all this, the fake girlfriend, the party and ruffing him, was to find a safe located within this office. That was the goal of my undercover mission. It contained information of all locations those missing teenagers were taken to, as well as any proof of people involved in this messed up organization. This was proof that was needed to police to close in on the case.

"Aha" I said as I noticed a painting was not like the others. The entire house was built to look like an expensive mansion. The crystal chandelier, the library, all the famous painting, the marble floors, the delicately sculpted wooden staircase, everything looked like a house a famous person would live in. In fact, in this room all the paintings in this room were very good replicas, except one. That only one was actually a genuine painting. The one in question was an 1895 painting called "The Basket of Apples" by Paul Cézanne.

I fidgeted with the painting a little bit, and it confirmed my suspicion. The safe door and screen were hidden behind it. "Okay, now lock combinations". Out of my pouch I pulled a small device with a screen and a cable attached to it. I opened the keypad to the safe, connected the cable and let the device figure out the 5-digit password. After a minute, it found it. I closed the keypad and placed the code in.

I put on the fake glasses with hidden camera in them. It was streaming to a nearby location to where Karl and the police were waiting. I was also wearing an ear communication device to make communications with them easier.

"I'm in".

"Good to hear that" I heard Karl. "Are you alone?" he asked.

"Not entirely". I said as I turned around and showed the camera a passed-out Kevin on the couch. The police did not need to know what I had done, but they had their suspicions. Unfortunately for them and Kevin, this particular drug would not be able to be detected on blood test. As I opened the safe, I quickly looked at each and every document there. I didn't need to take the proof with me, the glasses had high quality cameras that would stream the files and a screenshot could be taken on each page. The police would be storming this place eventually and would get the files. The glasses were for confirmation of proof so that the police would make an arrest, as well as proof for other police offices to go and storm the other locations were the girls currently held. It was an all-at-once type of situation.

Now that that was done, I put the files back in, closed the safe, put the glasses away in my pouch and went to sit next to Kevin. As he was coming back to consciousness, I fiddled with my dress, making it seem I was putting myself together. I reached over to his ear and whispered "that waz amazing, Kevin".

He smiled proudly "anytime honey".

I tried not to roll my eyes. This guy had no recollection of things, whether they were or not happening. "Oh, here"I reached over and smooshed the lipstick marks on his neck. This was so that he would never notice the marks were just two parallel lines that I drew previously. He tried to button up his shirt, and lay his head backwards, slowly fading back into unconsciousness. I got up, looked at him, smiled and said "I'll go ahead firzt. Come when you are ready". The goal was to leave the mansion unnoticed before the police came and crashed the party. Didn't want to deal with the arrest. Afterall, the police did not even know how I looked like. Just that I was a woman and that I was helping out with the investigation.

I swiftly and unnoticeably made my way to the garden. Leaving through the main door would have been impossible knowing the police was right out there. Once I was out of harms way, I heard the German police enter the mansion to arrest everyone at the party.

While the German police had their doubts and suspicions about the people involved in this case, they wouldn't do anything until they had 100% proof that something is indeed happening. Sadly, that was the situation that was happening in other countries as well. They knew a young lady was communicating with them to get them proof and that was working with detective Z, but they didn't know that the young lady they never got to really see, and detective Z, were one and the same person.

From the garden, I slowly sneaked out onto the street where Karl was waiting in the car for me.

As I entered, he said "I assume all went well".

I sighed. "Yes, this case is finally done". It was a two-week chase and now the police had finally had everything to make an arrest.

"L called". He took a brief pause and I felt him looking at me through the rear mirror.

"Oh, anything important?" I asked half interested.

"He would be going to England and would like to meet the available detectives at once."

I sighed. I was nervous and not really looking forward to see L. Not after what transpired last time we met.

I took a deep breath. "Let's head out to Winchester then, Karl".

"Yes miss, I already made the preparations."

"Thank you" I smiled gratefully. Karl was such a reliable friend, always thinking a step ahead and preparing ahead of time. "I don't know what I would do without you, sir".

"You'll be fine miss Beth. I'm sure of it." He nodded his head.

Karl was assigned to be my butler by Wammy when I was 17 and I was heading to my first case. Unlike most of the kids at Wammy's orphanage, I got to know my family before loosing them in an accident. I had distant family that wanted nothing to do with me and that is how I ended up with Wammy. I sighed, I really missed my sisters and parents. They had passed away when I was in primary school and I have been placed in the system since I was 8. Slowly, I was starting to forget how they looked like, how their voices sounded like and all the memories of camping trips that we took as a family.

Before they passed away, my parents were very supportive of my education, and were pushing me to pursue further studies, even though they couldn't afford it. I was passionate about computers, and my parents got me one, along with a few books to get me started. Though for the lack of money, I would pirate books and learn from them online. It was from those books that I learned about computers and programming. After I was placed in the system, I continued studying by borrowing books from the school and public library, and I would use the orphanage's computer to keep on learning. At some point, I started participating in hackathons and coding challenges. One of them, organized by Cambridge University, offered as a prize a summer school scholarship in computer science that was 2 months long. Since I had no money to my name, the University has provided me with a scholarship to be able to attend it. I was only 14 at the time, but I knew then and there that that was going to be the best part of my life. I just didn't know how much it was actually going to change my world and life. It was then that I had met L, thought I knew him as Oliver Beechwood, a strange young boy, that the other kids would not really hangout with, but avoid. He was very quiet and observant, but so was I, even though for different reasons. Mine being that French was my first language, and British English was giving me a hard time catching up and understanding. The orphanage I grew up in was in Quebec and French was the main language, followed by English. The other kids would make fun of my pronounciation, and I was pretty much the only girl in the school. Besides, the English I was accustomed to (North American English I was familiar with) was pronounced very differently and I could not really understand what they were speaking with their thick British, Irish and not to mention Scottish accents.

I took a liking to L, and noticed how he didn't seem to judge me, but would treat me as I was just another person and not an alien in Britain. He went as far as using a north American English accent when I wouldn't understand a particular word, and I would ask for it to be repeated. Sometimes, in private, he would talk with me in French. If I had a question, he would help me out, when the others wouldn't. It probably didn't mean much to him, but to me that was a blessing, having someone I could go to. One annoying and embarrassing thing was that L would correct me every time I spelled something wrong, or I said something that was grammatically incorrect. Within a month of spending time with him, my English grammar had improved greatly, as well as my English accent was becoming more and more native.

By the end of the two months of the summer school, I had actually mastered the British accent with the help of L. It wasn't entirely native-like, but it was very close and would be unnoticeable, especially by non-natives.

As for the school, we had individual capstone projects to deliver on Cybersecurity and Machine Learning that had us both had tied for first place. Back then, both L and I lived at the University dormitory. It was during this time that I would often find him in the library studying or reading a book. Often times, I would join him, not to necessarily speak to, but just be in his presence. He was a very calm kid, kept to himself, but his presence to me meant peace and calmness. Thinking about it now, it was back then I noticed his insomnia symptoms kick in.

During this time, I met Wammy who befriended me. He would often come and check on L, bring him sweets and provide him company. L must have talked to Wammy about me, because at the end of the school, Wammy offered me to join one of his houses and to be under his tutelage. He offered to help me get the education that my parents weren't able to provide me with, but really wished for me to get. He explained how his orphanage has gifted children, just like me and L, and that he could help me learn more. I don't know the details, but 2 weeks after I returned to Canada, Wammy has put in the transfer with the orphanage I was at and I moved to England.

Karl pulled the car to the hotel we were staying "Let's go grab the bags and wheels up in an hour".

I nodded.

At the hotel, I went and took of the hair wig that I was wearing for the undercover mission, as well as the fake mole under my eye, and took out the blue eye contacts. The best way to go undercover is to give people something to notice about you like a certain mole, a hair length or colour. There is an entire science on how to disguise yourself such that you won't be recognized in the future.

I changed my clothes to a grey sweatshirt, black jeans, put on some white socks, black pearl earrings, and my rings. I put some bobby pins in my hair to keep it out of my face. I packed the few clothing items and devices I had in the hotel, and I knocked to the room next door. My best friend, JJ, got up all excited to see me. "She just went down an hour ago. She is so damn active, I don't understand how you can do work and babysit her as well."

"You gotta do what you gotta do" I smiled suddenly feeling extremely tired. "We are leaving in 10 minutes to Winchester. I'm not sure if Karl told you"

"Yeah, he called me." She pointed towards the luggage that was already packed. "How was the party?"

"It went well, I got the proof, police made the arrest. Now is up to the justice system to make the people pay. You finished packing as well?"

"Yea, I did"

I bent over and got the sleeping toddler in my arms. She was sleeping so peacefully I was afraid of waking her up. I didn't have a choice as we had to go to Winchester that night to meet up with L and everyone else. Karl Dubois had just as little things as I did and was done packing. He and JJ called a butler to handle the luggage and pack the car. At the airport, we got into one of the private jets that Wammy had. I placed the sleeping Bella into her crib, and soon we took off.

The flight was one hour long and I decided to put on some music and crochet a little dress for Bella, the toddler, until we reached the destination.

It was past midnight when we reached Wammy's House, or home as I was referring to it. Quietly, I went to my old bedroom, placed Bella into her baby bed, and went to take a shower. I did not wash my hair as I did not want to wake her up with the hairdryer. Tomorrow is going to be a long day was the last thought before I passed out completely.