Paranoia had a sound.
In Reddington's case, it was the steady hum of servers — hundreds of machines running day and night, encrypting, scrubbing, shifting digital identities like a magician swapping cards.
Yet the more they worked, the less safe he felt.
For the first time in years, Reddington had ordered a complete audit of his empire.
No one trusted anyone.
Accounts were cross-checked. Communication lines rerouted.
Every handler, every broker, every off-shore contact was questioned.
He'd burned three safe houses already.
Dembe said nothing, but Reddington could see the disappointment behind his calm eyes.
He hated the chaos. So did Reddington. But chaos was still safer than uncertainty.
At the Post Office, the FBI Task Force was feeling it too.
Aram's desk was a battlefield of screens and coffee cups. Ressler hadn't slept. Liz had that look again — the one that said she'd stopped believing this was a normal investigation weeks ago.
Cooper walked in, holding a report.
"Marvin's accounts are still being processed. Every single transaction he made in the last five years went through at least one dummy company we can't trace."
Aram rubbed his forehead. "That's because those companies no longer exist. I'm talking digitally erased. Like they were never incorporated, never had a tax ID, nothing. It's clean — cleaner than government work."
"Revenant," Liz said simply.
Ressler scoffed. "He's not God, Keen. He bleeds like everyone else."
Aram looked at him. "You sure? Because everything I've seen says otherwise."
Reddington stood in the glass observation room above the bullpen, watching them argue.
His reflection stared back from the glass — a calm man in a tailored suit, but his eyes betrayed fatigue.
"I built my empire on certainty," he said quietly.
Dembe turned. "And now?"
"Now it feels like I'm dancing on fog." Reddington sighed. "Someone inside Redhaven tried to hire Revenant to kill me. You don't make a move like that unless you believe he'll actually answer the call."
Dembe folded his arms. "Do you believe it?"
Reddington smiled faintly. "I believe in incentive. If he wanted me dead, I wouldn't be here to debate it."
He turned, eyes cold again.
"But what bothers me isn't the attempt. It's that Revenant knew about Redhaven at all. That file doesn't exist outside a dozen people. If he's hinting at what he knows…"
He trailed off.
Dembe didn't ask. He didn't need to.
The next morning began like any other — coffee, security checks, a quiet hum of exhaustion.
Then Aram froze.
"Uh, guys?" he called out. "Did anyone order… a package?"
Cooper frowned. "From where?"
Aram pointed at the sealed brown box sitting neatly on the center table, no postage, no label.
"It was just here when I came in. The cameras don't show anyone entering between 1 a.m. and now."
Ressler unsnapped his holster. "Step back."
Liz grabbed gloves and carefully lifted the lid. Inside, nestled between layers of brown paper, were two objects.
The first was a simple business card — white background, printed logo of a leaping fish and the words:
Labakais Baltijas Jūras — The Baltic's Best Seafood Distributor
Ressler frowned. "Baltic seafood? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Liz was already looking at Reddington.
He stared at the card, his expression unreadable. Then he laughed once, softly, without humor.
"Oh, that's clever. That's very clever."
Cooper frowned. "You recognize it."
Reddington nodded, the smirk fading.
"It's a front. An old one. A shell company out of Riga. Used to move containers under the radar — mostly weapons and tech components. Disbanded five years ago."
He looked at the card again, turning it between his fingers.
"No one outside my inner circle ever knew that name."
Liz's tone was low. "Then how does Revenant?"
Reddington looked up. "Because he's been reading my mail, Elizabeth. Not just watching. Reading."
Ressler's voice hardened. "You saying he's inside your system?"
"I'm saying he's ahead of it." Reddington's gaze flicked to Cooper. "He's sending a message: that every secret I ever buried is already unearthed."
Cooper set the card down carefully. "And the second item?"
Liz reached into the box again and froze.
Her breath hitched.
It was a photograph — old, printed on glossy paper, edges curling slightly with time. She turned it toward Cooper. Ressler's eyes widened.
Reddington didn't move.
The photograph showed a man sitting on a bench by a pier.
Gray hair. Civilian clothes. Reading a newspaper.
A man whose face was unmistakably — the real Raymond Reddington.
The silence that followed was sharp enough to cut.
Cooper was the first to speak. "That's impossible."
Reddington stepped forward slowly, took the photo from Liz's hand, and studied it. His face was unreadable — the faintest flicker of emotion, quickly buried.
Then he placed the picture gently on the table.
"Apparently not."
Ressler's voice rose. "What the hell is this, Reddington? You told us—"
"I told you what you needed to know," he interrupted quietly. "But it seems someone else knows everything."
Liz swallowed hard. "You think Revenant found out who you really are?"
Reddington smiled thinly. "He doesn't think. He knows. This isn't a threat — it's leverage."
Cooper crossed his arms. "Then what's his angle?"
Reddington stared at the photo again. "Information. Control. Maybe entertainment. Or maybe he's reminding me that in his game, I'm the one being watched."
In the forensics lab, the box was scanned, tested, and dissected.
No prints. No fibers. No chemical traces.
The card and photo were printed on generic materials found in any store.
Aram ran spectral analysis on the ink.
"Nothing unusual. No hidden codes, no microtext, no watermarks. It's just… a business card and a photo."
Liz leaned over his shoulder. "You're saying the world's most elusive killer sent us a postcard?"
Aram shrugged helplessly. "Basically."
Ressler muttered, "That's not a message. That's psychological warfare."
Cooper nodded grimly. "And it's working."
Back in his car, Reddington sat in silence, staring out the window as the city passed. The photograph lay on his lap.
Dembe finally spoke.
"You think he'll make another move?"
Reddington chuckled softly. "Oh, Dembe. He already has. The card — the company — the location. He's reminding me of something I forgot."
He traced the edge of the photo with his thumb.
"Labakais Baltijas Jūras wasn't just a shell company. It was one of the first routes I built — before the Cabal, before Elizabeth, before Raymond Reddington even existed as a name I wore."
Dembe turned to him. "Then how—"
"Because he found the ledger," Reddington said simply. "The original one. The one I thought was lost when I burned the Baltic network. He's not just reading files. He's reading history."
He leaned back, eyes distant.
"That's what makes him dangerous. He doesn't kill to survive. He kills to erase."
At the Post Office, Liz sat at her desk long after everyone left. The card and photo lay under the evidence light.
She stared at them — two simple objects that somehow felt heavier than a gun.
For the first time, she wasn't sure who they were protecting anymore.
Reddington? The Bureau? Or themselves.
Her phone buzzed. A new email. No sender. No subject.
Just a single image attachment.
She hesitated, then opened it.
It was a photograph of her desk — taken from above. The same light, same angle, same moment.
The timestamp was from two minutes ago.
The screen went black.
Liz froze, heart pounding.
Then, in the corner of the display, words appeared — a single line of text:
"It's rude to stare, Agent Keen."
The monitor flickered, then shut down completely.
Across the city, Revenant closed his laptop.
The flicker of code reflected in his eyes before he powered the machine down entirely.
He wasn't angry. He wasn't reckless.
He was simply proving a point.
That visibility was a choice.
That secrets were only valuable as long as he allowed them to exist.
And that even the most powerful man in the criminal world — Raymond Reddington — had become the prey.
He poured himself a cup of coffee, the faintest smile touching his lips.
Then he murmured, almost conversationally:
"Now we're even."