Chapter 159: Augustus: I am a heartthrob!

In the living room.

"I don't know which specific location you are referring to."

Jared sat on the sofa, fell silent for a moment, picked up the glass of water on the table, drank it all in one gulp, and explained:

"The routine every time was that I would state the time, the other person would give a location, and finally I would drive there with the money to enjoy the service.

However, the location they gave every time was different, so..."

Lacey, standing to the side, curled her lips:

"Wow, enjoy the service, what a high-end term."

Jared remained unconcerned:

"I am studying for my law license, of course I need to learn some academic terminology."

Roan couldn't be bothered with matters outside the case. He snatched the small notebook directly from Lacey's hand, tossed it in front of Jared, and said indifferently:

"Then write down every single location you've been to before.

Also, write down clearly how you contacted the other person, including the phone number, time, and so on."

Catching a glimpse of the cracks on the front door and the wall out of the corner of his eye, along with the crisp cracking sound Roan made when clenching his fist, Jared's mouth twitched as he sighed. He lowered his head and filled the paper completely with writing.

Roan nodded with satisfaction, while Lacey gave Roan a deep look, the corners of her lips curling up slightly.

***

Jacob Federal Building, Office Area of Investigation Squad 5.

"The information Jared wrote down indicates that the place he went to every time was a townhouse at the intersection of Route 84 and Route 9 in Long Island."

Roan sat at his workstation, drinking coffee and taking a break, while Lacey showed the data from the small notebook to Mona, explaining at the same time:

"According to what Jared wrote, he found the contact information on an escort website on the internet. The URL is right here."

Glancing at the web address in the small notebook, Mona's ten fingers flew across the keyboard. Soon, dozens of photos of women appeared before everyone's eyes.

"These are the promotional photos of the escort women on this website."

Mona's expression was solemn. Her fingers danced swiftly, and a blur of unreadable code flashed across the computer screen before another eight photos appeared before Roan and the others.

Ryder asked in confusion from the side:

"What does this mean?"

Mona explained:

"These are visa photos from Ukraine.

After facial recognition, these eight photos match the escort women on the website completely."

Roan summarized expressionlessly:

"In other words, these eight women from Ukraine are likely, just like Janiel, tricked into coming to New York by that John."

"Yeah."

Mona nodded, and Lacey continued to ask:

"Can we find out who is behind this website and where they are now?"

"Actually, I checked just now."

In America, registering a website domain name does not require official filing or reporting to the government, and domain registrars also hide the registrant's information to protect their privacy.

***

Facing this situation, there were only two ways to find out who was behind the website.

The first was through regular channels, which meant contacting the domain registrar of this escort website and asking them to hand over the relevant information.

However, this method was time-consuming and laborious, so Mona decisively chose the second method: hacking into the domain registrar's server to directly search for information related to the escort website.

Unfortunately, after tapping the keyboard a few times and displaying the information from the computer to everyone, Mona sighed and said:

"The registrant of this website domain is a dead person who passed away three years ago."

Hearing this, Lacey and Ryder's expressions instantly sagged.

"It's fine."

Seeing the lowered morale of the group, Roan grinned, patted Mona on the shoulder, and said:

"Isn't this website still active? The phone number on it can still be reached!"

Hearing this, Mona and Lacey's eyes lit up simultaneously. They looked at Roan and said in unison:

"You mean, a sting operation?"

"Yeah."

Roan nodded. Janiel and Jared had mentioned earlier that the other party would blindfold the girls and have Tony drive them over to provide the service.

"We can arrest Tony at that exact moment!

And then, by interrogating Tony, we can find John and the location where they are holding the girls captive!"

Ryder also realized this, grinning broadly as he slapped his hands together and loudly praised it as an excellent idea.

This method did not violate FBI regulations, especially since Investigation Squad 5 still held Janiel as a human witness.

However, one question lay before them:

Who would play the role of the client?

Mona was definitely not suitable.

Lacey wouldn't work either. Although she had extensive experience visiting nightlife spots, she was, after all, a woman.

Roan had experience, could act, was male, and seemed very well-suited to play a client.

However, he had appeared on television before, and no one could guarantee whether John and Tony had watched that day's New York Daily News.

Just to be safe, Roan was out.

The only one left was Ryder.

But Ryder also had a problem: he was extremely bad at acting and disguise, though quite skilled at fighting and brawling.

Moreover, the other party would certainly bargain with Ryder over money before he started any "activities" with the woman.

If the other party sensed something was wrong during the process, the mission would undoubtedly fail.

Therefore... the four of them looked at each other in silence for a moment.

"Time for extra food! Extra food!"

Just as Roan was scratching his head, pondering whether to use the makeup skills taught to him by the veteran assassin from his past life, August suddenly pushed open the door carrying a large box of burgers and walked in.

Smack—

Tossing the burgers one by one to the technical staff of Investigation Squad 5, August finally walked over to Roan and the other three. As he handed out the burgers, he grinned and asked:

"What's wrong? Run into some difficult problem?"

***

The four of them took the burgers, looked at August closely for a few moments, fell silent for a while, and finally turned their gazes toward the other three simultaneously.

They all saw the gleam in each other's eyes.

Seeing that the four of them weren't speaking, August frowned. Just as he was about to ask what had happened again, Roan suddenly stepped in front of him, wearing a radiant, sunny smile, and whispered:

"Boss, how about a group session?"

August: "?"

***

At nine o'clock in the evening, outside a small villa near the intersection of Route 13 and Route 9 in Long Island, August sat inside a Buick sedan.

Roan and Ryder, fully geared up, sat in a Chevrolet not far away, while Mona and Lacey, also fully geared up, sat in a sedan facing another direction.

"Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?"

Inside the Buick, August held a small communicator, testing whether the equipment was functioning properly.

"We can hear you, Boss."

Roan grinned inside the Chevrolet:

"Every word you say is coming through loud and clear on our end!"

August, catching the subtext of Roan's remark, laughed and scolded:

"Good, Roan, it seems you and Ryder will learn a lot of useful new knowledge from me today!"

Roan chuckled:

"Don't forget Lacey, Boss. Careful she doesn't go to Verenice later to report you for discriminating against lesbians!"

"Leave me out of this."

Lacey rolled her eyes from the other car:

"August's techniques aren't suitable for me!"

"That's not necessarily true."

Inside the Buick, August carefully adjusted his equipment and clothing, smiling indifferently:

"Let me tell you a secret: my looks when I was young were even higher than Roan's!

Back then, the ladies around me called me Mr. Heartthrob!"

Mona, Ryder, Lacey: "..."

The three of them wore speechless expressions, while Roan nodded with an expression of pure admiration.

As expected, there was a reason August became a leader.

That thick skin of his was bulletproof!

At that moment, a seven-seater travel sedan suddenly drove toward the area from afar. Seeing this, Roan and the others instantly cast aside their jokes, their expressions turning solemn in unison.