INICIAR SESIÓNIvan's PovThe first twenty minutes were Rem working the system. He found the same wall from six different angles. Ghost's penetration was thorough enough that every standard override pathway had been closed before the lock engaged."She planned this before she arrived." Rem's voice was tight. "The probe last night was not just reconnaissance. It was installation. She placed the lockdown mechanism while we thought she was testing our response speed.""While we were watching the probe and deciding to let it run." Ace did not sound angry. He sounded like someone adding accurate information to a developing picture."Yes."Nikolai was at the secondary station. He worked a different angle from Rem. He had been working in silence since the lockdown engaged. The specific focused silence of someone who had converted everything he was feeling into the problem in front of him
Ace's PovElena and Ghost arrived at noon. The building felt different the moment they walked in. Not because Ghost did anything visible to change it. Because the specific awareness that someone in the room understood every system running inside the walls produced a kind of alertness that had no other cause.Ghost was younger than I expected. Early twenties. The kind of face that gave away nothing. It had been designed to give away nothing for a long time. They said nothing when introduced. I understood immediately that saying nothing was not rudeness. It was standard operating practice.Elena was different from yesterday. In the residential building she had been careful and measured. Two people learning each other across a table. Here she was in someone else's space. She was not comfortable in someone else's space. The discomfort came out as something sharper than the previous meeting had shown me.
Nikolai's PovWe spent four hours discussing it. We arrived at a position that none of us fully liked and all of us could accept. The only kind of position available.Ace would meet Elena. Not alone in the terms she had specified. Alone in appearance. Rem would position four people within a two-minute response distance of the meeting location. The jacket lining tracking was off the table because she had named it specifically. Using a method she had already identified would communicate only that we had not taken her seriously.We used a different method instead. Rem built it into Ace's secondary phone. A method that had not existed three months ago. It had not been visible during the two-year observation window Elena claimed."If she finds this one too." Rem finished the installation."Then she is better than I think she is. If she is better than I think she is we ne
Ivan's PovThe attack hit at four in the morning. Rem's alert system caught it within ninety seconds of the first intrusion. Fast enough to limit the initial damage, nfast enough to prevent it entirely."Financial architecture." Rem was already at the equipment station when I reached the operational room. His screens showed activity across six different account structures simultaneously. "She is not trying to drain them. She is trying to move them.""Move them where.""Flagged accounts. Accounts that would trigger federal review if significant transfers landed in them."I looked at the screens. "She wants us investigated. Not bankrupt.""Yes. Significantly more sophisticated than a theft. A theft we could recover from. A federal financial review during our current transition period would be catastrophic."Ace was in the door
Ace's PovI held the weapon level for exactly three seconds.Then I turned it toward the white-haired man.The room understood what was happening approximately two seconds after I did.Those two seconds were enough.Ivan was already moving when the security personnel began to respond. His position at the door gave him the angle on the three guards closest to the representatives. Nikolai moved simultaneously toward the piece-manager cluster. Not to engage them. To put himself between them and the primary exit. He blocked the instinct to flee before it could organize into actual departure."Nobody moves." My voice carried across the room without effort. "Not because you are in danger. Because what I am about to say requires everyone in this room to hear it clearly before anyone makes a decision they cannot walk back."The room
Ace's PovThe public announcement went out at noon. I wrote every word of it myself.Rem transmitted it across the same channels the Council had used for their Supreme Leader declaration. Every organization in the seventeen-piece structure received it simultaneously. Every criminal network in the northeastern corridor had my name attached to a formal acceptance within the same hour.Nikolai read the draft before I sent it.He handed it back to me without speaking."You understand what this does.""Yes." His voice was very flat."It looks like I am confirming everything they declared. It looks like the execution order they put out in my name is something I am now publicly endorsing.""Yes. I understand that.""And.""I am trusting you. That is the hardest thing I
Ace’s/Ivan’sPovI couldn't think.What the fuck just happened?I couldn't fucking think, overwhelmed, by everything going on. Why were they doing this to me, strumming me like a guitar. It was humiliating and I hated it.But a whine escaped me as Nickolai’s hand left my hair and Ivan pulled back fr
Nikolai's povIvan was enjoying himself far too much. He had that sick little grin on his face as he pressed the blunt side of his knife on Ace’s wrists. I knew it didn't cut, didn't draw blood, but it pulled another startled cry from Ace, which was what he wanted.“Brother,” Ivan said lightly, “h
Ace's povI was shaking so badly my teeth rattled. In my mad dash to submit my assignment, I had forgotten my phone back at the bar.The assignment…I was still holding it, clutched in my hands so tight my fingers had actually broken through the first page.It didn't matter anymore. Since I was s
Ace’s POVI thought I was just dropping off papers for my professor.One wrong door.One second too long.And suddenly I’m staring at America’s most dangerous Bratva twins — the Volkov brothers — mid-kill.Nikolai, the older one, lets his voice hit my ear like a cold blade:“You’re not going anywher







