FAZER LOGINNikolai's Pov
The southern district was the most accessible of the three territories Elena had taken. That made it the right first target and made it the right message.
Rem had the forged documentation analyzed within six hours of discovering the transfers. The documentation was excellent work. Close enough to legitimate that three separate territorial managers had accepted it without questioning the provenance. Ghost had clearly prepare
Ivan's PovThe neutral territory The Broker specified was a private dining room on the upper floor of a restaurant in the west district. It had been operating as genuinely neutral ground for twenty years. Every major criminal organization in Vanguard knew the space. The agreement around it was old enough to have become structural rather than negotiated.Nobody conducted violence in that room. The value of the room came entirely from that agreement holding.We arrived at nine. The Broker was already inside.He was in his sixties with the specific build of someone who had spent decades in environments where physical presence was part of the communication. The kind of man who occupied space more completely than his dimensions suggested. He stood when we came in. His eyes moved across all three of us with the rapid assessment of someone who had been reading rooms professionally for a very l
Ace's PovI had been sitting with the broadcast for forty minutes before either of them came to find me.Nikolai came first. He sat across from me at the table. He did not speak immediately. That was the correct instinct."Say what you know.""The transaction chain may be authentic. We used payment structures in that period that passed through multiple intermediaries. The Moretti family may have used one of those intermediaries to process payment for the operation. That would appear to connect to our finances if you examined it from a specific angle.""Possible.""Yes. Possible. Not confirmed.""It is also possible someone constructed it.""Yes. Also possible. Rem is running verification.""What does your instinct say."He was quiet for a moment. "My instinct says the Moretti family was sophisticated enough to create a financial trail that pointed at us. If the operation was ever examined, that trail would be visible. It is consistent with how they operated. Using the Volkov organizat
Nikolai's PovThe southern district was the most accessible of the three territories Elena had taken. That made it the right first target and made it the right message.Rem had the forged documentation analyzed within six hours of discovering the transfers. The documentation was excellent work. Close enough to legitimate that three separate territorial managers had accepted it without questioning the provenance. Ghost had clearly prepared the paperwork long before the bunker lockdown. They used the observation period to learn the specific formatting and authentication markers each territory required."She did not improvise this." I looked at Rem's analysis. "This was built across months.""The documentation preparation alone would have taken weeks." Rem's voice was careful. "She had the lockdown and the territory transfers planned before she made contact with Ace."
Ivan'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
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







