LOGINKirThree days into a total digital blackout and Oliver is so keyed up he can barely stand still. The flat is small. It sits on the third floor of a nameless, grey building in the 11th arrondissement. There’s a tiny kitchenette, a sagging velvet sofa, and a bedroom that barely fits a double bed. Not the kind of lodging Oliver is fond of at all. But the owner doesn’t care about identification or why we’re in the city, as long as we pay cash in advance.And being surrounded on all sides by people is an extra layer of security and anonymity.I consider three days of unbroken quiet a massive operational success. Oliver considers it torture.He’s walking a tight loop between the window and the kitchenette, burning off adrenaline he has nowhere to put. The skin under his eyes is stained a deep, bruised purple."Stop pacing," I tell him.Oliver ignores me. He hits the edge of the rug and pivots again. "I’m going out of my mind, Kir. I need a laptop and access to the internet. I just nee
KirPanic is a luxury we cannot afford.The air in the living room turns brittle the second Oliver finishes reading the email. I feel the exact moment the rest of the team realizes the scope of the trap. For the moment we are not the hunters. Vanguard just flipped the board.My pulse does not spike. It just turns heavy, a cold iron rhythm knocking against my ribs.I trained for moments like this. Fear will get us killed and I refuse to make that an option. Not for anyone, but especially not Oliver.Vanguard is not a street gang and I have zero doubt that’s who we’re dealing with. If they had a team snapping photos of us in Naples, they did not just watch us leave. They followed the vehicles. They tracked the transit routes. They know we’re here.I don’t let a single sliver of that math show on my face. Oliver is sitting on the sofa, pale and shaking, staring at his screen like it’s a live grenade. If he sees me worry, he will completely break apart. He needs me to be the ground
Oliver It’s been forty-eight hours since Naples, and the team has dropped out of the sharp, bright edge of action into the heavy drag of after. We’re currently holed up in a sprawling, concrete-and-glass rental property in the hills above Marseille. It looked great on the booking site. Infinity pool, panoramic views of the ocean, secure wrought-iron gate. But in practice, it’s a logistical nightmare. You try putting nine deeply paranoid, highly trained killers, and two bitchy hackers, into a living space designed for a wealthy French family of four and see what happens. The fridge is empty except for three bottles of top-shelf vodka, a block of expensive, stinky cheese, and a jar of pickled onions that absolutely nobody claims to have bought.Max is asleep on the rug in the center of the living room. He’s using a rolled-up tactical vest as a pillow and his mouth is hanging open. Butcher is sitting cross-legged on the kitchen island, eating Cheerios out of a Pyrex measuring jug.
DomYou can’t mop up panic. Blood comes out of teak decking if you use enough bleach and cold water, but panic just sort of hangs in the air, thick and sticky and tasting like copper.Getting the girls off the Nauti Buoy is a logistical nightmare. We have twenty dead billionaires cooling on the lower deck, an underwater lock that Oliver has somehow magically kept open, and a very narrow window before the yacht’s automated dead-man protocols decide to phone home. We have to move fast, which means dragging twelve barefoot, half-naked, completely hysterical women through the guts of a submarine bay and into the transit Zodiacs.It’s ugly. One of them throws up on my boots. Another tries to dive back into the water because she thinks we’re a rival cartel coming to skin them.By the time we get them to the secure transit point, an abandoned industrial laundry facility on the outskirts of Naples, my adrenaline is crashing, replaced by cold fury.I dump an armful of cheap fleece blanket
Kir He stays exactly where I left him. On his hands and knees, his head bowed, the duvet bunched around his shins.An hour ago, he was standing in the main living area, coldly orchestrating the logistics of a mass assassination. He was spinning variables, anticipating security countermeasures, and calculating how to trap twenty men inside a reinforced steel room so we could slaughter them. He was the architect of tomorrow’s violence. Untouchable. The smartest man on the continent, running purely on adrenaline and arrogant certainty.Now, he’s crying quietly into the mattress. Just because I told him to stay still.The whiplash of it actually catches me under the ribs. A heavy, brutal kind of possessiveness hooks into my chest and pulls tight. It makes me run hot. I stand at the edge of the bed and just look at him, taking the time to process the sheer gravity of what he gives me.The varnished wood of the humbler locks him in a perfect, agonizing stasis. He’s anchored by the
Oliver I stand in the middle of the room, my laptop balanced in one hand, staring at a terminal window. The code is compiling, the backdoor into the Nauti Buoy’s mainframe half-written, and my brain is spinning at a thousand miles an hour. I’m restless, shifting my weight from foot to foot, my skin itching with the residual adrenaline of the hack.Kir walks in without announcing himself. He just appears in the doorway, watching me. He's wearing dark jeans and a t-shirt, looking unnervingly casual for a man who’s planning a mass assassination for breakfast.I ignore him. Or I try to. I hit a few more keys, pretending I’m entirely consumed by the firewall protocols.He crosses the room, plucks the laptop right out of my hands, and sets it on the desk."Hey," I snap, reaching for it. "I'm not done. I have to finish the decryption script."Kir steps into my space, blocking me entirely. "You are done for now.""I really am not," I argue, crossing my arms. "If that lock has updated fir
OliverThe wait is absolute fucking torture.I can’t see a thing. The padded silk blindfold blocks out every trace of light, plunging me into a thick, suffocating void. My hearing dials up to a terrifying degree, picking up the faint, rhythmic hum of the building's ventilation and the slow, delib
KirillMidnight passed hours ago, but neither of us has made a move toward the bedroom.The television casts a flickering, uneven glow across the dark living room. Another terrible action movie plays on the screen, full of muffled explosions and painfully bad dialogue. It serves as background noi
OliverSeven days of surviving the meat grinder has fundamentally changed the way my body functions.My world has shrunk to the square footage of the penthouse and the black foam mats in the basement. Every morning begins with two grueling hours of getting thrown around by highly trained assassins
KirillOliver is standing in the center of the foam mat. He has a plastic bottle of water pressed against his flushed cheek, using the condensation to cool his skin. His t-shirt is molded to the damp lines of his chest and abdomen.His eyes are dark, the black swallowing the blue as he watches me







