ILLEGAL MEAT COLD STORAGE - LITTLE ODESSA, BROOKLYN - 01:00 AMThe streets of Brooklyn were freezing tonight, but inside the meat storage owned by the remnants of the Russian mafia (Bratva), cold sweat drenched the faces of the bear-tattooed men.Viktor, the cousin of Sergei who was slaughtered by Marco a month ago, sat on a stainless steel cutting table, nervously puffing on his cigar. Five of his men guarded every corner of the room, gripping AK-47 rifles with white knuckles. Around them, pig and cow carcasses hung stiffly on iron hooks."Are you sure this intel is solid, Yuri?" Viktor growled in heavily accented English. "You said Rossi is busy dealing with business in Europe. He couldn't have sent his Shadow Guards here."Yuri, a bald man with a slash scar on his cheek, gulped. "It's not Rossi, Boss. Not his official troops. But there's a rumor on the streets... the street dogs are talking about a 'Ghost'.""What ghost, you bastard?! We are Bratva! We are not afraid of ghosts!""N

THE APEX CLUB - UNDERGROUND VIP VAULT, MANHATTAN - 11:30 PM The room smelled of sin.  It was a heavy, suffocating mixture of spilled vintage Champagne, pure Colombian cocaine, expensive bodily fluids, and the sweat of men who believed they were untouchable. The heavy bass of a low-tempo electronic track vibrated through the gold-veined marble floor, perfectly syncing with the primal, animalistic writhing happening across the sprawling leather couches. This was the private vault of The Apex Club, an establishment exclusively owned by the Black Dragon. Tonight, it wasn't open to the public. Tonight, it was a diplomatic reception room. President Alejandro Vargas, the corrupt, bloated dictator of a small, war-torn Eastern European republic, was currently buried under a pile of high-class escorts. The women, hired for $20,000 a night, were completely naked, their bodies painted with