The morning sunlight streaming through the glass windows of Sark Tower felt too harsh, as if the universe itself were mocking the darkness lodged beneath Eduardo’s ribs. The smell of gun oil and Freya’s lingering scent still clung faintly to the collar of his shirt, the only trace of humanity he had felt the night before. But the moment the private elevator doors opened onto the penthouse floor, that scent was immediately overwhelmed by the cloying fragrance of expensive lily room perfume and the suffocating aroma of Blue Mountain coffee. Eduardo stepped inside. The creak of his shoes against the black marble floor would usually be met with a guard’s greeting or at least the barking of a dog. But this morning, the house felt like a gilded tomb. At the long dining table made of solid teak, two women who had once been his entire world sat calmly. Emily wore a silk robe worth thousands of dollars, her jewelry-laden fingers scrolling across a tablet screen. At the far end, Chl

Eduardo’s breath came in short bursts in the silence of his dimly lit office. The phone in his hand still felt warm after the call from Luigi had ended abruptly. Outside the glass walls of Sark Tower, the city looked calm, a cruel contrast to the echo of gunfire and Gord’s pained groans he had just heard. “Ed! Gord’s back! But he’s wrecked, damn it!” The office door was shoved open as Belerik barged in. Behind him, Gord staggered forward, clutching his bleeding ribs. His shirt was torn, his face bruised, and the usual humor in his eyes had been replaced by blazing anger. “You’re not dead, Gord?” Eduardo whispered. A cold flicker of relief stirred in his chest. “Almost, boss! Lucky me still had five percent left to make their grenade only collapse a pile of boxes on top of me,” Gord coughed, spitting blood onto the polished marble floor. “But the boys... they’re all gone, Ed. We really ran out of ammo! My gun jammed in the middle of the firefight! What the hell!

Violet and gold laser lights swept across the night sky of the central district, reflecting off the towering glass pillars of Sark Tower. In the penthouse garden, vast enough to rival a football field, the scent of five thousand white tulips flown in from the Netherlands clashed with the rich aroma of caviar and vintage 1996 champagne. Eduardo stood at the edge of the observation deck one level above the chaos of the party. He lit a cigarette, letting the smoke blend into the cold night air. From up here, the guests below looked like a colony of ants draped in jewelry. Emily, wearing a maroon silk dress that exposed her back, laughed loudly with a crystal glass in hand, surrounded by the wives of officials who once would not have spared her a glance. "You see your wife, Ed? She looks like she's celebrating a war victory, not her kid's birthday," Belerik’s voice crackled through the earpiece. "And we're on the edge of bankruptcy because the catering vendor demanded full pay

The sharp smell of disinfectant stabbed at Eduardo’s nose, trying to erase the lingering metallic scent of blood still dried beneath his fingernails. He sat on a cold steel chair in the hallway of his organization’s underground clinic, buried deep beneath layers of concrete in Sector Five. His white suit, now more like a butcher’s canvas, still clung to his body, stained red and gray from blood and the sleeping gas at the party. The automatic sliding door opened with a soft hiss. An older man with thick glasses stepped out, his face weary. His name was Doctor Herman, a surgeon whose life Eduardo had bought off Claude’s execution list a year ago. “How is she?” Eduardo asked without preamble. His voice was rough, dry like sandpaper. Herman removed his surgical mask and let out a long breath. “She didn’t pass out because of the sleeping gas, Ed. Freya’s a monster, her lungs are stronger than the rest of your men. The gas was just a trigger. She collapsed from extreme exha

The monitor screens in Sark Tower’s control room flickered like a heart in arrhythmia. Red graph lines plunged in freefall, breaking through support levels and carving gaping holes into the organization’s financial balance. Belerik stood at the operator’s desk, his fingers dancing wildly across the keyboard while cold sweat soaked the collar of his expensive silk shirt. “Ed! This is a massacre! Vladimir isn’t just using bullets, he’s using algorithms!” Belerik roared without turning around. “Our shipping stocks are getting short-sold like crazy. Shell companies in the Cayman Islands are pulling liquidity. If we don’t inject a hundred million dollars within the next hour to hold the margin call, all your legal businesses are getting seized by the state!” Eduardo stood behind him, his gloved hand gripping the back of the chair. His red eyes locked onto the numbers that kept shrinking. Fifty million dollars had just flown to Switzerland for a villa, and now the rest of his em