Seven years. Seven years since Vadim died with Anton Baev's bullet in his head.
My brother never let me work for him directly. "You're too young," he'd say, ruffling my hair like I was still twelve instead of eighteen. "Your job is the computer. Stay invisible."
So I stayed in our cramped apartment, fingers flying across keyboards while Vadim ran the streets. I hacked bank security for his crew, moved digital money through offshore accounts. Every successful job meant another deposit into the investment accounts I'd built for our future.
But computers were just tools. Vadim was the one taking real risks.
"This is it, little brother." He'd burst through our door that last night, eyes bright with ambition. "One score and we're set for life. Mom gets the best doctors in Europe. You get that computer science degree you want."
I knew it was wrong the moment he showed me the plans. Too big. Too visible. Too many moving parts for a crew that specialized in quiet jobs.
"The Basovs will see you coming," I warned him, pulling up territorial maps on my screen. "Their surveillance network covers three districts now. This isn't some street gang, Vadim. They've got resources."
He laughed, kissing my forehead like he used to when we were kids. "That's why I need my genius brother. Redirect their attention. Buy us time."
He has his mind set, no way to change it. So, I spent three days crafting digital diversions: traffic light malfunctions to slow down response times, false emergency calls to pull police to the wrong neighborhoods, camera loops to hide his crew's movements.
But the Basovs had hired someone new. Someone I couldn't predict or redirect because he didn't rely on their normal infrastructure.
Anton Baev.
Twenty-three years old and already a legend. The kind of assassin who moved like smoke and killed like lightning. No cameras caught him. No electronic surveillance tracked him.
He was everything I wasn't, pure, analog death.
Vadim died protecting his friends. Died because I couldn't hack a human being.
"Promise me," he'd said a month before the job, "if something happens, you take Mom and run. You don't look back. You don't try to be a hero."
The next day, I was on a plane with our mother and two million in cryptocurrency. New names, new papers, new life. Everything Vadim and I had planned, minus the person who mattered most.
I spent seven years building new skills, new connections, new money, and a new team. Made myself into an assassin, a better hacker. Someone who could disappear into any identity, any country, any life.
But I never forgot the name Anton fucking Baev.
The Ghost of the Bratva. The ghost I want to kill.
I've been watching him play dress-up as a common soldier for six months.
I'd thought it was deep cover for some elaborate hit. Maybe the Basovs were planning something massive, needed their best asset embedded where no one would look. But the pattern told a different story.
Every mission Anton took, every assignment he accepted, kept him in one city. Near one family. Close to one very specific girl.
Fiona Quinn.
The girl who collects information. The girl who caught my attention.
Her academic record unfolds like a love letter written in code. Mathematics major, Computer Science minor. Perfect 4.0 GPA across three semesters. The kind of grades that come from obsession, not just intelligence.
But she's only taking nine credits per semester, attending online. Part-time status for someone with her capabilities? Maybe her family isn't supporting her academic dreams.
But it's the extracurriculars that fascinate me most.
White hat hackathons, where she consistently places in the top five. Clean, ethical challenges that showcase raw talent.
Then the darker competitions, the invitation-only events where moral boundaries blur and skills matter more than conscience. She participates in both worlds with equal brilliance.
I lean forward, studying every pixel of her face. The telephoto lens caught her perfectly outside the boutique yesterday morning, before the chaos erupted.
