"Trouble in paradise?" Luca asks, noting my expression.
"Maybe." I pull up the alert on my main screen. "Someone's poking around the joint accounts."
"Russians or feds?"
"Neither. This is... something else."
Luca peers over my shoulder, though the complex arrays of code mean nothing to him. "Looks like gibberish to me."
"It's a probe. Sophisticated." I frown as I trace the digital fingerprints. "Almost like..."
"Like what?"
"Like someone's searching for something specific." I start typing rapidly, tracking the intrusion through layers of security.
"Well," Luca yawns dramatically, "while you play with your ones and zeros, I'm going to crash on your absurdly expensive couch. Some of us have a shipment of questionably acquired Renaissance paintings arriving at the docks at 7 a.m."
I barely acknowledge him as he stretches out on the couch, draping his arm over his eyes. Within minutes, his breathing deepens, and he's asleep—Luca's supernatural ability is to pass out anywhere, anytime, regardless of danger or circumstance.
Once I'm sure he's unconscious, I bring up my most secure terminal and activate a series of proxies. The probe I detected isn't random. It's methodical, precise—and it's examining transaction records from exactly eleven months ago, right when I began setting up my escape fund.
Cold sweat breaks out along my spine. Someone knows. I dive deeper into the logs, tracing the intrusion back through dummy servers and false endpoints. What I find stops my breath entirely.
The intruder is using a variant of my own encryption algorithm—the one I designed. The one only I should know.
# AES-256 Encryption using BitVenom's custom key (CBC mode)
def aes_encrypt(data, bitvenom_key) :
# AES CBC mode requires an Initialization Vector (IV) for added security
cipher = AES. new(bitvenom_key. encode('utf-8'), AES. MODE_CBC)
ciphertext = cipher.encrypt(pad (data.encode('utf-8'), AES.block_size))
# Return the IV + encrypted data
return cipher.iv + ciphertex
Someone isn't just following my digital trail—they're using my own footprints to frame me for missing funds.
My eyes flick to the timetable of the missing funds. The first transaction disappeared exactly one week after I began quietly siphoning money into my exit accounts. But these withdrawals are massive—millions at a time—and they're being routed to destinations I don't recognize.
If Vito or the Petrovs trace this back to my encryption signature...
It would appear that I've been stealing from both families, which I've not. All my funds have been my money, not the Rosso’s, let alone the Russians’. But if they think otherwise… A capital offense. The kind that ends with my body being found in pieces across five boroughs.
"Shit." The word escapes my lips as my fingers fly across the keyboard.
I have minutes, maybe seconds, before someone else notices the breach. I deploy countermeasures, erasing log files, planting false timestamps, and obscuring the encryption markers that would tie this back to me.
As I work, a horrible realization dawns: this isn't random. This is targeted. Someone is deliberately using methods that implicate me.
The question is who.
My mind immediately goes to Kira. It’s clear she has the skills if she is my counterpart with the Bratva . But why frame me now, right before our families unite us in marriage?
Unless...
