10. DANTE
TEN
DANTE
I got rid of him. I extirpated him from myself.
The printers no longer spit out poems, and that damn music finally vanished from the security room speakers, from my car, from my head.
I won. I purged the aberration back to his pathetic civilian life, and he, like the plague he is, fled back to the sewer he crawled out of.
But it doesn't feel like a victory.
My best whiskey tastes bitter. The cigar no longer has any anxiolytic effect, nothing to comfort me with its familiarity, and my office, where I once found peace, is just an office now.
I don't understand. I don't understand how he can ruin mundane things he didn't even touch.
What the fuck does that fucking Nyx have to do with my cigar, my office, my drinks?
Why, after him, does everything wither? Like a fucking cancer.
Dmitry had been in the conference room, reviewing charts for hours.
He scrolled through his tablet while Svetlana thumbed through a stack of reports, shaking her head.
"They have nothing," she said. "We have guards watching every IT member, every network engineer, every programmer.
Day and night. And not a single suspicious movement. .."
And that's it.
As if Nyx wasn't enough of a problem, the Malakovs' moves were getting worse.
The data breach opened by that rat wasn't as small as we initially thought.
Our shipments were now being completely rerouted, disappearing from our logistics systems without a trace.
Not just delays, but outright theft. High-value cargo vanished, and the discrepancies in betting transfers were now too large to ignore.
We're talking millions in losses, not just a few thousands here and there.
"Is there a chance this isn't internal?" Dmitry asked, trying to find a clearer solution for the plummeting graphs on the screen.
"It has to be internal," Svetlana interrupted, her voice hoarse.
"The nature of the attacks—the precision, the knowledge of our specific vulnerabilities, the way they manipulate existing systems instead of breaking new ones—it's too sophisticated for an external brute-force attack. It's someone who knows our networks."
"Well, my men confirmed the empty function in the backup script was exploited," Dmitry said, rubbing his temples.
"And that it points to a wider, preexisting backdoor.
It was just dormant. Now it's wide open, and someone is walking through it like they own the damn place.
But if it's internal and our guards haven't seen anything suspicious from our personnel, then who the hell is doing this? "
Svetlana sighed, running a hand through her hair. "This is definitely a Malakov investment. We've exhausted every lead. If there was a rat at some point, they already knew our defenses."
"We need someone who thinks differently," Dmitry said.
"Someone who doesn't follow the rules, who can find the ghost haunting us.
" He paused, and the air in the room grew denser.
"We need a hacker, Dante. Someone... like that Nyx from New York.
If it's him working for the Malakovs... we already know how that ended last time. "
My blood ran cold. That damned name.
Last time Nyx worked for the Malakovs, we suffered irreparable losses. But I know he told the truth in that warehouse. It wasn't him working for the Malakovs.
But there was that possibility, which I detested , that he was still meddling with our business.
"No," I said. "No way in hell. That aberration is out of the question."
Dmitry raised an eyebrow. He knew about the kidnapping, knew about Nyx's help and shared information, but I'd spared him the disturbing details.
He didn't understand. "He found that vulnerability for you, didn't he?
" he said. "Faster than Sal's entire team.
He proved his... capabilities, and said he works for whoever pays. "
"His 'capabilities' are a distraction," I snarled, and the memory of his ironic smile, his moans, his unbearable pleasure burned behind my eyelids. "He's a perversion, not an asset. He almost drove me insane."
"Dante, our family is bleeding. We need a solution, and if this said aberration is the only one who can find it, then we use him," Svetlana said. "Let's say he is working for the Malakovs. If he works for whoever pays, we can double their contract with a bigger offer."
"I'll bring in some other candidates this week," Dmitry said, picking up his phone. "Top-tier hackers, the best we have, but we know none of them have a reputation like his. If they fail, Dante, we'll need to reconsider Nyx. He's the only one who's shown any real understanding of their methods."
I stared at them, my siblings, my family, trapped in this spiraling disaster. They don't understand. They can't. They haven't seen the depths of his madness, haven't felt the disturbing way he distorts everything.
The next few days were a blur of sterile, frustrating meetings. The so-called best hackers had impressive digital espionage and counterintelligence backgrounds, but all of them, for some reason, seemed too cautious.
The first, a woman in her early thirties, spent hours analyzing data and grumbling about firewalls and intrusion detection systems. She found nothing new. "It's a ghost" was the only thing she said, as if we didn't already know, after opening some log file.
The second was a frantic young man who talked a mile a minute and dramatically waved his hands while explaining complex algorithms. He set up new honeypots, new traps, but the attacks continued, bypassing his new defenses with irritating ease.
He left, looking defeated, babbling about advanced AI and quantum encryption.
The third, an older, cynical man with a perpetually tired face, just shook his head as he analyzed the data.
He opened the same file that made the first hacker leave, and said, after a day of fruitless searching, "Look, we can try to trace who did this, but dealing with him digitally. .. I'd rather not get involved."
Before he left, I stopped him. "What the hell's the problem?" I said.
He peered at the terminal screen before answering me. "It appears to be a hacker known as Nyx, Mr. Volklov. He usually leaves signatures in the logs, but he's good. Nobody wants that kind of headache here."
The duck's song, the printed poems, the absurd little pranks. It was just the warm-up.
Of course, it's him.
That sick son of a bitch. He's forcing my hand.
I snatch my secure comms device from the table. My fingers, usually steady as stone, tremble slightly as I dial Luca's private number. It rings once, twice, before his gravelly voice answers.
" Boss? "
"Get him," I order, the words tasting bitter in my mouth. "Bring him here. I don't care how, but not a single scratch. And make sure he understands this isn't an option. He's our asset now."
Nyx, you sick bastard. You win. For now.