Prologue - Jag
The screen shatters in my grip, glass and pixels dying under my fist. I’ve already wiped the drives, but it’s not enough. I have to make sure there’s nothing left. No scraps. No fragments. No breadcrumbs for them to follow.
The laptop hits the floor, a final blow from my boot reducing it to a mangled corpse of circuits and plastic.
Controlled destruction.
Precision in violence.
The walls of my studio apartment close in, the air thick with the scent of sweat and burned hardware.
I should’ve seen this coming. I track everyone. I watch from the shadows, pulling their strings. I’m the ghost in their machines, the virus in their networks, the spider in their dark webs they don’t even know they fear.
Yet somehow, they found me.
A miscalculation. A hairline fracture in my impenetrable firewalls.
I grin, seething.
They think they’re omnipotent, but they have no idea what they’ve done. They stirred the waters and released the Kraken. They should’ve let the sleeping beast lie.
The law thinks it has me in its sights. I see them lurking outside, the unmarked cars and pathetic attempts at surveillance.
They think I don’t know, don’t see them, don’t feel them breathing.
They don’t know me at all.
They think I’m just another criminal, a hacker playing games.
I don’t play games. I play god, and I’m vengeful as fuck.
They’ve been sniffing around my accounts, tracking the money trails, trying to pin something on me. Fraud. Cyberterrorism. Murder by proxy. Oh, they’d love to slap those labels on me and drag me into a courtroom.
The law is nothing but a crippled institution run by the weak to corral the strong. They want to put me behind bars? I’ll burn their prisons to the ground.
I rip the cords from the wall, dragging my rig to the center of the room. The servers hum their last breaths as I take a sledgehammer to them. The sound is deafening, like breaking bones, like punching a reset button I never wanted to press.
Adios, California.
Time to go.
I grab the duffel bag already packed with cash, fake IDs, and burner phones. The .45 tucked against the fabric is more than a weapon. It’s my promise to finish this with blood.
I’m ready. I’ve been ready.
Everything I need is in my head. Names, faces, crimes—the people I’ve been watching, tracking, and planning to erase from existence. I was careful. Methodical. But I got too close. Touched a nerve. And now they’re hunting me.
I hunted them first.
Come for me, bitches.
They won’t find me where I’m going.
Sitka, Alaska.
I own a small, unassuming tattoo shop there. A shell business I’ve been using to clean money and make my digital sins look pure and legal. It was meant to be a safe house, a place to disappear if the walls caved in.
Time to cash in on that contingency plan.
They think I’m running. Cowards run.
I vanish. Slip between the cracks. Become the thing they fear most. The thing that doesn’t die.
As I stride toward the door, I take one last look at the carnage I’m leaving behind. Scattered wires. Destroyed machines. The gutted remains of an empire I built from nothing.
I’ll rebuild.
Then I’ll make them bleed. I’ll engrave my vengeance into their bones. I’ll burn their world to the ground and laugh as they choke on the ashes.
I grip the door handle, and my gaze lands on a photograph. The one I intended to shred.
It lies on the desk, the edges curled and the glossy finish dulled with time. My head pounds as I reach for it, unable to part with it.
With her.
My pretty little bird.
She shouldn’t have this hold on me.
But she does.
She makes me feel. Reckless, terrible goddamn feelings. Feelings I don’t have room for.
I hate her for that.
I want to hurt her for it.
Beat her.
Bind her.
Fuck her.
My jaw flexes as I shove the photo into my pocket, crumpling it in my grip. I should leave it. I should burn it along with the rest.
But I’m not done with her.