Chapter 4: Disposable Assets
Rain slashed sideways across the city skyline as Victor stepped out of The Velvet Knife and disappeared into the night, coat flaring like wings.
Salvi had spoken the words himself.
If the ghost marking the crime scenes turned out to be Victor—he’d mount his skull like a trophy.
Amusing.
But what caught Victor’s attention wasn’t the threat.
It was the fear behind it.
The old blood didn’t get scared. They moved cities, bought silence, erased history. But someone had Salvi shaking beneath all that white silk.
Victor had seen it in his eyes.
Not fear of a man. Fear of losing control.
And control was Victor’s favorite thing to steal.
---
Two hours later, he sat in a parking garage two levels underground. A laptop open, silent hum of generators behind him. Cameras lined the walls, all jacked into private servers. No one else had access.
On the screen: Salvi’s org chart—built from scratch over two years of whispers, deals, and blood.
Five key lieutenants.
One weak link.
Dario Mazzetti.
Loyal to Salvi only by money. Known for backroom gambling, laundering failures, and impulse control problems. The kind of man who would sell out his family if you named the right price.
Victor didn’t need to pay him.
He just needed to push.
---
12:31 A.M.
Dario received a burner call.
The voice on the line wasn’t Victor’s. It was modified—flat, metallic.
“Your secret ledger has been decrypted. The overdraft on Salvi’s launder accounts is about to surface. FBI's going to love it.”
“What the—who is this?”
“You’ve got one chance to disappear before your name goes public.”
A pause.
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“…What do you want?”
“I want you to do what you always do, Dario. Save yourself.
Go to Salvi. Tell him one of his other men sold him out. Tell him it was Nico.
He’ll believe you. You’re disposable.
And that’s what makes you useful.”
The line went dead.
Victor leaned back and watched Dario spiral. Thirty minutes later, the idiot did exactly what Victor planned.
He walked straight into Salvi’s estate and accused Nico Vantelli—Salvi’s most loyal enforcer—of betrayal.
Salvi, full of paranoia and ego, didn’t hesitate.
Nico was executed before dawn.
Victor crossed Nico’s photo off his wall with a red marker.
One down. Four lieutenants left.
---
Later that morning, Salvi’s network buzzed with confusion.
Nico wasn’t just muscle—he was logistics. With him gone, Salvi’s routes were exposed. Schedules scrambled. A single week of chaos would cost him millions.
Victor had timed it perfectly.
And he wasn’t done.
---
2:14 P.M.
A detective by the name of Elias Rhys visited the freezer crime scene.
Victor had a tail on him from the moment Elias stepped off his bike—one of the few clean cops left, but too smart for his own good.
He wasn’t supposed to be involved. The case had been buried. Off-books. Bought silence.
But here he was, photographing freezer coils and taking notes on the discoloration of the floor.
Victor watched from a rooftop two blocks over, long-lens camera in hand.
“He’s close,” he whispered. “Too close.”
He tapped into Elias’s phone. Simple breach. The man was careful, but no one beat Victor’s scripts.
No one.
Within minutes, Victor had his search history, location tags, audio recordings—and one file that made him pause.
Voice message.
> “Hey, El... it’s Dani. You were right. The girl—they called her Subject Eleven. They tested her on something. I don’t know what it was, but I think it was related to cleaner sites. She wasn’t supposed to live. Please be careful.”
Subject Eleven.
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
The girl who knocked on his door. The one who showed him the footage.
She was tied to experiments.
And someone was trying to erase her.
Victor didn’t just work for money. Not anymore.
He worked for patterns. Truths. The kind no one wanted found.
And right now?
She was the thread.
---
He opened Black File 1076.
> Subject: Eleven
Status: Survived
Involvement: Unknown
Link to equation: HIGH
Current Location: ???
Priority: RED
He leaned back.
Salvi was burning from the inside.
Dario was next—Victor had sent photos of his personal offshore accounts directly to Salvi’s inbox. No name attached. No trace.
The mafia kingpin was about to execute two of his own lieutenants before dinner.
Victor wasn’t just erasing evidence anymore.
He was rewriting history.
---
That night, he took a walk.
Not the kind with a destination.
The kind where your feet take you somewhere you’re not sure you’re ready for.
It brought him to the docks—old steel cranes, rusted containers, air thick with salt and secrets.
That’s when he saw her again.
The girl. Eleven.
Standing alone at the edge of the pier, staring into the black water.
She turned as he approached, and her voice—flat but calm—cut through the air.
“You’re not just a cleaner.”
Victor didn’t stop walking. Didn’t lie.
“And you’re not just a runaway.”
A beat of silence passed.
“They used numbers,” she said. “Not names. There were others before me. I saw one man—he escaped. His hand had the same mark. 'V = I + X.'”
Victor’s heartbeat slowed.
“What did he look like?”
Her lips curled faintly. “Like you.”
The water roared in the distance.
Victor reached into his coat, pulled out a silver coin, and offered it to her.
She took it.
“I’m going to burn them down,” he said.
“Good,” she replied. “I’ll bring the gasoline.”
