The Private Medical Wing – The Kuznetsov Estate. 02:00 AM.
A heavy, oppressive silence draped over the medical wing, broken only by the monotonous, rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor. The sterile stench of strong disinfectants—iodine and rubbing alcohol—saturated the air, drawing a sharp, bitter contrast to the aroma of premium cigars that usually defined Sergei's study.
Propped up against the pillows of the clinical bed sat Sergei Kuznetsov. His left hand rested elevated on a medical cushion, encased in thick white bandages through which small, crimson patches of blood had begun to seep. He didn't scream. He didn't loudly demand vengeance. Instead, he stared at his bandaged hand in a terrifying silence. For a man like Sergei, the stab wound was never just a physical injury; it was a symbolic degradation. The very hand that forged empires, pulled triggers, and choked the life out of his rivals was now reduced to a useless, paralyzed slab of flesh.
Sergei attempted to move his fingers. A sharp, searing pain shot through him, like white-hot nails driving into his nerves. He reached for the glass of water resting on the bedside table, but his trembling digits refused to obey his mind's command. The glass slipped, shattering on the floor. The water spilled over the priceless Persian rug, the sound echoing in Sergei's ears like the resounding crash of defeat.
"Damn it..." Sergei whispered. It was barely a breath, a venomous hiss escaping through clenched teeth. It wasn't the sound of rage, but the sound of a shattered man brimming with malice. "He severed the nerves... The little bastard knew exactly where to strike."
The door crept open, and Larissa stepped in. She wasn't in nightwear; she was impeccably dressed, looking as though she were prepared to attend a funeral. She approached the bed with measured steps, her eyes scanning the vulnerability etched on her husband's face with a cold, calculating pragmatism. She sat beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder—not to comfort him, but to pin him down in the role of the "victim."
"Sergei, darling," Larissa purred, her tone dripping with toxic empathy. "The doctors say the damage to the radial nerve could take months to heal. Don't exhaust yourself dwelling on Jinho's hatred right now. Perhaps he merely inherited that surgical cruelty from you. That's what makes him so dangerous, isn't it? He is your shattered mirror."
Sergei glared at her, his eyes bloodshot. "My mirror? He is nothing but a mistake I made fifteen years ago. A mistake that should have been erased along with his mother."
Larissa sighed with practiced theatricality, tracing her fingers lightly over the bandages. "Our children, on the other hand, do not possess this treachery, Sergei. They are in their rooms, trembling with fear for you. They love you as a father, not as an assassination target. Jinho and Jin... they carry Hayoon's tainted, rebellious genetics. The very power you admired in Jinho is the weapon he is now using to kill you. Will you wait until he plunges the knife into your heart the next time?"
Sergei gripped the edge of the bed with his good hand until his knuckles turned bone-white. Larissa's words drove nails into his wounded pride. "There will be no 'next time.' I will wipe their existence from the civil registry. I will make them regret the day they decided to breathe without my permission. Contact the Minister of the Interior. I want the 'Black Protocol' activated. I don't want an arrest... I want ashes."
A covert smile ghosted across Larissa's lips. She had successfully weaponized Sergei's pain, twisting it into a destructive frenzy that would permanently disinherit the twins and pave the way for her own children. "I will handle it immediately. But remember, Sergei, Jinho doesn't just fight with bullets. He fights with something you don't fully comprehend."
Sergei remained silent. He looked back at his crippled hand, whispering so faintly it was barely audible: "I will cut off his hands... before I kill him. I will make him watch his fingers fall, one by one."
At that very moment, Sergei remained oblivious to the fact that Jinho had already begun severing the "fingers" of his empire—not with knives, but through the fiber-optic cables weaving beneath the streets of Moscow.
Across the city, the atmosphere was entirely different. There was no stench of clinical antiseptics; only the sharp tang of ozone emanating from server racks and the scent of ancient dust clinging to the forgotten corners of the bunker. The blue luminescence spilling from the massive screens reflected off Jinho's pale face, rendering him a digital phantom orchestrating executions from the shadows.
Jinho sat with a rigid posture, his fingers flying across the keyboard at a speed that defied human perception. He didn't look like an improvising hacker; he looked like a surgeon methodically dissecting veins one after another. Beside him, Jin silently cleaned his weapon, watching his brother with a veiled, underlying anxiety.
"You know, Jin," Jinho murmured, never taking his eyes off the scrolling data. "In Sergei's world, money isn't just numbers. It's the oxygen that fuels his brutality. If you cut off the oxygen, the monster suffocates, even if it still has its claws."
"What are you doing now?" Jin asked, sliding a magazine into his pistol with a sharp click.
"I am currently inside the covert Novo-Sibirsk Bank," Jinho replied coldly. "This account, number 7709-X, holds the blood money from the 2018 Caucasus arms deal. Currency stained with the tears of a thousand mothers. It's time to 'launder' it... my way."
Jinho initiated a complex string of code, deploying a cryptographic algorithm based on the principle of physical probability distribution. To him, data encryption wasn't merely cybersecurity; it was a thermodynamic equation where "entropy" increased until the system hit absolute zero.
With a decisive strike on the "Enter" key, 150 million dollars vanished from the ledger. The funds fractured across thousands of anonymous digital wallets before being frozen in a "smart contract"—one that could only be unlocked with a cryptographic key held exclusively by Jinho.
"Every dollar that disappears," Jinho continued, watching the account balance plummet to zero, "is like ripping out one of Sergei's fingernails. He doesn't feel the pain right now, but he will feel the biting cold very soon."
The operation dragged on for hours. Jinho wasn't stealing to survive; he was downsizing his father. He pivoted from banking networks to investment funds in Luxembourg, then systematically dismantled the ownership deeds of Black Sea shipping conglomerates. He was tearing the empire apart piece by piece, reducing Sergei's colossal wealth to nothing more than worthless, encrypted data.
By 5:00 AM, Jinho finally stopped. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Suddenly, Jin noticed something unsettling: Jinho's hand, which had been as steady as bedrock over the keyboard, was now trembling slightly. It wasn't a physical tremor; it was a delayed emotional recoil.
"Jinho? Are you alright?" Jin asked, stepping closer.
Jinho opened his eyes. The blue within them seemed faded, hollowed out by a terrifying emptiness. "I'm fine, Jin. It's just... the void. I thought dismantling his legacy would make me feel like Hayoon had come back to life, just for a moment. But the equation doesn't balance that way. Revenge leaves a psychological scar, even if the father is a demon. You kill a piece of your own history with every strike."
"We are killing the nightmare so we can finally wake up," Jin replied with unwavering resolve.
Meanwhile, back at the estate, Sergei had drifted into a light, narcotic sleep under the influence of painkillers. He was jolted awake by the ringing of his encrypted personal phone. It was his empire's Chief Financial Officer. The man's voice was trembling so violently he could barely articulate the words.
"S-Sir... we... we are facing a digital catastrophe. The Swiss accounts, Luxembourg, even the domestic slush funds... everything is flashing red. It's a 'Black Hole' level encryption. The capital is there, but we are entirely locked out. We can't transfer a single cent. It's evaporating from our ledgers!"
Sergei froze. He instinctively tried to grasp the phone with his bandaged hand, but a searing wave of agony overcame him, causing the device to tumble onto the bed. In that split second, Sergei entered a state of technological denial. The mind of the undisputed overlord refused to accept that his "child" had defeated him with a keystroke.
"Impossible..." Sergei rasped, his eyes widening in sheer, terrified disbelief. "Get me the engineers! Contact Cyber Security! It's just a system glitch!"
Yet, deep down, as the memory of Jinho's glacial stare in the grand hall surfaced, he realized the bitter truth. Jinho was no longer merely a rebellious son; he was an informational hurricane that could not be fought with bullets or prison cells. Sergei finally understood that Jinho was too brilliant to be hunted by conventional means. He was now trapped inside his own golden palace—a king without a kingdom, a commander devoid of an army to fund.
The sterile smell of the room suddenly felt suffocating. Sergei stared at the white bandages, and for the first time in his life, he felt a bone-deep, shivering cold.
The exact cold Jinho had promised him.
To be continued...