He killed the line, poured a vodka, and watched the sirens race toward Viktor’s burning chandelier. Above it all, his own drone—a silent, unmarked thing—hovered and watched. Because the man who controls the air above the crime owns the crime itself.
Lev’s earpiece crackled. “Sponge.” It was Yuri the Cleaver, head of the Volkovs. “That’s not mine. Kill it.”
“Not mine,” hissed Mikhael from the Bratvas. mobtop
Lev Tarasov didn’t need a gun. He had gravity.
Lev zoomed in. The ghost drone was military-grade. Silent Eagle model. Only one man in Verensk could afford that: Viktor the Accountant, the soft-handed broker who’d recently decided he wanted to be king. He killed the line, poured a vodka, and
The Turks were already screaming in broken Russian.
From his penthouse, Lev watched three drones blink across his screen. Green for the Volkovs, red for the Bratvas, blue for the new Turks. Every gang had a drone these days. They ran drugs, scouted hits, jammed police scanners. But above 400 feet, the sky was Lev’s territory. He “absorbed” the chaos—hence the nickname. He rerouted signals, spoofed GPS, and for a 20% cut, made sure no two drones ever collided over a heist. Lev’s earpiece crackled
Lev exhaled smoke. “Same as always. Nobody owns the mobtop. You just rent it from me.”