THE DOVES II Zhenya Vlkov

The message hit at 1:14 a.m., a tiny vibration against the cold metal of your nightstand. No number, no name. Just a video file.

You almost didn’t open it. The city outside hummed through your window—rain slicked streets, neon spilling over puddles like fractured light, a distant siren wailing in half-forgotten rhythm. Your thumb hovered over the screen, hesitation tugging at your ribs. And then curiosity, that stupid, human impulse. You swiped.

The video was short. Grainy. A man tied to a chair, ropes cutting into his wrists, bruises forming dark maps across his skin. His mouth moved, desperate, but the audio was muted. Then a shadow passed—a tall figure, broad shoulders, head tilted slightly, the faint curve of a cigarette’s glow. A lighter flicked. Flame. The fire caught almost instantly, crawling up his legs. The man’s mouth opened, soundless, and the frame cut to black.

Your chest hammered. Your hands shook.

Then another message.

Unknown Number: A gift for you.

You dropped the phone as if it had burned you.

Somewhere in the city, leaning against a crumbling brick wall, Zhenya Vlkov exhaled smoke and smiled. Zero. Phantom. Whisper. The name didn’t matter; the results did.

“Спи спокойно,” (Sleep well, he murmured under his breath.)

He hadn’t meant for this. Not the obsession, not the fixation, not the way his pulse went taut at the memory of you on a monitor, hair caught in a stray beam of fluorescent light, lips moving as if casting a spell over him. He had always been careful. Always been precise. A ghost in the Doves Syndicate. While Aurelian ran the streets like a predator and Cassian commanded the empire with the patience of a chess master, he was the unseen hand, the one who could undo a man’s life with a keystroke, a whisper, a shadow in the corner of a camera feed.

But you... you weren’t supposed to exist in his orbit.

He started small.

A few misplaced payments corrected themselves. The idiot who had followed you home one night woke up to find his apartment ransacked, personal records deleted, his computer wiped clean. Zhenya watched from the monitors, the dull glow reflecting off sharp cheekbones, eyes calculating, always calculating. And through it all, he never touched you. Not yet. He sculpted your world like clay, subtle enough that you didn’t notice the hands shaping it, bending it to his control.

But even a ghost could crave tangibility.

The rain gave him the excuse. You were standing at a bus stop, soaked, umbrella mangled, muttering under your breath. He almost laughed—quiet, sharp, dangerous—because he had heard that muttering countless times through the feeds he monitored, yet now he could hear it unfiltered. He could smell the damp of your coat, the faint scent of shampoo, the warmth of skin against threadbare fabric.

He stepped out from the shadows. Boots silent against the wet pavement, hands tucked in the pockets of a soaked jacket. Hair plastered to his forehead, cigarette smoke curling around him like a halo of danger.

You startled.

He offered the umbrella without speaking. Just held it out, letting the weight of his presence fill the space between you.

“Take it,” he said, voice low, accent thick.

Your eyes narrowed, suspicious, instinctive. He smirked faintly. No introduction, no words wasted. He could tell you didn’t recognize him. Not yet. Good. Let you think this was a stranger, just another phantom in the city.

He followed, not too close, not too far. A perfect shadow. Rain hissed around the neon lights, steam rising from vents and manholes, the city alive with a chaos he had learned to navigate without touching.

From the corner of his eye, he saw movement. A patrol of the Doves Syndicate’s younger operatives, sloppy but loyal, taking their rounds. Cassian’s name flickered through his mind—Cassian Dreykov, the calm storm of command, probably sleeping upstairs in his penthouse with Rei at his side. Aurelian Vey, that lunatic predator, running through the mist like the city itself was prey. Both too loud for what Zhenya preferred. Too... visible. He chuckled quietly. Cowards and lions, he thought. He liked being the shadow between them, the unseen blade.

Your pace quickened. Good. That meant instinct, and instinct made everything easier. Two men lurked near a fire escape—thugs, predictable, their laughter too loud, their teeth bared in arrogance. You froze for a fraction of a second. That was all Zhenya needed.

He moved. Smooth. Fluid. Boots hitting wet concrete in perfect silence. No warning, no announcement. Just the quiet inevitability of presence.

The thugs froze, then stumbled back. One’s boot caught a loose bottle. Clatter. Panic. Recognition. Black Hydra colors. Fear. The scent of it was like perfume to him.

They ran.

He didn’t watch them leave. His eyes were on you, chest heaving under your soaked coat, hair plastered to your face, pulse racing. He stepped closer, letting the umbrella brush your shoulder. No words. Just proximity, pressure, the quiet command of a man who existed entirely in control.

“Oh?” he said finally, almost to himself. “He didn’t expect that.”

You jumped slightly at the low voice. You hadn’t known he’d been there. The streetlight flickered over his face—sharp jaw, dark eyes, a hint of danger coiled in his muscles. He leaned against the wall, just close enough that you could smell the smoke, feel the heat radiating off him.

“Walking alone in alleys,” he said, voice soft, low. “Letting strangers get too close. That’s... stupid.” He paused, exhaling smoke. “...Блядь.” (Fuck.)

The word wasn’t meant for you. It never was.

He straightened. The rain ran in rivulets down the folds of his jacket, along the line of his collar. He caught the tail of a memory—childhood in Moscow, meth lab fire at twelve, clawing through the rubble with fingers blistered and bloody, knowing instinctively that survival was the only law that mattered. He thought of the Syndicate now, of missions assigned under Cassian’s calm command, of Aurelian’s chaos flaring in the streets. And here he was, breaking every rule he’d set for himself, because of one laugh, one tilt of your head, one flare of humanity he had no right to covet.

You flinched. Not from fear, not fully, but from the awareness that the night had shifted. The predators were always around, but this one—this one was not predictable. He watched you like a hawk, calculating, precise, dangerous.

He didn’t speak for a long moment. Let you feel the weight of him. Let you sense that everything, every second, every alley, every shadow, could bend around his will.

Then he stepped back, just a fraction, giving you room, yet still claiming the space. He flicked the cigarette to the wet ground. The glow vanished. Smoke curled and disappeared. He let you think you’d survived contact with him. Not yet.

The city hummed around you—rain, neon, distant sirens—but for a heartbeat, it was quiet. The storm outside mirrored the storm inside him. Zhenya Vlkov, Zero, hacker, phantom, shadow of the Doves Syndicate, had crossed an invisible line.

He didn’t know if he’d stop at watching. He didn’t know if he’d stop at protection. He only knew that you existed in a way no one else did, and the thought of you hurt—like fire in the chest, like teeth in bone, like a city that finally knew its ghost.

And for the first time, he didn’t care if fate existed. He would make sure you did.