NOVEL NEXT Chapter 299: Leashes and Leverage
Three hours of sleep wedged between Madison and Amanda, and I was back at the laptop like an addict needing his fix. Except my drug was strategic destruction, and I was about to overdose — the kind of habit that would get you a reality-show special and a restraining order from decency.
The three vultures were powerful—no fucking doubt. But power wasn't just billionaire yachts and name-brand scorn; I'd already drained their accounts until they looked emptier than a politician's promises. The real threat crawled in their network: the parasites who fed off the carcass of their enterprises.
Vincent and Dmitri were the worst kind of duo. Vincent played the alpha: silver hair, dead eyes, the man who pointed and the world bent. But Dmitri held the receipts. He didn't just bankroll rot—he kept dossiers, receipts, and blackmail-grade souvenirs. Speed dials to people who made decisions in marble buildings with flags out front. Men who could make a scandal vanish with an arrangement and a wink.
From their operations came the truly obscene stuff: arms dealers fueling conflicts, traffickers supplying bodies to gilded mansions, organ harvesters peddling "donations" to desperate hospitals that didn't ask questions. People who treated human life like an Excel spreadsheet and called it business.
And Dmitri had them all on digital leashes.
If they decided to pull those strings—if they called in favors or used the envelopes of influence—things would get messy faster than a Kardashian divorce. Some of these parasites could make phone calls that rerouted investigations, vaporized evidence, erased security footage like it had never existed. Fortunately for me, they hadn't flipped those switches yet. They still thought they were kings of a board they controlled.
Vincent wasn't my immediate problem—Ava had him gift-wrapped for the CIA. Dmitri, though… Dmitri was the smuggler of shame. He collected people the way other men collect art: carefully, obsessively, with invoices and backdoors.
On the surface, Vincent looked like the alpha — silver hair, dead eyes, the guy who gave orders. But Dmitri held the real leverage. The smart bastard kept notes, evidence, everything that would force his clients to act even when they wanted to stay hidden.
Smart to keep your lions leashed. Usually impossible, but Dmitri had managed it.
"ARIA," I said, fingers tapping like a metronome. "Pull up Dmitri's insurance policies."
The screen filled with material so vile Black Mirror would call home sick. Photos of senators in kompromat situations. Videos of judges at Dmitri's parties doing things that would end careers and marriages in one fell swoop. Audio of arms deals that read like violations of every treaty you learned about in high school civics and hoped never to see in real life. Medical records calling coerced extractions "donations." Paperwork that smelled of rot.
There was a whole den—a compound in international waters where laws were irrelevant and consequences were an afterthought. No oversight, no surveillance, no accountability. The place he recorded everything, building a leverage library one compromised life at a time.
It was so inhumane that even Helena Voss—Helena, the woman who'd broken people for intelligence—refused to touch Dmitri's direct operations. That should tell you everything you need to know.
My chest tightened watching footage of what they did to children. The images stopped me in a way the other files didn't. There are crimes that provoke fury, and there are crimes that excavate something deeper. The "parties" with kids—drugged, dressed up, presented as trophies—weren't just sick. They were a moral abyss. I couldn't stomach finishing some of the clips.
Soo-Jin had been lucky. Her knack for paperwork and an administrative post at smaller facilities had kept her out of the worst rooms. Otherwise, she'd have been at risk of the same fate as those children whose eyes were already hollow despite their hearts still beating.
I sat back, heartbeat loud in my ears, the laptop glow cold on my face. Dmitri had created a market where people were product, and his ledger was the truth. That ledger would be the hammer. And I intended to swing it.
The network touched everything. Russia, China, most of Asia, Europe, bleeding down into South America. They were carving footholds in the U.S. like it was prime real estate in a celebrity-owned ghost town, and they'd been winning—until now.
But that's the problem with keeping digital receipts when someone like ARIA exists.
"ARIA, status on Dmitri's leverage library?" I asked, all casual predator and tailored menace.
"Completely extracted, Master. Every photo, video, document, encrypted file. More interesting — I've erased all his backups. Seven cloud servers, three physical servers, even the hidden drives in his Swiss safety deposit boxes. We have the only copies now."
Perfect. The lion tamer had lost his whip.
"Send individualized packages to each compromised American official. Include their specific evidence and this message: Dmitri Volkov no longer controls this information. Support him or his associates in any way, and this goes public. Contact him to warn him, same result. But comply with upcoming federal investigations by doing nothing or help if it falls under your jurisdictions, and your secrets die with us."
"Message crafted. Shall I include evidence that Dmitri's copies are gone?" ARIA asked like a concierge at a very ugly hotel of threats.
"Show them blank server logs, corrupted files, everything. Let them know they're free from him but leashed to us now."
The screen filled with delivery confirmations in real time—senators opening encrypted emails on devices that cost more than most countries' GDPs, judges reading messages that made morning bourbon a necessity, CEOs doing math to decide if cooperation or scandal was the better PR move.
"If anyone disobeys?"
"Release everything about them specifically. Make an example. The rest will fall in line."
Was I letting these monsters walk for now? Yes. They were useful at the moment. After Dmitri fell, Ava could harvest them. I wasn't playing savior for the international victims—this wasn't altruism. This was triage: remove the rot obstructing my plan.
I stared at the maps and logs: trafficking routes through Eastern Europe, organ-harvesting hubs in Southeast Asia, arms flowing into African conflicts like bad tax write-offs. My stomach turned. The urge to torch the whole system rose like bile, but I shoved it down. I wasn't ready to fight that war. Not yet. Threatening a global criminal cabal would bring heat Charlotte couldn't handle. I was a sixteen-year-old with supernatural dick powers, a smart mouth, and access to every file in existence—not Bruce Wayne. Not even close.
But doing nothing wasn't an option.
"ARIA, package everything about the international operations. Send it to Ava with a note: 'Thought your bosses might want leverage on foreign officials. Consider it a gift.'"
Let the CIA wrestle with evidence of foreign officials buying child slaves. Maybe they'd stop it, maybe they'd blackmail their way into policy wins. Either outcome slowed the horror. And if it softened things for my five companies? Even better. I wasn't playing hero — just taking out the trash stinking up my operation.
"Master, all domestic targets have acknowledged receipt. Seventy-three percent have already agreed to cooperate. The rest are probably still vomiting."
Now for the termites inside Quantum Tech: Jessica the secretary, David the CTO, all the little parasites nibbling away at Charlotte's company from the inside.
"What's their status?" I asked, voice amused like a commentator at a demolition derby.
"Panicking. David's been trying to reach Marcus Webb for two hours. Jessica's already packing her desk, planning to 'take a leave' after Marcus told her to retreat for now. The others are frozen in various stages of existential dread."
Good. Let them sweat. This was chess, not a charity bake sale.
Their time would come soon enough.
Antonio would get special treatment. His media empire would eat itself alive when his own blackmail files went public—spectacle TV meets natural disaster. But not yet. Timing was everything. You don't detonate fireworks during a funeral; you save them for the finale.
"Pull up Ascendion Capital's accounts."
The screen bloomed with beautiful zeros. Every account, every investment, every hidden cache — emptied now of it's 25 Billion plus.
The three vultures were about to find out they weren't predators anymore. They were prey, and the hunt had already finished without them getting a memo.
I leaned back, feeling the weight of what we'd done. Not heroic. Not noble. Just necessary. Dmitri's victims would still suffer. The international rings would keep breathing. Kids would still vanish in nightmare places.
But not here. Not in Charlotte's world. Not in my territory.
Sometimes all you can save is your corner of hell—and you do it with whatever weapons you've got.
Maybe Ava and the government would slow the broader rot. Maybe they'd do nothing and file it under "complicated." Either way, my hands were tied to practicality and leverage, not martyrdom.
"ARIA, keep monitoring. Alert me to any deviation from expected responses."
"Of course, Master. Also, Madison's stirring. She's looking for you."
Time to go back to bed—to warmth, to the women who kept me tethered to something like humanity while I played with monsters.
The vultures could wait another few hours for their execution.
After all, I'd already stolen their bullets, corrupted their soldiers, and burned their bridges.
All that was left was to sit back and enjoy the fall.