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Beta kicked the Priest down the passageway. The Priest tumbled down the stone steps, his pained groans echoing in the narrow corridor. Before the sound faded, Beta drew a flashbang from his waistband and tossed it into the deep passage.

The flashbang bounced twice off the granite walls before rolling into the depths of the underground chamber. With a muffled "boom" and a blinding flash of white light, the end of the passageway was instantly illuminated as if it were daytime.

Beta descended the steps, rifle in hand.

The Priest was curled on the ground, clutching his ears in pain, while the two Gangsters guarding the door slumped in a corner. Beta dealt with the two guards who had lost their will to fight, grabbed the Priest by his collar, and dragged him to the heavy barred door.

He pressed the muzzle of his gun to the Priest's temple and gestured with his eyes towards the combination lock.

The Priest trembled as he pushed himself up. His blood-stained fingers fumbled to enter the code on the keypad. With a "beep," the hydraulic mechanism of the barred door whirred to life, slowly sliding open to either side.

The Priest slumped back into the corner. "Are you going to take all of this?"

Beta didn't answer and walked straight to the storage room.

He swept the rows of gold coins displayed on the shelves into his backpack, the clinking of metal sharp in the confined space. Then, he overturned all the paper documents, CDs, and hard drives, piling them into a heap.

Taking a large bottle of lighter fluid from a side pocket of his backpack, Beta poured it over the pile of items on the floor. The clear liquid snaked across the documents. He even used the tip of his shoe to mix the lighter fluid with the items, ensuring every piece of paper was soaked in the flammable liquid.

Having finished, Beta turned and asked from above, "Did you bring a phone?"

The Priest shivered and pulled an old flip phone from his cassock pocket.

"Call Viggo," Beta's gun nudged the Priest's temple lightly. "Tell him there's trouble here."

Facing the dark muzzle, the Priest's trembling fingers could barely press the buttons.

When the call connected, he spoke into the receiver with a choked sob, "Mr. Viggo. Something's happened at the church."

From the other end, Viggo's voice was grim. "What happened at the church?"

The Priest tremblingly looked up at Beta, cold sweat trickling down his wrinkled face. "Mr. Paul Ostrovsky asked me to call you."

Silence fell on the line.

Viggo clearly understood the situation; the attacker was right beside the phone. When he spoke again, it was a direct question, "Mr. Paul Kotzhalin, what do you want?"

Beta's gun remained pressed to the Priest's temple.

He spoke into the phone, addressing Viggo on the other end, "Paul Kotzhalin is the protagonist of the novel How the Steel Was Tempered by the Soviet writer Nikolai Ostrovsky."

"The most precious thing in life is life itself. Everyone only has one life. A person's life should be lived like this: when he looks back on his past, he should not regret wasting his time or being ashamed of his inaction. Do you understand? You two idiots!"

Before he finished speaking, Beta decisively pulled the trigger. The Priest's head snapped back with the gunshot, blood and brain matter splattering against the stone wall behind him. The second shot followed immediately, shattering the phone still in his hand, its electronic components scattering.

Silence returned to the room, broken only by the pungent smell of lighter fluid and the lingering scent of gunpowder.

Viggo's fingers clenched the phone, his knuckles turning white from the force.

When the final gunshot echoed from the receiver, he slammed the phone onto his solid wood desk, roaring hysterically, "Сукаблядь! (Fucking bitch!)"

A dent appeared on the mahogany surface, and phone parts flew everywhere.

Viggo leaned on the desk, gasping for breath, veins bulging on his temples. He tore at his tie and paced back and forth in his spacious new office, his Italian leather shoes leaving deep imprints in the carpet. Every few steps, he kicked a priceless antique cabinet, making the entire room reverberate with the impact.

"Find him!" he stopped, roaring into the empty office. "Find that bastard for me! I'll skin him alive myself!"

His furious voice echoed between the floor-to-ceiling windows, outside of which the lights of New York still blazed.

Viggo's bodyguard approached. "Boss, should we head to the church now?"

Viggo nodded, his face grim. "Gather everyone, let's go!"

Four black Chevrolet Suburbans roared out of the underground garage, their tires screeching on the asphalt. Viggo sat in the back of the second vehicle, his fingers restlessly tapping the leather seat, repeatedly redialing the church guards' numbers.

"Damn it!" He slammed his phone onto the seat for the fifth time. All numbers went unanswered. The streetscape outside the car window blurred past. Viggo's temples throbbed. He could only hope the madman was only after money and hadn't touched the files.

Those files were far more than just ordinary transaction records.

They were the network of power he had cultivated for years: videotapes of city council members taking bribes, bank statements of judges involved in money laundering, high-definition photos of the police chief drinking with drug dealers in a strip club. Every document was a chip he used to control half of New York City, the foundation of his influence in both the underworld and legitimate society.

"Faster!" Viggo slapped the back of the driver's seat. Sweat had soaked through his shirt.

The four black Chevrolet Suburbans tore through the night, their tires screaming on the gravel path of the church garden.

Before the vehicles had even come to a complete stop, Viggo hobbled out of one.

Beta stood on the rooftop opposite the church, watching Viggo and his men enter. His glacial blue eyes were hidden in the darkness, a predator's unique pleasure churning in the depths of his pupils.

Beta slowly descended from the rooftop.

Viggo entered the church, and the strong smell of blood hit him. His men lay sprawled in pools of blood, fragments of stained glass scattered everywhere.

Most despairing was the thick black smoke billowing from the basement, where several men were frantically dragging fire hoses, trying to extinguish the flames in the vault.

Standing on the basement steps, Viggo's face contorted in the firelight. He knew better than anyone what those ashes meant.

The officials he controlled would immediately turn against him. The police chief would be the first to lead a raid on his stronghold, and the judges would rush to sign arrest warrants. His painstakingly built empire of power would crumble tonight.

"Блядь! (Damn it!)" Viggo's roar echoed under the church dome.

He stormed out of the church doors, hands shoved deep into his trench coat pockets, and kicked at the flowerbed. Delicate tulip petals scattered in the night.

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