"He sees me. He's looking directly at me, right now. Do I take the shot?"
The sniper spat the words to his partner. Despite the warning, his voice remained steady, his eye pressed hard against the telescopic sight as he kept the red dot firmly painted on Yug's chest.
"He noticed me. He is looking directly at me, right now," the sniper muttered, his eye still pressed hard against the telescopic sight.
"What do you mean? Who saw you?" a woman's voice demanded from behind him. Footsteps approached, sharp and impatient.
"The target," he replied. Slowly, he lowered the barrel of his rifle by a fraction of an inch, the red dot slipping off Yug's chest. "He knows our exact position. The element of surprise is gone. It's going to be nearly impossible to secure a clean kill from this distance if he starts moving."
"What? Move. Give me the rifle."
The female captain shoved him aside and peered through the scope. She zoomed in on Yug, bringing him and the woman beside him into sharp focus. Though Yug was standing there completely unarmed, a sudden, inexplicable tremble seized the captain's fingers.
"What should we do, Captain?" the man asked.
She didn't answer. Her gaze was locked on her target.
"Wait, he's saying something—" she muttered, narrowing her eyes to read his lips. "You two are going to di…"
She stopped, the breath catching in her throat as the full meaning settled in.
"As if, you bastard! I'll kill you right now!" she snarled, white-hot rage flaring at the sheer mockery of it. She caught a final glimpse of a chilling grin on Yug's face just before he and the woman vanished into the dense crowd below.
"Shit! We lost visual."
A cold breeze swept across the wide, open terrace, pulling at the dark tactical masks that hid their faces. The night sky stretched endlessly above them. They were perched high up, leaning against the ledge, aiming down from an angle that would make the shot impossible for an ordinary marksman. Until a moment ago, they had been entirely confident in the kill.
Now, the board had flipped.
They only had two options left: abandon the mission and flee the country before their contractor hunted them down, or track Yug into the streets to finish the job and risk dying by his hands. It was a fight to the death now. The rest would have to be left up to luck.
Yug grabbed Lavanya, pulling her sharply into the deep shadows of a narrow alleyway. Pinning her to his side, he remained completely still, his eyes tracking the perimeter. Beneath his red contact lenses, his expression was dead serious as he interfaced with TICKET.
His vision instantly shifted into a digital feed, seamlessly zooming in and out, cutting through the darkness to give him a crystal-clear view of the rooftop and the streets below.
"They are preparing to abandon their nest... a wise decision," Yug muttered quietly. "And their ground team is holding the perimeter."
His mind raced, analyzing the tactical layout and instantly counting the hostiles. Seven. There were seven of them scattered across the surrounding area, actively searching the streets. Even worse, he noticed a few of them keeping their eyes fixed on the rooftop restaurant, directly observing the table where Kruti and Nitya were still sitting.
"Huff... huff..." Lavanya gasped for air, her chest heaving.
Yug had dragged her into the alley so forcefully that she had slammed hard against his chest. She was trapped there, immobilized by his iron grip. She tried to push him away, but it was like shoving a stone wall. She couldn't even force the words out of her throat, left with no choice but to listen to his cold whispers and try to piece the terrifying situation together herself.
Someone is trailing him, she realized, her heart hammering against her ribs. He's hiding from them. And they're already moving.
She could guess that much. But as she trembled in the dark, the one thing she absolutely couldn't understand was... why on earth did he drag her into this?
"Lavanya, you're an actor, right?" he asked, gently pushing back to give her space. His tone was perfectly polite, his eyes locking straight onto hers.
"Yes," she whispered, shivering as a deep unease settled over her.
"Good. Then I need you to act as my shadow," he said smoothly. "Guard me. Protect me with your life, and follow my every single word as an absolute command. If you do this... I might just lose my interest in your brother. How about it?"
Lavanya trembled at his commanding presence and the cruel way he used her brother as leverage.
But the truth? She didn't actually love her brother enough to give up her life for him.
However, deep down, a twisted, suffocating desire flared to life within her. She wanted to experience the brink of death. She wanted to feel the raw, unfiltered reality of absolute terror so she could perfect her craft, instead of merely faking it on a stage.
Just picturing the life-or-death stakes made her heart race at twice its normal speed. She grabbed her chest, desperately trying to calm her frantic heartbeat before he noticed. Tears suddenly spilled from her eyes.
Hiding her dark, exhilarating thrill behind a mask of absolute surrender, she took a hesitant step forward. "Really? You'll leave my brother alone?"
"Yes. I will," Yug replied, a rare flicker of hesitation in his voice.
For the first time, his instincts failed him. He completely fell for her tears. He could hear her frantic heartbeat pounding against her ribs, but he blindly believed it was beating out of sheer, helpless terror.
"Thank you. I'll do it," she said, her voice trembling but resolute. She stood up a little straighter, projecting the flawless, confident image of a devoted sister. "I'll do anything for my brother."
"...Right. Here, take this," Yug muttered, tossing her a sleek, joker-style half-mask designed to cover only the lower half of her face. "And these. You'll need them for your safety."
He handed her a custom-made handgun and a small GPS tracker, already calibrated to follow the snipers' movements.
"Listen well, Lavanya. You will be entering that building, and I'll handle the ground team protecting the perimeter."
Yug pointed toward the adjacent building, laying out the strategy. It was a simple, brutal plan. She was tasked with eliminating the three snipers stationed on the roof, while he would take out the four guards remaining on the ground. The locations of all their targets blinked in red and blue on the small digital map.
Lavanya, meanwhile, was completely awestruck by the technology resting in her palms. Though her true obsession was acting, she was still a tech engineer at heart. She immediately recognized the sheer impossibility of the devices she was holding. Her eyes shone with intense curiosity; she couldn't resist marveling at them.
A GPS tracker capable of covering a ten-kilometer radius and locking onto specific, moving targets with zero latency? She couldn't even fathom how it was technologically possible.
And the gun... it had an auto-aim function designed perfectly for an amateur like her. All she had to do was point it in the general direction, pull the trigger, and the weapon would guarantee the hit. It was like a video game: spot the target, pull the trigger, get the kill. Simple as that.
Yug meticulously explained her infiltration route, making it perfectly clear that if she made even a single mistake, she would be caught in the crossfire and die.
"Do you understand? You need to stay on high alert for those moving targets, and make your approach from this angle." He traced a path on the digital map, outlining the optimal route to finish the job.
"Yes, I understand." She nodded, gripping the handgun tightly. She straightened her posture, locking her eyes onto the target building, ready to move.
"One last thing," Yug added, his voice dropping to a chilling, deadpan whisper. "If someone gets in your way—even an innocent—you kill them. Do not hesitate for a second, or you will be the one who dies."
Lavanya lifted her head and gave a single, deadly serious nod.
The explicit command to kill made a sharp unease creep up her spine. She had never taken a life before. But beneath that unease, a dark, intoxicating excitement flared. She was finally crossing the line. She was about to experience the raw, terrifying reality she had been dreaming of for her stage.
Lavanya and Yug parted ways, slipping into the shadows to hunt their respective targets.
Through TICKET, Yug had already mapped out every single hostile position. He knew exactly how to break them down to extract information, or how to slaughter them flawlessly.
However, he had absolutely zero interest in their intel.
"Interrogating worthless pawns like them is a waste of time," Yug muttered to himself. "I prefer a little unpredictability. If they actually manage to kill me... let them try. Life is brief, and I want to live it with the absolute thrill of anticipation."
He didn't care about uncovering the mastermind behind the scenes. He wasn't hunting them with a desperate intent to survive. He was planning his own entertainment.
Hahaha—
A dark, chilling laugh echoed in his own mind. His eyes glinted with a dangerous thrill in the darkness as he moved in to crush the small fry.