Four days. Ninety-six hours since Lena Varela had been dumped bleeding at the Tancharoen gates. Ninety-six hours since Krit Valentis had made what he still fiercely defended in his own mind as a calculated, necessary decision. And ninety-six hours since the invisible noose had begun to tighten around his neck. At first, Krit had dismissed the friction. A shipping container delayed at customs. An offshore account temporarily frozen due to a "clerical error." A meeting with a key distributor canceled at the last minute. An enforcer suddenly unavailable to take a call. Annoying. Nothing more. Then, a secondary shipment vanished entirely. One of his most reliable, highly-paid contacts stopped answering his encrypted messages. A warehouse manager he'd worked with for three years resigned without explanation, abandoning a lucrative pension. Then two more people simply dropped off the grid. Krit sat at his mahogany desk, staring at his phone. The screen was black. No messages. No explanations. Nothing. He dialed the warehouse manager again. Straight to voicemail. He tried his customs contact. “The number you have reached is no longer in service.” "What the hell is going on?" he muttered, his voice sounding too loud in the cavernous office. The room suddenly felt suffocatingly quiet. Four days. That was all it had been. Four days since he'd made what he believed was a masterful chess move, and somehow, the board was being systematically dismantled beneath him. He couldn't find the pattern. That was what made his skin crawl. In the underworld, there was always a pattern. Money disappeared because a rival was making a move. People stopped answering because they’d been bought or buried. Deals fell apart because someone else offered a better one. But this? This didn't feel like business. It felt surgical. Unfair. Personal. Krit stood and paced toward the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out over the city. His phone buzzed. He lunged for it. A message from an unknown number: The shipment from Port 4 has been seized by the authorities. Krit stared. "Impossible. We own that dock." Another message arrived: The customs contact isn't responding. Another: We lost access to the Cayman warehouse account. The funds are gone. Another: Uncle wants you at the family residence. Immediately. Krit's stomach seized. He immediately dialed his uncle, the family patriarch. It rang, then clicked. Silence. He called again. Nothing. "Fantastic," Krit hissed, hurling the phone across the desk. It clattered against a crystal decanter. Everyone was evaporating. And the most terrifying part? The Valentis family wasn't lifting a finger to stop it. He'd expected his family to step in, to form a wall of money and guns around him. They always did. The Valentis name was a shield. But instead, every time he had asked for assistance over the last forty-eight hours, he was met with closed doors. Someone was always busy. Or unavailable. Or assuring him they would "handle it." Nobody explained anything. Nobody told him what invisible line he had crossed. Krit rubbed both hands aggressively over his face, feeling the cold sweat on his forehead. Maybe it was unrelated. It had to be. The girl at the Tancharoen estate was one isolated incident. Everything else was business. A sudden crackdown by the feds. A rival syndicate getting lucky. A spectacular string of bad luck. He let out a sharp, bitter laugh. "Four days." He looked up at the ceiling, his heart hammering against his ribs. "What are the exact odds?" Apparently, zero. The attack came that evening, in the private parking garage of his penthouse. Krit barely had time to register the soft scrape of a leather sole behind him. He didn't even hear the breathing. A heavy, gloved hand clamped down onto his shoulder, spinning him around with terrifying force. He opened his mouth to shout. Something blunt and heavy collided with his temple. ++++ continuation in the photos #lenamiu #lenaschuett #miunatsha #fanfiction - @wanderingth0ughts08