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“Maksim—”
“This is exactly your ugly face right here.” I tap the image once with my thumb. “Same smug little smile. Same ridiculous hair. Same desperate need to let strangers know you are drinking champagne at altitude.”
Jake stares at me, horrified.
“What the fuck is going on?” he demands. “What the fuck are you doing, Maksim?”
I let the question sit between us.
His fear is no longer hidden beneath anger. It is naked and real now.
Good.
This time, I don’t show him another social media post. I open a live news clip.
A woman stands behind a podium surrounded by cameras. A serious-looking official sits at her left; the seal on the wall behind them is official enough to soothe the public and meaningless enough to make me laugh.
The lower third of the broadcast reads:
PRIVATE JET LOST OVER ATLANTIC — JAKE WESLEY AMONG THOSE PRESUMED DEAD
The reporter’s voice is calm, practiced, carefully grave.
“…authorities have now officially confirmed that the private aircraft carrying the billionaire’s son, Jake Wesley, suffered a catastrophic mid-flight failure over the Atlantic,” the woman reports, her voice solemn and practiced. “Search and rescue operations have been deployed to the area, but maritime officials have confirmed that the jet went down at high velocity. Coast Guard representatives state there is zero probability of survivors, and all souls on board are presumed dead…”
Jake’s face turns an ashen, sickly gray. Then, the shock detonates into unbridled hysteria.
“No.”
I let the clip play.
“No,” he says again, louder. “No, no, no. What the fuck is this?”
He jerks against the restraints like a maniac.
“You fucking psycho!” he screams. “You sick, fucking bastard!”
“That is not very respectful language for a dead man.”
“Fuck you!” He bucks forward again, rage cracking his voice. “My family will know. They will know this is bullshit. You cannot just erase someone!”
I turn off the video and slide the phone back into my pocket.
“Can’t I?”
“How the fuck did you pull this off?” Jake pants, sweat dripping down his temples. “How is this even possible? You can’t just fake a whole fucking plane crash!”
I tuck the phone into my pocket with a nonchalant shrug.
“Money makes the world go round, Jake,” I say smoothly, tilting my head. “And with enough Petrov money, people do whatever you tell them without asking questions. Finding a stunt double with your height and build who was willing to wear your designer coat for ten minutes was the easy part. A little high-end deepfake rendering of your story, and the world saw exactly what I wanted them to see.”
Jake stares at me in pure, paralyzed horror.
“Manipulating the charter company’s aircraft logs and bribing groundside insiders took a few phone calls,” I continue, tapping my chin thoughtfully. “And, of course, cloning your phone was almost insultingly simple. Your passwords are embarrassing. I took the liberty of texting your close friends just before ‘takeoff’—bitching about how dull Geneva was going to be so nobody had any reason to suspect you weren’t in the sky.”
I lean in, offering him a venomous little smirk. “By the time the wreckage of an empty scattered plane is recovered, the narrative is already carved in stone. You don’t exist anymore, Jake Wesley.”
Before Jake can utter another broken curse, the heavy steel door behind me creaks open. A guard steps in quietly, leaning down to murmur in my ear.
