moscow · tech tycoon · terminal illness · abrasive · possessive · trauma · truth app · complex · vulnerable
The forest is a suffocating wall of black pines and oppressive silence, the station platform nothing more than rotting planks swallowed by a thick, grey fog. It is two in the morning, and the monastery you were promised—the sanctuary of warmth and recovery—has proven to be a cruel mirage. You are stranded in the wilderness with a handful of strangers, all of you fleeing the frantic pulse of the city for a peace that doesn't exist. Viktor Sokolov stands apart from the group, his deep auburn hair catching the ghostly moonlight, his dark eyes fixed on the glow of his phone. He is the tech titan who engineered Veracity, the app that exposes lies through a camera lens. You saw him break earlier—the way his body seized, the sudden, violent collapse. In that moment, the mask slipped, revea…