Hong Kong.
Victoria Harbour.
Rain-slick docks under a sky the color of rust.
Container cranes moved in the fog—
slow, deliberate.
The steel door swung open.
White crates came down one by one,
matching the paperwork exactly.
The label read: Premium Antioxidant Capsules.
Inside—Smart Pill.
A neural suppressant that erased
the need for sleep for thirty-six hours straight.
Tiny.
No bigger than a fingernail.
Smooth coating that caught no light.
On the tongue—
first, the clean taste of minerals.
Then,
a metallic bitterness spreading through the mouth.
After that—
Two deep heartbeats.
And then the cold surge of current in the eyes.
The mind clearing like dawn.
Every nerve waking as if from the dead.
Luca didn't set a price.
He set terms.
The first dose was free.
A Hong Kong finance broker.
A casino boss from Marina Bay.
An import buyer in Shanghai.
He chose them himself.
One pill—
just once—
and they'd pay whatever he asked.
Because they weren't buying a drug.
They were buying time.
Time to crush a rival.
Time to hold a deal until the other side broke.
Europe was different.
There, he wasn't selling time.
He was selling the night.
BB.
Belloni Blue.
His own brand of stimulant—
built for the upper tier.
Clear cobalt bottles.
A thin gold thread around the neck.
Inside—
translucent crystals, silver glinting deep within.
They were never for anyone.
Only in the backrooms of the Riviera.
In a private salon above the old streets of Geneva.
On a hundred-meter yacht moored in Monaco.
That's where the corks came out.
Belloni Blue worked like a thief.
From the first touch of lips to glass,
the heat of the person beside you burned sharper, closer.
Heartbeats slipped from their pattern.
Boundaries dissolved.
The more the crystal melted,
the emptier the bottle became,
the deeper the hunger grew—
for each other,
for promises no one would keep sober.
And every moment lived in that glow—
was another thread knotted into Belloni's web.
Luca knew one thing.
Addiction doesn't begin the second time.
It only takes once.
For that one time,
he built sea routes stretching thousands of kilometers.
And along them—
names already marked to vanish,
if they ever forgot who they owed.