Chapter 10

The message was short. Brutally simple.

Target: Lorenzo De LucaStatus: Rival Arms Distributor – MilanObjective: Elimination

Vekom didn't hesitate. The Italian had tried to poach two of his clients and offered them inferior weapons undercutting Vekom's deals. One clone was already in position. Another was en route. Lorenzo De Luca would be an example.

He watched through the clone's eyes as the op unfolded — a silent entry into a guarded penthouse above Milan's glittering skyline. A suppressed shot to the head, then a rapid purge of encrypted files. It was over in six minutes.

System Notification:"Rival Eliminated. Market Territory +1.""Funds Recovered: 780,000 USD.""Client Migration in Progress."

Vekom sat back. One down. Four more to go.

Across Europe, the arms market was fragmenting. The shadows were full of whispers — rumors of a ghost dealer, someone who never showed his face, who moved weapons across borders without being seen. It didn't matter how long you'd been in the business. If you crossed him, you disappeared.

Some thought it was the CIA. Others suspected Russian black ops.

No one knew it was Vekom.

And that was exactly how he liked it.

Meanwhile, in Colombia, the war continued. Escobar's forces had overtaken key cities, routing DEA-backed militias and choking off supply lines. Every win was backed by Vekom's guns. His weapons had turned a narco empire into a militia machine.

But Vekom had already shifted his focus. Escobar was just one client — loud and profitable, but ultimately temporary. What Vekom was building now went beyond one cartel. He was planning a global syndicate, and for that, he needed new ground.

America was beginning to heat up.

Clone Gabriel's intel from the Vegas arms expo had proven invaluable. A black-market auction was set to take place in a private bunker in Arizona. Vekom deployed four new American clones with forged identities and full gear. Their mission: infiltrate, dominate, and if necessary, burn it all down.

The auction turned into a massacre.

When the clones arrived, three rival American suppliers were preparing to showcase prototype weapons — smart rifles, EMP mines, and hybrid drones. Vekom's clones beat them to the punch. They hijacked the presentation, staged a brief but brutal shootout, and walked out with a new set of buyers begging to work with whoever those guys worked for.

Back in Medellín, Vekom poured a drink and studied the system logs.

System Update:"Auction Disruption Successful.""Market Conversion Rate: 92%.""Clones Returned. No Losses.""Revenue: 3.4M USD."

He sipped the whiskey. Smooth. Like the operation.

But not everything was running perfectly.

Another arms network — Eastern European, ex-Soviet, ruthless — was starting to piece things together. Their leader, Viktor Reznik, had lost two shipments in Romania, and one of his buyers had disappeared after meeting a man with no record, no ID, no past.

Reznik put out a bounty.

$10 million for the ghost.

Still, no one could find Vekom. He didn't exist in databases, on surveillance, or on paper. And those who tried to track his moves didn't survive long enough to report what they'd found.

While the world was busy fighting itself, Vekom was launching a new phase.

System Unlock:"Blacksite Base Construction Enabled.""Select Location: Disused Missile Silo – Argentina."

The site was remote, long abandoned, buried beneath layers of concrete and denial. Vekom poured his funds into it. Within weeks, his clones had converted it into a subterranean fortress — racks of weapons, clone incubation chambers, a war room, encrypted uplinks to every node of his empire.

The Blacksite became his new throne.

From there, he planned everything.

Back in America, clone activity expanded. One was embedded with a militia in Montana, another inside a private defense firm in Virginia. Data poured in: federal movements, DEA logistics, private arms developments.

All of it fed back into the System, giving Vekom an edge no other arms dealer could match.

He wasn't just reacting to the world anymore — he was predicting it.

Then, something unexpected happened.

An anonymous buyer contacted one of Vekom's clones through a secure black-market channel. The buyer was not cartel, not militia, not mercenary.

He was a government contractor.

They wanted drones. They wanted rifles. They wanted weapons that didn't exist on any inventory list.

The request came with no flag, no country, no name. Just a number.

Offer: 50M USD. No Questions Asked. No Paper Trail.

Vekom stared at the request.

This was something bigger.

He sent a clone to arrange a meeting.

As the world descended deeper into chaos — cartels warring with governments, arms dealers disappearing in the night, governments arming themselves against invisible enemies — one man remained unseen, untouched.

Vekom.

In the shadows, he watched it all. He was the architect of conflict, the merchant of death.

And he was just getting started.