The gray dawn stretched across the sky like a dense blanket, seemingly wringing the last colors from the world. Rindo, standing by the panoramic window of his penthouse, slowly sipped his cooled coffee. His gaze, cold and methodical, slid across the deserted streets beyond the wall, searching for the slightest movement. This was how every one of their days began—with a quiet, tense vigil in anticipation of a threat.

Down below, on the sixth floor, Ran, leaning out of the window of his den, was sharpening the blade of his favorite tonfa. The harsh screech of metal against whetstone was his morning meditation.

They were both drawn to the same movement at the same time. In the inner courtyard, by the makeshift vegetable beds on the roof of the ground floor, a figure appeared. Unfamiliar. A girl. She didn't fuss like the others, didn't look around with the usual nervousness. Her movements were fluid, economical. She gathered a few bunches of greens into a cloth bag and just as silently disappeared into the dark opening of the service entrance.

Rindo narrowed his eyes. His mind, honed on analyzing threats and resources, instantly glitched. An unknown variable. His impeccably structured system of accounting did not include this entity.

Ran, squinting, tracked her until she vanished completely. His fingers tightened slightly around the handle of his tonfa.

An hour later, they stood side by side in Rindo's command center. "Who is that?" Ran asked, his voice low and slightly hoarse from morning idleness. "Unknown," Rindo clipped out, rearranging one of his perfectly sharpened pencils. "She's not on the lists. The guards at the post haven't seen her. No one has." "Where'd she come from,then? A ghost?" The corner of Ran's mouth twitched in a sneer. "Ghosts don't pick dill," Rindo retorted coldly. "She came out of the service elevator. The one that goes to the non-residential floors."

Silence hung between them. Both mentally pictured the floors from nine to fourteen—a labyrinth of empty, dusty apartments cluttered with old junk. A buffer zone. No one was supposed to live there. It was against all the rules, against their will, against the logic of survival.

"Interesting," Ran drawled, and a familiar hunter's gleam ignited in his eyes. "How did she set herself up there? And for how long?" "And most importantly—why?" Rindo added. His perfectionism rebelled against such a glaring discrepancy in his own kingdom. An unknown person, living right under his nose, in a zone he considered controlled.

Rindo turned to his brother. His gaze was firm and resolute. "Let's go find out." "Thought you'd never suggest it," Ran smirked, habitually checking the weight of the tonfa attached to his belt. He didn't need reasons. Any breach of the established order was a challenge and a potential threat to his brother.