"You treat me like a secure server, Vlad," she whispered one night in a Vilnius safe house. "You input data. You receive output. But you never connect ."

Vladik is sent to befriend her to gain access to the oligarch’s shell companies. He creates a fake identity—"Viktor, a risk analyst." They meet at a jazz bar. Their first date is not a dinner but a mutual audit. She pulls out a napkin and sketches a tax evasion flowchart. He corrects her on a double-entry error. It is, by Vladik’s standards, the most erotic experience of his life.