An international contract killer has been given his orders.

His next target is a fourteen-year-old spy ... Alex Rider. The man's name is Yassen Gregorovich. He knows Alex well. The two of them share a secret from the past. As he considers his next mission, Yassen remembers the forces that turned him from an ordinary schoolboy into a hired assassin.

What is it that makes someone choose to do evil? What would it take to make them kill? This thrilling adventure will be the deadliest yet...