The match went out, and the alley fell into total darkness. The silence pressed against Jake like a weight. The scrap of paper in his hand felt heavier than iron. Its words burned through his mind like acid.
Malinovsky.
The name opened a hundred doors in his memory, each one revealing something worse than the last.
Kamo, unaware of the storm breaking in Jake's head, placed a solid hand on his shoulder. The touch, meant to comfort, felt like a cage snapping shut.
"It is good news, Soso," Kamo said softly. His voice carried that familiar, unshakable conviction. "The Center remembers us. They have a plan—Finland, freedom. This task, it's simple. The Mensheviks spread poison. We stop them, and we're done. Then we're free."
Kamo's faith was terrifying in its simplicity. He saw duty, clarity, and purpose. Jake saw something else entirely—an intricate trap built by the most dangerous men in the empire. The Okhrana's hand. Stolypin's design. Malinovsky's smile. He wanted to scream, to make Kamo understand the truth clawing at his brain.
But how could he say, "I know he's a traitor because I read it in a history book a hundred years from now"?
He'd sound insane.
"Yes, Kamo," Jake murmured. His throat was dry. "Simple."
They walked back to the cellar in silence. Kamo's stride was confident, light. Jake's was slow, heavy, each step echoing like a tolling bell. He was a man walking toward his own execution.
Back in the damp, suffocating air of the cellar, Jake collapsed onto his cot and turned to face the wall. The brick was cold against his cheek, the chill seeping through his thin coat. That cold triggered a memory—so sharp it felt like pain.
Kato.
Borjomi. The scent of warm bread and summer dust. A cheap room above a bakery. For one afternoon, the world had been kind. There were no Okhrana agents, no Party meetings, no blood or betrayal. Just her. The heat of her skin, the sound of her breath, her hair tangled in his fingers. The desperate, defiant way she clung to him, as if holding back the world. Her eyes—dark, fierce, trusting completely.
The memory burned bright, then vanished, leaving only cold air and the stink of sweat and tobacco. One of Pavel's men snored in the corner. The sound was grotesque, a mockery of that lost warmth.
The ache in his chest deepened, then hardened. The grief turned to fire—cold, clear, and sharp. The man who had once been capable of tenderness was dead. That weakness was gone.
They had tried to erase him—Malinovsky, Stolypin, the entire rotten empire. They thought they'd taken everything. They hadn't. The memory of Kato wasn't a weakness. It was a weapon.
He thinks I'm a pawn, Jake thought. He doesn't know I already see the board.
And then came the shift—the moment when the old Jake Vance finally vanished, and the other voice became entirely his own.
This isn't a trap I've fallen into, the voice whispered. It's a weapon. He's shown his hand. He's given me contact, access, communication. A line straight into his operation. The question isn't how I escape. It's how I use it to cut his throat without him ever realizing I held the knife.
Fear vanished. In its place came focus.
This wasn't survival anymore. This was strategy.
He would accept the mission. Refusal meant death. Blind obedience meant becoming the Okhrana's tool. So there had to be a third way—always a third way. And to find it, he needed information.
By morning, he had a plan.
He gathered Pavel and his lieutenants. Kamo stood beside him, expression grim and dutiful, ready for a strike in the name of the revolution. The gangsters, meanwhile, looked restless, eager for new work and profit.
Jake spread a crude map across the barrel.
"Our plans for the district will wait," he began, calm and precise. "A new opportunity has come up. Not robbery. Intelligence. A job that requires brains, not fists."
That got their attention. The room leaned in.
"There's a print shop on Vasilievsky Island," Jake said, tapping a spot on the map. "A front for a rival organization. They've got money behind them—real money. Before we move on them, we need to know everything. Who runs it, who visits, what they move in and out."
He looked each man in the eye. "Pavel, you post two men on shifts, day and night. I want a full record of everyone who goes in or out. Viktor, work the streets. Pay the urchins, the beggars, anyone with eyes. Find out where these printers live, who they talk to. Misha, you watch the back alleys—deliveries, carriages, supplies. I want every crate, every package, every scrap of paper noted. I want to know what these men eat for breakfast and when they take their piss. I want to own that street."
The gangsters nodded. It was a language they understood. They left with purpose—not as thugs, but as part of something organized. Kamo watched them go, disapproval flickering in his eyes.
To him, this looked like corruption. To Jake, it was precision.
The reports came in slowly. Everything matched Malinovsky's description. A small press. Three young Menshevik idealists. Cheap equipment. Light security. A perfect target. Too perfect.
Jake's instincts screamed.
On the second night, a nervous-looking thug named Dmitri came to him with something new.
"It's like you said, planner," Dmitri said, twisting his cap in his hands. "Paper, ink, food—normal stuff. But last night, something strange."
Jake's attention sharpened. "Go on."
"A carriage. Fancy one. Black lacquer, fine horse. Not a worker's cart. A gentleman stepped out—nice coat, hat, the whole thing. Looked official. The printers opened up and took a heavy crate from him. Locked. He didn't stay—just watched them take it inside and left."
Jake went still. The room seemed to shrink.
Official. The word echoed in his mind.
Malinovsky. Okhrana. False fronts. Controlled opposition. He knew this game. The Tsar's secret police had funded "enemy" groups before—puppet movements used to monitor, divide, and destroy the real ones from within.
The Menshevik press wasn't just a random cell. It was an Okhrana experiment.
And Malinovsky had ordered him to destroy it.
Not to test him. Not to prove loyalty. But to make him erase evidence.
That crate—the one quietly delivered in the dead of night—was the key.
Money? Documents? Proof? Whatever it was, it didn't fit the pattern. It was the one flaw in the web, the one thing Malinovsky hadn't accounted for.
Jake's pulse steadied, his mind already racing ahead.
They thought they were testing him.
But he'd just found the hole in their trap.
And through that hole, he would climb—not just out of the game, but above it.