The transformation took place in the dark.
Under the flicker of the sewer lamp, Jake Vance ceased to exist.
Cold water had stripped him raw, a dull knife had scraped his face clean, and stolen pomade slicked his hair to a sharp, severe shine. He stood in a stolen suit of deep wool—rich fabric against rotten stone, the elegance of a predator in a graveyard.
Pavel watched, awestruck. "A king," he breathed. "You look like a king, planner."
Kamo said nothing. Arms crossed, jaw tight, he stared like a man at a funeral. What he saw wasn't a king—it was a revenant wearing a dead man's clothes. The light in Jake's eyes was gone. Something colder had taken its place.
Jake flexed his hands, studying them. They were steady now. The trembling, the fear—he buried it.
Not now.
Jake Vance, the man who loved Kato and hated blood, would stay here in the dark. He was weakness. He was liability.
He straightened his cuffs, the white fabric glowing like a flag of defiance.
Koba was the one who would walk into the bathhouse.
It was ritual now—his private exorcism. Each operation began the same way: a deliberate act of dissociation. He shed humanity piece by piece until all that remained was the weapon he'd built from scraps of history and desperation. Koba wasn't a person. Koba was purpose.
"Is everything ready?" His voice was low and calm, stripped of Jake's modern inflections.
Pavel nodded quickly. "The lookout's in place. Escape route clear. We're ready."
"Good."
Koba adjusted his coat and stepped out.
They moved through the tunnels, up through a rusted grate, and into the alley. The world above hit like a blow—tram bells, shouting vendors, the stink of smoke and manure. Jake would have flinched. Koba inhaled. He absorbed it all.
As they made their way toward the Peski district, his mind turned into a machine. No fear, no doubt—just analysis. He reviewed the man he was about to meet, the dossier assembled from Pavel's informants and his own historical memory.
His "Historian's Curse" came alive.
Name: Timur Akhmadov, called The Mountain
Affiliation: Chechen underworld; ruler of Peski's criminal hierarchy.
Strengths: brute force, personal loyalty, reputation for savage debt collection.
Weaknesses: pride, greed, reliance on intimidation. Overestimates strength, underestimates intelligence. Power is personal, not structural.
Historical note: Chechen clans—closed, honor-bound, dangerous. Impossible to infiltrate, difficult to betray. Pride is the lever.
He had his blueprint.
The bathhouse rose ahead, an old brick hulk coughing out steam like a dragon's breath. Two men stood outside pretending to smoke, eyes flat and watchful. They saw Pavel and tensed—but then saw Koba. The fine suit. The quiet confidence. The look of a man used to being obeyed. Their posture changed. Predators recognizing another of their kind.
A name was murmured. After a pause, one guard nodded and led them inside.
The heat hit like a wall. The air was thick with steam and birch and sweat. In the main hall, half-naked men lounged and muttered, tattoos glistening under the light. Every glance was a test, every silence a threat.
Koba's gaze swept once—exits, potential weapons, lines of escape—and then he followed the guard upstairs.
The private suite was paneled in dark wood. A single lamp cast long shadows across a table where Timur Akhmadov sat waiting.
The Mountain lived up to his name. Enormous shoulders. Scarred face. Beard like a curtain of black steel. His robe shimmered faintly with gold thread, the lazy luxury of someone who didn't need to prove anything—until he did. Two of his men stood behind him, hands on curved knives.
But it wasn't the giant who caught Koba's attention.
It was the woman behind him.
She sat with a ledger open on the table, pale-gray eyes scanning the pages with detached precision. Her face was sharp, her hair bound tight. Her hands—clean, deliberate, perfectly still—spoke of power that didn't need to shout. When their eyes met, Koba recognized her type instantly: not muscle, not mistress—mind.
Timur slurped tea and sneered. "Pavel," he growled, voice like gravel. "You bring this peacock into my house?"
Pavel started to answer, but Koba lifted a hand. Silence fell.
He stepped forward, unhurried, ignoring the insult, the guards, the knives. He stopped before the table, steady as a blade balanced on its edge.
"I am Koba," he said. "From the Caucasus."
He reached into his coat. The guards stiffened. Koba ignored them and placed a small sack on the table. It landed with the solid clink of coin.
"I'm here about the debt of Captain Dmitri Rykov," he said. "I'm taking it over."
The words dropped like stones into still water.
Timur stared at him. Then he laughed—a deep, rumbling sound that filled the room like thunder. He rose slowly, towering over Koba, his hand drifting toward the jeweled hilt at his waist.
"The only thing changing hands here, peacock," he said, voice low and deadly, "is your gold to me, and my knife to you."
Koba didn't blink. Didn't breathe. But in that tiny silence, he caught it—an almost imperceptible motion from the woman with the ledger. A slight shake of her head.
She was reining him in.
The air thickened. The guards' blades hovered in the edge of vision. Timur's laughter died into a snarl.
Koba stood motionless in the center of it all, the storm balanced on the knife point between pride and blood.
The next move would decide everything.