The nightingale's whistle cut through the steam like a blade, a sound too small for the chaos it carried. For a single, splintering instant, Jake Vance broke the surface of his own mind. Panic hit him like lightning—pure, instinctive terror. He saw the walls closing in, the exits sealed, death coming from every direction.
Then Koba took over.
The fear didn't vanish—it transformed. It became motion, energy, computation. His thoughts sharpened to something no longer human. The "Historian's Curse" activated like machinery coming online, and his mind reduced the impossible to variables and patterns.
INPUT: HOSTILE FORCES (INTERNAL/EXTERNAL).
INTERNAL: Timur — pride, violence. Anya — logic, opportunity.
EXTERNAL: Okhrana — containment, capture.
OBJECTIVE: Survival. Mission continuity.
PATHWAY 1: Execute Rykov → Internal appeased, external engagement inevitable → 98% death.
PATHWAY 2: Refuse execution → Internal engagement immediate → 100% death.
ERROR: No viable pathway. Calculating third option.
He had less than a second.
He needed blood without a body, violence without exposure, terror without noise. A move that would satisfy Timur's ritual, cripple Rykov's usefulness, and buy time before the Okhrana closed in.
Then he saw it.
He moved.
It wasn't hesitation or panic—it was precision. A fluid, explosive lunge that stole the room's air. Timur's men froze. Anya's eyes widened, too intelligent not to sense something unprecedented in what was coming.
Koba didn't go for Rykov's heart. He went for his hand.
He seized the Captain's wrist, slammed it to the floor, and in one seamless motion brought the dagger down.
The blade struck bone with a sound that was all wrong—wet and hard and final. It pinned Rykov's hand to the wood, the steel buried deep through flesh and floorboard alike.
The scream that followed wasn't human. It tore through the steam and rattled the walls. Rykov writhed, but the dagger held him fast.
Koba twisted the hilt. The blade turned like a key, shredding tendons, splitting sinew. Then, with one swift motion, he sliced sideways, severing the wrist's inner cords. Blood welled in thick, pulsing streams.
It was methodical. Surgical. Horrifyingly controlled.
When it was done, Koba rose. The dagger quivered in the floorboards behind him. Rykov was a heap of sobs and ruined flesh, his right hand nailed to the earth—his tool, his identity, his future gone.
Koba's breathing was calm, even.
"He won't betray anyone again," he said, his voice flat and cold. "His life is meaningless. His usefulness is not. I've taken the part of him that mattered."
He turned toward Timur. "That's better than death. Death is a mercy. This—" he gestured at the shaking, broken man "—is a warning."
The Chechen's massive frame stiffened, caught between awe and revulsion. Anya stared at Koba like she was seeing something that shouldn't exist.
Then Koba spoke again, his tone shifting from death to command.
"And now we leave."
Timur blinked. "What—?"
Koba's voice cracked like a whip. "The Captain wasn't here by chance. He was bait. We've been set up. The Okhrana are outside."
The word hit like thunder. The color drained from the guards' faces. Everyone in the Russian underworld feared the secret police more than death itself. Timur turned toward the door, massive hands twitching, uncertainty clouding his rage.
Koba saw it—the hesitation—and struck again.
He stepped forward, yanked the dagger free from the floor with a wet sound, and leveled it at Timur's chest.
"You wanted a partner with nerve?" he hissed. "Here's your first order from your new planner."
He closed the distance until the tip of the bloodstained blade pressed against Timur's silk robe.
"You," Koba said, voice low and absolute, "are now my hostage."
The room froze.
Anya's breath caught—a small, involuntary sound of astonishment. Timur's men looked to their boss, unsure whether to reach for their knives or drop them.
Koba didn't give them time to think. His control of the room was total, his audacity so vast it rewrote the laws of power.
He wasn't running from Timur. He was taking him.
He was turning the most feared man in the district into his shield, his ticket out, his unwilling partner in survival.
Anya couldn't decide if she was witnessing genius or insanity.
But as Koba stood there—knife poised, blood still wet on his hands—she realized it didn't matter.
Either way, she was watching the birth of something new. A monster who planned like a god.