Timur's world—the brutal, simple order of dominance and fear—tilted off its axis.
He stared at the bloody tip of his own dagger, hovering an inch from his chest, held steady by the quiet, terrifying man in the tailored suit. Rage rose in him, raw and reflexive. His men tensed, ready to strike at his command. One word, and they would reduce this Georgian interloper to red pulp on the floor.
But the word never came.
Beneath the anger, something colder crawled through his gut. Okhrana. The name alone carried the weight of execution orders and shallow graves. A firefight here would mean suicide. Surrender meant exile and erasure. Timur realized, in that instant, that he was no longer a king—only another man caught between two devouring forces.
Then Anya spoke.
"He's right, Timur."
Her voice cut through the tension, clear and sharp as glass. She wasn't speaking to Koba—she was interpreting him, translating his logic into something Timur could grasp. "A fight gets us killed. Surrender, we disappear into prison. But a hostage…" She looked between them, her tone measured and urgent. "A hostage buys time. It confuses them. It gives us a story to survive."
Her eyes flicked to Koba's, locking with his for a moment of mutual understanding. She saw what he had done—the transformation of a doomed stand into strategy. This wasn't desperation. It was control.
Timur exhaled through his teeth, the rage burning itself out, replaced by something grudging and calculating. He looked at the man before him—the steady hand, the calm voice, the sheer audacity—and gave a short, sharp nod.
"Pavel!" Koba barked, not waiting for confirmation.
The one-eyed lieutenant was already in motion, slipping into the steam-choked corridor like a shadow.
What followed unfolded with the precision of a military maneuver. Koba issued orders in clipped, decisive bursts, the chaos bending to his will.
"Timur—you're coming with me. You'll act terrified. Fail, and we both die."
He turned to Anya. "You follow. You're his associate—another hostage. Look frightened." He paused, then added, "Or stay as you are. That works too."
To the two guards, his tone was iron. "You stay. Barricade the door. When the police arrive, tell them everything. Tell them a Georgian revolutionary named Koba came in, crippled the Captain, and took your boss hostage. Give them my name. My face. Make it unforgettable."
Anya blinked. The brilliance of it landed all at once. He wasn't covering his tracks—he was writing the narrative himself. He would leave behind a legend, a political ghost for the Okhrana to chase while the real man vanished.
Moments later, the performance began.
Pavel reappeared, breathless. "Carriage ready."
The tableau that emerged from the bathhouse could have been mistaken for theater. Koba strode out, his arm locked around Timur's thick neck, the dagger's bloodied edge pressed against the Chechen's throat. Timur, massive and trembling, sold the illusion with terrifying ease. His eyes bulged with practiced terror, his steps faltered like those of a beaten man. Anya followed close behind, face pale, her composure disguising her readiness.
Steam billowed behind them as the door crashed open.
Across the street, in the attic of a decaying building, Senior Agent Orlov cursed under his breath. The calm, watchful surveillance operation had detonated into chaos.
His orders from Stolypin had been explicit: Hold. Identify. Do not engage.
And now the "planner"—the ghost they'd hunted for months—was striding into the open, dragging the most feared gangster in the district at knifepoint.
The agents on the street looked to Orlov for the signal to fire. He hesitated, torn between duty and the Prime Minister's command. To shoot now would mean disobeying direct orders and risking a public scandal. To hold meant letting the ghost escape again.
He hissed into his field radio, his voice tight. "Hold positions! No shots. Track them. I want a photo—get his face!"
Down in the street, the photographer adjusted the long-lens camera with shaking hands. The light was terrible, gray and hazy through the St. Petersburg smog. Steam from the bathhouse veiled the scene. Still, he clicked the shutter once—twice—three times. The figures blurred and moved too fast. He caught one final frame as they vanished into a waiting carriage that clattered away, swallowed by the maze of streets.
The ghost was gone again.
They didn't go back to the sewer. That would have been suicide.
Pavel guided the driver through a labyrinth of alleys and courtyards until they reached the one place the police never dared enter: Timur's own enclave, a Chechen stronghold within the city.
They stopped at a quiet teahouse, where the air smelled of cardamom and tobacco. The room upstairs was dim but clean—a different world from the filth they had come from. Rugs covered the floor. The walls were paneled in dark wood.
Timur collapsed onto a divan, the performance draining out of him. His terror melted into something harder to name—respect, maybe even awe. He watched Koba calmly clean Rykov's blood from the dagger with a silk handkerchief.
Timur had known killers, hundreds of them. But this one was something else. Koba didn't kill for passion. He used violence like a craftsman used tools—deliberate, precise, terrifyingly intelligent.
The Chechen poured two glasses of brandy, his hand still trembling slightly. He offered one to Koba.
"To our partnership," Timur said. His voice was rough, but the words carried weight. The pact was sealed—not in ink, but in fear and survival.
He drank.
As Timur barked new orders to secure the building, Anya stepped closer to Koba. The mask she wore in front of the men was gone. What remained was curiosity—fierce, unguarded, dangerous.
"No one's ever ordered Timur around," she said quietly. "Not and lived." Her tone wasn't admiration—it was analysis. "He listens to no one. But he listened to you. When you spoke, it wasn't persuasion. It was law."
Her gaze was steady, dissecting him. "You don't think like a criminal. A thief plans for profit. You plan for conquest. You think in campaigns." She took a half-step closer, the space between them charged with something neither romantic nor safe. "So tell me, Koba from the Caucasus—what are you?"
Koba met her eyes, his own expression unreadable. For a long moment, neither spoke. Two minds, sharp and cold, measured each other like opposing generals.
"I'm a man who gets things done," he said finally.
A small, knowing smile touched her lips. "Then we'll get along, General."
The word hung in the air, half challenge, half prophecy.
And as the city darkened outside, Jake Vance—buried somewhere deep within the man now called Koba—felt a chill. He recognized in Anya not just an ally, but something far more dangerous.
A mirror.