Anya froze in the doorway. For a long, stunned heartbeat, her mind refused to process what she was seeing.
The man at the washbasin wasn't Koba. He wasn't the cold general who commanded killers with a word. He was shaking, gasping, half-collapsed against the porcelain. The mask was gone, peeled away to reveal something raw and human and terrified.
Her first reaction was contempt—a predator's instinctive recoil at weakness. But it vanished as quickly as it came, replaced by something sharper: calculation.
His breakdown wasn't just personal. It was catastrophic.
Koba's power over Timur and his men was built on faith. They followed him because they thought he was untouchable—something more than human. If they saw him like this, the illusion would die. And when it died, so would they all.
Anya shut the door. The soft click echoed in the charged air.
She didn't approach with pity or scorn. She approached like someone handling live dynamite.
"Get a hold of yourself, General." Her voice was cold and precise, cutting through his ragged breathing. "Breathe. In. Out. Now."
Jake flinched at her tone, his head jerking up. His eyes were wide, wild. Every layer of armor was gone. She saw it all—the horror, the guilt, the terror clawing at him from the inside.
"The men downstairs," she said evenly, stepping closer. "They can never see you like this. Your power isn't built on loyalty or love. It's built on belief. They think you're inevitable. If that belief breaks, they'll turn on you before dawn. And we'll all be dead."
Her words weren't comfort—they were command. She wasn't trying to save him. She was trying to resurrect Koba, because she needed the monster to live.
"You don't understand," Jake rasped. His voice cracked, raw with panic. He stumbled away from the basin, back against the wall. "They're real people. Men with families. They'll die in the streets—for a lie. I'm sending them to their deaths. For what? For a woman? For a war that hasn't even happened yet?" His breath hitched. "What kind of monster does that?"
It was the confession of a man drowning in his own conscience.
Anya didn't flinch. Her face was unreadable, her voice steady as a blade. "Yes," she said. "They will die. They'll be shot by the police, burned alive, crushed in the chaos. And tomorrow, the sun will rise. Because that's what it does."
She stepped closer. "The world is a butcher's yard, Koba. The peasant starves. The worker chokes on factory smoke. The soldier dies in some forgotten war. Everyone dies, and it means nothing."
Her tone softened—not in warmth, but in persuasion. "You aren't giving them meaningless deaths. You're giving them purpose. They'll die believing they're fighting for gold, for freedom, for something bigger than themselves. For once in their lives, their pain will matter. You're not taking their lives—you're giving them a story."
Her words slid into him like a knife wrapped in silk. They were monstrous. But they made sense.
It wasn't mercy she offered him. It was permission.
Jake stared at her, chest heaving. Slowly, his breathing steadied. Her logic—cold, amoral, clean—gave him something to hold on to. It didn't absolve him. It weaponized him.
He turned back to the basin and splashed water on his face. The pale, terrified reflection stared back at him. He forced it down. Breathe. Focus.
When he lifted his head again, the fear was gone. What looked back from the mirror wasn't Jake Vance. It wasn't quite Koba either. It was something new—rebuilt, tempered, colder.
He turned to Anya. His voice was steady now. "You're right."
Three words. But in that moment, something irrevocable shifted between them. She wasn't just his lieutenant anymore. She was his confessor, the one who had seen him fall apart and taught him how to turn the collapse into strength.
He moved back to the map, calm again, calculating. "The plan has a flaw," he said, his tone all business. "The chaos works. But our infiltration depends on disguises. Too risky."
He began sketching new lines, faster now, thought turning to steel. "We'll need priority access to the port. Something no one will question."
He looked up. "Firemen."
Anya blinked. "Firemen?"
"While the city burns, no one will stop them," Koba said. "Pavel will get two uniforms and a fire cart. The police will clear the way. No one will ask questions."
He marked a small building near the center of the docks. "We're not stealing rifles anymore. We'll steal the shipping manifest. The schedule for tomorrow's official transfer." His finger traced a line out of the city. "Then we'll intercept the real shipment on the road, when Stolypin thinks we're dead or gone."
He turned to her, eyes burning with renewed clarity. "We won't just vanish into the night," he said. "We'll become the shipment itself."
Anya said nothing. She only watched him—the man who had broken, then rebuilt himself into something harder, sharper, and far more dangerous.
In thirty-six hours, they would set St. Petersburg on fire.
And in the smoke, the monster she had helped reforge would move unseen.