The azaan of a new day had not yet begun, but the city was already holding its breath.
St. Petersburg, wrapped in shadow and mist, waited like a predator before the kill. The grand boulevards and the grim courtyards shared the same uneasy silence. It was the final day. Zero hour. Less than twenty-four hours left.
Inside the teahouse, a different kind of silence ruled—a taut, electric stillness.
What had once been a haven now felt like a bunker. The air was stale, thick with sweat, tobacco, and fear. Runners slipped in and out, pale and shaking, whispering updates before vanishing back into the dark arteries of the city.
Pavel stood like a statue in the corner, face carved from stone. "The fire-cart's ready," he said. "Stolen from a station out past Narva. The night watchman's sleeping off a bottle."
The two firemen's uniforms were locked away nearby, still smelling of soot and smoke. The last piece had fallen into place.
Koba and Anya stood over the butcher-paper map—the heart of their operation.
It was no longer just lines and arrows. It was a living organism, pulsing with strategy, sacrifice, and timing. Every second, every street, had been committed to memory. Together they had become a single, dangerous mind.
Anya was no longer the assistant or the adviser. She was his other half—the bridge between theory and blood. Koba's eyes burned with sleepless fire, the fever of a man past redemption.
He pointed to a marked circle on the map. "Company Alpha. They must look like they're winning, but never win. They draw attention, not victory. They hold for thirty minutes. No more, no less."
Anya nodded. "Ruslan leads them." She tapped the name she'd written. "He's a zealot. A hammer, not a knife. He won't retreat, even if told."
Her voice was level, clinical. "We accept total losses. One hundred percent."
Koba's answer was quiet, absolute. "Necessary expenditure."
Neither of them flinched. They understood the price.
A few streets away, the cellar reeked of sweat and vodka. Thirty men crouched in the dim light—Company Alpha.
Timur faced them, his massive frame filling the room. His power had always come from presence, not words. But tonight, coached by Anya, he spoke like a prophet.
"Brothers," he began, his deep voice rolling through the air. "We've spent our lives bowing to the rich. Taking their scraps. Tonight, that ends."
He held up a gold coin. It caught the lamplight like a promise. "The planner found the hoard. Warehouse Three isn't grain—it's gold. The payroll for the entire garrison. Enough to buy every one of you a new life. Enough to make your children lords."
A murmur rippled through the crowd. Greed. Hope.
Timur's voice rose. "The Tsar's dogs guard it, thinking us weak. We'll show them the fury of the Chechen wolf! Some of us may fall—but our names will live on. Our children will sing of this night!"
It was a performance. A lie.
But the lie worked. The men's faces hardened with purpose. Koba's fiction had become their faith.
The first strike hit like thunder.
Ruslan, wild-eyed and grinning, led the charge. Company Alpha smashed through the main gate of Warehouse Three, their screams shattering the pre-dawn quiet. Gunfire cracked. Guards fell.
The city awoke to chaos.
In his mansion on Yelagin Island, Pyotr Stolypin woke to pounding at his door. His aide burst in, breathless.
"Sir—the port. A riot. Dozens of armed men at the naval yards. They've taken the gate."
Stolypin sat up instantly, the fog of sleep gone. "A riot?" he muttered. "No. It's too crude. Too loud."
He stood, already thinking. "This isn't his style."
Still, he couldn't ignore it. "Send the First Regiment of the Semyonovsky Guard. Full cordon. No one in or out. And double the river watch. Every boat checked."
He was reacting quickly, decisively—but to the wrong game.
He thought he was playing against a thief. He didn't yet see the war.
Back in the teahouse, a runner burst through the door, chest heaving. "Company Alpha has engaged! The gate's breached! The guards are pinned!"
Koba and Anya shared a single glance. No words.
Phase one: complete.
Koba looked to the clock on the wall.
The second hand ticked, deliberate and merciless.
He waited fifteen minutes—fifteen eternal minutes of distant gunfire echoing through the fog.
Then he turned to Anya, his expression cold, eyes like glass.
"Ignite the depot," he said.