Victor spat blood over the ship's railing as they slipped onto the docks. The metallic taste lingered, Anya's elbow had been more persuasive than her words.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, grinning. "You hit like a dockworker."
Anya didn't break stride, her boots silent against the damp planks. "And you talk like you enjoy getting hit."
The moon hung low, casting silver over the harbor water. Cargo ships loomed like sleeping beasts, their masts clawing at the sky. Victor kept to the shadows, matching Anya's pace as she wove between stacks of crates and coiled rope.
A pair of night watchmen trudged past, their lantern swinging like a drunken pendulum. Anya pressed them both flat against a stack of tarred barrels, close enough that Victor could feel the quickened rise and fall of her ribs.
One of the watchmen paused, scratching his gut. "Swear I heard something."
His companion yawned. "Rats. Always rats."
The moment stretched. Then, boots scraped forward again, fading into the hum of the docks.
Anya exhaled through her nose and pushed off. Victor followed, his grin sharp. "You're good at this."
Her sidelong glance was like flint striking steel. "Don't sound surprised."
They reached the end of the pier, where the city's grimy underbelly spilled into winding alleys. Anya vaulted over a rusted railing, landing light as a cat. Victor followed, less gracefully, but just as quiet.
Broken cobblestones bit at his boots as they slipped into the labyrinth of the Warrens. The air grew thick with the stench of rotting fish and cheap lantern oil. Somewhere above, a shutter banged in the wind like a warning.
Anya rounded a corner, then froze.
Victor didn't need to ask why. The scrape of a knife being drawn was answer enough.
He sidled up beside her, peering into the dark. Three figures bracketed the alley mouth, two hulking shadows with the telltale stance of street muscle, one slighter, a rusted blade glinting in his grip.
Anya's fingers twitched toward her thigh strap. "Brigands."
Victor rolled his shoulders. "Or competitors." He stepped forward before she could stop him.
The leader, a pockmarked bastard with eyes like a kicked dog, sneered. "Lost, are we?"
Victor let his coat fall open, just enough to hint at steel. "Found, actually."
A flicker of hesitation. Then the leader spat. "Your coin or your throat."
Victor chuckled. "You first."
The pockmarked bastard lunged.
Victor sidestepped, letting momentum carry the fool past him, and drove an elbow into his spine. The man went down with a wheeze.
Anya was already moving, her dagger flashed, kissing the second thug's wrist. He howled, clutching the wound as his blade clattered to the stones.
The third made the mistake of swinging at her.
Victor didn't intervene. He didn't need to.
Anya ducked under the wild slash, twisted, and drove her knee between the man's legs. He folded like wet parchment.
A heartbeat, that's all it took.
Victor nudged the groaning leader with his boot. "Coin or throat was it?"
The man scowled through the pain. "You're dead men."
Victor crouched, pressing his knife under the man's chin. "Try again."
Sweat beaded on the brigand's brow. "No coin."
Victor sighed. "Boring." He relieved the bastard of his purse anyway, a handful of coppers, and straightened.
Anya was already wiping her blade on the third man's shirt. She jerked her chin at the alley exit. "Move."
Victor tossed her the purse. "You earned it."
She caught it midair, weighing it in her palm before pocketing it. The corner of her mouth twitched. "Don't get sentimental."
He grinned. "Wouldn't dream of it."
The Warrens swallowed them again. The night wasn't done yet.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[WRATH +15]
"Delivered, unharmed," Victor said, leaning back in the rickety chair. One of the legs groaned under his weight.
Marta's gaze moved to Anya, who stood silhouetted in the doorway, arms crossed. "Any trouble?"
Anya's shrug was a flicker of motion in the light. "Three idiots. They're still breathing."
Victor tapped the table with two fingers. "Pleasure doing business." He pushed to his feet, snagging his cut from the scattered coins, enough to weigh down his pocket, not enough to matter.
Marta's eyebrows climbed. "You moving on already? Thought you'd stick around. Work's steady."
"First and last job," Victor said. He shot his cuffs, the motion smooth, rehearsed, like he'd done this before, in another life.
Anya's chin jerked up. "Then what?"
The grin that split Victor's face was all teeth. "Test run's over. Time to build something personal."
Silence pooled between them. Marta's fingers stilled on the coins. Anya's eyes narrowed, grey-green, unreadable.
No one asked for details.
Victor didn't offer any.
He tipped an imaginary hat to Marta, shouldered past Anya, and stepped into the tavern's raucous swell. The Rusty Nail heaved with drunks and debtors, their laughter wet with ale. He wove through them, the silver in his pocket singing its own kind of promise.
The night air hit him like a punch, cold and clean compared to the tavern's stink of sweat and sour mash. He rolled the coins in his palm once, listening to the metallic whisper. A start. Barely. But this city bled opportunity, if you knew where to cut.
Behind him, the door creaked. Footsteps? Maybe Anya. Maybe trouble.
Victor didn't look back.
Moonlight struggled through the claustrophobic alleys of the Warrens, painting the floor in jagged strips of silver. His boots crunched over shattered glass and the brittle remains of someone's discarded meal. The harsh tang of piss and old blood clung to the air. Not so different from the backstreets of Saint Petersburg, just swap the cracked Soviet concrete for sagging timber and medieval filth.
A flicker of memory: snowdrifts piled high against graffitied brick, the staccato bark of a Makarov in the freezing dark.
Three years ago. The Volkov deal gone wrong.
Victor flexed his fingers, rolling the phantom weight of a pistol grip between them. He remembered the way his breath had fogged in the air as he crouched behind a dumpster, counting heartbeats between gunshots. Remembered the wet, gurgling laugh of Demyan, loyal Demyan, bleeding out in his arms, before the light left his eyes.
A shout snapped him back.
A drunk stumbled from a tavern ahead, vomiting into the gutter before collapsing into a drooling heap. Victor stepped over him without breaking stride.
The Warrens bled into the Sprawl, where the buildings stooped less, where lanterns burned steadier in their iron cages. Shop fronts stood shuttered, the air thick with the scent of coal fires and roasting meat. His stomach growled. Another ghost: his mother's bony fingers shoving a bowl of watery borscht across a chipped table. Eat, Victor. Before your father drinks the last of it.
Victor clenched his jaw, kept walking.
The Sprawl sloped upward, the streets widening as they climbed toward the Merchant's Quarter. Here, the buildings wore facades carved with false grandeur, wood painted to mimic stone, brass fittings polished to blind. Money here was newer, louder. Like the flashy suits of the upstart bratva lieutenants who'd tried to buy his loyalty with champagne and silicone-breasted women.
That night had ended with two men in the Neva's icy waters.
A patrol of city guards marched past, their halberds glinting. Victor melted into the shadow of a tapestry hung from a second-story balcony, watching as they banged on doors, demanding curfew bribes from late-night merchants.
Victor rolled the silver between his knuckles, calculating how much noise a dingy inn would cost versus the fleeting warmth of a brothel's cheapest cot. A gust of wind bit through him. He curled his fingers tighter around the coins-
-only for a blur of motion to snatch them clean from his grip.
A flash of brown streaked past, too quick to be clumsy. The thief darted down the alley with the instinctive grace of someone who knew every crevice of the Sprawl.
Victor didn't shout. Didn't curse. Just bent, snatched a loose cobblestone, and hurled it one-handed.
The rock cracked against the back of the runner's knee. She yelped, legs buckling, and hit the ground hard. The coins sprayed from her grip, scattering over the filth-slick stones.
He took his time approaching.
The woman, girl, really, hunched into herself, arms shielding her face. "Please," she gasped, voice raw, "I'm sorry, I'll go, just don't-"
Victor loomed over her, blocking the nearest lantern's light. "Name."
A shuddering breath. "E-Elira."
Her clothes were patched leather and stolen scraps, her short hair tangled with streaks of silver. Young, but not soft. Not innocent. He knew the look, scrawny, desperate, all quick fingers and quicker lies.
"Working for someone?" he asked.
She risked a glance up, almond-shaped eyes darting to his throat instead of his face. "No," she breathed.
Victor nudged a coin with his boot. It spun lazily.
He crouched, elbow resting on his knee, and extended his palm.
Elira flinched.
"Take it," he said, "or don't."
Her fingers trembled as they brushed his. He pulled her up in one smooth motion, her weight nothing against his grip. She staggered but caught herself, knees still trembling from the stone's impact.
Victor scooped up a fallen coin, flipped it, and watched her eyes track the glint. "Good reflexes."
Her throat worked. "Why aren't you-?"
"Hitting you?" He pocketed the coin. "I don't waste effort on petty shit." He stepped closer, and she didn't back away. "You steal because you're hungry. Or because you're good at it. Which is it?"
A beat. Then the barest tilt of her chin. "Both."
Elira wiped her nose on her sleeve, still eyeing him like a cornered fox.
He jerked his chin toward the dim glow of the nearest tavern. "You drink?"
Her nostrils flared. "Why?"
"Because I'm buying." He turned, leaving the rest of the coins gleaming in the muck. "And because we're going to talk about who you'll be stealing for next."