The wine cellar no longer smelled of damp stone and fear. It smelled of oil and gunmetal—of victory and its cost. The flickering lantern light glinted off rows of freshly uncrated Mauser pistols, their polished wooden stocks gleaming like trophies. Boxes of dynamite sat in neat stacks against the far wall, sleeping beasts waiting to be woken.
Where one terrified informant had once begged for his life, a new army now stood armed and ready. Overnight, the Bolsheviks of Tbilisi had transformed from hunted radicals with a few rusted revolvers into a disciplined paramilitary force. They had been seconds from extinction—and now they were dangerous.
Jake stood in the center of it all, surrounded by the tools of his triumph. Yet there was no triumph in him. Every gun was a ledger entry written in blood. Every crate of dynamite, a monument to betrayal and execution. Power, he realized, had its own stench—and it clung to him.
Kamo didn't see it that way. He looked at the arsenal with awe, then at Jake with something deeper. Reverence. "Soso," he said, his voice thick, hand landing heavy on Jake's shoulder. "What you did… no one else could have done it. You saved us all."
Jake only nodded. His face revealed nothing.
From the doorway, Stepan Shaumian stepped into the light. The philosopher of the revolution, calm and severe, surveyed the stockpile with a long, thoughtful look. "It's a miracle," he said quietly. "A brutal one, but a miracle all the same."
Then his gaze fixed on Jake. "But the danger hasn't passed. Orlov is gone, yes—but the serpent's head still lives. Yagoda is out there. There are more like him, buried deep. The problem isn't solved. It's only begun."
Jake said nothing. He already knew where this was leading.
Shaumian's tone shifted, deliberate now, heavy with intent. "The party is exposed. It needs protection—an organ devoted solely to security. To rooting out enemies from within. A body that acts without hesitation or sentiment."
He stepped closer. "It must answer only to the Committee. And it must be led by a man of iron—someone who understands the enemy. Someone who's not afraid to do what must be done."
Jake met his eyes. The words landed like the weight of history itself.
This was the birth of the thing he had spent his entire second life trying to prevent—the secret apparatus of fear, the foundation of the coming terror. The Cheka, the NKVD, the KGB—names that would echo through generations of blood.
Somewhere deep inside, Jake Vance—the man he once was—screamed to say no. To walk away. To save himself before the last piece of his humanity crumbled. But the scream was faint now, lost beneath the roar of necessity.
He had made enemies that would not rest. Yagoda was watching, hunting. The only way to survive—to keep shaping the future—was to seize control of the very machine he feared.
When he finally spoke, his voice was flat, drained of life. "I accept."
It was the sound of a man sealing his own fate.
Later that night, sleep was impossible. The city outside was quiet, washed in moonlight. Jake walked the narrow streets alone, the chill air biting his face. He told himself he was just walking off the exhaustion. But his steps led him, unbidden, to the one place that still held something of the man he'd been.
Kato.
He found her in their old apartment, a single candle burning on the table. The room was stripped bare, and she was folding the last of her belongings into a small leather bag.
When she looked up, there was no fear, no anger—only sorrow.
"I'm leaving, Soso," she said softly. "For the countryside. My family will take me in."
The words hit him like a physical blow. "Leaving? Why? I can protect you now. I have power, Kato. No one would dare touch you."
She kept folding her shawl, her voice calm and devastatingly steady. "I know," she said. "That's what frightens me."
Jake stood motionless.
"The man I married is gone," she went on, finally looking at him. "He was kind, even when the world wasn't. He believed in people, in words. But you…" Her voice faltered. "You look like him, but your eyes… they're like that cellar. Cold. Empty. I can't live with a ghost."
The click of the bag's clasp was the sound of something final breaking. She lifted it and moved toward the door.
"Wait," Jake said, his voice cracking, raw with something he hadn't felt in months. "Kato, please—don't go."
He reached out a trembling hand.
She flinched.
It was a small, involuntary movement, but it stopped him cold. More devastating than a slap, more final than a bullet. She looked at him one last time, tears glinting in her eyes.
"Goodbye, Soso," she whispered.
And then she was gone.
The door closed behind her with a soft click. The sound echoed in the empty room like a shot.
Jake stood there, frozen. The head of Tbilisi's new security committee. The architect of survival. The master of an army.
And utterly, irredeemably alone.
He had saved the revolution.
And lost his soul.