The concrete bit into Victor's back as he slumped against the alley wall. Cold seeped through his shirt, or maybe that was blood. Hard to tell anymore. His fingers twitched toward the Makarov holstered at his ribs, slick with his own warmth. Three shots center-mass. Just fucking perfect.
Across the grime-smeared alley, footsteps crunched over broken glass. Faint streetlight flickered off the muzzle of Sergei's piece, smoke curling from the barrel like a lazy exhalation. Victor's lip peeled back in a snarl, teeth red. "Knew you were a snake."
Sergei adjusted his cufflinks, gaze steady. "Nothing personal."
"Yeah?" Victor coughed, tasted iron. "You tell that to Dimitri's widow?"
A blink. A fraction too slow.
Victor's laugh was wet, jagged. "Thought so." He dragged his free hand toward his waistband, slow, obvious, letting Sergei tense before flashing empty fingers. "Just giving you a peek at your future."
For half a second, Sergei hesitated. Then the bark of a pistol split the night.
Victor's skull snapped back against brick. Darkness swallowed the edges of his vision first. No grand visions, no fucking revelations, just Sergei's polished shoes walking away while Victor drowned in his own ribs.
His fingers went slack.
Cold spread.
Then-
Heat.
A pulse behind his sternum, furious and alive like a second heartbeat. Crimson light bloomed behind his eyelids, etching phantom shapes, coins, crowns, knives, across the dark.
A voice, low as a shiv between ribs: "Your sins weigh heavy."
Victor's eyes snapped open. Not to sky, not to dirt—just void. Endless, depthless black pressing against him like a living thing. His wrists ached, skin raw under cold iron cuffs chaining him to nothing. He yanked forward. The chains held.
A blue rectangle flickered inches from his face, sterile light cutting through the dark.
LOADING… 47%
Victor's pulse kicked hard. He twisted against the cuffs, testing every joint. "What the fuck is this?"
The bar ticked to 48%.
Breath hissed between his teeth. No echo. No smell. Just the slow crawl of numbers. His fingers curled into fists, same callouses, same faded knuckle tattoos. But when he pressed a palm to his chest, the wound was gone. Only smooth skin and the faintest thrum of heat beneath.
49%
Victor stilled. Eyes sharp. Sharper than they'd been bleeding out in that alley. A slow grin split his face.
"Alright, demon," he muttered. "Let's see what you're selling."
The bar hit 50%. The void shuddered.
50%... 67%... 89%...
Victor's grin twitched as the numbers ticked up. Reincarnation? An afterlife? Some sick VR prank from the syndicate before they dumped his body in the Neva? The void hummed, pressing in around him like a damp basement, thick with the weight of something hungry. Chains rattled as he flexed again. No give.
The System hit 100%-
And the world snapped like a whip.
Darkness dissolved in a rush of sensation, damp cobblestones under his bare back, the bite of cold air on every inch of skin, the reek of piss and old ale clogging his throat. He lurched upright, muscles coiled, scanning the narrow alley. Brick walls. Barrel-shaped gutters. The distant clatter of hooves on stone.
Naked as the day he was born.
Victor exhaled sharply through his nose. Fantastic.
His fingers touched his chest again, still no bullet holes. Just that same slow, pulse-like heat where the crimson crownmark should be. His head throbbed with the ghost of Sergei's last shot, but the pain was distant, like a fading echo.
A door creaked open down the alley. Light spilled across the slick stones, framing a silhouette in a woolen shawl and a smear of cheap rouge.
"Oi! You lost, pretty?" The voice was raspy, amused. A woman, older, frayed at the edges—leaned in the doorway, tankard in hand. Gold tooth glinting. "Or just drunk enough to misplace your smalls?"
Victor's eyes flicked past her to the peeling sign swinging overhead: The Rusty Nail. Some back-alley watering hole. The woman wasn't armed, but the beefy shadow looming behind her in the threshold definitely was.
He forced his shoulders to relax, rolling his neck. Leverage first. Pants later. "Had a disagreement with my tailor."
The woman huffed a laugh, but her gaze dropped to the crownmark over his heart, pupils widening a fraction. The bouncer behind her stiffened.
The barmaid recovered fast, waving her drink. "Well, unless you're here to start the evening in just your skin, you'll scare off the paying customers."
Victor pushed to his feet, unhurried. No dizziness—stronger than he'd been in years, actually. He dusted imaginary grime off his palms. "What's the going rate for a man with no coin to his name?"
The bouncer snorted.
The woman smirked, running her tongue over that gold tooth. "For you?" She stepped aside, jerking her chin toward the tavern's smoky interior. "First round's on the house."
Now we're talking.
He strode past her into the noise and stink of the tavern, barefoot and unbothered. Eyes tracked him, some curious, some hungry, a few sliding uneasily toward the crownmark.
Victor grabbed a half-finished mug off a table and drained it, ignoring the sputtering merchant it belonged to. Warm ale, sour as ditchwater. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and grinned at the room.
"Alright," he announced, like he hadn't just arrived buck-ass naked five minutes ago. "Who's hiring?"
The woman—Marta, according to the barmaid pin glinting on her shawl—led Victor through the tavern's press of bodies toward a back corridor. The air thickened with the stench of sweat and sour mash, but no one looked twice at a naked man trailing her. Too used to stranger shit, probably.
Marta shouldered open a door into a cramped storeroom. Barrels lined the walls, and a moth-eaten cloak hung from a rusted nail. She tossed it at him without ceremony. "Cover up before you give the old-timers heart attacks."
Victor caught the cloak, running his thumb over the coarse fabric. Wool, frayed at the edges. Better than nothing. He swung it around his shoulders, knotting it at his throat. "No smallclothes?"
Marta rolled her eyes and dug through a crate, flinging a pair of stained trousers at him. "Those'll cost you."
Victor stepped into them, not bothering to hide his amusement. "Thought the first round was free."
"Clothes are a second-round problem." Marta leaned against a barrel, arms crossed. The gold tooth caught the lamplight again as she smirked. "You're new. Not just to the city, new new. Raw."
Victor kept his expression neutral. She was testing him. "That a problem?"
Marta shrugged. "Depends. You got a name, right?"
Victor hooked his thumbs in the beltless waist of the trousers, loose but serviceable. "Victor."
No last name. No titles. Let her chew on that.
Marta snorted but didn't push. "Alright, Victor. Are you looking for work, or just a place to drink yourself stupid?"
Victor tilted his head. "Work's good. So long as it pays."
She studied him a beat longer, then jerked her chin toward the door. "Got a cargo coming in tonight. Needs moving before the city watch gets nosy. Simple haul—two crates, half a mile."
Victor raised a brow. "You'd trust a stranger with your cargo?"
"I wouldn't." Marta dug a chipped tin flask from her pocket and took a swig. "But I trust her."
The door creaked open behind him.
Victor didn't turn. He didn't need to—the hitch in the newcomer's breath told him everything. Too light for the bouncer. Young, maybe. Female. And surprised to see him.
Marta smirked. "Meet your escort."
A girl's voice, sharp as a knife: "You're joking."
Victor finally glanced over his shoulder.
She was slight, barely reaching his shoulder, with dark hair chopped short and a face that hadn't grown into its edges yet. Maybe Eighteen, if that. But the way she stood, weight on the balls of her feet, hand resting too casually near the hilt of the dagger at her thigh, said she'd been at this longer than she looked.
Victor's mouth quirked. "You the muscle?"
The girl's eyes narrowed. "You the idiot who lost his pants?"
Victor exhaled through his nose and turned back to Marta. "Terms?"
"Ten silvers each if it gets there clean." Marta tossed him a sack, small, lumpy. "Five now, five after. And try not to piss her off, Anya's got a mean right hook."
Anya folded her arms. "And a better aim than you."
Victor weighed the sack in his palm, listening to the muted clink of coin inside. Not enough to start with, but enough to move. And the girl, Anya, was an unknown. Useful or liability, he'd find out soon enough.
He pocketed the coin. "When do we start?"
Marta nodded toward the alley door. "Dawn. Be here or be gone."
Anya didn't wait. She shoved past Victor, brushing his arm with deliberate roughness, and vanished into the tavern's roar.
Marta smirked. "Good luck."
Victor watched the door swing shut behind the girl.
This'll be interesting.