Victor paced the tavern floor, boots scuffing against the sawdust. The Rusty Nail buzzed with the usual evening crowd: drunks, gamblers, and the desperate. Anya leaned against a nearby pillar, arms crossed, watching him with that sharp, unreadable stare.
Why just an escort?
Grisha could've locked him in a cellar until the pit fights. Could've chained him. But no—just a babysitter. Either Grisha underestimated him, or this was something more to it.
A flicker of movement caught his eye, Elira slipping through the crowd like a shadow, her slight frame weaving between bodies. Victor stepped into her path.
She flinched, then flashed a nervous grin. "Didn't see you there."
"Job done?" Victor cut straight to it.
Elira's fingers twitched toward the pouch at her belt. "Got enough. But…" She hesitated, glancing past him at Anya. "Cost more than planned."
Victor smirked. "Always does." He jerked his chin toward the rickety stairs leading to the second floor. "Upstairs."
Elira hesitated but nodded.
Anya pushed off the pillar. "Where do you think you're going?"
Victor didn't break stride. "Private talk."
Anya fell in step behind them. "Not part of the deal."
Victor shot her a glance over his shoulder. "You getting paid to watch me piss too?"
Her jaw tightened, but she didn't stop.
The upstairs hallway was dark, the air thick with the scent of mildew and old ale. Victor led them to a door at the end, his rented room, where the money was still under his mattress. Not that he could grab it now with Anya breathing down his neck.
But a new plan took shape.
He pushed the door open. Elira slipped inside, eyes darting like a cornered animal. Anya lingered in the doorway, arms still crossed.
Victor leaned against the wall, studying them both.
Victor gestured toward the room's lone chair, his gaze never leaving Elira. "Sit. Wait." She obeyed without protest.
He turned to Anya. "What's your loyalty price?"
Anya scoffed. "Don't have one."
"No?" Victor stepped closer. "What's Marta to you? She ever help you? Take you in like some stray, play mother?"
Anya's fingers twitched toward her dagger. "You don't know shit."
"That right?" Victor circled her. "Then how come you didn't know Marta had a husband? Means you're not that close, right?"
Her lips pressed into a thin line.
He didn't wait for denial. "Seen your type a hundred times, sharp enough to climb, tough enough to stay alive... but no one lets you touch the ladder." His voice dropped low. "Know why?"
She glared up at him. "Gonna insult me some more?"
Victor leaned in, close enough to catch the edge of stale ale on her breath. "You don't look the part. Don't act it. And nobody's teaching you how." He gestured toward the tavern floor below. "They know you got potential. But why waste time polishing gutter steel when they can hire some brute twice your size?"
Anya's knuckles whitened around her knife hilt.
Victor exhaled through his nose. "You're not hearing me. You're not needed here. Die tonight, they'll have a replacement warming your spot by dawn." He jerked his chin toward Elira. "But I need you."
Anya barked a laugh. "You?"
"Grisha's got me by the feets," Victor admitted bluntly. "Pit fights won't end well, not long-term. I need out. Fast." His stare pinned her. "And you? You think there's a future for you swinging steel in this shithole?"
A flash of something crossed Anya's face, gone before he could read it.
Victor pressed. "One-in-a-million shot lands in your lap, what do you do? Walk away?"
Silence stretched between them, thick with the tavern's muffled chaos below.
Elira shifted awkwardly in her chair, glancing between them like she'd stumbled into a knife fight.
Victor held Anya's gaze without theatrics.
Her jaw worked, once, twice. Then: "What... Do you need?"
Victor grinned.
Victor reached into his coat and pulled out a crumpled piece of parchment, what looked like a ledger page torn from Marta's books, alongside a stolen quill. He dipped the tip into the residue of a spilled drink on the table, then scrawled a list in hurried, uneven script. The ink was watery, the letters jagged, but legible enough. He slid the paper toward Anya.
She stared at it, then back at him. "I can't read."
"Don't matter." He tapped the list. "Take this to any apothecary and ask for everything here. Exactly what's written.."
Anya eyed him like he'd sprouted a second head. "Why?"
Victor leaned back, rolling the quill between his fingers. "It all makes sense now."
She blinked. "What makes sense?"
"Walking back from Selene's, I had time to think. Wondered how people get their liquor." He gestured vaguely. "I mean, there's the port, sure, but it ain't the main source. That cargo we moved at day one, it was alcohol, right?"
Anya gave a slow nod. "Marta's got fingers in that market. So?"
Victor grinned. "Now we know Grisha and Marta are married. And Grisha's got stacks of barrels in his damn fighting pits. That's her stock, her work." His voice lowered. "So if Marta's smuggling it to him, and he's serving it, what happens if the supply gets... tainted?"
Anya's eyes narrowed. "Poison?"
Victor shrugged. "Call it whatever you want."
Bad memories came back, Saint Petersburg, a bar, a glass handed to a man who wouldn't stop talking. The way he'd choked, clawing at his throat like it was on fire.
He shoved the thought aside.
Anya's fingers twitched toward the dagger at her thigh. "You some kind of alchemist now?"
Victor snorted. "You pick things up when you need to." He hesitated, then muttered under his breath, "Hope this old-world shit works the same."
Anya hesitated, then reached for the list. "What's in it for me?"
Victor studied her, the tight set of her shoulders, the way she held herself like she expected the world to strike first. Here was someone who always had to fight for scraps.
He extended his hand, not with his usual smirk, but something closer to real. "Partnership. Cut Marta out, cut Grisha out. And we build our own ladder."
Anya eyed his hand for a long moment. Then she wrinkled her nose. "Stick to smirking. Your smile's creepy."
But she took his hand.
Victor exhaled sharply, half-amused, half-relieved. "Hurtful."