The cold wasn't just in Jax's skin; it was in his bones. He pulled his hand back from Kazimir's as if burned, the handshake leaving a phantom chill that seemed to sink all the way to his soul. The deal was done. The air in the empty restaurant felt different now, heavy and charged, thick with the weight of a promise he couldn't break. He flexed his fingers, half-expecting to see them stained with something more than shadow.
He had just agreed to become a killer again.
He turned to Kazimir, his face a granite mask of grim tension. The bravado, the anger, the defiance—it had all evaporated, leaving behind the cold, hard reality of the task ahead. A hundred practical, ugly questions swarmed in his mind, but they all boiled down to one.
"How?" The word was a rough, scraped thing, barely more than a breath. It wasn't a question of morality anymore; that ship had sailed, sunk, and settled on the ocean floor. This was about logistics. How do I get in? How do I get out? How does this even work?
Kazimir, who had been admiring his reflection in the dark glass of the front door, turned. His smile was that of a patient teacher dealing with a particularly slow, but promising, student.
"Ah, the eternal question of the practitioner," he said, stepping away from the door and moving to lean casually against an empty table. "You're thinking about your old life, aren't you? Crowbars, tire irons, maybe a quiet little chat in the back of a panel van. Blunt instruments for a blunt age. So… pedestrian." He waved a dismissive hand. "Our methods, Jax, will be more elegant."
He pushed himself off the table and began to pace slowly, his movements a predator's hypnotic glide. "Your primary tool for this engagement won't be a weapon. It will be an… amplification of self. We'll call it a Touch of Fear."
Jax just stared, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. "You want me to scare him to death?"
"Don't be so literal," Kazimir chided. "You won't make him feel scared of you. You'll force him to confront the roiling cesspit of his own guilt. You'll become a walking, talking personification of his sins. Every corner he cut, every life he ruined, every dirty dollar he pocketed—you'll be the avatar of all of it. His paranoia, his deep-seated dread, his certainty that one day the bill would come due… you're just going to turn up the volume on all that noise until his brain shorts out. People are fragile things, Jax. Their own minds are their most effective executioners."
The concept was so alien, so far beyond the simple, brutal physics of his past life, that Jax struggled to grasp it. Before he could ask another question, Kazimir held up a finger.
"Furthermore, you won't be alone," he added. "I will be with you every step of the way. A voice in your head. Your eyes and ears. Think of me as your demonic overwatch." He gave Jax a wink that was both charming and deeply unsettling. "I can see things you can't. Security patterns, structural weaknesses, the sweat on a man's brow from fifty yards away. I'll be your spotter, your intel, your tactical support."
The reality of their partnership was beginning to solidify. It wasn't just a deal; it was an enlistment. Jax's mind, falling back on old training, immediately began to work the problem. He walked to the front window again, staring across at Croft's building.
"The fire escape on the west side is old, probably rusted through in places. It'll be loud," he started, thinking aloud. "But the security camera covering the alley has a blind spot, right under the third-floor landing. If I can get on the roof, there's a skylight over the main stairwell…"
Kazimir listened, a flicker of amusement in his amber eyes. When Jax paused, he finally interjected, his tone laced with condescending pity. "Admirable, but unnecessary. The camera loop is a standard ninety-second feed. It's been malfunctioning for a week, and Croft is too cheap to fix it. The fire escape is indeed rusted, but the bolts on the fourth-floor landing are loose enough to be removed by hand, giving you a silent entry point. The floorboards directly outside his office door are rotted; step a foot to the left, on the joist, and you won't make a sound. His safe is hidden behind a laughably cheap print of a seascape. And for your peace of mind, he keeps a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver in his top-right desk drawer. He's a terrible shot."
Jax was stunned into silence. The sheer, impossible detail of the intel was disarming. This was their workflow then: his street-level expertise guided by a devil's omniscience. He felt a tremor of hesitation run through him. It had been years. His body was still capable, but his mind… his mind had tried to forget.
"It's been a long time, Kaz," he said, his voice low. "I'm rusty."
Kazimir stopped pacing and faced him, his expression hardening. The charming mentor vanished, replaced by the ruthless CEO. "Did you forget how to break a man's arm? Did you forget how to put the fear of God into someone who owed the Morettis money? This is simpler. You're not going in as a thug looking for a payday. You're going in as an instrument of consequence. You are a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. The only thing rusty is your conviction. Now get your head right. Regret is a down payment on failure, and I don't invest in failing enterprises."
The words were cold, sharp, and brutally effective. They cut through Jax's doubt, leaving behind a grim sense of purpose.
Twenty-four hours evaporated in a haze of black coffee and gnawing anxiety. Saturday night descended on Hell's Kitchen, cloaking the city in a veneer of electric excitement. For Jax, it was a shroud.
He stood in the alley across from Croft's building, a ghost swallowed by deeper shadows. He wore simple, functional black: jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, soft-soled boots. No weapons. Kazimir had been adamant about that. The only thing he carried was a small lockpick set in his back pocket, a relic from a past he could no longer deny.
The air in the alley was thick with the smells of wet garbage and stale beer. He ignored it, focusing his gaze on the fifth-floor window. The Sin-Scent was a raging bonfire now, a pulsating, malignant beacon of crimson rot that stained the night sky. It was a visceral confirmation, a targeting system for his conscience. The man in that room deserved what was coming.
He checked his watch. 11:58 PM. Croft's lone security guard would be starting his final, lazy patrol of the lower floors. According to Kaz, he'd be plugged into a podcast, paying more attention to that than to the grainy monitors.
Jax took a deep, steadying breath, the cool night air doing little to calm the frantic drumming in his chest. It was the old feeling. The pre-mission adrenaline, cold and sharp as a shard of glass. He rolled his shoulders, flexed his hands, and prepared to move.
He was about to take his first step into the darkness when a voice spoke, not next to him, but directly inside his skull. It was Kazimir's voice, impossibly clear, infused with a dry, cutting amusement.
Showtime, Chef. Try not to trip on your way up.
Jax flinched, the mental intrusion as shocking as a physical blow. He was no longer alone in his own head. The hunt had officially begun.