The cold hit first.
It wasn't dramatic or loud; it was just sharp enough to sting my lungs the moment I stepped off the jet. Junseo pulled his jacket tighter, his breath coming out in a ragged cloud of steam. "Yeah…" he muttered, shivering. "This place hates people. I can feel it in my bones."
The air smelled wrong. It was a mix of jet fuel, old metal, and the metallic tang of snow that hadn't fallen yet but was close enough to taste. Around us, men moved with the practiced silence of ghosts. No introductions. No "Welcome to Russia." Just hands pointing and heads tilting, guiding us toward our assigned roles.
"Stay close," I whispered. Junseo nodded, his eyes darting around the frozen tarmac.
A black SUV waited at the edge of the runway, its engine humming low. The windows were so dark they looked like voids.
Peter leaned against the door, looking as bored as if he were waiting for a bus.
"Welcome to Russia," he said, his voice flat.
"Don't get comfortable. Comfort makes you slow."
Borislav was already on his phone, speaking a language that sounded like grinding stones. His jaw was tight, his eyes scanning the horizon. Then Miran arrived. He didn't hurry. He opened the SUV door himself and sat down like the vehicle was his throne.
"This is going to be interesting," Miran said, his eyes half-lidded as he looked at me. I didn't smile back. We got in, and the door sealed with a heavy, pressurized thud.
The SUV tore through the city. Streetlights blurred into white streaks against the gray sky. Snow rested on the rooftops—too clean, too untouched. The city felt quiet, but it wasn't the quiet of peace. It was the quiet of a cemetery.
Junseo leaned closer to me. "How long are we staying, hyung?"
"As long as it takes," I said. He didn't ask anything else. That was when I realized how much trust he'd placed in me. More than I deserved. More than I could afford to break.
Somewhere between the airport and the city, my phone buzzed. It was an unknown number. One message:
Once you cross this line, there is no return.
I locked the screen. Russia didn't feel cold anymore. It felt watched.
The building they took us to matched the city's mood: abandoned and rotting.
Concrete walls were stained by decades of neglect. We went underground, the stairs narrow and echoing. The deeper we went, the heavier the air became, thick with the smell of old concrete and something metallic—like dried blood or rusted pipes.
They handed us keys. No explanations. The rooms were small, tight cells. One bed. One light. No windows. It was designed to hold a body, not a life.
Junseo was put in a different room. That bothered me more than the cramped walls.
This place enforced discipline without saying a word. I lay back on the thin mattress, staring at the humming light on the ceiling. I closed my eyes to steady my pulse, but the quiet didn't last.
Crack-crack-crack. A knock shattered the silence of the corridor. "Main hall. Five minutes."
The main hall erased every expectation I had left. When the doors slid open, my mind stalled. It was massive—too wide to exist beneath an abandoned ruin.
The ceiling rose high above, glowing with recessed lights that adjusted to our movement. The floor was matte black and seamless, marked with thin, glowing white lines that looked like a giant, digital blueprint.
There were people everywhere. Too many to count. Men and women stood in loose clusters, some stretching, some silent, all of them measuring each other with predatory eyes.
Junseo slowed beside me, his voice barely a whisper. "That many? I thought we were the only ones."
"We aren't," I said. My eyes drifted to the walls. Screens lined the space from floor to ceiling. Hidden cameras were everywhere.
This wasn't a meeting place. It was a selection ground.
Borislav's voice cut through the murmurs like a knife. "Form up."
The room obeyed instantly. People shifted, their feet aligning with the glowing lines on the floor.
"You are here," Borislav said, his hands clasped behind his back, "because each of you was identified as useful."
Not talented. Not exceptional. Just useful.
Like a tool.
"This is not training," he continued. "It is preparation. There is a difference."
The screens behind him flared to life.
Blueprints unfolded in clean white lines—vaults, access points, choke zones. A real place, copied down to the millimeter. My chest tightened.
"This place exists," Borislav said calmly.
"Your task is to learn it better than the people who built it. Some of you will fail." He paused, his gaze cold. "If you fail, you will leave. Quietly."
I looked at the names flashing on the screen.
The number of people in the hall didn't match the list. People were already being cut. Miran stood at the back, his icy blue eyes fixed on me. When he finally looked away, the pressure in my lungs eased just enough for me to breathe.
The lights shifted, becoming sharper, more clinical. Borislav turned to the blueprint.
"Welcome," he said, "to the rehearsal."
The doors behind us sealed with a metallic groan. I understood then: this wasn't about whether we could do the job. It was about who would still be breathing when the lights went out.