The air in the grain silo was heavy and stale, thick with dust and the faint smell of grain long gone to rot. It was the kind of place where even silence seemed to gather in layers. Around the cracked wooden crate that served as their table, Jake's new plan hung like smoke—dense, poisonous, impossible to breathe through.
Kamo stood rigid, his jaw working, his eyes dark. Violence came naturally to him, but this—this cold, deliberate sacrifice—felt wrong. It wasn't battle. It wasn't revenge. It was mathematics with blood for ink.
"Soso," he said finally, voice low and rough. "To send a man to his death like this… to lead them straight to him—it isn't right."
Jake met his eyes, unreadable. Whatever fear or doubt still lived inside him was buried deep. He spoke with a calm that chilled the room.
"Honor," he said quietly, "is for men who have the luxury of peace. We don't." He stepped closer, his voice flattening into something mechanical. "They made this choice the moment they sold the revolution for coins. When they decided that your life, my life, Kato's life, were worth less than a bribe. We're not killing a man, Kamo—we're closing the circle they started."
Kamo hesitated. Jake's stare hardened.
"One man's life," Jake continued, "for a cancer that will kill hundreds. Do the revolutionary arithmetic."
The phrase hit Kamo like a blow. It was the language of their cause—the cold logic that turned morality into a ledger. His jaw clenched, his knuckles whitened, and slowly, painfully, he nodded.
Jake exhaled once. The matter was settled. He turned to the crate and began arranging pebbles, nails, and splinters into a crude map of the district. The transformation was eerie: hesitation gone, replaced by a sharp, chilling focus.
"The leak must be flawless," he said. "Anonymous, believable, and impossible to trace. A street boy will deliver it—one of the rail-yard orphans. He won't know who sent him or what's inside. One coin, one errand, and he vanishes."
He looked to Pyotr, who had been silent until now. "The message goes to Yagoda's cobbler contact. It must sound panicked—someone desperate to sell out his comrades for cash and safe passage. It must sound weak. Real."
He moved on without pausing.
"The stage will be the ice house. Fikus will be there, tied to the central pillar. But the ropes will be frayed—cut just enough to look like an escape attempt. We'll leave food just out of reach. A little water, a crust of bread. It must look sloppy, human. When they come, they must believe we're amateurs. Confidence makes men stupid."
Kamo said nothing. Jake's voice didn't waver.
"You'll pick three men," Jake went on. "Not the hotheads. Not the talkers. The quiet ones. Men whose word carries weight because they never speak."
He traced a line in the dust on the crate. "You'll watch from the rafters of the warehouse across from the ice house. You'll see everything. You won't move. You won't speak. You won't shoot. You are not fighters tonight. You are the memory of the party."
The phrase hung in the still air, heavy and sacrilegious. Kamo stared at him, realizing the shift. This was no longer an operation. It was a ritual.
Jake continued, relentless.
"While it happens, you and I will be somewhere public. The rail-yard workers are meeting about the strike. We'll be there, in plain sight. We'll argue about pamphlets and dues. Two dozen men will swear we never left the room. That's our alibi."
It was flawless—terrifying in its precision. Every angle considered. Every variable controlled.
Jake paused, his eyes colder now. "One last thing."
Kamo's voice was hoarse. "What?"
"Fikus," Jake said softly. "When they find him, he needs to look like he's been questioned. Hard."
The meaning was clear. The bruises weren't for information—they were for effect. The scene needed to feel true.
Kamo's throat tightened. For a long moment, he didn't speak. Then, finally, he nodded once. Slow. Resigned.
"I'll see to it," he said.
Jake said nothing. He didn't need to.
In the dim light of the silo, among the dust and the echoes of rats in the grain chutes, the plan solidified. What they were about to do would end one life—and, Jake knew, whatever was left of his own humanity with it.
But he didn't flinch. The arithmetic was already done.