The room in the dockside boarding house stank of damp wood and stale air. Stern paced the uneven floorboards, the note from Borodin clenched in his hand.
THE WARLOCK KNOWS YOUR NAME.
It wasn't just a threat — it was dominance written in ink. The alley ambush had been a physical warning; this was psychological annihilation. Koba's network wasn't reacting — it was predicting. It had mapped Stern's tactics before he even deployed them. Every move, every contact, every whisper — anticipated and turned.
Stern wasn't hunting a man anymore. He was fighting a mind that thought faster, colder, deeper.
Yagoda sat on the bed, cleaning a pistol that rattled faintly in his trembling hands. "It's hopeless," he muttered. "Borodin's gone. The rest won't meet with us. They're terrified. He's bought them, or broken them. We're blind here, comrade. Deaf."
He looked up, pale under the weak light. "We should report back to Zurich. Lenin needs to know—"
"No." Stern's voice cracked through the room. He slammed his fist into the wall, flakes of plaster raining down. "Lenin's orders are for classrooms and pamphlets. Useless here."
He turned, eyes blazing. "Koba fights with gold and fear. We fight with words. Tell me, Yagoda — which wins?"
Silence. Only the soft click of the pistol's chamber.
Stern exhaled slowly, his expression hardening. "Then we stop fighting by his rules and start fighting in his language."
The decision fell like a guillotine. The honorable hunt was over. The revolution's purity — gone.
"If we can't recruit loyalty," he said, pacing again, "we create it. Fear works both ways. We don't need a zealot. We need a coward. A man who values his own life above everything else."
They spent the next day and night scouring the docks — ghosts among thieves. Their search narrowed from exiles to smugglers, men who lived by greed and silence.
By dawn, they had their target.
Eino Koskinen. Finnish. A dockrunner who moved anything for a price. Twice, Stern's surveillance caught him meeting Murat — Koba's hulking enforcer. A courier, most likely. Small enough to be overlooked, useful enough to be protected.
And vulnerable.
Yagoda found the weak point: a wife and a daughter, seven years old. Every day, at precisely three, Eino met her after school, walked her home through the same street. Routine. Predictable. Perfect.
Stern felt the old nausea rise — the line he'd once sworn never to cross now directly under his feet. But the memory of Borodin's betrayal burned that hesitation away. Koba had drawn this battlefield. He would fight on it.
They took Eino that night in a warehouse by the harbor. The air smelled of tar, rope, and seawater. He was alone, counting crates under a dim lantern when they appeared — Yagoda from one end, Stern from the other.
"Who—"
Stern closed the distance before the word finished, slammed him against the crates, and pressed the muzzle of a Nagant to his temple.
"Be silent," Stern said quietly. "We're only here to talk."
Eino froze, trembling.
"You work for the Georgian." Not a question.
Yagoda stepped out of the shadows and raised a photograph. A little girl on a swing, blonde pigtails, laughing at something outside the frame.
Eino's breath hitched.
"Her name is Anya," Stern said softly. "She walks home from school at three. Every day." His tone was calm, clinical. "Stockholm is dangerous for children. So many carriages. So many accidents."
The smuggler's knees buckled. He made a choked sound, tears spilling freely. "Please," he whispered. "Not my girl. Please."
Stern didn't blink. "Then listen. You still work for the Georgian. You take his money, do his jobs. But now you work for me too. You tell me everything. Every meeting, every name, every shipment. Miss nothing."
He leaned in, voice turning to ice. "If you betray me, I will send you her hair in a box. Understand?"
Eino collapsed, sobbing, nodding frantically. "Yes! I understand! Please, I'll do whatever you ask."
Stern holstered the gun. His stomach churned, but his voice stayed even. "Then start now. Prove yourself."
The Finn spoke in a desperate rush. "The Georgian's main office — top floor of the old Svea Shipping building, Skeppsbron waterfront. Guards on every level. Couriers come and go. That's where the orders come from. Where the money's counted. That's where he is."
Stern felt the thrill cut through his exhaustion — cold, electric, terrible.
A location. Finally, something real.
He had crossed the line — and found power waiting on the other side.
Now, for the first time, the Warlock had a shadow of his own.