Somewhere in the Shadows, 2075
The baptism. Helsinki's fog-choked dawn, when Petrov's blood sluiced the boy off me and woke the wolf with a howl that still echoes in my bones. Nine then, cocky as fresh ink—Katya's nails a new scratch on my back, thinking power was a stolen kiss and a quicker score, Father's fists just a bad dream I'd outrun. Lies. Violence ain't a game; it's the red river Jordan, churning cold and merciless, drowning the flinchers while the survivors drink deep. Yuri lurked in the shadows that day, ledger like a serpent's tongue, testing if I'd swim or sink. I drank. Tasted like rust and reckoning—like the first time I spat blood after one of his "lessons." That crossing? First link in the chain that dragged me from rat to reaper. The thrill sings sweet, pup, like a first crush's whisper... till it carves you hollow. Be honorable in the thrill; it's the code that keeps the wolf from devouring its own soul.
St. Petersburg Shipyards, Summer 1989
Neva ghosts clawed the air, thick as pyre smoke, Mother's ashes ground into my boot heels like a curse I couldn't shake. I'd barely slept after the flames—Katya's flat a temporary hideout, her arms a brief shield from the roar in my head. Dawn pulled me back to Pier 7, chest tight with the kind of rage that turns kids into killers. The crew waited in the salt-rot gloom: Misha, jaw set like weathered granite, his one good ear twitching at my approach; Lena, eyes red-rimmed from her brother's fresh grave, clutching a sawn-off like it was his ghost; young Tomas, the wiry Finn stray we'd picked up last year after Petrov's goons torched his family's fish shack, Mauser slung low, grudge burning brighter than his fifteen years. They weren't blood, these wolves-in-training, but tighter than the fractured mess Father left me with.
"Petrov lit her up," I snarled, voice gravel scraped raw from the smoke I'd choked down at the ruins. "Torch job, clean as his Kremlin payoffs. We return the favor—hit his Helsinki drop before the bastard blinks." The plan spilled fast, rough as bootleg samogon: midnight trawler across the Gulf, crack the safehouse vault, yank the ledgers proving his Duma strings. Yuri's gravel whisper last night, over Mother's pine-box vigil, echoed: "Cross the water, nephew. Threshold to the big pack. Refuse, and you're ash like her—forgotten." I'd nodded, refusal's shards crunching underfoot like the cinders I'd sifted at dawn. But the kid in me flickered—one fat score, diamonds for the Urals shack, girls to chase forever. Father's echo sneered from the fog: Useless whelp. Always running.
Trawler Crossing, Gulf of Finland, Midnight
The trawler shoved off at witching hour, hull groaning under tarped "fish" crates hiding AKs and enough Semtex to glass a dock. Misha muscled the wheel, his missing ear a ragged moonscape from '86 riots—starved out by Petrov's blockade, he'd clawed a militiaman's face for bread. "Storm's brewing," he grunted, waves slapping like accusations. Tomas scanned the black water, Mauser steady—kid dreamed of smuggling guitars to Moscow girls, not guns to ghosts. Lena spat over the rail: "For my brother. Make it hurt." And Katya? Damn her siren ass—stowed in the hold with a snub-nose .38 and eyes like smoked amber. She'd slipped aboard uninvited, hips swaying into the cramped bunk as the engine coughed alive. "Can't let you boys hog the glory, Dima," she purred, breath hot on my neck. Her fingers traced the scar over my eye—Sasha's gift—then lower, nails raking the welts from belts swung since I could walk, nine years of dodging his storms. We tangled fierce in salt-crusted sheets—first real taste of chasing ghosts with heat—her gasps drowning the Gulf's roar, bodies a frantic dam against the grief flooding my gut. No strings, no bruises like Mother's—just raw spark, her curves a shield from his shadow. Useless? I thrust harder, proving the lie. Dawn's chill broke the spell, docking us in Helsinki's fog-veiled slips, safehouse looming like a squat brick tomb.
Lesson of the Crossing: Threshold's no gentle door—it's a flood, ripping old skin in the undertow. Frankl chose fire in the camps' void; I chose the charge. Father's fists wired the flinch; pyre wired the fury. Wade cold and churning. Swim like the wolf hunts the wave—hesitate, and it claims you whole.
Helsinki Safehouse, Dawn
Finn mist clung like a shroud as we ghosted the docks, boots sucking wet cobble. Tomas scouted ahead, shadow-slim: two Estonian guards at the safehouse door, chain-smoking koskenkorva flasks under a flickering sodium lamp, laughs guttural as stray dogs. Petrov's outer pack—tattooed wolves with Baltic bites. Misha's suppressed Makarov whispered twice—phut-phut—bodies thumping soft, flasks spilling amber rivers. Crowbar kissed the lock with a lover's sigh; we spilled inside, air thick with sauna pine and stale sweat, crates stamped with Petrov's snarling wolf sigil stacked like altars to greed. Katya moved like smoke beside me, .38 steady—ex-dockside girl turned sharp informant, her own scars from rough nights a map matching mine. "Smells like payday," she murmured, lips brushing my ear.
Up the creaking stairs, vault room hummed with a diesel generator's guttural prayer, steel door etched in Cyrillic warnings: Death to Thieves. Red laser grids veined the floor like hell's arteries, humming faint menace. I knelt, Yuri's ledger splayed—his "gift" decoding the combo in thieves' cant: 89-17-91. Union crack-year, scar-slice, riot-ear. Tumblers ground like teeth; door swung wide—alarms wailed, a banshee's shriek splitting the fog. Petrov's lieutenant erupted from a blind alcove—Erik, slab-jawed Estonian ox with a Skorpion machine pistol spitting 9mm fury. Burst stitched the doorframe where my skull had kissed it seconds prior; I dove, rolling belly-flat behind a splintering crate as lead chewed wood like hungry termites. "Flank the bastard!" I roared over the din, AK hot in my grip.
Misha charged left, Makarov barking thunder—nailed one flanker knee-high, the thug crumpling in a wet scream, clutching his ruin like a prayer. Tomas swung right, Mauser cracking wild—clipped another's meaty arm, blood spraying arc-like. Lena's sawn-off boomed from the rear, buckshot peppering shadows. But Katya—Christ, Katya—leaned into the storm, .38 bucking steady. Pop-pop—third thug's eye exploded in a pink mist. "For Irina, you Petrov pig," she hissed, voice a whip-crack over cordite reek, reloading with fingers blood-smeared but sure. I surged from cover, AK chattering a prayer of my own—three-round burst stitched Erik's chest, crimson blooming like poppies on his wool coat. He staggered but lunged, Skorpion clicking empty, knife flashing moon-silver in the strobing alarms.
Close quarters grapple, sweat-slick and brutal—his blade grazed my ribs, a shallow fire-kiss that tore shirt and skin. Useless whelp—fight, you spineless shit! Father's snarl thundered in my skull, whiskey-breath hot as the welts he'd laid. I headbutted the bastard, scar splitting open in a warm flood, blood sheeting my vision red. Free hand yanked my boot-knife—plunged it home in his gut, twist slow and deliberate, savoring the wet gurgle, the light guttering in his eyes like a snuffed candle. He slumped heavy across me; I rode him down, breath ragged, vault's guts spilling at our feet: ledgers fatter than sin, diamond sacks winking like fallen stars, thumb drives humming with Petrov's poison—oligarch bribes, FSB wetwork logs, Chernobyl ghost-ships. Got you now, you tenement-torching prick. Triumph surged, bitter as bile—but boots thundered below, Petrov's inner pack roused, shouts echoing up the stairs in guttural Russian. Six, maybe eight shadows piling in. "Out—move your asses!" I barked, stuffing drives into my coat's hidden seam, scooping a ledger fistful.
Misha hauled Tomas by the collar; Lena covered the rear, sawn-off belching defiance. Katya's arm hooked mine, pulling me toward the fire escape—her touch electric, eyes wild with the same feral spark that lit our bunk. We burst into the fog, boots pounding slick roofs, alarms wailing like damned souls. Trawler's engine coughed to life two blocks off, Misha hot-wiring it from the wheelhouse. Bullets pinged the hull like vengeful hail—one caught Tomas square in the back mid-leap aboard, slamming him deck-ward in a gurgling heap. Kid's Mauser skittered free; his eyes locked mine, glassing over fast, dreams of Moscow guitars bubbling red from his lips. "Dima... make 'em pay..." Last whisper, gone.
Return to St. Petersburg, Dusk
Gulf waves clawed our hull like the dead rising, Helsinki shrinking to a venomous smear. Cabin reeked of cordite and copper; I slumped against the bulkhead, blood crusting my shirt in tacky maps. Katya knelt, hands trembling as she ripped cloth for my ribs—fingers steadying on skin, turning medic to minx in a heartbeat. "You're in the abyss now, Dima. No turning back." Her voice cracked, but eyes burned—touch lingered, tracing scars old and new, pulling me down into the bunk's dim sway. Bodies crashed fierce, desperate—her curves a frantic anchor against Tomas's cooling weight lashed on deck, the dead boy's stare boring through the planks. Adrenaline's cruel alchemy: gasps slapping wave-rhythm, nails carving fresh welts to match Father's legacy. No words, just the salt-sting release, her breath hitching my name like a curse. She curled spent against me after, raven hair fanned on my chest, but sleep evaded—Tomas's ghost joined Mother's pyre-glow, Father's laugh a low rumble under the engine's growl. Weak, boy. Always weak. Playboy armor? Cracked thin as ice.
St. Pete's dusk swallowed us whole, trawler ghosting into hidden slips. Yuri waited at the dacha, hearth-glow framing his silver fox silhouette, my ledger merged with the haul on an oaken table—diamonds winking like guilty eyes. "Baptized proper, eh, wolf?" he rumbled, clapping my good shoulder, gaze flicking to the fresh cuts. "Petrov'll wake screaming. You've got his throat in your jaws now." Crew nursed wounds in the outer room—Misha's knee splinted crude, Lena chain-smoking to choke the sobs; Katya slipped out with a goodbye kiss tasting of ash and salt, her whisper hot: "Don't die on me yet, Dima." Diamond pocketed, scar-sized and cold—I felt the shift settle, bone-deep: no more nipping at heels like the rat Father beat me into. Wolf had tasted pack-blood, hot and iron-sweet. Hunger gnawed, vast as the Neva.
Wisdom of the Blood: Violence wakes the beast in your gut—don't feed it blind, or it'll eat you from inside. Aurelius stared down Rome's knives: "Best revenge? Become the man he could never be." Channel the rage; strike to build, not just shatter. Father's fists wired destruction; this dawn wired dominion. Cost carves deep: brother's blood sticky on deck, lover's fire flickering against the void. Emerge not boy, but blade—forge the wolf, pup. Let it hunt for you, not hollow you out.
Neva lapped black at the pilings, Tomas's ghost heavy as the ledger in my coat. Europe throbbed beyond the Gulf—Berlin's lights calling a kid with blood on his hands, Yuri's next whisper promising neon veins and diamond chokes on Petrov's pipelines. Baptism sealed in blood at dawn. But as Yuri poured samogon, his eyes slid to a shadowed corner—a contact's silhouette, too still, too knowing. Petrov's howl? Just warming up. And in my pack? A knife waited, glinting unseen.