A commission from the capital arrived in town. An internal investigation began. Anikeev was suspended.
He knew it was over. He knew who was behind it. So he decided to move first.
He decided to eliminate the source of all his trouble. Sasha Sever. Colonel Anikeev was now a cornered man.
And cornered men are dangerous. He understood that formal methods had failed. The commission, the file, the press—it was all one chain.
And that chain ran all the way to a lifer’s cell. Absurd? Sure. But that was the story.
If he wanted to save himself, he had to break the chain at the beginning. He had to get rid of Sasha Sever. But how do you remove a man from one of the most secure prisons in the country?
Anikeev used his last and dirtiest connections. Through intermediaries, he reached one of the prison toughs in Black Eagle. Not a real old-school boss, but the kind of anti-authority inmate who hated Sever’s old code and wanted his place.
The deal was simple. Arrange an “accident.” Price: a large payment into the prison fund and support for the man’s rise after Sever was gone.
The deal was made. A plot started taking shape inside the prison. The inmate, known as Cross, gathered a handful of men willing to do anything.
The plan was straightforward. During yard time, start a mass fight. In the confusion, somebody sticks Sever with a shiv. The whole thing gets written off as prison violence.
But they underestimated him. Sever wasn’t just another inmate. In stories like this, he was the prison itself. He could feel the mood of the place.
He noticed the atmosphere change. Cross and his men whispering in corners. Men who once showed respect now looking at him sideways.
The web worked inside the walls too. Through his own people, through ordinary inmates who owed him favors, he quickly learned about the planned hit. He could have tipped off the administration.
But that wasn’t his style. He decided to get ahead of it and turn their plan into his. On the chosen day, everything began according to Cross’s script.
During yard time, one of Cross’s men deliberately shoved an inmate close to Sever. Words were exchanged. Then fists. Just as planned, chaos spread.
Guards rushed to break it up. Cross and three of his men, pretending to be part of the general brawl, pushed toward Sever, who stood a little apart, calmly watching. Cross had a shiv in his hand.
But when they got close, something happened they hadn’t expected. Dozens of inmates who had been standing off to the side suddenly formed a human ring around Sever. Shoulder to shoulder, silent, looking at Cross with cold dislike.
These were ordinary working inmates, not mob men, not bosses. But they respected Sever for being fair in his own hard way, for living by rules that protected them too. And they weren’t about to hand him over to a pack of animals.
Cross froze. Suddenly he was the one trapped. One man against dozens…
