Not to the underworld. Not to the code. To his friend’s memory. In Mikhail Krug’s house, in the very room where he was killed, there had been an icon the intruders hadn’t managed to take. The same one Goldfinch later tried to sell.
After the investigation, it had been returned to the family. But the legend says this icon was special. An old, prayer-worn piece given to Krug by an aging crime boss, believed to guard not only the house but the honor of the old code.
And because the killers had touched it, it was considered defiled. Sever decided it had to be cleansed, and that only he could do it. It was an absurd task—arranging an escape from Black Eagle was impossible.
But he wasn’t planning to escape. He was planning to leave. Legally.
He began his quietest and most complicated game yet. Through his lawyers, he filed a petition to reopen a case. Not his own.
Dmitry Baskakov’s. The petition, submitted in Baskakov’s name, said he was prepared to give new, sensational testimony in Krug’s murder. Specifically, to identify the true mastermind he had hidden for years out of fear for his life.
It was a bluff. But a carefully designed one. Krug’s case still carried weight.
The possibility of a new, unknown mastermind promised headlines and pressure. Investigators, eager to put a final period on the case, took the bait. They decided to conduct a new interview and reconstruction.
And because Sever had been a key witness in Baskakov’s case, he too had to be transported to the city. Together. The plan worked.
Months later, under strict secrecy, a prison transport carrying the two most notorious inmates in the country rolled out of Black Eagle and headed toward the scene of the crime. This trip was the climax of their strange relationship. They rode in the same cramped steel compartment inside the transport van.
“Why are you doing this, Alexander?” Neighbor whispered. “There isn’t any other mastermind, is there?” “There is,” Sever said quietly.
“His name is Injustice. I’ve got one last debt to settle. And you’re going to help me do it.”
In the city they were placed in a jail holding facility. From there, Sever began to move. Late that night, while the city slept, an unremarkable car pulled up outside.
With the help of bribed guards and a gap in the security system that Archimedes’ people had worked on for months, Sever left his cell for a few hours. It wasn’t an escape. It was an errand.
He went to Krug’s house. People were waiting for him there. The widow. A few close friends.
They knew who he was. And they knew why he had come. He stepped inside.
The same house where his friend’s life had ended. He stood in silence for a while. Then he went to the room where the icon hung.
He took it down from the wall. Pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket. And for a long time, carefully and without a word, he wiped it clean, as if trying to remove every trace of dirt, blood, and grief.
Then he hung it back up, crossed himself, and bowed his head. “I’m sorry, brother,” he said into the quiet.
“That’s all I could do.” He returned to the jail before dawn. Nobody noticed.
The next day the interview took place. Neighbor, coached by Sever, rambled about vague foreign masterminds, giving no names and no facts. Investigators quickly realized they were being played.
But by then there was nothing useful they could do. A public scandal wasn’t in anybody’s interest. The matter was quietly dropped…
