The next day…
Alexei felt something warm and wet brush against his cheek. He frowned in his sleep and turned his head, only for it to follow him. A second later, a rough tongue dragged across his face again.
His eyes snapped open.
Katya's face hovered inches from his own, her ears perked and her tail already wagging as if she had accomplished something important. Her tongue hung out shamelessly.
"Katya," he said, his voice hoarse with sleep. "Enough."
She ignored him and leaned in again for another lick.
He raised a hand and gently pushed her snout away. "Bad girl." The words lacked any real anger. He patted her face once in reprimand, but it only encouraged her. Katya let out a pleased sound and climbed halfway onto the bed, pressing her weight against him.
With a quiet sigh, Alexei wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in, burying his face briefly in her thick fur. Katya squirmed immediately, clearly more interested in licking than the hug, but she was already trapped. Her paws scrabbled uselessly against the mattress as her tail thumped against the sheets.
"Too late," he murmured. "You started this."
She struggled for a few seconds more before giving up, letting out a huff that sounded suspiciously like annoyance. Alexei released her after a moment, and she wasted no time hopping off the bed, shaking herself as if deeply wronged.
Alexei pushed himself upright and rubbed his face, blinking away the last traces of sleep. The room was quiet, lit by pale light filtering through the gaps between the curtains. He glanced around, his eyes instinctively searching for the second presence he was used to feeling.
"Trezor?" he called softly.
There was no response.
He sighed, swung his legs off the bed, and crouched down to peer beneath it. There he was, Trezor, hidden halfway under the frame, batting a wooden ball back and forth with his forepaws while nudging it with his snout.
Alexei paused, then smiled faintly. Right. Football.
The sport had already begun gaining traction in St. Petersburg, with its first league established in 1901. Matches were played now and then, and interest was growing, but the game was still young, rules loose and tactics undeveloped. It wouldn't hurt, he thought, to build a team of his own. Perhaps even speak with the league himself and help shape its future while it was still malleable.
He straightened and stretched, arms raised overhead. "Later," he murmured to no one in particular. It's time for his daily exercise.
The routine came easily. By the time he finished, sweat clung to his skin and his muscles burned dully, but he welcomed the sensation. He headed to the washroom without hesitation, scrubbing away the sweat and grime until the water loosened the remaining stiffness in his body.
When he returned, towel draped over his shoulders, he found Sednev already waiting inside the room, standing in his usual posture and dressed in his familiar, unremarkable uniform. While Anya was busy opening the curtains to let the light in.
"Breakfast?" Alexei asked while drying his hair. His stomach had begun protesting loudly during his bath.
Sednev nodded. "It's already outside, Your Highness. I'll have them bring it in."
"Hm. Please," Alexei replied, already dressing, not bothering to look up.
The table was set moments later. Steam rose gently from the dishes, filling the room with a comforting smell.
Alexei sat and began eating at once.
Despite the generous spread, the meal didn't last long. He ate quickly and efficiently, barely pausing between bites. Katya lingered nearby, hopeful, while Trezor watched from a distance, calm and patient. But Alexei ignored them. In little time, the plates were cleared.
Alexei wiped his mouth with a napkin and leaned back slightly in his chair.
"Anya, don't forget to feed these troublemakers later, and have them run around the palace grounds before bringing them back here."
Anya nodded. "Yes, Your Highness."
Alexei then looked at Sednev and asked, "So? What's my schedule for today?"
Sednev took his notes from his pocket and checked them for a moment before answering. "You have your lessons with your tutors this morning, Your Highness. In the afternoon, you are scheduled to be at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for your training. After that, you have your piano lesson with Mr. Tarasov."
Alexei sighed and rubbed his forehead. He didn't know what had possessed his mother to add musical lessons to his already growing schedule, but he couldn't exactly throw a tantrum over it. He could only accept it.
"Let's get this over with." He pushed himself up from the chair and headed for his first appointment of the day, followed by his loyal attendants, Sednev and Nagorny.
—-
It was already evening by the time Alexei finished all his appointments. He didn't know why, but he felt as though he had shot himself in the foot when he requested this hands-on training arrangement. It felt like he was working himself to the bone just to reach a position he had already secured. Still, he needed to maintain the façade that he was enjoying everything and learning from it. Otherwise, he wouldn't know how to justify staying with the Okhrana while gradually abandoning the rest of the ministries from his on hand training.
He sighed and settled into the chair near the hearth before speaking to Sednev. "You can rest now, Sednev. Thank you for everything today."
"It's my honor to serve you, Your Highness. Then…" Sednev bowed his head and took his leave.
Alexei then turned to Anya. "You may rest after preparing my bath, Anya."
"Yes, Your Highness. This will be quick," Anya replied. She prepared the bath and then left as well.
Alone at last, Alexei didn't move. He simply closed his eyes and rested for a while, letting the dinner he had just eaten settle in his stomach. He still needed to visit his minions later and ask about their progress in turning the informants into double agents.
If they cracked, good. If not, he could always find other ways to make his plan work.
He didn't intend to use them for long, though. He wouldn't rely on people he couldn't fully trust. In time, his own minions would become the informants instead, allowing him some peace of mind. As for the original informants, he wouldn't kill them. He would send them to other countries along with their families and allow them to live out their lives there.
It wouldn't hurt to be magnanimous sometimes. And even if they later turned themselves in, they wouldn't be able to harm his organization.
The plan he had devised was simple, yet it depended entirely on luck. He had no choice; he simply couldn't influence the Okhrana yet, or rather, the people running it. For now, all he could do was move pieces on the board and watch how they reacted. He would let them know that the jackals intended to strike at the ratcatchers in the east and see what response it provoked.
From what he had gathered by combing through reports and case files, the ratcatchers were a constant thorn in the politsiya's side. They were frequently hired as frontmen for demonstrations and rallies organized by the revolutionaries and the left wing, thrown into the streets to take the blows meant for others. They clashed openly with the Politsiya, broke windows, overturned carts, and turned protests into riots in exchange for money.
It was never the genuine protesters or the working people who were violent and unruly during these demonstrations. Rather, it was the hired thugs, brought in for that exact purpose. They provoked the crowd by committing acts of violence first, stirring anger and fear until others followed. As the saying went, people were easier to manipulate once they saw violence unfold before their own eyes. That was when a protest truly turned into a riot.
Once the riot ended, the revolutionaries moved quickly to exploit it. The violence was reframed, stripped of its cause and intent, until only the response remained. Pamphlets were printed, reports circulated, and stories spread, each one painting the authorities as ruthless oppressors who had attacked peaceful demonstrations. The ratcatchers vanished from the narrative entirely. What remained was outrage, carefully directed at the Politsiya and, by extension, the state itself. It was a tactic that gave the authorities endless headaches, forcing them to answer for chaos they had not started.
The Okhrana did its best to root these men out, but time and again it ended in nothing. The ratcatchers would scatter and disappear, lying low until the consequences of their actions had passed, only to surface again when they were needed. True to the meaning of the rat in their name. Slippery as a rat.
Left with few options, the Okhrana could only turn its attention to other gangs that operated in much the same way, selling their services to the revolutionaries and left wing for money. At first, there were results. Smaller gangs were dismantled, and their territories were thrown into chaos. Yet it soon became clear that such efforts only worked for a time. No sooner had one gang been crushed, another one would emerge in its place, offering the same kind of services as those before it.
The Okhrana could only shake their heads and continue searching for other ways to root these men out. So far, they had found none.
Alexei could only hope that once they received the message from the informants. They would let him finish what they couldn't. He wanted to attack as soon as possible, while these ratcatchers are still out in the open. He doesn't want to play hide and seek with them as it would only complicate the matters and prolong the fights.
Ivan had already found their strongholds and identified their leaders. Plans are already in place. What they were only waiting for was his go ahead. And he hoped he could give it soon.
The risks with his plans were negligible in his opinion. When he read the reports on his own gang, he found nothing particularly damning, aside from the fact that they were a gang, of course. They ran gambling dens and pillow houses, but that was tolerable compared to the anarchists and other groups that openly aided the revolutionaries.
In fact, most of the notes described them as "to be watched," "cohesive," or a "business-focused gang", a complete contrast to other gangs, which were labeled as "vicious," "iniquitous," and "villainous."
More telling still, their territory was the only one marked as peaceful on the map of St. Petersburg during the 1905 revolution he had seen in one of the reports. That distinction alone spoke volumes.
From this information, he was gambling and speculating that the Okhrana would use them, or rather, test whether the Jackals could accomplish what they could not. They had been searching for ways to deal with the ratcatchers, and now a helping hand had appeared. Surely, they would at least let his gang be, even if they did not trust his group.
But he had no intention of offering them trust. What he would offer them were results, results that would finally root out the thorns in their side.
Even so, he would remain vigilant and adapt in case his plan didn't work. There will always be errors in anyone's judgement and he was surely not immune to it.
Alexei rubbed his face, trying to chase away the sleepiness that was creeping in. After a moment, he stood up and changed into darker clothes, pulling on his coat and fastening his mask. He moved quietly to the door and locked it, then turned to his wolves huddled in the corner and shushed them, signaling for them to keep quiet while he was gone.
He made one final check of the room, and of the weapons hidden beneath his clothes, before slipping out through the window.
—---
Alexei opened the door to Anna's office and stepped inside, closing it softly behind him. The room was lit by several lamps set in every corner, their warm glow spreading evenly across the space and illuminating the stacks of papers arranged in careful order. The air smelled faintly of ink and wax.
Anna was seated behind the desk, pen moving steadily across a document. She looked up at the sound of the door and met his gaze. Alexei gave her a brief nod, which she returned without surprise, her expression calm and attentive.
He crossed the room and took the chair opposite her, settling into it without ceremony.
"Any news from Nikolai?" Alexei asked, his tone even as soon as he sat down.
Anna set her pen aside and leaned back slightly. "They should be coming here to report soon. Why don't we wait for them?"
Alexei nodded. He leaned back in his chair, tilted his head up slightly, and closed his eyes. Rest had become a rare luxury for him lately, and he would take every chance whenever it presented itself, no matter how short it was.
Anna studied her master's sleeping posture, letting her gaze trace every angle she could glimpse behind the mask. She couldn't help wondering what kind of face lay beneath it. Whenever thoughts of her master's identity crossed her mind in the past, she had forced them down without hesitation. But now, she allowed them to wander.
Was her master one of the nobility?
At times, the way he moved, the quiet confidence, the certainty in his actions, fit everything she knew of noble upbringing. Yet that notion always faltered when she remembered how little he seemed to mind the dirt, dust, grime, and mud in the slums. No noble as far she knew or had heard, behaved that way.
Then another thought surfaced.
Was he one of those secret police?
That suspicion had only taken root after their last meeting, when he had uncovered the presence of Okhrana spies within their organization on his own. And how calmly he had said he would handle the matter once their crafted message was delivered to the Okhrana. Not as a gamble at that, but as a certainty.
The thought had come to her suddenly, but the more she considered it, the less it seemed to fit. Too many of her master's actions contradicted the idea. His methods, his choices and the risks he took for them, none of it aligned cleanly with what little she understood of the secret police.
She secretly sighed to herself. It didn't really matter who her master was. Did it?
"You know, Anna, I'm quite sensitive when someone looks at me that intently. I can feel that gaze from several yards away. Is my face, mask and all, so handsome that you can't take your eyes off me?"
Startled by her master suddenly opening his eyes and speaking, she quickly averted her gaze. She coughed lightly, a faint blush creeping up her cheeks. "Hmmm… I was just thinking about something…"
Alexei propped himself up and teased, "Right. Ah, if you're already that dreamy with my mask on, I wonder what your reaction will be when you see the face behind this mask. Tsk, tsk."
"What?! What are you talking about?!" Anna said, mortified. "I just happened to look in your direction while thinking about something. And.. and… I was not looking at you dreamily!" She quickly grabbed the pen at her side, looked down and pretended to scribble something on the paper.
What an embarrassment. She already knew that her master had a strong sense of his surroundings. How many times had she experienced it already? And yet she had forgotten again, and it had quickly turned into an embarrassment. She tried to recall how she must have looked while staring at her master, but she couldn't picture it at all.
Think, think, Anna.
"Relax, Anna. I was just teasing you. You looked far too serious while you were staring at me earlier." Alexei chuckled, clearly amused by her reaction.
Anna looked up and asked, "Really?"
"Really." Alexei nodded, then paused before continuing. "So, what were you thinking about that had you looking so seriously at me?"
Anna felt a small wave of relief wash over her. At least he had admitted that she wasn't staring at him dreamily. That alone eased some of the heat in her face.
She hesitated when his question settled in her mind.
"Well…" Anna looked away and adjusted the papers in front of her, giving herself something to focus on. "I was just thinking about work. About a few problems that still need sorting out." Her voice was steady, but she didn't meet his gaze. "Nothing important."
Alexei studied her for a moment. The truth was, he already had an inkling of what she had been thinking about, but he knew he had no answers for her, not now. So he simply nodded and shifted the topic. "What time is it? They should be here by now, right?"
Anna glanced at the clock on the wall. "They should be. Let me send someone to check on them." She was about to stand when a knock sounded at the door, making her settle back into her chair as she called out, "Come in."
"Sorry we're late," Oskar said as he casually entered the room, followed by Nikolai.
When they saw their master inside, they straightened and greeted him. "Master, you're here."
"Hm." Alexei nodded at them and gestured toward the seats in the corner. "Please, sit."
"Why are you guys late?" Anna asked once she saw them seated. They were usually punctual when it came to reporting, so she couldn't help but question the delay.
Both of them glanced at each other. In the end, it was Nikolai who answered. "It was harder than we thought. We only managed to break them just before coming here, so…"
Alexei smiled faintly behind his mask. He already knew what they had done to the traitors, he had heard them the night before, but Anna had not.
"I hope you didn't overdo it, hm? Oskar?" Anna asked suspiciously, her tone dropping slightly. "I remember specifically ordering you not to go overboard."
Oskar smiled awkwardly. "Of course not. In fact, it took us this long because we were being lenient with them."
Anna narrowed her eyes, her suspicion not easing at the answer. She was about to speak again when Alexei stepped in to save his minions.
"Enough, Anna. I'm sure they're tired after working all day. Give them a break, will you?"
She looked at Alexei for a moment, then back at Oskar and Nikolai, before letting out a sigh. "All right."
Oskar and Nikolai both sighed in relief and looked at their master with gratitude.
Alexei winked at them, then asked more seriously, "So? What's the result?"
At that, Oskar and Nikolai straightened, confidence evident in both of them.
Nikolai was the one who answered, his voice steady with assurance. "They will follow our orders from now on, Master."
Alexei studied them, watching for any sign of deceit in their posture or expressions. Finding none, he smiled behind his mask. "Good. Then we'll proceed as planned."
He would ask them about the details later as some matters were better discussed without a lady present.