Brighton was nothing like Moscow. The air was softer, the people smiled too much, and the streets weren’t haunted by shadows that whispered old threats. But Mikhail Volkov—nineteen, tattooed, and a student in a foreign land—had long learned that wolves don’t belong in sheep’s clothing.

He was here to study. At least, that’s what his father told him. His father, a man whose name still made men straighten their backs in certain corners of Russia, had sent him away with a one-way ticket, a pocket full of cash, and a warning: “Don’t get into trouble. Yet.”

Mne nado byt’ tikhim. Blend in. Play the part.

Mikhail didn’t listen well.

At Brighton University, he was the Russian mystery—dark-eyed, tattooed, with a smirk that dripped with both charm and danger. Girls whispered his name between classes, drawn to the way his muscles moved under his leather jacket, to the way his fingers traced the rim of his whiskey glass at underground parties.

But they didn’t know the truth.

They didn’t know that his tattoos weren’t just ink, but stories of a past he didn’t talk about.

They didn’t know that Brighton wasn’t an escape—it was exile.

Exile. The word tasted bitter. Like blood in his mouth after a fight.

When he walked through the streets at night, the cold wind biting through his thin shirt, he wasn’t just another student. He was a wolf waiting for the right moment to return to the pack. Because his father’s enemies still breathed, and Mikhail still had a name to carve into their throats.

Patience. Wait. Let them think I’m gone.

For now, though, he played the role of a student. He sat in lectures, scribbled notes between half-hearted yawns, and let the professors think he was just another foreigner.

They don’t know who I am. Who I was. Who I will be again.

But the city was waking something inside him. A hunger. A need for chaos. And soon, Brighton would know why Moscow once called him Серый Волк—the Grey Wolf.