STATUS Alive – at large, protected by his own operational paranoia
RANK Boss, the Zhakarov Brotherhood
OCCUPATION Organised crime – extortion, protection, territory
ACCESS LEVEL None; a long record of arrests for bodily harm, no confirmed killings
AGE Unrecorded
ORIGINS Paraisopolis – built his following there before moving into Chuza proper
YEARS OF SERVICE N/A
FIRST ON RECORD Session 1 – the Grimm brothers’ arrest at the Broken Mug Tavern

Zhakarov built his name in Paraisopolis and brought it into Chuza proper alongside the man who’d go on to lead the Chuza Cutters – partners once, rivals ever since, by Zhakarov’s own account over a raid that got his wife killed and that he has never once let go of blaming the Cutters for. The Brotherhood he runs now keeps a rough peace around the Broken Mug Tavern more through reputation than actual violence – a long arrest record for assault and extortion, and, notably, no confirmed murders on the books.

Getting close to the man himself is deliberately difficult. “Zhakarov” as the public and most of his own rank and file know him is a role played by his bodyguard, Mikey “the Fist” Ohara, the two of them swapping identities at will with a pair of matched amulets. The real Zhakarov eats at whichever well-to-do restaurant suits him that week, protected by men who genuinely don’t know which of the two they’re protecting.

FILE NOTES

That arrangement nearly got him killed anyway. Chuza Cutters gunmen hit the restaurant mid-meal, and the Agents’ intervention – whether they were protecting Zhakarov or Ohara wearing his face has never been entirely clear – put the Brotherhood in Section 18’s debt rather than its crosshairs, at least for a while. Zhakarov has made a point of calling that debt “even” rather than owed since, which in practice means he still remembers it.

His own Brothers Grimm – enforcers Marek and Tarek – were taken off the board entirely in the same opening skirmish that first put the Agents on his radar. Zhakarov’s reaction was characteristically businesslike: a warning passed through a soldier at his table – keep clear of the Kleet and Zhakarov’s own affairs, professional courtesy, nothing personal – rather than open retaliation. He deals in leverage, not spectacle.

“Rumour has it that you are interested in the Kleet and Zhakarov. As a professional courtesy, it would be in your interest to leave their affairs to more skilled Agents.”

message relayed on Zhakarov’s behalf

STATUS: Filed under The Bad. Extortion, standing rivalry with the Cutters, and a body-double arrangement that makes him considerably harder to pin down than most of Chuza’s other crime bosses. No murder charge has ever stuck – which, on this file, counts as restraint rather than innocence.