Page 11 of The Darkness is Calling

What he did not expect, however, was for me to leave Russia and lay the foundation for a new empire in the middle of London, spreading my network across Europe like an octopus.

Or better said, like a flock of ravens flying over the continent.

And across the ocean.

Everyone clears out of my office, but suddenly my phone begins to ring, and my father’s name appears on the screen.

I frown.

We spoke only a few days ago in a cordial conversation, because we always avoid discussing business over the phone. You never know who might be listening. That is precisely why his call, so soon after the last one, makes me suspect something has happened.

“Father,” I answer with a cold voice, in my native language, the one I always use when speaking to him.

“Voron. We have problems.”

On the outside, I allow no emotion to alter my stone mask. Inside, I am tense, and my eyes move silently toward my brothers, the only ones who have remained in the office, and the only ones who immediately understand my look.

“Konstantin Borislov was killed last night.” This time, I allow one eyebrow to rise.

We are talking about one of the most respected men in the Bratva, a Vor who was a good friend of my father’s. Through him, I met his son, Mikhail Borislov, whom I have not seen since the Christmas party.

The organization subjected us to many brutal tests, but the dangerous, tense situations we endured together forged a close friendship that still exists today, even though he conducts his business in the Middle East.

He is my connection to that part of the continent, and the man who will help the Birds of Darkness to fly even there.

And farther.

“Who did it?”

“We don’t know yet. It looks like it was someone from the inside, which makes it even more dangerous.”

“For whom?”

“For everyone. The Solntsevskaya Bratva says they had nothing to do with it.”

“And the ones in Saint Petersburg?”

“Neither did they. I spoke directly to their Pakhan.”

The crease between my brows deepens.

“Are you sure they’re not lying to you?”

“Very sure,” he says with conviction, his deep voice carrying something I have not heard in a long time.

Concern. Grief.

“We are oldmen now.We have nothingleftexcept respect and the title that still makes us powerful. We don’t have armies. We don’t have territories. If someone kills one of us, it means respect, the very thing that makes the Bratva shine, no longer exists for someone in our world. We are not lowborn hooligans.”

The anger in his final words can be felt in every syllable he speaks with revulsion.

They are kings.

Every Vor is respected for everything he has done in the Bratva before earning a privileged position, one that grants him peace and comfort.

But reasons to kill one of them can always appear, because a Vor’s greatest power is the influence he carries.

“Could it be revenge?”