Page 2 of The Darkness is Calling

Even if I hold absolute power in London, my father, as Vor, still has a say when it comes to my relations with Russia and the entire Balkan region.

“In time, everything will work out the way we want it to.”

“That’s what I say too, my friend,” he tells me.

We are two men who put the organizations we belong to above everything else. Feelings have no place in our lives, because Death follows us with every step we take. She is my great love and the only one I desire.

Whores can be found on every street to satisfy my pleasures, and any marriage I enter will serve only one purpose: to secure an alliance obscenely profitable for the organization led by my brothers and me. And probably to produce an heir who can carry the Koronov name forward.

But if I’m being honest, I don’t care much about that.

Romantic dreams are far removed from me, and the only feelings that warm my heart are the ones written in blood: the desire to destroy, the thirst to kill, the need to savor the final spark in a dying man’s eyes as he loses himself completely in the strange colors of my irises.

Minor things like that.

“There you are!”

The deep voice, carrying the faintest trace of a Slavic accent, pulls me out of the grim – but pleasant

– landscape of my thoughts.

Mikhail Borislov appears beside us and smiles with the same attitude as a rabid dog when you rub its belly: gentle as long as you please it, then perfectly capable of ruining your life.

“Did you miss us?” Jassim asks my childhood friend, who is now the Arab’s right hand, alongside another Italian – but not the one currently itching to throw knives into the back of my skull.

“Not really. But I already lost Gianni after I saw him in the company of some woman. You know I don’t like it when he gets ahead of me.”

Jassim rolls his eyes.

“It’s his way of relaxing.”

“Isn’t it everyone’s?” I cut in, lifting an eyebrow.

“Exactly, Voron!” Misha exclaims. “I think this party would have been far more successful if we had organized an orgy.”

“Let’s not exaggerate,” Jassim’s voice is sharp, and the man beside us lifts his tattooed palms in the air in surrender.

“Maybe next time,” he jokes.

I give him the faintest smile, the subtle kind shared between accomplices.

“I’ll leave you two with your wet dreams,” the Arab announces, adjusting his diamond cufflinks with effortless elegance. “I’m going to speak to someone about some precious stones from Africa.”

He walks away, leaving us alone.

Two Russians surrounded by countless pairs of eyes watching us with interest or hatred.

Mostly hatred, since there are several people here tonight who have suffered because of us.

“So, did you see anything you like?”

I frown, because I have no idea what he means.

“A woman to warm your bed tonight.”

“I’ve been too busy paying attention to the people who want to put my body to ice before dessert.”

He snorts.