Page 32 of Twisted Hearts
“How about we keep this civil, Abram,” Ilya snarls from behind Yuri.
Abram looks like he’s about to do anything but when Yuri holds up a hand.
“Simmer down, both of you. Yes, Abram, we can now address the issue you wished to bring up at this meeting. Unless anyone else has anything else to add concerning the change in Reznikov leadership?”
Viktor and Yuri are both silent. Going around the circle, Marko Kalishnik, the head of the Kalishnik Bratva, is next, and he shakes his head no.
“Nyet. Welcome to the table, Gavan.” Anastasia Javanovic, the head of the Javanovic family, which is a relatively new addition to the Bratva High Council, nods cooly at me.
Anastasia’s just a few years older than me. She’s also the first female head of a High Council family since its inception fifty years ago. The Javanovic family is also on decently good terms with the Kashenko, Volkov, and my own organization. Which is good, because Anastasia is a person I wouldnotwish to be enemies with.
I mean the woman killed her own father—who was a shithead on par with Semyon Belsky—by disemboweling him andhanging him by his own fucking gutsfrom the walls of the actual Tower of fucking London.
I’ve got family issues myself, butChrist.
Next to her, Abram drums his fingers on the table impatiently, glancing to his left at the last of the family heads around the table. Demyan Ozerov is another newly-elected High Council member—a gruff, scowly former soldier who now leads the Ozerov family. He also happens to be Abram’s cousin.
“Could we just stop wasting time and proceed with my cousin’s concerns, please.”
Yuri nods. “Very well. Abram, the floor is yours.”
The young king takes a second to level a hard, steely glare around the table before he clears his throat.
“We’ve been putting this off for much too long.” His eyes narrow. “We need to address the Drazen situation.”
A dark cloud instantly forms over the whole table. The “Drazen situation” refers to Drazen Krylov, a Serbian-Russian warlord of sorts who now fancies himself a rising Bratva power. I’ve never met him—in fact, nobody here has. No one even knows what the guy looks like. But his reputation as a bloodthirsty psychopath is more than well known.
Normally, I and everyone here would be supremely happy to leave Drazen the fuck alone. Except, he’s been making that an impossibility lately. In the last few months, there’ve been attacks made on foreign assets belonging to just about every family at this table.
One of Yuri’s warehouses in Moscow was burned to the ground. A Javanovic freighter ship was blown up in port in Greece. Hell, there was even a weapons shipment belonging tomyorganization worth somewhere north of a hundred million dollars that was suddenly seized by Interpol in Austria, despite us having paid off all the appropriate bureaucrats.
So yes, someone is definitely stirring shit up. Drazen Krylov hasn’t made any official statement claiming responsibility. But hehasmade it more than a little well known that he would like to be voted onto the High Council.
“This is only a ‘situation’,” Viktor grunts, “because you’re making it one, Abram. We don’t actually know that Drazen has anything to do with the attacks. We don’t even know if they’re all related.”
“Of course we do!”
Yuri shakes his head. “Wedon’t. Abram, I don’t mean this as an insult, but you’ll learn with time that there willalwaysbe fires starting on the edges of your empire. Where your power is weakest, that’s where your enemies will always—”
“There is noweaknessin my fucking empire, Yuri,” Abram snaps. “And I am quite insulted by the insinuation.”
“Take it easy, Abram,” I growl. “No one’s trying to insult you.”
“He wants onto this table,” Abram continues insistently. “It’s the one thing he’s reached out to this Council about.”
He’s not wrong. Again, no one’s met Drazen, or even knows anything about him beyond his reputation. No one’s ever seen him: he’s notoriously secretive about his identity, and refuses to have his picture taken, I suppose for security reasons. But six months ago, he sent a simple message to this Council stating his desire to be voted onto the table.
It was a ten-word message: “Vote me to the table. Or live with the ashes.”
Yeah, “diplomacy” doesn’t seem to be his strong suit.
“What we need to do is make a preemptive strike,” Abram barks loudly, rapping his knuckles on the tabletop. “Find this rabid dog, and put him down.”
Yuri’s brow furrows. “That isn’t how we do things, Abram. I share your concerns. We all do. But this Council is not about going out there and preemptively starting wars. It’s about keeping the peace and the status quo that benefits all of us, yourself as much as I—”
“Thepoint of this council,” Abram hisses, “seems to be more about acting like soft, privileged businessmen, not the warrior kings you all once were. Or at least, the kings yourfatherswere.”
“Times have changed,” Viktor says quietly.