Page 83 of Cage of Thorns and Blood

I hear him speak, and then Nico interrupts him. “Just a moment.”

He places the phone on the desk and presses a button. “You’re on speaker,” he says. “I’m with Matteo and Clifford Mancini.”

“Gentlemen,” Konstantin’s gravelly voice fills the room.

“Matteo and Clifford are here planning Matteo’s wedding to my sister, the poor fucker. Anyway, I think your news will be of interest to them too.”

“Congratulations,” Konstantin says. “The news I have is from Nikolai Volkov, in part, and a friend and contact of Ilya’s in another part.”

“Ilya?” I ask.

“Sorry, yes. A business acquaintance in St Petersburg.”

“Go on,” Nico says.

“Volkov, as you know, has dealt effectively with the threat posed to your families from the small Greek operation in your territory. I do believe you helped with that too, Clifford.”

Clifford smirks. “Just a touch. A head here, a limb there.”

I roll my eyes. Konstantin, however, laughs. “As is the way.” He clears his throat. “The Volkovs have found that there are two more groups related very loosely to the one you’ve cleared out. One is in the North of England, Leeds and Manchester mostly. They are smaller, and from all the intel we’ve managed to gain, they are not looking for revenge. The other group is more mixed and less closely related, but one of the men in it is the cousin of the leader of the Greek group you were dealing with. They’re operating in San Francisco.”

I sit up at this. “That doesn’t sound like some small, haphazard group if they have tentacles as far as San Francisco.”

“Not tentacles, as such,” Konstantin says. “They aren’t part of a network or anything, but they are related by blood. I just wanted to give you guys a heads-up as myself, Nikolai, and a business associate of ours in Athens, Stamatis Kantos, are all going to make sure we keep an eye on them. Just in case.”

“We’ll do the same; thanks man,” Nico says.

“The grouping in Leeds and Manchester, the Volkovs have left alone. They pose no threat to you or them as it stands, and why start a war unnecessarily? Of course, you might wish to go another route. As for the San Francisco gang, they made a rather deadly and stupid mistake and took the daughter of a brigadier to the Bratva out there.”

“Are they fucked in the head?” Nico asks.

“Possibly,” Konstantin replies. “Either way, they now have the California Bratva’s enforcer after them, a man named Dimitri Baranov who allegedly is categorically insane. So bad news for them.”

“Well, if he needs anything at any point, tell him he can call me,” Nico says. “I don’t like the idea of any remnants of them being left. They threatened to decapitate my sister.”

I jolt as if I’ve been hit by a thousand volts. I stare at Clifford who meets my gaze with a steely one of his own. “Cuz, there was no point giving you specifics. You’d have lost your shit.”

“They threatened to decapitate Renata?” I ask, the anger growing in me.

“Um, yeah.” Nico glances at Clifford and then back at me. “I thought you knew.”

“Can you send me the information you have on this group in Manchester and Leeds?” I ask Konstantin.

“Of course. I’ll send a report to Nico, and he can share it with you, and then you guys can decide what to do with it.”

“I want the name and number of this Dimitri Baranov too if he’s dealing with some of them out in America.”

“Sure,” Konstantin replies smoothly. “I’ll bid you gents goodnight. Shout if you need anything.”

He hangs up, and I turn to Clifford, furious.

“Cuz, before you start, I made sure they were all dealt with. Me and Nikolai decimated them, okay? I didn’t give you the specifics of the threat because I didn’t want you to lose your fucking mind.”

“That wasn’t your call to make,” I snarl.

“Listen, it’s done now. No point arguing about it. What we need to decide is do we take them out in Manchester and Leeds even though they’re not part of the same crime syndicate, but loosely related genetically to those fuckers who messed with us, or do we leave them alone?”

“I say we deal with them,” I say.

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