Page 69 of Kingmakers, Graduation

“What secrets do you know?”

“Plenty. You talk in your sleep …”

“What do I say?”

“I just promised not to tell anyone.”

I take a sip of my drink. “That’s probably for the best.”

“Is everyone here Bratva?” Sabrina asks, letting her gaze shift around the room, the tables obscured by cigar and hookah smoke, and the low light.

“Most of them.”

She examines one table after another from under her lashes, before pronouncing, “They don’t look how I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

She shrugs. “More tattoos.”

“The old ways are dying out. You’ve got to blend in nowadays, it’s better for business. If they have the marks, they keep them where a suit can cover.”

“Not everyone,” Sabrina says, looking at the man nursing a pint at the table next to ours, his shaved skull covered with a sprawling black widow spider.

“The firstvory v zakonecovered themselves in tattoos as a rejection of society. You know the history of thevory?” I ask Sabrina.

She shakes her head. “We don’t study the Bratva till third year. In first year we only did the ‘Ndrangheta and Cosa Nostra.”

I finish my Stoli and set it to the side, wanting both hands free while I explain.

“In imperial Russia, virtually everything belonged to the czar. The first group who formed theVorovskoy Mir,theWorld of Thieves,were revolutionaries of a sort. They had a code of honor—they shared their plunder equally, and like Robin Hood, distributed it among the people as well.”

“How noble,” Sabrina says with a saucy grin.

She knows as well as I do that spreading wealth is more strategy than altruism, buying the loyalty of those who surround you. I do the same thing in my own neighborhood, ensuring the silence of those who could report me if fear were insufficient to keep them quiet.

“When the Bolsheviks rose, thevory v zakonehelped control the streets of Moscow,” I continue. “That was when mafia and government first became intertwined in Russia. It worked with Lenin, but when Stalin took control, he threw thevoryinto the gulags. There the underworld truly took shape.”

“Prison is the best recruiting ground,” Sabrina says.

“That’s right. The language and culture of thevoryflourished in the gulags. Until the Germans marched on Moscow, and Stalin was forced to use prisoners to swell the Russian army. He promised freedom if they would fight for their country. Many agreed, though it was against the code of the thieves to work for those who had imprisoned them. They fought and died for Russia. When the war was over, Stalin reneged on his promise and threw them right back in the gulag.”

Sabrina gives a soft hiss of distaste, eyes narrowed. In our world, where there is no recourse to the courts, word is law and a promise a contract.

“Thevoryturned on each other. They called the ones who had foughtsuki,traitors, and they slaughtered everyone they could find. The prison guards did nothing—it meant less criminals to house and feed. In 1953 the prisons were finally emptied, eight million men turned out on the streets. The Bratva survived but the old code was destroyed.”

I indicate the man at the next table, every inch of visible skin decorated in tattoos.

“You see those crosses on his knuckles? The dagger on the back of his hand?”

Sabrina nods.

“There was a time when every tattoo had a meaning. If you put a mark on your body that you hadn’t earned, the Bratva would cut it off you with a razor blade. Now it’s decoration.”

Sabrina’s eyes glint with interest. She takes a hasty gulp of her drink, saying, “Tell me more.”

Her face is bright and open, her attention intoxicating. I’d talk all night to amuse her.

“Then came the Soviet era. That was the age of corrupt Communist Party bosses and black-market millionaires. When the party fell, organized crime rose. The Bratva recruited from war veterans, the decimated police force, and even from desperate athletes and bodybuilders. You see that group over there?”

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