Page 96 of Kings of Cruelty

The situation sounds bleak. “Only a few?” I ask, hating that my voice is shaky. “Kotya…”

“It’ll be fine,” Nikolai says.

I set my laptop down on the desk, opening it up again and quickly connecting my phone to it as a hotspot. “I have access to the cameras at the house,” I tell Konstantin, shrugging. I don’t feel sorry about it at all, so I don’t apologize.

“We need weapons, and we need allies,” Konstantin mutters. “I would rather destroy it all than let my father and Roman have it.”

Whatever else he’s going to say, it’s interrupted by a knock at the door. Warily, the guard goes to it, peering outside before opening it for the doctor. She’s an older Latina woman with graying hair, and she’s dressed like she’s about to go jogging. But she’s also carrying a medical kit, and her expression is grim. “Where’s the patient?”

I direct her toward Nikolai. We’re all holding our breath as she undoes the gauze and reveals his wound.

“Am I going to die?” Nikolai asks, but there’s a slight smirk on his lips.

She looks like she wants to smack him—and I honestly wouldn’t blame her—but she says, “Let me wash my hands and get gloves on, then I’ll have a look. How much blood have you lost?”

His shirt looks saturated with it, but I have no idea how to judge.

“I don’t think any more than they’d take at a blood bank,” Nikolai says.

I eye him doubtfully, but I don’t know anything about gunshot wounds—not beyond how much they fucking hurt, anyway.

I pull up the cameras at the house, scanning over them as I leave the doctor to deal with Nikolai and his wound. “Okay, so… Wow. He brought a lot of men, didn’t he?”

“He takes no chances,” Konstantin answers. He steps up behind me to look at the laptop. “Some are my men. But I don’t know who is being smart like Stepan and who is simply opportunistic.”

“Great,” I mutter. “Okay. What first?” I’m proud of myself for steadying my voice.

Konstantin runs a hand through his beard. “We figure out our current assets. Allies, weapons, money. If we can gather a large enough force…”

A knock on the door interrupts us. We all turn to it, tensing up.

Yuri puts his finger to his lips and sneaks over to the window. He pries the blinds apart, then grimaces. “It’s Cresci,” he whispers.

I let out an exasperated huff. “For fuck’s sake,” I mutter. “Of course it is.” But I’m not stupid enough to think it would be a good idea to turn away the help, no matter how unwelcome the source of it is.

I look to Konstantin, though, because in the end, the call is his to make.

Nikolai winces, then says, “You sold us out, doc?”

She shrugs. “He called and asked where I was going. I wasn’t going to refuse to answer.”

The knocking starts again, and this time Kyran shouts, “Sierra! Open up!”

Konstantin growls and goes to the door, pulling it open. “You want to tell everybody we are here?”

“He’s such a caveman sometimes,” I mumble, but I stop talking as Silvano and Kyran walk in with two men I don’t recognize in tow. They’re both large, one of them even rivaling Kyran in size. He’s Middle Eastern, with a thick, black beard, as well as a nasty scowl. The other man is more put together, but he’d still be intimidating if I wasn’t already surrounded by mafia men.

Silvano looks around the room. “Now, why on earth did William Winters rent this little shack?”

Kyran rubs the back of his neck. “Because…” he stops himself and eyes Konstantin. “Because it was close to, y’know. The warehouses.”

For some reason, that makes Silvano pale. “Ah, yes.” He meets my gaze and smiles at me. “The old slaughterhouse, a few miles down the road.”

A slaughterhouse.

It finally clicks into place. “Of fucking course,” I mutter. “That’swhy we’re way out here.” I shake my head. I should’ve done a better job researching the buildings nearby. “How far is it? What other buildings are nearby? Have you done a sweep since Pa died?” I ask Silvano, pulling up a map of the area.

“No,” Kyran growls. “Leave that place alone.” He glances at the two men they’d brought. “Knives, Maddox, this is my sister Sierra. And the others…”

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