Page 40 of Den of Thieves

Anton watched with a disturbing grin on his face as Aksana was forced to the ground with her arms pinned behind her back. She yelled obscenities until his partner injected something into her neck.

“Who the hell are you assholes?” Karina yelled as someone pulled her out of the passenger seat.

She kicked her way free and head-butted the third assailant. Anton backhanded her, and she fell to the ground. Someone straddled Karina from behind and she felt a prick on her neck as well.

“No-stop…” She attempted to struggle against the drug, but her limbs felt impossible to lift. Still, she fought until her eyelids became too heavy to stay open. The darkness pulled her into its web of oblivion as the gas station fell further and further away.

15. “Verisimile Societatem"

-VENCHI

Nikolai’s back tensed as he walked into the crowded war room for the third time that day. Not many would assume the Bratva’s day-to-day operations involved as many meetings as they did. There were meetings for strategy, dues, territories. There were even meetings scheduled for dissecting rivals.

Gone were the days of brutish leaders that took what they wanted, when they wanted—at least in the King’s backyard. Pakhans were akin to noblemen. Vory were as powerful as Dukes and Lords over the Bratva organization. Each one was in charge of a territory, and able to rule it with a firm hand. But when Vladimir called, you’d better be ready to bend the knee.

Nikolai put his phone down and looked around at the familiar faces in the top pakhans, Vory, and the King’s most trusted men around the globe. He jokingly started calling these gatherings the knights of the roundtable meetings. The name garnered a hearty round of laughs, but there was nothing funny about what he had to say now.

“Vladimir, we have a problem. Alvin is off the grid.” His proclamation was met with momentary silence before the room erupted into bedlam.

“What?” Daniil and Dean shouted in tandem.

“He knows everything we’ve done. All our locations, our safe houses!” Dimitri jumped up.

“He better not have flipped sides.” David banged his fist on the table.

“When was the last time you heard from him?” Kristoff asked, scrolling on his phone.

“He called me last week but didn’t say anything. Then I got a text saying, ‘I’m sorry’, and I haven’t seen or heard from him since.”

“Nyet,” Vladimir said, in his calm, ‘I’m angry enough to snap your neck, but I’m trying hard not to,’ voice.

“What?”

Vladimir slammed his tumbler on the table. The glass cracked, causing his vodka to leak onto the expensive wood, but he paid it no mind. “No, we don’t have a problem. I pay you to make my problems go away. If it continues to be one tomorrow, this problem will become a life-or-death matter foryou,” he seethed.

Nikolai blanched.

“What? Did you think you were untouchable?”

Nikolai snapped his mouth shut because hell yes, being the first cousin to the King should at least save him from becoming ground beef at the hands of Vladimir the Ruthless.

“Get out there and bring me that chipmunk, or don’t bother coming back at all.” Vladimir’s gaze swept the room until he found another moving target. “Venchi! Make yourself useful and go with him!”

The drive to Tretyakov Gallery Area was quiet, at least on Nikolai’s end. Venchi made numerous teeth-grating attempts at small talk. All of which went unanswered.

Alvin’s row house wasn’t in the nicest area of town, but it was safe enough that the Range Rover didn’t stick out like a sore thumb. Nikolai cut the engine and fixed his passenger with a level-headed glare.

“Let me do the talking.”

“I am to be seen and not heard.” Venchi saluted him. His thick accent only added to Nikolai’s sour mood.

They walked up the porch steps and the front door opened before he could knock. Nikolai thought the young woman would be beautiful if it weren’t for the scowl on her face and dark bags under her eyes. She was also covered in splotches of paint. Deep purples and blues dotted her arms and fingers. There was even paint in her long, black hair that she kept in a messy bun.

Nikolai tried and failed to remember her name, but the woman’s resemblance to Alvin was so strong, he could have been dressed in a wig and ladies’ smock.

“Is Alvin home?”

She let out a gust of air as if he hit her in the stomach. “Alvin is dead,” she managed before turning on her heel and heading inside the house.

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