Kings of Cruelty (Voronkov Bratva #2)

1. Konstantin

ONE

Konstantin

The gunshot is louder than any I’ve ever heard.

Sierra cries out.

My eyes go to her, and I watch her stumble back as the blood blooms across her chest.

“No!” I shout. I knife the Marino goon closest to me and rush toward her.

I’m too slow. She starts to collapse—but Nikolai is there, catching her. His hands stain red with Sierra’s blood.

“Sierra!” Nikolai looks down at her, applying pressure to the wound even as blood wells up around his hands. “I need something to stop the bleeding!”

Even as I crouch down, bullets whiz past my head. All I can think about is Sierra. I look up, and I find Yura just… staring at us. His face is white, and all he’s doing is holding the gun in hands I can see from here are shaking.

“Goddamn it!” Nikolai curses, pulling back long enough to shrug off his suit jacket and push it against the wound.

I hear shouting behind us, and more shots sound in the room. These bullets catch Marino’s men, who go down like dominos.

“Sierra!” Kyran Winters shouts. He punches somebody close to him, then rushes over to Nikolai and Sierra. He touches Sierra’s face, shaking his head. “No, no. I’m not losing you. Not you too.”

Silvano Cresci stays where he is behind a knocked over table. Victor Corvi and his woman are with him, and the three of them are talking to each other, but I can’t hear them over the noise of everything else.

I survey the room again, and I spot Don Marino attempting to sneak out.

My vision goes hazy, and damn the consequences, I rush toward him. He yells, and somebody tries to get between us, but I grab the goon and fling him hard against the liquor cabinet. Then I’m on top of Marino, and I force him up against the wall.

“Voronkov! Stop!” Marino squeals as I wrap my hand around his neck.

“Anybody have any objections to me killing him?” I ask the room at large, not bothering to disguise my rage.

“Gut him like a fucking pig,” Kyran snarls, his big body hovering over Sierra and Nikolai. “Sierra. Sierra, wake up.”

Another shot, and the goon who’d tried to protect Marino goes down.

Then there’s silence.

“Kill him,” Lucia Bellini’s cool voice states. “Angelo, get Saint to call for help.”

“Princess, I am in the middle of shooting people,” Angelo Guerra complains. “You can call Saint. And an ambulance.”

“I’ve already called medical support,” Victor Corvi states.

“Voronkov—” Silvano begins.

I ignore him and dig my fingers into Marino’s throat. Marino gasps and struggles, but he’s an old man, and he can’t do anything against my raw strength. His face turns red, then purple, as he attempts to breathe.

It would be more satisfying to gut him, but I have no weapons. I’d been overconfident, thinking Marino wouldn’t attempt anything with all his tentative allies in the room.

“You really should have planned things better,” I snarl at him as I choke him.

I keep choking him, even after his body goes limp. I’m not going to risk him surviving this.

Silvano Cresci approaches me on my side, and I’m ready to tell him to fuck off.

He holds up a knife. “This might be faster,” he says calmly. He looks at Marino and wrinkles his nose. “Although I think he’s already dead.”

I take the knife, still holding Marino’s throat with one hand. It’s not as large a knife as I would have wanted, but it’ll do the job.

I jab it between Marino’s ribs, and there’s no gurgling death gasp. He was already dead. The blood spills out over me, and I finally drop the body.

Silvano has made his way back to Victor Corvi. Nikolai and Kyran look like they want to argue, and Yura…

Yura is still standing where he’d been, unmoving, his knuckles white around the gun.

“Yura! Pull yourself together!” I shout in Russian. “We’re going to save her, and all of Marino’s men are dead.”

Yura snaps to attention and looks at me, eyes wide. “I… Yes. Sierra. Fuck! Sierra.” His voice wavers and he takes a halting step toward her, then stops.

I can’t figure out what’s wrong with him until Nikolai glances up. “Great fucking aim, Yuri.”

Kyran’s head snaps up, and he stares at Yura. He connects the dots before I do, and he’s up on his feet, launching himself at Yura without regard for the gun in his hands. “You goddamn motherfucking piece of shit!” he screams. “I will fucking kill you!”

Someone I don’t recognize, a trim man in an expensive suit, and Angelo both react, grabbing Kyran and trying to haul him off of Yura.

Kyran gets several punches in before they can stop him.

Yura just stands there, taking it, the gun slipping from his hand and falling to the ground with a thud.

I almost tell them to let Kyran keep pummeling Yura, because Yura fucking deserves that and more for shooting Sierra .

“How?” I ask in Russian, clenching my fists. “How the fuck did you shoot Sierra?”

“She… she moved,” Yura answers quietly in Russian. “I was aiming for…” He glances at Kyran Winters, then lowers his gaze again.

“I don’t give a fuck who you were aiming for!” Nikolai snarls, looking up at Yura, and I see the others’ confusion when we don’t switch to English.

I don’t particularly care.

Kyran is slower than I am this time, but I see it when Silvano realizes what Yura had been trying to do.

I storm over to Yura and grab him by the neck, squeezing him. He gasps and lets out a small pained sound, but he doesn’t fight me.

No one tries to stop me. No one so much as utters a word.

“You deserve as much as Marino,” I growl.

Yura nods and stretches out his neck.

If he were arguing with me, if he were fighting back or pretending this wasn’t his fault, it would be easier.

But after a few seconds, I make a frustrated noise and let go of him, shoving him away. He stumbles to the ground and stays there.

I turn to the others in the room.

“Now somebody explain what the fuck is going on,” I say in English.

Nikolai has gone back to staring at Sierra, but he says flatly, “Sierra said Don Marino was trying to poison everyone. They locked us in the other room.” He lets out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, guess it’s a good thing we listened to her, right?”

Angelo goes to the door and peers out. “We got a bunch of the guards on our way here. It’s probably safe to leave, but…” He shakes his head. “Fuck. What a fucking mess. And I didn’t even start it this time.”

“I think we can dispense with the jokes right now,” Silvano Cresci says mildly. He goes to pick up one of the discarded liquor glasses. “I didn’t think Don Marino was the kind to resort to poison, but I suppose I don’t—didn’t—know him that well.”

They’re all talking, but I’m more concerned about Sierra than mafia politics. I go to crouch down next to her and gently push some of her hair back from her face. The makeup is smeared, and the beautiful gown and its feathery accents are drenched in blood, but I can see she’s still breathing.

I lean down to brush my lips against her forehead.

I hear heavy feet storm toward me, and a large hand grabs me by the shoulder. “Don’t you fucking touch her, Voronkov. You branded her like she’s… like she’s property, and you’re acting like you give a fuck about her?” Kyran snarls in my ear.

He sounds like a wounded animal.

I sneer at him. “Yes. I care about her more than you, who left her alone, undefended. She is thriving with me.”

“She’s dying because of you!” Kyran says.

“The medics will be here soon,” Silvano interrupts. “She won’t die.”

Nikolai ignores him. “Actually, she’s dying because she was trying to meet you here.” He looks at Kyran with as much loathing as I feel. “We wouldn’t have even been here if you hadn’t lured her here.” He turns his head to me. “We weren’t on the guest list, Kotya. She… She…”

Silvano steps forward, placing a hand on Kyran’s shoulder and squeezing. “There’s no need to throw blame around right now. The more important thing is getting Sierra medical care.” He glances at Victor Corvi. “How long until your doctors get here?”

“They’re almost here,” Lucia answers smoothly. “I hope this means we can all learn to cooperate from here on out.”

I don’t understand her meaning at first, my brain too muddled to work through the English, until it clicks. She isn’t offering this help for free.

We owe her, and Victor Corvi, now.

Yura shifts so he’s on his knees, and I see the tears in his eyes. His neck is dark with the bruises I’d made. His hair has come free of its ponytail, and he doesn’t look like the prison-hardened man he’d become.

He’s the same teenaged boy I’d met all those years ago, desperate for a purpose and somebody to guide him.

Destroy him , a dark part of me whispers.

“I’ll do anything,” he says, but he isn’t addressing me. He’s looking at Victor and Lucia. “Whatever you want. Just as long as Sierra survives.”

“No!” I shout, storming over to him. I grab him by the hair and shake him roughly. “You do not get to make promises on our behalf,” I growl at him in Russian. “You’ve made enough stupid mistakes tonight, boy.”

Yura lets out a long sob, but he nods.

“I thought you fucking cared about her,” Kyran says darkly. “Well, you can tell him no, but I’m not going to. I’ll do fucking?—”

“You will shut up,” Silvano interrupts sharply. His expression is less friendly now. He turns to Victor and Lucia. “We can discuss debts after Sierra has been saved. Not before.”

“Of course,” Lucia says. “Victor’s doctors are the best, but I believe she’s lost a lot of blood. It’ll be a shame if she dies here because you’re all so cautious .” She glances at Victor. “Are they here?”

“Heartless bitch,” Nikolai mutters.

Lucia’s slim shoulder lifts in a shrug. She doesn’t argue. She’s flanked on either side by Victor and Angelo, and I finally recognize how odd it is that she’s speaking on Victor’s behalf. It doesn’t matter now, though. I don’t care who the actual power behind the Rosa di Sangue, Victor Corvi’s group, is.

I hear rattling down the hallway, and I realize someone had to have led the paramedics here. The same man who had helped Angelo pull Kyran off of Yura is at the front, and he steps out of the way so they can get to Sierra.

One of the medics starts barking out questions, and Nikolai answers them as they work to get her onto the stretcher they’ve brought.

I move to follow them, but Angelo stops me.

“Only one person rides with her,” he says, glancing between Kyran and me. “Better figure out fast who gets to do that.”

“As long as it’s not Yuri,” Nikolai says, staring as hatefully at him as he had Kyran earlier.

If I’m not there with her, if I can’t watch over her, she’s gone.

I can feel it in my bones. Even if she survives—and she will survive—Silvano Cresci and Kyran Winters would never let me see her again.

I square my jaw at Kyran. “I’m going.”

“No, you fucking aren’t. She’s my sister. You have no fucking right,” Kyran says.

“Decide now,” one of the medics interjects. “We’re taking her.” Without waiting for a response, the two of them start wheeling Sierra down the hall.

“She’s my—” I stop myself, because I don’t know what she really is to me.

But I know I won’t give her up. I know she’s mine .

Silvano Cresci approaches and puts his hand on Kyran’s arm. “Konstantin, you can go. Since she’s your… something.”

Kyran lets out a choked sound. “Silvano, no.”

“You can see her at the hospital. You’re next of kin,” Silvano says. “We’ll follow the ambulance.”

There are tears in Kyran’s eyes, but he says bitterly, “You and I will have a long talk about this later, Cresci.” He looks at me, sneering. “Well, go then. Don’t fucking hold them up.”

“We’ll follow, too,” Nikolai says. He glares at Yura. “Well. I will. I don’t know if Yuri fucking cares.”

It doesn’t escape my notice that he’s no longer calling Yura by his nickname, but I don’t have time to care about that either.

“I’m.. I’m coming,” Yura says quietly. He gets to his feet, stumbling a few steps in my direction.

I sneer at him before turning to follow the medics.

I’ll deal with him later.

Sierra is the most important person right now.

She’s the most important person.