Episode 44

Gavril

I drummed my fingers along the table’s surface, staring back at the men who sat before me. They were in varying degrees of comfort, though I wished all of them were equally worried.

A confident brigadier was one that could be perceived as an enemy instead. Pakhans and dons might look like they were untouchable, but the ugly truth was that we weren’t.

Case in point, Stanislav Orlov. There was always someone around the corner, someone wanting to make a point or get a leg up on their own fucking ladder. I had learned after the tenth assassination attempt on my life that my position was never ironclad or safe for that matter.

I’d started to get smart about what I was doing, where I was going, and how to protect myself.

The men before me were what was left of the Krasnaya Bratva, the brigadiers that still had pull in the shambles of Orlov’s once-powerful Bratva and the ones I needed on my side to be loyal to me.

Konstantin Poroshenko, Sergei Puzanov, Ramzin Kovalyov, and Nikolai Leb