Page 40 of Of Flames and Crows

Ilya glanced at the four men Mae didn’t recognize.

“They work for the main Bratva,” he said guardedly.

Mae’s scalp prickled when she registered the guards’ stony faces. Cortes’s men seemed equally uncomfortable in the presence of the newcomers.

She straightened her shoulders and rapped her knuckles on the door of Vlad’s room.

It opened seconds later. Mae took one look at Vlad’s distracted expression and knew this was going to be even worse than she’d thought. The incubus was slightly disheveled, like he’d dressed hurriedly.

“Come in,” he said crisply.

She read the warning in his eyes and brushed past him, Nikolai, Violet, and Miles close on her heels. Vlad closed the door behind them.

Tarang looked over briefly from where he sat on the floor, facing a couch where two men sat. The tiger focused his attention on Vlad’s guests once more, his blue eyes shrinking to watchful slits.

One of them was Cortes.

The other was a silver-haired, middle-aged man who filled the room with an overwhelming presence. His dark eyes pinned Mae with an inscrutable stare.

“Mae, this is Budimir Volkov,” Vlad said in a clipped voice. “He’s a senior member of the Bratva theBlack Devilswork for.”

Mae’s nails dug into her palms.Shit! No wonder you could cut the air with a knife.

Vlad introduced Nikolai and the Nolan cousins to his guests. A soft hiss escaped Filomena where she perched on Brimstone’s head. Her casque quivered.

The chameleon was staring intently at Budimir.

Mae frowned.Does she know him?

Brimstone listened to Filomena’s soft clicks.It seems so.

Mae observed the older man before directing a tense look at Vlad. “You said something about Oscar.”

Nikolai startled. “What?!”

Vlad ran a hand through his hair and sighed heavily. “Play it again.”

Budimir leaned forward. Mae noticed a damaged cell phone on the coffee table in front of him for the first time. Budimir entered a code and tapped the cracked screen. A recording started to play. Though the quality wasn’t the best, she could make out most of the details.

Mae’s eyes rounded.

“Ignite!” a male voice she didn’t recognize shouted.

The stranger sounded young.

A violent thump echoed from the cell’s speakers. The crackle of an intense blaze followed.

The voice that spoke next sent a chill down Mae’s spine and drew a curse from Nikolai.

“Impressive,” Oscar Beneventi drawled.

Filomena started trembling violently.

Mae and the others listened grimly as the sounds of an intense battle unfolded between Oscar and the younger man over several minutes. The last person who spoke was Oscar.

“Disperse!”

An explosion followed his spell. The recording ended soon after.

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