Chapter 9 - The Trial of Blood
“Nikolai,” Constantine spat, his voice laced with pure, unadulterated hatred.
“Hello, nephew,” Nikolai said smoothly, taking a slow puff from his cigar, the blue smoke drifting up toward the glass roof. “You always were too sentimental. Elena ruined you. She turned a ruthless mafia heir into a soft, pathetic philanthropist.”
“You killed her,” Constantine said, taking a step forward, shielding Josie and Mila behind his body.
“She was a liability!” Nikolai snapped, his calm facade dropping for a fraction of a second. “She was going to hand thirty years of my hard work over to the Federal Bureau! I did what was necessary to protect the bloodline!”
“And Mila?” Josie shouted from behind Constantine, her voice shaking with rage. “She was three years old! You let your men terrorize a child for eight weeks!”
Nikolai looked at Josie with mild amusement. “Ah, the brave little bartender from Callahan’s. Tate was supposed to bring the child to my ship at the docks quietly. But you... you had to interfere. You had to feed her, didn't you?”
“She was starving!” Josie yelled.
“She was a pawn,” Nikolai corrected coldly. “And now, she is obsolete.”
Nikolai lifted his cane, pointing it directly at Constantine. “Hand over the flash drive, Constantine. Sign over the dock concessions to my holding company, and I will allow you and the girl to leave Boston alive. Refuse... and you will join your wife in the family plot tonight.”
Constantine looked at his uncle. Then he looked down at the ledger in his hand.
A dark, dangerous smile slowly touched Constantine’s lips.
“You missed one detail, Uncle,” Constantine said softly.
Nikolai’s eyes narrowed. “What detail?”
“You thought I brought three guards into the garden,” Constantine said calmly.
Suddenly, the glass roof of the greenhouse shattered inward in a cascade of sharp shards as four black-clad tactical operators descended on steel cables from the oak trees above.
Simultaneously, the rear doors of the greenhouse burst open. Viktor—bleeding, bandaged, but very much alive—led ten heavily armed Voss enforcers into the building, their weapons leveled directly at Nikolai’s men.
“I knew you were listening to our radio frequencies, Nikolai,” Constantine said, stepping forward as gunshots filled the night air. “The New Hampshire ambush was a distraction. I set the trap the moment Josie told me about the diner.”
Nikolai’s face turned gray. He reached for his inner pocket, but Constantine was faster.
Constantine closed the distance between them in two strides, grabbing Nikolai by the throat and slamming him violently against the iron frame of the greenhouse.
The glass panels behind Nikolai’s head cracked under the force of the impact.
“This is for Elena,” Constantine growled into his uncle’s ear.
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He didn't fire a bullet. He drove his fist into Nikolai’s ribs, dropping the old man to his knees, before pulling a pair of heavy steel cuffs from Viktor’s belt and snapping them around Nikolai’s wrists.
“Take him to the Federal Prosecutor’s office downtown,” Constantine ordered Viktor. “Deliver the flash drive directly to the United States Attorney. Let him spend the rest of his life in a maximum-security cell thinking about the family he tried to destroy.”
