When he came home, he found me asleep under my bed, clutching my teddy. A goodbye letter sat on the kitchen table, explaining she couldn’t handle our life anymore. Being working class, living paycheck to paycheck, and that she was returning to her wealthy family in St. Petersburg. A family he’d never known because they’d disowned her when she moved to Moscow to become a singer.
For many years I believed my mother chose to leave, that she stopped loving us.
But the dreams told another story.
Eventually I saw a therapist who convinced me that they weren’t dreams. They were repressed memories. My brain had buried that traumatic night so deep it erased the memory entirely.
It changed everything. What if she had no choice but to leave? What if she was taken? The only clue I had to go on was the tattoo from my dream.
I spent days researching Russian criminal symbols until I found a match: the cathedral domes were the mark of the Kupola Network, a trafficking ring that stole women from Russia and brought them to the US. Dark web chatter suggested these women were funneled through a club in New York and sold to the highest bidder. That club was Velour.
Sure, my Belov Syndicate connections could be helpful, but I don’t want to involve them. Especially Pavel Fedorov, one of its leaders and the man I consider a brother. Involving him means dragging the whole Syndicate into my mess, and it means telling my father. How can I open that wound when I’m chasing a memory I’m not sure I can trust?
It’s why I’m enrolled at MTI. I convinced my father and Pavel that I wanted independence, a chance to study in New York.
I go to classes, but working at Velour is why I’m here. It’s my best chance at finding out whether my mom’s dead or alive, trapped in whatever hell they sold her into.
Footsteps approach behind me. At the far end of the viewing area, a couple is pressed against the railing, kissing like they’re the only two people in the world. The man’s hand tangles in the woman’s hair, pulling her closer. They’re lost in each other, oblivious to everything around them.
I turn away, but the image drags me back to earlier tonight.
No one’s ever affected me the way Kirill Baronov did. The moment our eyes met, a switch flipped inside me. And when he touched me, the world tilted. It was like being pulled underwater, drowning in a current I couldn’t control and didn’t want to fight.
I’ve never wanted anyone like that. Never knew desire could be so consuming it erases everything else.
It knocked me sideways, but I won’t let it happen again.
CHAPTER
FOUR
KIRILL
The Ducati’sengine cuts out as I kill the ignition in the circular driveway, my heart hammering from the breakneck ride out of Manhattan to Jersey.
Katya’s voice on the phone had been frantic, breaking apart between sobs. I couldn’t understand everything tumbling out of my sister’s mouth, but caught enough: My father plans to marry her off to form an alliance with the Italians.
I’m off the bike and halfway up the stone steps when the front door flies open and Katya throws herself at me so hard I brace against the railing to keep us both upright. Her arms lock around my ribs.
“He can’t make me marry him, right?” The words come out muffled against my chest. “You won’t let him.”
Truth is, Ruslan, our father, has ultimate power. He’s the pakhan, head of the bratva and our family. In our world, daughters don’t get choices. They’re bargaining chips, married off to secure alliances, their happiness sacrificed on the altar of power and territory. But I’ll be damned if that’s happening to Katya.
“Hey. Hey, look at me.” I grip her shoulders and pull back to see her blotchy face, dark hair falling out of its bun. “He’s not going to give you to Elio Valenti if I have anything to do with it.”
I wouldn’t trust Elio to water my plants, let alone marry my eighteen-year-old sister. After years of bratva and mafia fighting over territory, shipments, and control of the city, we’ve carved out an uneasy truce. But that doesn’t make us allies. It makes us enemies who’ve agreed to stop shooting at each other for now.
My brothers and I went to Saint Augustine’s with him, a private school where organized crime families send their sons to learn the family business. Elio and I ran in the same circles back then. We went to the same parties, had the same vices, fucked whoever we pleased. I didn’t judge him because I was doing the exact damn thing.
But it’s Mara Castellano’s face that flashes through my mind now. She’s the girl he dated senior year. The one he got pregnant. The one who vanished after telling him she was keeping it. The police never found a body.
Katya steps back, wiping her mascara-smeared eyes. “I tried to talk to Papa, but he doesn’t care that I don’t want to marry Elio, or anyone for that matter. I’m supposed to hear back from Juilliard by the end of the month, but if this marriage happens, there’s no way I’ll be going to school.”
I hate seeing her terrified and powerless. I’ve spent most of my life shielding her from the ugliness of bratva life. I was fifteen when our mother died in a car accident, and whatever small warmth existed in this house went with her. Matvey was thirteen, Dem eleven, and Katya, a newborn.
Shortly after Katya was born, just before the accident, my mother pulled me aside and made me swear I would always protect my siblings, especially Katya. She knew how our world treats daughters. I’ve done my best to keep the promise, though it hasn’t been easy.
After everything Katya’s been through, she deserves the chance to study music at Juilliard like she’s always wanted. She deserves a few more years of freedom before the bratva claims her like it claims everyone in its reach.
