She looks at me expectantly and I realize I can’t hold back anymore.
“I was thirteen when my father started bringing me to Velour regularly. Against my mother’s wishes, but he told me she babied me, that it was time I learned what being a Baronov meant.” I pause, words scraping their way up my throat like broken glass. “He’d bring me once a week, show me around like I was already the pakhan-in-waiting. I felt proud walking through that club with him, watching men step aside and nod respect. This empire was going to be mine someday, and that made me feel important. Powerful.”
Dinara’s hand tightens on mine but she doesn’t interrupt.
“While he conducted business, I was supposed to wait in his office. I never did. I’d wander the back hallways, the storage areas, places most people didn’t go. One night, crying came from a supply closet near the basement stairs. I opened the door and found her.
“A girl my age. Thirteen, maybe fourteen. Skinny, pale, with huge dark eyes red from crying. She sat on the concrete floor,wrists zip-tied to a pipe, wearing clothes too big for her. I asked her in Russian what was wrong, and she said she was hungry. That they only fed her once a day because she kept causing problems.
“Problems?” Dinara bites her inner cheek, waiting for me to go on.
“She wouldn’t cooperate, wouldn’t do what they told her, kept trying to escape, so they isolated her from the others, locked her in that closet to teach her a lesson.” Bitterness coats my words. “I didn’t understand why she’d do that. My father told me we were helping these Russian women come to America, finding them good homes with families who could take care of them. Like it was a service we provided. And I fucking believed him.
“Anyhow, I started bringing Tasha food when I came. That was her name. Candy bars or whatever I could pocket from the kitchen at home. Then I figured out she missed Russian food, so I’d bring blini with jam, orpirozhkimy mother made. She’d smile when she saw me coming, making me believe I was doing good. That it mattered.”
To this day, the memory of her smile makes my chest ache.
“She taught me Russian phrases, I taught her English words. We couldn’t communicate perfectly, but enough. She told me about the village she was from. About her little brother, the cat they had. I told her about my brothers, about school, stupid thirteen-year-old shit. Every week I’d ask her why she didn’t cooperate so they’d let her out. She’d look at me like I was an idiot, but she never explained. Maybe she tried and I didn’t understand. Maybe she realized I was too young to help her escape and the food was the best I could offer.”
I pause, the next part sitting like acid in my stomach.
“One night, I brought her pirozhki our cook had made that afternoon—they were Tasha’s favorite. I was excited to give them to her, imagining the way her face would light up. I reached thehallway outside the supply closet. Her screams echoed through the heavy door.”
Dinara’s breathing goes shallow, her face paling.
“Two guards dragged her out of the closet. She fought like hell, kicking and thrashing, one of them clamping his hand over her mouth to muffle her. The other warned her about a buyer waiting to inspect her. If she didn’t behave, she’d regret it. This was a big deal and she was ruining it.”
Self-loathing burns through me, but I force the words out.
“I walked in thinking there was a misunderstanding. I needed to explain she was only scared and hungry. I thought I could broker a deal between them, as if I had any power in that room. I begged them to wait, promised she’d calm down if they gave me a minute with her.
“When Tasha saw me, she screamed, begging me to help her, saying they were going to sell her to a bad man, that she’d rather die than let them touch her. That’s when I understood what this was all about.”
My hands shake and Dinara covers them with hers.
“I tried to pull the men off her but I was too small. It didn’t do shit. One of them shoved me against the wall hard enough to knock the wind out of me, told me to get lost. But I didn’t. I kept trying to get to her, and she tried her best but the bigger one wrapped his hands around her throat.”
The words spill forward—I need to get them out before they choke me. The bigger guard was Abram, but I don’t bother mentioning it now.
“I screamed at him to stop, struggling to get free from the other soldier holding me back. Her gaze locked with mine and then her eyes went blank. The light snuffed out. He dropped her on the concrete like garbage.”
A raw sound escapes Dinara, and I rub circles on her back. This story is harrowing, I know.
“His men dragged me upstairs to my father. I thought he’d be horrified. Thought he’d punish them for killing her, or for doing it in front of me, or for any fucking reason.” My laugh comes out broken. “Instead, he sat me down in his office, poured himself a drink, and said, ‘Kirill, you’re a man now. This is our business, to tame these women before we find them new homes. If they don’t behave the way we need them to, they’re worthless to us. Merchandise that won’t sell.’ He told me one day I’d understand.”
The hero worship I’d carried for years shattered in that office. Everything I thought I knew about my father, my family, my legacy, came crashing down.
I threw up in his office trash can. He didn’t react. He kept drinking his whiskey, telling me this was the world I’d inherit. That I needed to grow up and accept it.
Dinara pulls me into her and I bury my face in her neck.
“I went back to the supply closet after he dismissed me. I don’t know why. Maybe I thought it was a nightmare and she’d still be there, alive, waiting for her food. But she was gone. Cleaned up like she’d never existed.
“So yes, to answer your question, I knew. And I did nothing.”
“Kirill.” She frames my face, forcing me to look at her. The compassion in her eyes nearly breaks me.
“You were a child yourself.”
