FIFTY-TWO
DINARA
Wakingup feels like swimming through concrete. My eyelids are heavy, my body aches in ways I’ve never experienced, and there’s a dull, persistent throb radiating from my side that sharpens every time I try to move.
The hospital room materializes slowly around me. White ceiling tiles. The rhythmic beep of monitors. Morning light creeping through half-closed blinds.
I remember Kirill holding my hand through the night, his thumb moving in slow circles against my palm, his voice low and steady, telling me things I couldn’t quite grasp. But when I finally manage to open my eyes fully, it’s not Kirill sitting in the chair beside my bed.
It’s my mother.
She’s not looking at me. Her gaze is fixed somewhere beyond the window, her profile outlined in gray morning light. She’s changed into dark jeans and a loose gray sweater, her blonde hair pulled back simply. Without the armor of her cartel persona, she looks softer.
I take the opportunity to study her. She’s beautiful, but the years have left their mark. There are lines around her eyes, brackets around her mouth, a tightness in her jaw that speaks to constant vigilance. This is a woman who survived things that should have destroyed her.
That kind of survival doesn’t come without cost. Somewhere along the way, she had to shut down her humanity, had to become someone else entirely, because feeling everything she’d lost would have been devastating.
She must sense me watching because she turns, and our eyes meet. For a heartbeat, neither of us moves. Then she reaches out and takes my hand, her touch gentle.
“How are you feeling?”
I try for a smile. “Not my best. Where’s Kirill?”
“I finally convinced him to go home to shower and change. I promised him I wouldn’t leave your bedside for even a moment. He’s devoted to you,” she adds before looking down at our joined hands. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry about everything.”
“You don’t have to apologize. I just… I just want to understand what happened. There’s still so much I don’t know.”
“I guess I should start at the beginning. I owe you that.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
She takes a slow breath and settles back in the chair.
“I grew up as Marina Voronina in Saint Petersburg. My father, Aleksandr, was the pakhan of the Voronin Syndicate. My mother was his partner in everything—business, strategy, all of it. They weren’t warm people, but they weren’t unusual for that world either. They had expectations, and I knew from a young age that my marriage would be arranged to benefit the family. I was their only child, so everything depended on me making the right match.”
Her gaze drifts to the window, retreating back into memory.
“When I was nineteen, they told me I would be marrying one of my father’s associates, Ruslan Baronov. He was much older, already powerful in New York, already feared. I’d heard whispers that he had a wife and children in the States. One night I overheard some of our guards joking around, laughing about how the first wife was ‘on her way out.’ They made it clear what that meant—she’d be killed to make room for me. In the bratva, there’s no divorce. There’s only death.”
My stomach turns. She was still so young, hearing that another woman would die so she could be handed over like property.
She frowns, shaking her head. “I felt sick, knowing another woman would die because of me. Knowing I’d be shipped off to marry a monster to cement a business deal. At first I didn’t understand what that business was—my father kept me sheltered from the worst of it. But I met Ruslan once at a formal dinner before the engagement was official. Afterward I walked past my father’s study and heard him and Ruslan talking over cigars. I heard enough to know the kind of network they were building. The terrible things they were doing.”
She looks back at me and there’s old fury burning behind the grief in her eyes. “That’s when I came up with a plan. I’d always been a strong swimmer, able to handle cold water and long distances. One afternoon I convinced my guards to take me out on the Neva River. We had a small yacht and it’s something we did often. Once we were far enough from shore, I staged an accident. I went overboard, let the current pull me under. They dove in after me, but I’d already gone deeper, holding my breath longer than they thought possible. By the time they surfaced without me, I was swimming toward a small island downstream.”
A faint, bitter smile crosses her face. “There was an abandoned fisherman’s shack on the island, barely standing,where I’d hidden supplies weeks before: money, clothes, forged identification. I waited until dark, then made my way to the mainland and disappeared.”
“Where did you go?” I ask, drawn into the story despite the pain radiating through my side.
“Moscow.” She shrugs. “I didn’t have money to go farther, and Moscow seemed big enough to get lost in. My plan was to get a job, save up, then make my way through Europe.”
Her expression softens into something wistful. “I got a job singing in jazz clubs. It was something I loved but had never been allowed to pursue seriously. It’s something I never do anymore,” she adds quietly. “That’s where I met your father.”
“Yarik was a regular at the club where I performed. He’d come in after his shifts at the boxing gym, sit at the bar with a beer, and just listen. He never tried to talk to me at first, never pushed. But eventually we started talking between sets, and I—“ She stops, her voice catching. “I fell in love. Even though falling in love was the worst thing I could do, I couldn’t stop myself.”
Tears well in her eyes and I feel my own throat tighten.
“The pregnancy wasn’t planned. I was terrified when I found out, because I knew it meant I couldn’t run anymore. But you—“ A smile breaks through the tears. “You were the best thing that ever happened to me. The moment I held you, I knew I’d do anything to keep you safe. Even if that meant lying about who I was. Even if it meant never telling your father the truth about my past.”
