It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out Unknown 1 is her father. Unknown 2 is her boss, Pavel Fedorov. He runs the Syndicate alongside Roman Vasiliev and Maxim Belov, the three of them forming a triumvirate that’s kept Moscow locked down tight for over a decade.
Unknown 3 must be Hope, the woman he married. I’ve heard through the mafia grapevine that they also have a young son, Kin.
What strikes me isn’t just that they think she’s here for school—although they clearly do—it’s the warmth and teasing. This is her family, not only the people she works for.
There’s genuine affection here. A family that clearly loves her, a little boy excited about Ninja Turtles, a woman trying to give her space to be young and free.
“What is it?” Miron asks, coming up beside me.
“A group text chat with her father, Pavel Fedorov and his wife. They think she’s here for school, nothing more. They’re even planning to visit at Christmas.”
I scroll through the messages again. She’s been lying to everyone in her life because she doesn’t trust anyone to help her.
“It could be a setup,” he says, his expression hardening.
“If they were going to feed us bullshit information, they’d make it something more useful than Christmas plans and cartoon turtles.”
I sink onto the edge of her bed, trying to make sense of it all. The way she reacted when she saw Abram’s forearms, how she stood over Spider as he bled out, the anguish in her drugged words when she told me about her dreams.
“What are you thinking?” Miron asks, crossing his arms.
“I’m thinking I need some air.”
I take the stairs down, shouldering through the broken front door into the night. Her building sits on a block that’s seen better decades. Cracked sidewalks, bars on every ground-floor window, not a tree in sight. Nothing like the life she left behind in Moscow.
I start walking, no destination in mind. Past bodegas with hand-painted signs, past groups of men passing bottles in brown paper bags, past buildings tagged with competing crew marks.
My boots hit the pavement in a steady rhythm while my mind processes what I know.
My gut says she’s telling the truth about her mother. The dreams, the tattoo, Spider. It tracks. She came here hunting for answers about what happened eighteen years ago, and she ended up in my bed along the way.
Not just my bed. She clawed her way into my heart and soul.
Another grim realization. We can’t take down the Ghost without her skills. The operation is in a week and her help could be the key to the whole damn thing.
I offered to find her mother. I can use that. Give her the answers she wants in exchange for her skills. If she’s really here to learn what happened, she’ll take me up on it. But she needs skin in the game. Something that binds her to me.
An idea settles into my mind with surprising clarity.
If Dinara’s my wife, she’s no longer a Syndicate asset or a rogue hacker. She’s a Baronov. A ring puts her under my protection and my thumb. As her husband, she’s bound to act in my interests and vice versa. She helps us trap the Ghost and I help find out what happened to her mother.
This isn’t a handshake deal that can be walked away from. It’s a union signed in blood. A vow enforced by ancient law.
And it solves my other problem.
I can’t marry Varvara Morozova if I’m already married.
Fuck my father’s arranged alliances and his control and his years of using people as pawns. I’m done playing his game.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
DINARA
One leg hangsover the edge of the tub, my ankle still shackled to that goddamn chain. The metal looks like a piece of jewelry in the sun streaming through the windows, a reminder that I’m trapped here no matter how fancy the cage.
The water’s gone lukewarm but I don’t have the energy to drain it and refill. I lie here, staring at the ceiling, letting my brain chase the same spiraling thoughts since Kirill left yesterday morning. I haven’t heard a word from him, or anyone, since then.
