Chapter 3 #2
“That they are.” She reaches under the bar and pulls out a business card, scribbling something on the back. “Text me tomorrow, and we can set up your training shift.”
I nod and take the card, tucking it into my purse. “Thanks again. Really.”
She waves me off with a flick of her wrist.
I leave Velour and walk without any real destination in mind. My apartment in Brooklyn is miles away, but my legs need to move, need to burn off the adrenaline coursing through me.
Manhattan pulses with life. People spill out of bars, couples press against building walls, taxis honk at nothing.
I walk until the buildings give way to open space, until the Hudson stretches out like black glass under the glow of streetlights. The viewing area is a strip of concrete with a railing and a few benches that have seen better days. I stop here and stare out at the water.
My mother loved water.
It’s one of the few things I remember clearly about her.
Most of my early memories are blurred at the edges, softened by time and a child’s limited understanding of the world.
But I remember the way her face would light up whenever we were near water.
Rivers, lakes, even fountains. She’d stop whatever she was doing to watch it.
“Water is freedom, milaya ,” she told me once, crouched beside me near a fountain in Gorky Park. I was maybe five, young enough that her words felt like magic. “It goes where it wants. No one can hold it.”
I close my eyes and let the memory wash over me.
Her voice. The way she laughed when I splashed her with fountain water, shrieking with delight. The feel of her hand wrapped around mine, warm and solid and safe.
She loved me. I know she did.
Called me her precious girl, doted on me the way mothers do when their children are the center of their world. And I thought she loved my father with the same fierce devotion, which is why it never made sense that she left us.
The dreams started six months ago. They were vivid and visceral, like a movie, and they were always the same.
I’m six years old, waking up to shouting in the middle of the night.
Men’s voices, harsh and angry. Voices I don’t recognize.
I creep to my bedroom door and peek out to find my mother with two strangers.
She’s crying, pleading with them in a way that makes my stomach twist even now.
One of them grabs her roughly, but all I can see is the tattoo on his forearm. Three cathedral domes in black ink.
That image still haunts me.
When I was young, my father told me my mother had to go back to her family, that they needed her more than we did. It was only when I was older that he shared the truth.
He was working late that night as he often did, coaching a young middleweight in a late-night bout.
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.