Chapter 25
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
DINARA
Spider’s lids flutter open slowly, confusion clouding his features before sharpening into fear. He tries to move and realizes he can’t. I’ve got him tied to a kitchen chair with the electrical cord from his lamp, hands bound behind his back, ankles secured to the chair legs with duct tape.
The ether knocked him out for maybe ten minutes. Long enough to secure him. Long enough to pull the hood back from my face because what’s the point of hiding now?
Tonight will be his last.
“What the fuck?” he slurs, still groggy. His gaze focuses on me standing in front of him, knife in hand.
I don’t answer. I study him. Up close, he looks more pathetic than he did asleep. Bloodshot eyes, broken capillaries across his nose, several teeth missing on the left side, the rest yellowed and crooked. A man who’s been waiting to die for a long time.
Good. That makes this easier.
“My name is Dinara Potapova,” I say, circling him. “Does that name mean anything to you?”
His laugh is mocking. “No. Should it?”
I move fast, pressing the blade to his throat hard enough to draw a thin line of blood. His laugh cuts off. I lean in close enough to smell the vodka on his breath, the stale cigarettes soaked into his clothes.
“Here’s how this works,” I say quietly. “You’re not leaving this apartment alive. That’s already decided. But you can make it easy on yourself, or you can make it very, very hard. Your choice.”
I twist the knife, and a fresh ribbon of red trails down his neck. His chest hitches but he doesn’t struggle.
“You’re disgusting,” I spit. “You ruined so many lives without a shred of remorse.”
He coughs, a wet, hacking sound that shakes his whole body. When he catches his breath, he looks at me with a watery stare that holds no fear.
“I am disgusting,” he says hoarsely. “There’s a special place in hell waiting for me, that’s for sure. But if this is how it ends, so be it.”
“Hell can wait,” I say flatly. “Right now, you’re in my world. And in my world, you talk or you bleed. Your choice.”
He spits off to the side. “I’ll tell you what you want to know. Consider it unburdening my soul before I leave this life.”
His lack of fear throws me. I expected begging or bargaining for his life. Not this bleak acceptance mixed with what sounds like confession.
My hand tightens on the grip but I pull back, reassessing. Maybe pain isn’t the leverage I need here. Maybe his guilt is.
“If my name means nothing to you, what about Sonya Potapova? Or maybe you knew her as Marina Voronina?”
The drunken fog clears, replaced by sudden, sharp clarity.
“Marina Voronina? The Voronin girl from St. Petersburg?”
“That’s her. Before you and your men trafficked her to the US. Sold her like cattle at Velour.”
A bitter laugh escapes him, rough and humorless. “You’ve got it wrong, kid. Marina Voronina wasn’t trafficked. She died young.”
I grit my teeth, patience running thin. “She didn’t die. She faked her death and lived under a new identity. I should know. Marina Voronina was my mother!” I press the blade harder to his throat. “I saw the men who took her. They had the Kupola Network tattoo. They knew who she was.”
“The Voronins wouldn’t traffic their own daughter.
Don’t you get it? Who do you think ran the Kupola Network?
” Spider’s words are punctuated by a wet, rattling wheeze.
“It wasn’t just the Baronovs. It was a partnership between two bratva families.
The Voronins in Russia and the Baronovs in the US.
The Voronins recruited the women and shipped them over.
The Baronovs handled everything on this side. Distribution, auctions, sales.”
My grip slackens on the handle, dizziness washing over me. My mother’s family? Involved in this shit? Involved with the Baronovs?
“You’re wrong,” I spit. I pull out my phone and navigate to the photo I downloaded from the FSB files.
Marina as a teen, standing next to her father, looking miserable and trapped.
I hold it up so he can see. “Look at this. Look closely. This is her. And you better be absolutely certain she wasn’t one of the women you brought from Russia, because if you’re lying to me, I’m going to start removing fingers until your memory improves. ”
Spider squints at the screen, leaning forward as much as his restraints allow. He studies the photo a long moment, then shakes his head.
“We moved hundreds of women through that club. Hundreds. But I’d remember her.” Spider’s cracked lips curve into something too sad to be a smile. “Marina Voronina didn’t come through my pipeline. I promise you that.”
Frustration boils over and I press the tip of the knife under his chin, making him wince.
“The men who took my mother had the mark of the Kupola Network tattooed on their arms. They weren’t pulling a random woman off the street.
They called her by her real name. They knew who she was. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, kid. I was just the middleman. The Network paid me to bring women from Russia, I delivered them to Velour, and I didn’t ask questions. Didn’t want to know what happened after.”
“Then who would know?” I demand. “If you didn’t take her, if the Voronins wouldn’t touch their own daughter, what the fuck happened to her?”
“Ruslan Baronov is the man you should be talking to.” His voice drops to a gravelly rasp. “Interesting that Baronov is alive and well when the Voronins were all killed, supposedly by a rival Russian gang.”
I grab a handful of his greasy hair, forcing his head back. “I’m not here to play games. Tell me what you know.”
“The rumors were that the partnership between the Baronovs and the Voronins soured. Some said it was about money—the Voronins wanted a bigger cut. Others said it was personal, that an incident broke the trust between them.”
I go still, blood roaring in my ears like a freight train. “Are you saying Ruslan had the Voronins killed?”
He coughs again, weaker this time. “Wouldn’t put it past him.”
Outside, the aggressive roar of an engine shatters the quiet of the street below. My pulse spikes and I move toward the window, pulling back the curtain.
Fuck.
Kirill’s motorcycle is parked at the curb, chrome gleaming under the streetlight. What the hell is he doing here?
“Evelina! Open the door!” Kirill’s roar echoes through the wood, followed by a strike that makes the hinges scream.
Shit, shit, shit.
A boot slams into the door again, the frame groaning.
No time to consider my options. Only one thing left to do. Spider needs to go. He knows who I am, who my mother is, and why I’m really here—none of which I want him sharing with Kirill.
Worse would be Kirill discovering that I work for the Syndicate.
He’d never believe the lead hacker for the Syndicate is here for personal reasons. He’d assume I was sent as a spy, and I couldn't blame him.
The next kick cracks the wood, and I move. Stepping behind Spider, I yank his head back by the hair and drag my blade across his throat in one clean stroke. He makes a wet, gurgling sound before his body goes limp, his chin hitting his chest.
I wish I could’ve made his death more painful, but I barely have time to draw a breath before the door shatters, wood splintering as Kirill storms in.
His massive frame fills the doorway, weapon raised.
He pins me with a look of pure, cold fury before tracking the knife in my hand down to the pool of blood spreading across the floor.
His face darkens, turning lethal. The man who once vowed to protect me is now the one I should be most afraid of.