Chapter 31
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
KIRILL
The ride to Brooklyn takes thirty minutes on my Ducati, weaving through traffic with the kind of reckless speed that usually clears my head. It doesn’t work this time. The only thing I hear is Miron’s voice on a loop, spelling out the truth about the woman—the only woman—I’ve ever let close.
Dinara Potapova.
Elite hacker for the Belov Syndicate.
The pieces fit together. Her skills and her training finally make sense. It explains why she managed to resist spilling her secrets when she was floating on truth serum.
The Belov Syndicate. Moscow’s most powerful bratva, kings in their city with reach that extends across Russia and beyond.
My father left Russia before they rose to power, focused on building the Baronov empire in the US while they consolidated control in Moscow. We know who they are. We know what they’re capable of, and we stay the fuck out of their way, just like they stay out of ours.
Maybe they’re making a play for New York and sent her as an advance scout to find the cracks in our foundation, but the second the thought crosses my mind, my gut rejects it.
If the Belov Syndicate wanted to take over New York, they wouldn’t do it quietly.
They wouldn’t send a single hacker to infiltrate a club and play server for a few weeks.
They’d come in force, make their intentions clear, establish dominance through strength and numbers.
That’s their MO. That’s how they’ve held Moscow for decades.
Is she a spy working some angle I haven’t figured out yet? Is she working with the Ghost? Or is the story she told me under the influence real, that she’s a daughter searching for her mother?
The light turns green, and I gun it, cutting between lanes, pushing the bike hard until I pull up to her apartment. The door is open, voices carrying into the hallway.
It looks like a SWAT team went through this place. No stone left unturned is an understatement. Two tech guys are at the desk, one working on her laptop, the other going through drawers.
I move to the desk and pick up a coffee mug. Half-full, cold, lipstick stain on the rim. The same shade of red she wore on her lips when she gave me that mind-blowing lap dance. Who knew a hacker could move like that?
Miron joins me as I turn the mug over in my hands, studying the lipstick stain. “How did you ID her? She covered her tracks pretty well.”
“Fingerprints.” Miron leans against the desk. “We dusted everything in here, then ran her prints through every database we could hack into. A few years ago she got biometric clearance at some Swiss bank. Apparently they keep that shit on file and their security wasn’t as tight as they thought.”
I shrug. “Their fuck-up is our gain.”
One of the tech guys materializes at my shoulder with her laptop and phone.
I gesture at them. “Can you crack these?”
“We can try, but this is military-grade encryption.” He inspects the laptop. “If we force our way in and trip the wrong protocol, it’ll delete everything on here.”
“Do it anyhow. Look for anything that proves why she’s really here,” I say. “If she’s a spy, there’ll be orders, contacts, mission details. If she’s telling the truth about her mother, there’ll be research, names, leads she was following.”
“Boss, I found a second phone.” The other tech guy walks toward me, holding up a cheap flip phone. “It was taped under the shelf in the kitchen cabinet.”
I take it from him. It’s a simple burner that probably cost twenty bucks at a bodega. I open it and the screen lights up with a series of text messages from numbers with no names.
There’s no call history. No saved contacts. No photos or apps. Just a string of unread text messages that came in while she was at Spider’s apartment and then my penthouse. She never had a chance to check them.
The numbers mean nothing to me, but the content tells me everything.
Unknown 1: Dinochka, I forgot to tell you when we spoke earlier, we’re planning a visit at Christmas. Kin wants to meet the Ninja Turtles you told him about.
Unknown 2: If you can take a break from all your studies that is.
Unknown 3: Pavel is just licking his wounds that you’re no longer working for him.
Unknown 2: Hey! She said she’d come back after she graduates.
Unknown 3: OMG, let the girl enjoy her carefree and single life in the big apple.
Unknown 1: Well, not that carefree, she’s there to learn.
Unknown 2: Carefree and single. I don’t like it.
Unknown 3: Lighten up babe.
Unknown 1: Kin is already packing his bag. He told me the Turtles live in the sewers, and he wants to bring a flashlight.
Unknown 3: Please don’t let him actually go into the sewers, Dinara. I’m begging you.
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.