Page 78 of Vasily the Hammer

The fucker actually blushes.

“A single mom, I take it?” I drawl.

“They dated for, like, five minutes before she dumped him,” Ana informs me. “I can’t believe I remember that. I can’t believe she dated him.”

“Thanks, Lace,” Dima huffs. “But yeah, once Lacey knew I was watching her, she basically forced me to hang out with her. Because she missed you so much she cried about you all the time.”

He stares her down hard as he says that, ribbing her as confidently as Kseniya and I rib each other. Thinking of Kseniya steadies me again, but it’s another double-edged sword. He protected Kseniya, but that’s just another facet of this disaster.

“So let me get this straight: you’ve been hanging around with Ana, hiding her from me, practically raising my son, and still she was kidnapped, and you weren’t even there to get Artom before Tony got called in? What the fuck?”

Dima lifts a brow at Ana. “You gonna tell him?”

She stares blankly at him for some time before saying, “Oh, I don’t remember that. It’s an amnesia thing, I think. I’m pretty sure the stuff that happened right before the—” she knocks the side of her head “—are gone forever.”

Dima rolls his eyes. “Of course, the thing Vasily is most likely to still kill me over, that’s what you don’t remember. Sodon’tkill me over this, but... it was Ana’s idea, I swear.”

I... might kill Dima. “It was Ana’s idea to get whacked in the head so hard she lost her memory?”

“No, of course not, but...” He grunts as he hunts down the words least likely to end in his death. “But we found out a kidnapping was planned. I tried to talk Ana into leaving, but she refused once she found out it was sex traffickers. She wanted to be a decoy so the traffickers could get caught.”

I try to stay calm; I really do. But one second, I’m standing in that path of dulled tiles, the color evened out over time and wear, and the next second, my hand is at Dima’s throat, the legs of the melamine chair collapsing under us. “How the fuck did you let her get kidnapped by a sex trafficking ring?” I screech at him, tightening my hold even as the color in his pale cheeks goes strawberry red.

He holds his hands up for mercy, but I’m going to fucking kill him. He knew she was going to get kidnapped, and he let it happen? No, fuck everything. Fuck every single thought I had that Kostyawas the villain, not Dima. If Kostya is the villain, so is Dima, no either-or.

Dima is going to die.

I get hit from the side, a swift kick from ballet flats I know were paid for with my credit card, but damn, does Ana get my kidney just right that I flop over, the wind knocked out of me.

She looms over me, all soft curves and wrecked dress and irritation and matronly exhaustion. “Dima taught me where to kick. I do remember that. And he’s the reason I haven’t hated you with every grain of my entire body for the last six years even though you’re pissing me the heck off right now.”

God, she’s fierce. I bet she’s a mama bear with Artom. And yeah, okay, I’m furious with Dima because he should never have allowed whatever crackpot plan Ana had to actually happen, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she fought tooth and nail for it. She wanted to take down a sex trafficking ring.

Dima catches his breath before swinging an arm wide enough to peg me in the chest. “We had everything planned out. She was going to get herself caught, but she had a tracker on her, sewn into her shirt. Sasha Kozlov had the GPS. He didn’t know who she was because we didn’t want him to turn us down, what with you being the fucking psychopath you are and Lacey being your girl. We just didn’t plan for the concussion or the amnesia. And then Lacey didn’t want to stress Artom out too much, so she decided it would be best if Artom stayed the night with Tia, his sitter, like usual before I picked him up. We had a rendezvous point set up, she had a story she was going to tell the Consummate crew, we had a hundred contingency plans. Even if she did get injured, I knew where she’d be. If I didn’t hear from her, all I had to do was call Sasha again. We spent weeks planning this. Ana even overscheduled at herrestaurant to make up for this. I was going to bring them to LA. It was time. I was—fuck, I had it planned so goddamn well. Then Kostya told me Ana and Artom were already in LA, and I thought everything was fine.”

Ana didn’t just want to take down a sex trafficking ring, shedidtake down a sex trafficking ring. Sasha mentioned they’d been given an anonymous tip about it, but the information was so strong that they were in full force. He said they knew it was at a pick-up, where some poor woman was scheduled to be taken, although he didn’t know who the woman was or how she’d landed in such a predicament.

It was Ana.

“Why was Ana getting picked up in the first place?”

He gives her the most pained look, and I get the feeling this isn’t the first time he’s had to tell her why she got targeted by the ring.

“Because Tony sold her to them. He planned to pretend she’d been murdered and raise Artom as his heir, but instead of paying a hitman, he sold her. For $20,000.”

I’m going to kill so many people. So... many... people. I just have to get myself on my feet first. I have to find a safe place for Ana first. I have to retrieve Artom first.

And them I’m going to kill so many people.

But my outrage is overshadowed by Ana’s gentle, wobbly voice.

“So I was only worth $20,000 this time?”

Chapter 25

Ana

I knew my memorieswere going to be a motley crew of good and bad, that life comes with pain and what sticks the longest isn’t nearly as happy as it sad or embarrassing. I knew that getting my memories back would mean resurrecting a lot of stuff I’d rather bury.

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