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“Romanova,” he gasps out. “The girl’s last name is Romanova.”

Son of a bitch.

“What’s so special about her? Why try to take her again?”

“Weakness. It will weaken him.”

“Or strengthen him to burn them all to the ground. When are they going after the girl again?”

“I don’t know.” He screams after another hit from the hilt of my knife. “I don’t know,” he cries. “I really don’t. No one told me, and I didn’t ask.”

He sounds sincere, but that means I need to get to work. Damn it.

“Then you’re of no more use to me, Renat.” I lift my gun and fire into his gut. It will kill him, but it will be painful. If I had more time, I’d be more creative. “I know all about your part in the ring, Renat. You raped the women they brought because you felt you earned the right. Well, you get to pay for that.”

“No, no no!” he gasps, but he’s slipping away as blood flows down his legs and pools on the floor.

Leaving him to rot, I send an encrypted message to my cleanup crew. I never leave anything behind, and they make sure of it. It took me a long time to find people I could trust to handle this when the occasions arose, and I’ve made sure they never see my face.

It’s hard to find competent people nowadays, and if I keep killing them, I’m limiting myself to the mediocre, and that’s not an option.

It takes me little time to get back to the apartment I bought five years ago under an alias. Or rather, the building I purchased. I was careful, listing each unit as rented by other names in case anyone has been watching or trying to track me down. Can’t ever be too careful.

My main unit is on the first level, and when I walk inside, I deadbolt the door, head for the spare bedroom, press the button under the bed with my foot, and turn to walk down the steps revealed at the entrance to the closet. I take the stairs into the basement, and the door closes followed by a soft snick of the lock.

This area is off the grid, and the only people who know it’s here are the people who built it and me. And the people who built it are the very people who know better than to blab; I made sure they understood what would happen. Their discretion is paramount, and they’re used by some of the biggest crime syndicates in the world; they don’t dare risk their reputation.

The basement level of the apartment complex is my actual home. All with the highest tech. And that’s what I need right now. I have some digging to do, and I need to figure it out fast.

It doesn’t take me long to find the information I need, and I clench my jaw at what I find. It’s deep, hidden in code, but I’ve been doing this long enough to figure it out easily.

The webs of this entire operation run deep. It’s not hard to figure out the main players, the funnel to the top, and who is pulling the strings, but it’s the why that doesn’t make sense. Why Ilya Romanov?

The information I’ve found about the Romanov empire suggests it focuses on exports because of the ports it controls in Washington State, Oregon, and even one in the northernmost part of California. Guns, drugs, and counterfeit currency seem to be the large ones, but nothing that hints at the human trafficking most Pakhans are involved in.

Which is exactly the point, isn’t it? He has access to all those routes into the inner states and out of the country, and he’s not using it in a way that could make others billions, possibly even trillions. That’s not going to sit well with them.

Another check mark in his favor. Is the man trying to seduce me?

In reality, it probably has a lot more to do with what happened to his niece. And speaking of her, why are they focusing on her? Is she actually a weakness to Ilya? Yes, but that’s the only thing they’re going after? Who does that? What am I missing?

And why do I care? She’s a kid, and kids really aren’t my thing. I don’t have the patience for them. Especially not sassy, mouthy teenagers who don’t listen.

The strength in her eyes when I found her in that hidden pocket in the wall flashes in my mind. She wasn’t hysterical for long, and she was resilient. A trait I can admire. And the way she talked to her uncle? Impressive.

Damn it, I like her. I’m honest enough with myself to admit I’ve thought about her a lot in passing in the last year. I’d like to think it’s because of her hot uncle, especially considering how often he’s shown up in my dreams and masturbation sessions, but that’s not true. I just like her, and as dangerous as that is, I can’t seem to find the caution I normally do.

So I need to figure out what they want with her.

With my fingers flying across the keys, I scan the lines of information. It takes me a few more hours to find it, to find the needle they tried to hide in the haystack of information.

My blood runs cold. I never figured out how that fucker Harold snuck her past me. It was because he wasn’t the one to put her there. She was given to him by Timur Belov. A way of thanking him for being a customer and handling the more resistant girls.

The death I gave him wasn’t horrible enough. I should have made him suffer longer. Harder. I should have …

No, there’s no point in thinking of it now. If they’re going to be going after Mila again, then I need to know who they’re sending after her and their plans.

The more I dig, the more I start to put the pieces together. Not just about Mila, but about my role in this entire ring. The dates I’ve been hired or sent on assignment align to precise moments they wanted to move large containers of these women and children without detection. They needed distractions. That was what I and some of the others the Butcher oversaw were for.