CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

"Victoria, you're not in trouble," said Mo. "I promise, honey. But explain this to us. We're all listening. The team is on the other end of the line."

"You'll hate me. You'll make me leave!" she yelled.

"No. No, we won't," he said calmly. The shriek of her voice made them all worry if perhaps she'd inherited some of her mother's illness. If, in fact, Yulia was her mother.

"Please, Victoria," asked Nine as quietly as he could manage.

"I was four the last time I saw them, but I remembered. The minute I saw their faces, I knew who they were. I remember everything. It's one of the many problems with being a genius. You remember it all."

"You're not a genius," said Yulia. "You were a pain in the ass, always asking questions!"

"Lady, I will only say this one more time," said Tailor. "Shut the fuck up, or I will rip your limbs from your body." Yulia knew the man wasn't just making a threat. He would follow through in a heartbeat, not worried about killing her at all.

"They yelled at one another all the time, fighting. He decided to leave her."

"Leave your mother?" asked Gaspar.

"I won't call her that. Or him father. My mother and father are here," she said, turning to look at Mo. He smiled at her, wanting to weep for his adopted daughter.

"Alright, sweetie. Go on," said Gaspar.

"He left us. Left me with her."

"I didn't leave you," said Krauss. "I left your mother, but not you. I moved away for a while, starting a new life, and when I'd returned, she said you'd died."

"I'm sure she wished that I had," said Victoria. "I found out what she was doing with the books. She didn't expect her four-year-old genius to figure out that she was cheating her own father and his partners."

"You're sick!" said Yulia.

Tailor hit her so hard he thought he might have broken her neck. Her head snapped to the side, then she wept, staring at the man.

"I warned you."

"I sent an e-mail to Uncle Boris. I have no idea if he's really my uncle or not. She got mad. Really, really mad and beat me. Richard stopped her from killing me."

Nine turned to look at the man who was trussed up on the floor. He removed the tape from his mouth.

"Is she remembering everything right?" The man looked at his boss, then back at the man. His life was over no matter what happened here tonight.

"Yes. She was out of her mind and didn't know what she was doing. I told her I'd take care of the kid. I took her to an orphanage that said it was for brilliant children. I never saw her again after that."

"Well, your intention was good, but the result fucking sucked," said Ghost. "That kid has been through hell."

"You told me she was dead," said Krauss.

"She is dead! She's dead to me and to you," said the woman, slowly losing her grip on reality. She felt the pulse of electricity at her neck again and screamed, writhing in the chair.

"Victoria, honey, not too much," said Nine. "I know you're angry with her, but don't kill her. Not yet. Is this why you didn't want to leave the property? Because of them?"

"Yes. I always worried that she would come back for me. It terrified me." Tailor could tell that Yulia wanted to say something, but he growled at the woman, warning her not to say a word.

"How could you keep her from me?" asked Krauss. "I would have taken her. I would have raised her and given her a normal life."

"Normal?" scoffed Victoria. "You're a crime boss. A violent, horrible man who abuses and uses others, killing them at whim. That's not normal!"

Krauss had no rebuttal for his daughter.

"Tell them what you did," she said, staring at the screen. Krauss just looked at his lost child, wondering what she was saying. "She knows what she did. Tell them!"

"What the fuck did you do?" asked Ghost.

"She sterilized the children," said Trak, coming in the backdoor with the others. Nine had seen his friend angry before. In fact, he'd seen him looking deadlier than anyone he'd ever seen in his life. But this look was something new. Something more dangerous because it came with support.

Rory, Miller, and Zulu stared at the woman. Rory's body was flexing, cracking with every move he made he was so tense.

"The guards were more than happy to spill the beans on everything just for a little mercy," said Miller. "They got none. They're all dead. She kept a doctor on staff for it. As the kids were brought in, boys and girls, they were all sterilized. You crazy fucking bitch."

"They don't bring as much money if they can bear children," she said quietly. "I get more for them when I sterilize them."

That was all that Tailor could take. He gripped the woman's neck like the handle of a broom and snapped it in half. The sickening sound made even the strongest men wince. Victoria just stared at the screen, not saying a word.

"I didn't know," said Krauss.

"You didn't know about that. But you knew she was crazy; you knew she was selling kids. You were helping her to do that," said Ghost.

"No. I was handling the websites."

"Sites. That's plural," said Gaspar. "You said you were handling the websites. Where are the others?"

"You don't understand what will happen. They'll come for you. All of them will come for you."

"They've come for us before," said Nine. "We're still standing. Not them. Who the fuck are they, and what are the sites?"

"They look innocent enough."

"Who?" growled Ian.

"Mothers."