Page 87 of Bleed the Shadows

“Sorry,” Neo told me.

If I’d ever needed a sign of Bram’s quiet authority, that would have been it. I had the feeling Neo was in charge at Aventine — whether he was a current student or not — and he’d folded like a cheap umbrella after one word from Bram.

“What does it mean?” Poe asked.

“Dimitri Kaprolov was disavowed by the alumni a decade ago,” Drago said.

“Yeah, but Ethan attended Aventine before that.” I was trying to get my head around it all: why Dimitri Kaprolov would vouchfor a foster kid from Blackwell Falls, why it would matter that he had been disavowed a decade later.

Poe rubbed at his jaw. “I have a feeling this has to do with the reason he was disavowed.”

“Your feeling is correct.” Drago took the piece of paper from Neo and looked at it.

Neo took a seat at the table. “This is starting to make sense.”

“Well, please clue us the fuck in,” Bram said.

“I was just a kid when the whole thing exploded,” Neo said, “but the rumors lasted for years after.”

“What rumors?” Remy asked.

We were all sitting around the table except for Poe, who was sitting on the edge of it, and Drago, who was still standing.

“Dimitri Kaprolov’s thing was sex trafficking,” Neo said.

“I don’t get it.” I didn’t want to say the rest: that I assumed the crime families at Aventine weren’t exactly opposed to sex trafficking.

“Yeah, isn’t sex trafficking one of your things?” Remy asked.

Neo scowled. “Fuck no. There’s a big difference between sex trafficking and voluntary sex work.”

I guess it made sense. Poe had told me about the sex trafficking ring that had run through Aventine a couple years back. The people involved hadn’t been protected by the Aventine families. They’d gone down for it.

“Plus, Kaprolov wasn’t exactly low key about it,” Drago said. “And he got picked up more than once by the BFPD for assault. Word is, he got really paranoid. He was the one who paid to have this room built actually.”

“Our business model only works if everyone is discreet,” Neo said. “And despite the room we’re sitting in, Dimitri Kaprolov wasn’t discreet.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He was a… proselytizer,” Drago said. “Had all kind of fucked-up views about women.”

Now it was making sense.

“Todd was his acolyte,” Remy said as it dawned on him. “They shared the same belief system, but Todd was better at spreading the word, bringing people in.”

“Sounds about right,” Neo said. “And it looks like Kaprolov gave Todd a Russian name, installed him in the Knights’ house.”

“Wouldn’t he have had to speak Russian?” Remy asked.

Neo snorted. “You think everyone here speaks their parents’ and grandparents’ mother tongues?”

The room grew silent as we processed the revelation about Ethan Todd.

“What happened to him?” I finally asked. “Dimitri Kaprolov, after he was cut off from Aventine?”

“He lived here for a while,” Drago said.

I blinked in surprise. “Here, here? As in Blackwell Falls?”