Page 1 of Disguised as Love

Cruz

BLESSED AND FREE

“I’m just tryna lay low, so don't mind me

Struggle with my own fights so don’t try.”

Performed by Kane Brown and H.E.R.

Written by Juber / Baptiste / Wilson / Biral / Brown / Chell

I hated cigarettes. Not only the insidious smell that snuck into every orifice and vein, but the way the men I was surrounded with used it as a means of showing how little they cared about anyone around them. As if they didn’t give a fuck if you were there or not. They’d blow smoke straight into your face just to see if you’d react and then tap the ash with fingers that never quivered.

So, it was the tremble in Ivan Gennady’s hand as he inhaled, as much as the sweat beading at his hairline, that proved something had shaken him to his core. I’d been undercover for almost two years in this dank dungeon of a nightclub Gennady called The Roman, and I’d never once seen him sweat.

Gennady rose from behind his desk, his multi-thousand-dollar suit making him look like a Wall Street tycoon instead of the leader of the largest mafiya organization in the western half of the United States. He pulled at the collar of his shirt as if it had suddenly tightened around him.

He eyeballed all of us, gaze settling on me for a long time. I didn’t flinch. Couldn’t. Not this late in the game. Not when I’d barely moved up from being an expendable lowlife to someone worthy of a half-assed second glance. It had taken me bringing him an insurance scam, which had made him a cool million, to finally break out from the bottom of the food chain.

“I’m needed in St. Petersburg. We’re leaving tonight,” he stated. A simple fact and command all rolled together.

Two of the men in the room had phones whipped out in seconds, making arrangements for private jets, hotels, and transfers from Denver to Russia. What no one was doing was asking what had rattled him enough to return to the homeland he despised visiting. It wasn’t Russia itself he hated, but the fact that, there, he wasn’t a king. He was barely a duke. Maybe even just some meek lord compared to the bratva leaders who were vicious enough to still call Russia their home after the deep cleanse of the twenty-first century.

I turned, intending to bring Gennady’s armor-plated SUV to the back door, but he stopped me with a command.

“Antonne, stay.”

After months of deep cover, I reacted to the name like I’d been born with it. Cruz Malone had been left behind with his FBI shield and gun. Only Antonne Woods existed here.

The room emptied, leaving just the two of us. I kept my face impassive. Neither the itch to reach for my hidden weapons nor the desire to know what had rattled him could show. And it wouldn’t. I was damn good at wearing a mask. I’d been taught how by a father who’d made it his livelihood, and I’d gotten even better at it in my fourteen years with the Bureau.

“I have a special mission for you,” Gennady said, his eyes becoming small slits as he took me in. I wasn’t in a gazillion-dollar suit. I was in black leather and cotton that, along with my black hair, nearly black eyes, and dark-brown skin, helped me blend into the night. It made me a shadow when I needed it most.

I kept my eyes trained on Gennady’s icy blue ones. They stood out against his dirty-blond hair and fake-tanned skin in a way that drew stares wherever he went. He was rich, muscled, and good-looking, which attracted fortune hunters as well as naïve women who showed up at The Roman thinking it was nothing more than a hip nightclub. Women he ruined, but who were so terrified of him they wouldn’t come forward even when the Bureau promised safety and immunity.

“Petya Leskov is dead,” Gennady finally spoke. “His daughter’s presence is required in Russia. You’ll make it happen.”

As shock rolled through me in waves, it required more effort than I’d applied in years to keep it off my face. Leskov was dead? He was the entire reason I was in this goddamn hellhole, weaseling my way into the Denver arm of the mafiya in hopes that it would lead me all the way back to St. Petersburg, Leskov, and the traitor he was harboring. Isamu Yano had murdered the Japanese Kyodaina’s leader, Tsuyoshi Mori, on U.S. soil eighteen months ago, and I was determined to bring him to justice. I’d promised I would. Just like I’d also promised my bosses the Leskov clan on a platter after years of chasing them.

Once the first wave of astonishment passed over me, the rest of his sentence came into clarity. It was then that I felt the barest hint of perspiration break out at the back of my neck as visions of a blonde-haired, brown-eyed beauty swam in my memories. Her body had been clad in a red dress showing every single curve and not one ounce of pale skin. She’d been covered from wrist to neck, and neck to ankle, and yet I’d been able to make out the outline of her hip bone and the sharp line of her collarbone. I’d been filled with an overwhelming desire to shed her of that red dress and spend an entire evening licking the skin beneath it.

Raisa Leskov was a fucking nightmare to a seasoned undercover agent like me, and now Gennady wanted me to go fetch her like a hunting dog bringing back the duck he’d shot. Gennady’s squinty eyes narrowed even more when I didn’t move toward the door at the pace he’d expected.

“What happened?” I asked as I battled not only images I didn’t want of a sexy female but also of a crumbling investigation I’d spent years and thousands of dollars on. He didn’t like my question, and I wanted to slam a fist into a wall somewhere because those two words could easily blow my cover. Lowlife foot soldiers didn’t question their leaders. They ran to fulfill their commands, and that was all.

“Does it matter? He’s dead. She’s needed. You will retrieve her.” Gennady had barely a hint of an accent left after three decades in the United States, but I heard it in those last four words. You will retrieve her. As if she was resisting. As if she wouldn’t want to fly home to attend her father’s funeral when all the reports I’d read about her said she was very much the doting daughter.

I gave a curt nod and turned toward the door.

“I’ll have Gregory send you her information.”

And I realized I’d made another mistake. I should have asked, even though I already knew where she was at.

I glanced back with my hand on the doorknob to see what his reaction was to my slip up, but Gennady was looking at his phone. Maybe it had escaped his notice because he was too shaken up himself. The tremor remained in his fingers as he brought his cigarette up to his mouth, and it made the hair on my arms raise.

“Don’t disappoint me, Antonne.” His voice followed me out of the room.

Something was seriously wrong, and Raisa Leskov was at the center of it.

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