Page 60 of Disguised as Love

I didn’t have the same faith. Malik had Yano whispering in his ear. Although, tonight’s showdown with them had proven Malik wasn’t just some pliable doll dancing to Yano’s strings like I’d thought he was?another assessment I’d misread.

I’d fucked up this op from the time I’d left The Roman in Denver. I hadn’t had the right intel, I’d been blinded by my assumptions, and I’d dropped my guard with the beautiful blonde at the center of it all. I dragged a hand over my face. I was tired. That didn’t help, but it wasn’t an excuse either.

We pulled into the garage behind the mansion, and Ilia turned to me as he shut the car off. “I will help, but only if we agree that no matter who finds it first, we look at it together.”

I studied him. If the data was something he could use to get ahead in the bratva, would he use it? Did I want to hand over information to someone who would just become the next Petya Leskov or Rurik Volkov? If he found it before me, there was no guarantee he’d even show it to me. He could keep it for himself, and I guessed he could say the same for me, although his odds of finding it were about a million times better than mine.

“Agreed,” I said and held out my hand.

He shook it.

We left the vehicle and entered the palace through a back door before traveling up a smaller staircase to the bedrooms. Ito-san was standing in front of Raisa’s door, looking both nonchalant and pissed all at the same time.

She started to leave without a word, but I grabbed her arm. She twisted, escaping me with a grace and skill that not many had. I put both my hands up as a knife slid into hers from nowhere.

“Look. I need your help,” I told her honestly.

“Helping you hasn’t gotten me anywhere. I could have finished him tonight,” she hissed.

I nodded.

“But you didn’t. Why?” I asked.

“You were right. I don’t want to just kill him. I want him to wonder every moment of every day when death will come for him. I want him to beg for me to kill him to put him out of his misery,” she said quietly.

While it was true, her eyes also darted to Raisa’s door, and I realized the taunt I’d thrown out that morning had hit her right in her weak spot. Ito-san knew what it was like to be tied to a crime family from the time you were born. To be trapped. To have a target on your back. She’d had the same thing. Except, her father had trained her to be the best damn warrior on the planet while he’d let his daughter by marriage hang herself out to dry until the thread holding her up was about to collapse. Ito-san had saved her half sister. First as her bodyguard, and then as her father’s mercenary and messenger.

“I need your help. Ilia and I aren’t enough,” I said. Ilia grunted as if he didn’t agree, but it was true. We were both running on fumes, and if I could get Ito-san to help me, it would mean that many more hours I wouldn’t be next to the temptation on wheels that was Raisa Leskov.

Ito-san glanced to the corner of the hallway where a camera was hidden?something you wouldn’t know was there unless you’d dived into their security system as Nolan had. He’d sent me the complete schematic of the security system and camera positions, including which ones were recorded and which ones were just live feeds. Ito-san must have gotten her hands on them herself while watching Yano coming and going, because we hadn’t sent them to her.

“He’ll see me here,” she said.

“It’ll be like slapping him in the face, repeatedly. If asked, I’ll say I hired you because we’d crossed paths in our past. With Leskov murdered and Damien ‘gone missing,’ I’ll say I wanted someone outside I could trust as Raisa’s personal security.”

“It will make you their enemy,” she said quietly.

I’d made progress with Malik Leskov today, and that progress would go to hell if I hired the one person who wanted to see his friend dead, but it couldn’t be helped. I needed extra bodies. My fuckup tonight proved it.

“So be it,” I finally said.

She gave a curt nod. Ilia hesitated at the idea of leaving Raisa in the hands of yet another person he didn’t know.

I looked at him and asked, “You know who Jada Mori is?”

He thought a moment and then nodded. “Daughter of the dead Kyodaina leader, yes?”

“Ito-san here is the reason she isn’t dead as well.”

Ito-san eyed him up and down. “I have no bones to pick with Leskovs. I care only about Isamu Yano. He will pay for killing Mori-sama.”

“Yano is weasel,” Ilia said.

“Yes, and I promise he will be out of your henhouse before this is all over.” Ito-san’s voice was deadly as she said it, and Ilia seemed to believe it.

We made a plan for one of us to be at Raisa’s side around the clock, and then Ilia headed down the hall to the stairs and his room.

“Thank you,” I said to Ito-san.

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