Page 12 of Disguised as Love

Ilia had been eyeing me with distaste and distrust for over an hour, ever since I’d claimed the seat next to Raisa on the plane. The obscenely luxurious jet was part of a fleet co-operated by several arms of the Russian mafiya operating around the globe. This plane was full of gold leaf and marble mixed with leather and silk. There was a bedroom at the back, a theater in the middle, soft armchairs and couches up front, and two flight attendants who blended into the background as if they were purposefully trying not to be seen.

I continued to ignore Raisa’s bodyguard as my gaze drifted back to her. No matter how many times I told myself to stop looking, I couldn’t. She’d pulled a blanket from a compartment and stretched out on the couch as if she was going to sleep. I thought it was mostly to avoid conversing with me—or rather, arguing with me.

My suggestion to her had been reckless and brilliant all at the same time. If I was her boyfriend, I’d have access to everything.

There were just two problems with this idea.

The first was Gennady. What would he say if I suddenly showed up with her and insisted we were dating? The mistake I’d made when leaving The Roman suddenly looked like a blessing. If I was asked, I could say he hadn’t needed to tell me where she was because the two of us had been dating in secret for a while. But how long? Ideas came and went as I filtered through my own undercover file in my memory, trying to piece together a plausible story—one we could both share without getting tripped up.

I’d gotten my foot in the door at The Roman two years ago through an informant in Los Angeles. Bakatin and Gennady went back decades. They were both sons of two of the scariest Russian mafiya bosses in the world. Mobsters who’d plundered their country’s resources in the scramble from communism to capitalism and then spread themselves around the globe to plunder the rest of it. Their sons had easily taken up the mantle their fathers had left behind?one in prison and the other in the ground.

I’d worked myself slowly up the chain, inching closer to Gennady himself and finally cracking the surface with an insurance scam my FBI team had created. It had made Gennady a million dollars in days, and we’d been able to trace the money through every single offshore account he owned. We’d gained new insight into just how deep the Russians’ control of the banking community went while following it, opening eyes high up in the Bureau. When we did bring Gennady, Leskov, and the others tumbling down, we were going to be indicting politicians and businessmen along with them who everyone had previously thought were squeaky clean.

But all of this meant we couldn’t risk pretending Raisa and I had been together very long. I wished I had access to Nolan. He could spot holes in a backstory like no one else I’d ever worked for, but I didn’t dare call him while on the plane. Not because I was worried about listening devices?the jet was scanned before every single flight?but because I didn’t trust the crew.

The only times I’d disappeared from The Roman over the last two years was for Dawson’s wedding eighteen months ago and then for the court case against the leaders of the Kyodaina six months back. I’d been gone for a month that time, but I’d used the insurance scam as a cover. I could use that same timeframe for my pretend hook-up with the blonde lying on the couch next to me.

While I could probably fix my screw-up with Gennady in order to convince him Raisa was my girl, it brought into sharp relief the second problem?Raisa herself. And that problem, I wasn’t sure how to resolve. My body’s reaction to her could blow things wide open for us if I didn’t get it under control. The barest of touches had me igniting, so what would happen when I had to really wrap her up tight against me while pretending she was mine? Standing behind her in her bedroom, I’d taunted her about being afraid of liking my body that close, but what I’d really needed was for her to deny it. To show me I repelled her. Instead, she’d looked at me with a fire I knew would consume us both if our lips touched.

I couldn’t let lust blind me.

Almost every failed op I’d ever read about or been involved with had one thing in common: someone letting their personal feelings get involved. My father had lost his life that way, and my mom had nearly lost hers. Everything we had on the Kyodaina had almost gone up in smoke because Dawson had given in to his feelings for Violet three and a half years ago. Personal feelings meant death to ops and people.

As if he was reading my thoughts, Ilia grunted out a quiet, “You are not her boyfriend.”

It drew my eyes to him, neither of us willing to blink as we carefully assessed each other.

I’d told Ilia the lie on the way to the airport with Raisa stiffening next to me in disapproval. If we couldn’t even convince this man, then the rest of the bratva would eat us alive.

“Just because you’re protecting her, doesn’t mean you know everything about her,” I said casually, carelessly.

“I protect her for a year. You not with her. Why lie?” he demanded.

Raisa shifted onto her side, and I watched as the blanket she’d drawn over herself moved across her tiny frame. She hadn’t changed from when I’d first appeared on her doorstep. She had a red silk sweater tucked into a gray pinstriped A-line skirt that screamed businesswoman rather than science geek. The poppy red fit her. She was all fire beneath that shell of hers.

I tore my eyes from her and went back to glaring at Ilia. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and shot a look at the door the flight attendant had left through before asking quietly, “Do you truly want to keep her safe?”

There was a look in his eyes when he watched her that was more than a job. It was admiration at a minimum. The last thing I needed was some bodyguard with a jealous streak. Then, I paused…wondering if maybe he had a reason to be jealous. Had they been tangled together in the sheets? My heart seemed to stop at that thought.

“I promised him I would keep her safe. He saved me. I save her,” he said, and God help me, I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe the loyal-dog look he had about him was real when normally the low-level foot soldiers like him were only loyal to the leader who could bring them the most cash. Their ideology wasn’t hinged on any religion. It was solely money. Stealing and cheating were simply the way they did business, and they went wherever the bread showed up.

“Then, this is how we do it,” I told him. “I’m her boyfriend. We got together six months ago. If anyone asks, you say you know it’s stupid, but who are you to stop it.”

His eyes narrowed in on me, and it was a long time before he finally responded with, “You hurt her, you die.”

I’d made a rash assumption that he was just the standard-issue muscle. Street savvy but with not much more to offer. But his statements proved there was more there. My thoughts of her and him together flipped my stomach again. But neither of them had offered him up as already being involved with her. If they were sleeping together, he’d have said so by now. He wouldn’t let me pretend she was mine. I was damn sure I wouldn’t let him if our roles were reversed.

And those thoughts were exactly what was going to do me in. Fucking images of an us that wasn’t ever going to happen.

“Are you two behemoths done making decisions for me?” Raisa asked.

My gaze flipped from her bodyguard to her. Her blonde hair was spread all about her like a golden halo. She was stunning in a way that caught my breath, not only because of her looks but her strength. She hadn’t let one tear fall for her father, even though I could see the pain lurking in the shadows of her eyes. Even though I knew that kind of pain like the back of my hand. She seemed determined not to let anyone see her come apart. I wondered when she would—if she would. Or if she’d just bury the hurt like it was an old layer of skin to be shed and forgotten.

“You want him gone?” Ilia asked her, referring to me, and I barely held back a scoff.

Her eyes flitted from me to him and back. She paused for way longer than I thought was necessary. “No. He can help us.”

I’d infiltrated my way into criminal organizations for most of my adult life, and yet her agreeing that I could stay felt like one of the biggest wins of my life. It came in a glorious wave of relief at her acceptance. Relief I hadn’t felt since I was fourteen and the popular kids had asked me to sit with them the first day of my freshman year after nearly a decade of being homeschooled.

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