Page 19 of Disguised as Love

“The word on the street is that Volkov has offered a ten-million-dollar reward for whoever brings him Leskov’s murderer’s head on a spike. We’re not talking figuratively either. He wants the head to send a message to others who would take out his friends.”

My throat closed. Ten million. It was an obscene amount of money to offer.

“Do you think it’s just to cover up his own involvement? So the others don’t turn on him for killing the one man everyone trusted to broker their deals?”

“Don’t know. We don’t have anyone in the Volkov camp. Scuttle came through some of the other informants. What’s Gennady saying?” Nolan asked.

“He’s scared. Wanted Raisa Leskov brought straight to him.”

“Fuck. If Gennady’s scared, shit really is coming down.”

“Malik Leskov knew I worked for Gennady and kicked Raisa out of his car when she tried to defend me. He’s a loose cannon. Filled with so much conceit it’s blinding him.”

“Yano’s been filling his head with praise and stupid ideas of taking them all down.”

“Ito-san tell you this?”

“Yes, but it’s clear as day from way back here. Kaida Ito is another wild card, Malone,” Nolan said. “She may be helping us, but you know as soon as she gets a chance, her real plan is to take Yano out.”

“She agreed to our terms. Immunity and a new life if she helps us bring him in alive.”

“You think she really needs either from us? She has enough money from her daddy to build her own new world. She could go underground and never surface again.”

Nolan was right and wrong. Ito-san wanted revenge for her father’s murder, and she did have enough money and connections to disappear on her own, but she’d also started showing up in her half sister’s real world recently. She wouldn’t be able to continue seeing Jada Mori if she was being hunted, and it was those bonds that had her agreeing to the deal she’d made with us.

While I didn’t know what that felt like exactly?I didn’t have any siblings?I did have ties to family. People I’d never walk away from no matter what it meant for me. Even if I ended up dead in order to stay at their side.

Nolan filled my silence with more intel.

“Ito-san says Yano is at the Leskov’s estate. Who knows, you might even sit down to dinner with him.”

His voice was dry and sarcastic. He didn’t like me playing Raisa’s boyfriend. I didn’t like it either, for more reasons than I could tell him. For reasons that had sent me running in the cold night air. But the lie kept me close to the epicenter of everything happening, much of which we didn’t even have a clue about. I needed more data. On all of them. On the whispers on the street about Raisa, Volkov, Leskov, and Yano.

“Keep digging. I need more intel,” I said, a clip to my voice I didn’t mean, but Nolan was used to my shitty attitude.

“Stay alive.”

“I’ll do my best.”

We hung up, and I looked back out at the water and the lights. It was a beautiful view. Almost as beautiful as the woman in the mansion behind me who’d flown thousands of miles to be with her mother and bury her father even though she knew she was walking into the bear’s den. The woman who’d faced a gun on my behalf… I’d never get that damn image out of my head. She’d embedded herself into my visual memories now, just like her sweet, cinnamon scent had locked itself into my veins.

Raisa

NOBODY CAN SAVE ME

“I chose a false solution

But nobody proved me wrong, no.”

Performed by Linkin Park

Written by Hahn / Shinoda / Bourdon /

Bennington / Farrell / Green / Delson

Mama clung to me, burying her head into my chest and sobbing. Her face was bloated and red, and her eyes were bloodshot. I was ninety percent sure the red was from more than tears. I could hope it was just alcohol, but I’d just be fooling myself. Over the years, she’d always had a tenuous hold on sobriety. It had been her cocaine addiction, even more than the money schemes, that had gotten her kicked out of the U.S. and had prevented her from bringing Georgie with her to Russia. That pull to oblivion had always been waiting right below the surface to take her back down.

Papa had saved her with his love. With his protection.

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