Page 82 of Disguised as Love

I stared at her for a long time. She’d been covering our asses while I’d been lost in Raisa. But there was no reason for her to do so. She’d already done what she’d come to Russia to do. I frowned and asked, “Yano’s dead. You got what you wanted. Why are you still here instead of heading to wherever the hell it is you planned on going when this was over?”

Ito-san’s eyes journeyed to the front seat of the Range Rover where Raisa sat, gun trained on the man in the back seat. He was fucking talking to her, and I knew, even though her expression hadn’t changed, that whatever he was saying was eating a hole in her. It made me want to end him.

“She didn’t ask for this,” Ito-san finally said.

My eyes flipped back to her. There was no expression on her face, but her words proved what I’d suspected?even used to my advantage. Ito-san was working on some twisted sense of justice for women who’d been shoved into the life crime families led without having a say.

“Besides, what the hell else do I have to do?” she said with a bitter laugh. “This is what I was raised for.”

“It’ll mark you with the bratva,” I said quietly. “You’ve been shielded before this because no one knew the hand you played in the downfall of the Kyodaina.”

She shrugged, and silence settled down between us.

“You got a plan?” I asked.

“We let them take us in, we get close to whomever the hell you want out, and then blow the rooftop first. In the chaos, we head for the back door and blow it as they follow us out.”

It almost brought a smile to my face. She made it sound so easy. As if there wouldn’t be a hundred guns facing us. As if we had an armory full of guns at our disposal in addition to the bombs.

I had two choices: walk in and hope that the one-percent chance of us getting out alive with Raisa and her family would come true, or drag Raisa kicking and screaming out of Russia. She’d never forgive me if I took the second option.

Raisa

FATE

“Oh if it’s really out of my hands.

Can you forgive all of my sins?

Have mercy on me, me.”

Performed by H.E.R.

Written by Tannenbaum / Balmoris / Harris / Krieger /

Ashworth / Jackson / McRae / Ashworth / Gherman / Melenbacher

My heart was pounding so hard it muffled the sounds of the world, and yet I could still hear every word the man was uttering from the back seat. He filled my mind with nauseating visuals of what would happen to my mother and me if I didn’t show up at the People’s Court. Finally, I cocked the gun Cruz had given me, fingering the trigger.

“Shut up,” I told him fiercely.

He smirked. “There is fight in you. That will please everyone who has a turn at you.”

My stomach flipped. There was absolutely no food inside it, but I could still taste the bile as it came up at the back of my throat. I shoved open the car door, and Cruz reached out a hand to halt me before I took even two steps in the nightclub’s direction.

I’d been to the club many times as a teen, dancing with Malik and our supposed friends. Friends who’d disappeared once I’d gone to the States and submersed myself in a world of science and academia. Friends I didn’t miss because they’d been superficial. They’d been there for the money and the good time.

I threw my chin up at Cruz, glaring at him with defiance and pushing at the hand that gripped my arm. “I won’t let them have her. Not without a fight.”

“I know,” he said, and relief filled me. Relief that I didn’t have to do this alone. “They’re going to take our guns as soon as we walk in. They’ll search us. Do you still have the knife I gave you?”

I slid it out of the pocket of the sweatpants that felt like they were going to fall off of me at any minute. Absolutely not what I wanted to be wearing going into a den of vipers who wanted nothing more than to see me naked, used, and thrown away.

“Can you fit it in your shoe?” he asked.

I bent and did the best I could to slide it in. It was awkward and might change my gait, but it was a small comfort to know I had something to protect myself. Even if all it did was make my captors angrier when I used it.

“Are you sure?” Cruz asked, gaze scouring mine, reading me. “We can leave and send help.”

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