Page 87 of Disguised as Love

Malik removed his suit jacket and pressed it against his father’s side. The guy in the front passenger seat spoke on a phone in Russian, asking for a doctor to be brought to the palace.

“You have the locket,” Petya said, breath uneven.

I looked down to where I had it clutched in my fist. The engraving pushed into my skin, and my mind filled with images of Raisa playing with it, twisting and turning it as she worried. I hated that her father had sent it to her?put her in danger?and yet it was also brilliant because anyone who had read up on him, as I had, would never have believed he’d do anything to risk her life. A chess move that had risked the queen, hoping the opponent wouldn’t see it, and that she’d live to tell the tale.

“What’s on it?” I demanded.

“Proof of Rurik exchanging information to the FSB for rights to rule St. Petersburg uncontested. Proof of him killing his competitors.”

“Don’t talk, Papa. Take it easy till we get the doctor here,” Malik said gently.

Petya ignored him. “What are you going to do with it, Malone?”

I wanted to laugh because I was one man, with a gun out of bullets, in a car with a leader of the mafiya surrounded by his men, heading toward his house. He already knew I’d do whatever the hell he wanted me to do with it if I wanted to live.

But then it hit me that he’d said my real name twice now.

“How long have you known who I was?” I asked, looking from Petya to Malik and back.

“Since you showed up at Gennady’s months ago,” Petya said.

“How?”

Petya shook his head. He wouldn’t give up his source, but it twisted my gut. It had to have been someone on the inside. In Connecticut, three and a half years ago, when we’d almost nailed Malik along with members of the Kyodaina for gun trafficking, only to have it all go to hell in a handbasket, I’d suspected we had a mole inside the FBI. Someone feeding intel to the Russians. This all but proved it.

I wanted to bust heads. I wanted to clear out the entire Bureau and start fresh. But the truth was, the mafiya were insidious. They were everywhere. There would be no stopping them from infiltrating whatever group they wanted, because they knew the sad truth about the majority of humanity: it was money that ruled. Almost anyone could be bought or tortured into doing what you wanted. I’d done the same damn thing as them but on the other side of the war.

I was tired of it.

I wanted to stick my head in the ground, cover it with classical music, and lose myself in the soft, creamy skin of a woman who was changing the world in a much better way than I’d ever been able to do with my badge and my gun.

“Will the information in the locket keep Raisa safe or have people gunning for her?” I asked, my voice gritty with emotions I tried to hide.

“Now that the Volkovs are dead? Neither. It was only important to them, but it is of great interest to me that you asked what it would do for my daughter.”

I didn’t know if he said it so I would believe it was useless when there was actually information on the card that would incriminate him or if it was actually the truth. The smart thing to do was to hold on to it and have the Bureau take it apart byte by byte.

“Take it. Use it,” he continued, grimacing as a bump in the road jolted his wounded body. “It will lay everything of the last few weeks at Rurik’s feet.”

“Ty ne mozhesh' yemu doveryat', Papa,” Malik growled, and I wanted to laugh at his saying they couldn’t trust me when the ball was completely in their court, and Petya knew it, even if Malik didn’t.

“Vy ne smozhete mne doveryat’ tol’ko v sluchae, esli vy yeyo snova podvergnete opasnosti,” I growled back, and both men’s eyes narrowed at the Russian pouring from me, but it was the truth. They’d only be unable to trust me if they put Raisa in harm’s way again.

To my surprise, Petya laughed. A laugh that turned into a groan once more.

It was my turn to narrow eyes at him as I said in Russian, “Don’t fucking die, because she’ll kill me for letting you.”

This brought more laughter from him, and even Malik’s lips twitched.

The gates of the palace swung open, and we barreled down the drive. Raisa and Manya burst from the front doors just as we got out of the vehicle with me holding Petya on one side and Malik on the other.

Manya’s hand went to her mouth. “Petya!”

“A flesh wound, dorogaya. You do not have to worry about losing me again.”

“You are an ass!” she yelled at him. “I am so angry with you. So angry I might kill you myself.”

“Can you wait, perhaps, until I am healed, and then I will have a fighting chance?” Petya teased her.

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