Page 93 of Disguised as Love

Promise me, we'll never look back.”

Performed by Lifehouse

Written by Jason Wade

Leaving Raisa and trusting her father to protect her had been an enormous leap of faith. After all, he hadn’t protected her before. He’d actually sent the wolves her way, sniffing after the locket and the data hidden there. He’d put her and Manya at risk by pretending he was dead and letting the Volkovs come for them.

But he’d also saved them. Saved me. If he hadn’t shown up at Volkov’s club when he had, I’d be dead. We’d all be dead, and I wouldn’t be able to walk into the New York field office in the Javits building with an SD card full of intel on the mafiya.

Nolan saw me before anyone else. He was out of his chair and at my side in a flash.

“You son of a bitch,” he said as he slugged me on the arm. “It’s damn good to see you.”

This drew the eyes of the other special agents in the room, and I was surrounded by people asking me questions about the bombings, the rumors of the Volkovs’ deaths, and my role in any of it.

“Malone,” my boss, Harry Hewitt, yelled from his office doorway. I turned, and his face was grim. He was chewing on a toothpick that had become a seriously disgusting habit after he’d been forced to give up the equally disgusting habit of smoking. “My office. Now. Bring your friend.”

He meant Nolan, and my stomach tightened. I had every intention of protecting Nolan’s ass from any blowback from my screwups. I’d throw myself on the sword and hope it saved his career as I was walking away from mine.

I spent the next hour telling Hewitt and Nolan the majority of my story. Everything except any part that insinuated there was something more between me and Petya Leskov’s daughter than there should have been. Nolan rolled his eyes whenever I mentioned her, but he never called me out on it. We broke open Raisa’s locket, found the SD card buried behind the pictures in a compartment carved into the gold, loaded the data, and stared in stunned silence as videos played of Rurik Volkov giving up name after name to the FSB and then turning around and putting out hits on some of those same names.

After Hewitt and Nolan heard my story, I was put in a room with cameras, two more Bureau bigwigs who’d jetted up from D.C. after I’d shown up, and a stenographer. There, I retold the story all over again, answering question after question until everyone in the room went silent, and one scuttled away to start releasing intel to the news media about Volkov.

During the session, Nolan kept bringing me shitty-ass coffee from the break room and sandwiches from a food cart outside in the square, but I was fading fast, and it was clear to everyone. I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in at least a week. I hadn’t had any sleep in going on two days. If they wanted more out of me, they needed to let me walk away and come back when my synapses were fully firing again.

Hewitt told me I was officially on desk duty until my actions were fully investigated, but the surprising truth was I’d probably be allowed back on duty if I wanted it. I shouldn’t be. I’d fucked up, but I’d also spun the words to my advantage, and they’d believed me, even if they’d sniffed around my omissions.

But I didn’t want back on duty. The hard, cold reality was exactly what I’d told Raisa. I was tired. My body was tired, my mind was tired, and I needed to cash in the chips while I had them to cash. While I still had a life that I could live.

When the room finally cleared of everyone but Nolan, I turned to him and said, “Thanks for having my ass the best you could from thousands of miles away.”

“Are you going to go after Leskov again?” he asked.

Petya Leskov was one of the few bosses who’d survived. He was the literal king standing atop the rubble that was once the mafiya, but he’d told me that he was done. Retired. That Malik was selling off their businesses. It could have been a lie. It could have been exactly what he wanted the special agent in love with his daughter to believe, but I thought I’d read the truth in his eyes.

He was as tired as I was.

This left me with two choices: I could keep special agent status and attempt to bring him to justice for the sins of his past as I’d been sworn to do, or I could hand in my badge and my gun and devote myself to loving his daughter.

It was an easy choice. One I never would have thought I’d make but didn’t give me an ounce of heartburn.

“I’m done,” I told him. “I’ll leave my resignation on Hewitt’s desk before I leave.”

Nolan’s mouth dropped.

“They’ll think you turned. That you left something out of what you told them just to protect the Leskovs.”

“You and I both know the only thing I left out,” I said quietly.

He pushed his glasses up his nose and ran a hand through his blond hair that was longer than I’d seen on him in a long time. His suit tie was askew, and he looked almost as tired as I felt. He’d probably lived on as little sleep as I had over the past week while covering my ass.

“Is she really worth it?” he asked in disbelief.

“Yes,” I said without hesitation.

“You and Dawson both left us for women, but at least his wasn’t the daughter of a fucking mafiya boss,” he groused, and my skin prickled.

“It’s over, Nolan. The Leskovs are done. Leave it be. Move on to the next crime family in the long line of crime families. Me? I’m going to go home, hug my mom, play the piano, and then find a way to convince Raisa we can make a future for ourselves regardless of our pasts.”

---