“I’ve never heard her speak with an accent,” the final man in the team, John, adds.
“She’s had years to get rid of it,” Ivano reminds them. “If she’s an assassin, then she has to have the skills to know how to make that happen. Eventually, it’s just normal.”
I want to tell them to shut the hell up, that I don’t want to hear them speculate about her, but what am I going to say? They’re right. I didn’t notice any of it either. Not a hint of Russian except when she gave that one sharp command, but I’ve also heard her speak fluent Spanish with Kida and even French once when someone called her. All with their accents, so I just figured she had practiced to make sure that she was clear and concise.
Another flash of jealousy at the memory of listening to her talk so happily with the man on the other end.
There’s no point in dwelling on it now. I need to focus. Whoever called her, I’ll deal with it when I get her home. Where I’ll be telling her whatever she had with them is finished. She’s mine, and any other man who tries to get in my way is dead.
“Now that we know Hades isn’t going to eat our faces off, we need to finish planning,” Ivano states, pulling me out of my thoughts. “I get that you want to get your woman back, but we need to really think about every angle here. This assassin that took her, are we sure the two of them aren’t working together and this isn’t a ruse to just get us there and take us out?”
I want to scream Rori would never do that, but I also never thought I’d be in this situation in the first place, so I swallow it back.
“We have to plan for every possibility,” I manage. Barely.
They share a glance and then look back at me. It’s Titus who says the thing I know they’re all thinking about. “Are you going to be the one to take Rori out if it turns out she is involved in whatever Tatiana is doing or planning?”
I barely control my visceral reaction to the question. My entire being rebels at the idea that Rori is a willing participant inall of this. She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t put Sienna—and I hope I’m on the list too—through all of this. Still, I know I have to consider it.
She’s a Russian assassin. She’s been trained for most of her life to hide who she is. To blend into situations. To be a weapon that no one realizes is there.
“I’ll do what I have to do.” It’s all I can say.
They share another look, but they don’t question me. They’re trusting I’ll keep to my word, but I know they’ll step up if they think I’m failing.
I can’t fail. Ever. I also have to figure out a way to make sure Rori is telling me the truth. That she isn’t trying to trick me. Again.
“Alright, then what’s the plan?” Titus asks.
Time to get my head in the game.
For the next couple of hours, we pore over everything we know. All information we can find on the Belovs, the floor plans of their homes and businesses that we can find that Urso and Zeno send me, and finally, I try to find out as much as I can on Rori’s father and any of his known associates.
“These fuckers are psychotic,” Titus remarks with a shake of his head.
“They’re fucking Russians. What did you expect?” David scoffs.
“Look, I like dogs, but I don’t fucking like the idea of going up against a fucking jaguar or fucking wolf. Why the fuck do they have these things?”
That makes me worried too. Handling people is one thing, but handling wild animals is something else entirely. The last thing I fucking want to worry about is getting in the house and coming face-to-face with a predator.
Especially one that could kill me before I could kill it.
“I’ve heard that the Belovs love that shit. They love setting their animals after their enemies to hunt them down like prey.”
Great. Just what we need.
“The only ones that have animals like that, though, are some of the brothers and uncles. From what I found, Timur and Simeon Belov don’t have any known animals, so we might be alright. But if we’re heading to a possible wedding, who the fuck knows if the others won’t bring theirs?” Ivano points out with a sigh.
“We keep our eyes out for the animals, but we also need to figure out how the hell we’re going to get in without being spotted,” I remind them.
“Are we sure this Tatiana one is going to actually bring Rori to the Belovs right away?” David asks.
“Timur Belov would be the one to have sent Tatiana after her, so he probably is expecting her to bring Rori there first thing. Especially if he wants to take her to task for being in New York in the first place.”
John gives me a nervous look but finally asks, “Do you think he’s going to kill her? Just get her out of the way?”
My jaw clenches, urgency to get to Rori burning. The thought of not getting there on time isn’t one I want to entertain for too long. Losing her might just tip me over the edge.
