“Would he really do all of this just to kill her on the spot?” Titus reasons.
I latch on to that question like a lifeline.
“He sent an assassin to bring her back. If he wanted her dead, then he’d have had Tatiana kill her on the spot, not do all this shit,” Ivano chimes in.
“He probably wants to keep her close and under his thumb again,” I add, the entire thing spinning fast in my mind. Maybe I’m trying to find the best way to rationalize it, but it also just makes sense. “Think about it. He’s made an ally of this BratvaButcher before. It could be that he’s not willing to risk that or break off ties. Especially if it’s the only way to keep them tied. He’s married, so he can’t marry her himself, so now his son is the next best way.”
“Especially if he plans to use her,” Titus adds, amused. “Think about it. The Butcher is probably on his payroll too, but he’s also on the payroll of other Bratvas wherever they all might be. He can’t be everywhere at once. Maybe this Belov asshole wants to have his own personal Butcher at his beck and call. Up until now, he didn’t feel he needed to, but things are changing in California. Different groups are fighting, and Zeno and Urso have uncovered that Belov is waging his own territorial wars. Problem solved if he has an assassin that he can make-do his bidding on command. Especially one as well-trained as Rori.”
“Are we sure that he doesn’t have Tatiana for that?” John reasons. “I mean, no offense, Alonzo, but Rori isn’t like her. She’s gotten soft over the years in comparison to the Chameleon. People are terrified of her, not Rori.”
He has a point, but I still want to punch him for daring to call Rori soft. The only soft spot she has is in all the right places when I’m holding her against me, deep inside her.
Damn it, no, I need to keep my head in the present.
“Rori hasn’t had to worry beyond her bounty hunting for years,” I force myself to remind them as calmly as I can. “They let her be other than she had to tell them when one of their guys came on her radar, and she never went after them. It’s as far in as she has been since she was eighteen and allowed to leave. She and Sienna met in college, and from what both of them have said, they had a pretty normal time.”
And apparently, they also had a lot of sexual adventures that I’m not sure even Alessio knows about. Probably for the best, considering how jealous he is. Not that I’m much better. If I ever find out their names, I’ll kill them myself.
No matter how irrational that is.
“Even so, she’s not on Tatiana’s level. Why wouldn’t he just hire her or get her to agree to marry his son? With her on his side, he’d be unstoppable.”
“She probably told him to fuck off. You heard about how Ivan Morozov reacted, right? The way everyone is afraid of her? Trying to contain that and not lose your life? Timur’s not an idiot.”
“And it sounds like she’s just like the Butcher where she’s hired by anyone who needs her. It wouldn’t be smart to have her tied down to one family.”
“Especially if someone wants to take her out,” Titus agrees, easing forward. “Rori, though, she’s not well-known. Think about it from how we would play it. She marries Timur Belov’s only son—no one is going to look at her twice. Especially not if they want her to start taking people out of the way.”
My gut sinks at the realization. “She’d be a ghost of her own. If anyone thought it would come back to the Belovs, they would think it was someone they hired, not someone in their own ranks and home.”
“What do we know about this Simeon Belov? Is he like his father?”
“He keeps mostly off the radar,” Ivano replies after checking his notes. “What he does is mostly run things for his father, but we don’t have much else.”
“We need to find out more about him. Titus, get a hold of Urso and Zeno and have them dig more on him. I want to know what kind of man Rori is supposed to marry. Then, I want everything we can find on Timur Belov. Nothing left out.”
Titus nods, pulling out his phone.
“So what are we doing when we land?” John asks. “We can’t go in guns blazing.”
“I’ve already asked Zeno and Urso to find us a spot to lie low until we can figure out the next move. We’re going to need to carefully watch the Belovs to make sure we find Rori. We also need to keep an eye out for Tatiana. I don’t put it past her to have spies in every city.”
“She should have called herself the Boogeyman instead of Chameleon,” David mutters. “The last thing I want to see coming out of the shadows is her.”
I have to agree. Part of me, though, wants her to, because then I can get some answers. She’s an assassin, and I want to make her pay for taking Rori, for tricking us.
First, though, I need to be ready to grab the woman who means more to me than anything else in this world.
And it fucking terrifies me, but I don’t care. Aurora O’Brien/Rayea Antonova is mine and I’ll face a dangerous assassin to get to her. I just have to hope she won’t be the one holding the gun on me when I do.
5
RORI
I tryto figure out where the hell we are the moment the plane touches down, but it’s too dark to see anything except the runway lights and some faint flickering of city landscapes in the distance. I see nothing and no one on the runway, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there.
Tatiana isn’t going to risk someone catching us in the open. That’s not her style.
