Chapter 19 - Konstantin
Oh, hell.
This was a bad idea that could go wrong in a thousand different ways, so why was Tati currently sitting beside me while my driver raced toward the place my nephew just identified as a new Yakuza stronghold?
Something about those eyes of hers, pleading and demanding at the same time. I couldn’t say no to her, couldn’t shove her out of the way. Certainly couldn’t dismiss her without a word. Not after that kiss.
“Why don’t we just set it up so I can draw Riku out somehow and get the answers we need?” Tati asked, a welcome distraction from thinking about the kiss this mission interrupted.
Except having her so close, and looking so eager, and saying words like ‘we’ as if there was such a thing, made me want to do it again.
I laughed at her outrageous suggestion, then held up my hand at her furrowed brow. “It’s not a bad idea, just too dangerous. Not going to happen. And…”
“And?” she prodded.
God, she was tenacious. And it only made her more beautiful. I was off my rocker if I shared anything with her. “And because Riku’s gone into hiding. We can’t locate him anywhere.”
This got her excited for some reason. “Maybe he’s gone wherever my father is. That’s just more reason to use me as bait.”
The idea turned my stomach. “Riku’s not getting within a hundred feet of you.”
I was also still not sure I could trust her. Not by any means. All of this could be a ruse.
But not that kiss. Not the way her eyes hungrily devoured me by the pool. That was all real. I looked at her, looking at me, and the next thing I knew, I was reaching for her again, my mouth on hers. A trace of vodka still clung to her lips, and her sigh was warm and sweet.
Bad idea. It was over as fast as it started, and I wasn’t sure who was more rattled. But at least I could hide it better.
“Why?” she gasped.
“Why did I kiss you? Because I wanted to.”
That irritated her, and as we sped through the night, she muttered something about my reckless nature. And something that sounded like ‘you better hope he’s still alive.’
More and more, it seemed like she truly didn’t know anything. Not where Grigor was or what he was up to. I was beginning to believe her, but I may have been addled by the all-consuming lust she stirred in me.
My wife had blindsided me years ago, and ever since then, I ruthlessly made everyone earn my trust and work to keep it. I thought I could trust Grigor, and then I ended up on a hit list and out a million bucks.
So there was no way I was going to trust Tati just because I wanted her so much my skin felt like it was burning. No matter how curious I was about her or how damn beautiful she was while she sat there scowling at me in the back of the car.
“This is the place, Boss.” My discreet driver slowed as we passed a small warehouse-type building. He wouldn’t have turned around if I had been murdering someone back there, so a kiss wouldn’t even ping his radar.
We found a place that was hidden but had a view of the entrance, and I pulled a pair of binoculars out from under the front seat. Tati almost howled with frustration, shifting in her seat and making moves for the door handle.
“We’re not getting out?”
“You wanted to come along. Welcome to the stakeout, sweetheart.”
She stopped fussing when I handed her the binoculars as a few men left the building to load some boxes into a truck. “Tell me if you recognize anyone. Either from Moscow or when you visited Grigor in Tokyo.”
“I’ve never seen any of them before,” she said. “This is futile.”
“Keep watching. What did you expect? We’d go in with guns blazing? You watch too many mafia movies.”
“I can’t stand violent movies,” she said, but kept watching.
“Let me guess,” I said, ready to settle in for a long night. Let her see what it was really like, and she’d never beg to come along again. “You prefer—”
The windshield exploded into a million shards of glass, and my driver was thrown back in his seat, blood and brain splattering all over the leather.
Tati barely got out a shriek before I flung her onto the floor between seats, and jumped out, firing my gun in the direction the sniper shot came from.
A hail of bullets flew from the copse of trees we were hiding near. I was outnumbered and surrounded. It was only sheer luck that got me into the driver’s seat after unceremoniously dumping the driver’s body.
Tati rose up, moaning as she saw him roll away.
“It can’t be helped,” I snapped. “I need to get you out of here, now.”
As I peeled away, I continued shooting out the window, satisfied to hear at least one yowl of pain. Hopefully, he died slowly and painfully. Fuck, I hated this job sometimes. Another guard dead, and it could have been Tati this time.
These people were going down.