Page 56 of Possessive Mafia Bodyguard

“You sent me to the Iroquois Landing.”

We lock eyes, each following our own thought process and reaching the same conclusion at the same time.

“Is that what Ivana told you?” he asks, and the cold metal running through his tone has softened just a little.

I nod. Ivana sent me to the wrong dock. Not because she wanted to get me into trouble, but because she wanted to take on the Petrovs alone and prove to Leonid that she was still the enforcer he’d trained her to be.

I turn around, open the door, and walk out of the study.

“Tamara,” Leonid’s voice follows me. “I’ll find her, I prom⁠—”

I close the door behind me.

In the privacy of my room, I lock the door, lie down on my bed, and stare at the ceiling.

Ivana is still in Chicago. I’ve no idea where she is staying—our contacts are Leonid’s contacts, and our movements will always get back to him one way or another—or how she is managing to fly under the radar and track the Petrovs, but now I’m certain of her intentions.

She is an enforcer. Like me, she doesn’t know who else to be, and she is determined to prove to Leonid that he still needs her, although taking on an entire organization without any backup from the Bratva is death-wish crazy even by Ivana’s standards.

It’s testimony to how badly her injuries have affected her mental health, and my anger towards Leonid and Andrej multiplies like demon baby spiders hatching from a nest the size of a mountain. My skin is crawling with the overwhelming need to get out of here and go blow up a few child traffickers, do the world a massive fucking favor. Then something I thought of when I came back to my room pops into my head with the small sound of someone bursting a bubble made of chewing gum.

Ivana has been flying under the radar of Leonid and Andrej, if in fact, they’ve been true to their word and trying to track her down.

But she isn’t the only person flying under the radar. I’ve used the expression myself in recent conversation, only I can’t remember in what context.

I squeeze my eyes shut, breathe deeply in through my nose and out through my mouth, and wait for it to come to me.

When it does, it’s like all the lights going out at once and illuminating the world in all its glorious technicolor when they come back on.

The woman with the white-blonde hair.

All the resources at your disposal, and she has managed to fly under your radar.

That’s what I told Leonid and Andrej when I suggested that she was trying to take down the Petrovs single-handedly. It’s so fucking obvious, I can’t believe how blind I’ve been. The first time I saw her, she stopped me from approaching the men with the serpent tattoos by causing a distraction. She was at the port again when they locked me inside a container. For all I know, she was probably there when the warehouse blew up too.

Andrej was right about one thing. I have been hung up on the wrong person. I’ve been trying to track down the mystery woman thinking that she would lead me to Ivana, when I should’ve just focused on finding my sister because they are the same person.

The mystery woman is Ivana in a white-blonde wig.

I get up, bolt to the door, yank it open, and hurry downstairs to Leonid’s study.

He isn’t there.

I don’t know his schedule for the day, but Andrej and Gianna will know if Leonid has already left the property. I dart from room to room but can’t find them either.

There’s only one thing left to do: go and find him myself and let him know what I’ve figured out. He promised to find my sister, and this is the first clue we’ve had to her whereabouts even if I don’t know her exact location.

But when I open the front door to leave, a member of the security team blocks my path.

“What are you doing?” I demand when he refuses to let me pass.

“Orders from the Pakhan. You’re not to leave the house armed.”

Fuck! I haven’t left the house unarmed since I was fourteen years old. It would feel like stepping outside naked wearing a hat that reads UNARMED AND VULNERABLE, but I realize I have no choice if I want to find Leonid right now.

I hand over my guns and watch the guard pocket them like the school bully stealing the other kids’ candy and saving them for later.

“Blades.” His biceps are so pumped his elbows are practically at right angles with his body. He holds his hand out flat for me to part with my daggers.