Page 31 of Bound Bride
It could be my paranoia, given how little we know about one another, and it's not a shadow I want to force into the light.
Not if we have the rest of our lives together.
"But after that, several cookhouses still got attacked. The men on your side that died… and the areas…" She flips through the paperwork and then swivels to face me with a toss of her head that puts all her hair over one shoulder. "They're all connected to either this guy…" She holds up a picture of one general. "Or this other guy?" The second picture she holds up is more crumpled, but another one of my generals gazes out from the photo.
"Correct."
"So why not just kill them both?"
"Everything I have on them is circumstantial. Taking them both out sows distrust with my other generals. If they think I am insane enough to kill my own without explicit cause, then their loyalty wavers and I have four swords in my back."
Rose nods slowly. "Makes sense." Her lips purse and her cheek indents as if she's drawn flesh in between her teeth. "I know what you could do."
"Which is?"
She looks up at me with a smile. "Throw a party."
"A… party?"
"Mhm!" The folder slaps closed in her hands. "Think about it. All you need is a little alcohol and some fake information and your generals will talk to the right people, for the right price. Not money though." She points at me with one long finger. "Youneed to set the scene. If I've learned anything about men, it's that they like to brag and the easiest thing to brag to is a pretty, impressionable woman who will hang on every word and never doubt. You need to sow a little bad info—nothing too specific but nothing interesting enough that they will talk to one another. Just the right amount so that they will leak it. Then you throw a party. Drinks, good food and pretty girls who know how to work a room, and the information will spill."
"You think they will spill their innermost secrets to a pretty girl?"
"Mhm. And if they don't…" She trails off and places her hand on my desk, leaning over it to gaze closer at me. "Those girls just need a little sleight of hand to plant a little bug on some unsuspecting phones, and you're good to go. It's simple really. Almost too simple and kind of boring, which is why your big brain never thought about it."
I scoff slightly and glance down her body, mapping out the little cherries decorating her dress before looking back up to her gorgeous eyes. "My big brain?"
"Mhm. You're so caught up on the fact that both your suspects are generals who started working for you after you came to the States, that you're not thinking of how to use that to your advantage."
"Is this where you tell me Americans party better than Russians?"
"Not exactly but— oh shit, sorry!" As she leans back up, her elbow catches on the side of a black mug holding my pens and sends it scattering off the desk and onto the floor. Before I cansay anything, she chases after it and lands on the floor with a soft thump, then immediately starts cleaning it all up.
"Rose—"
"I got it," she insists. "My point still stands, by the way. Even from down here. As she reaches past my legs and into the alcove beneath my desk, the last pen escapes her. She crawls after it just as knuckles rap against my door and it swings open.
In the second it takes for the door to fully open and Ethan to walk in, I pull my chair closer to my desk and trap Rose down there, blocking her from view.
The last thing I want is for Ethan to think she was up to anything sordid, especially since everyone's impression of her is wary after the pool incident.
Rose grunts ever so softly, but she tenses up against my leg the moment Ethan speaks.
"Boss."
"Ethan."
"We've lost three more. I have Craig and his team on the trail of a full weapons trailer that just left the docks. They're going to track it to its point of delivery, and from there, we'll be able to hopefully get hints on who the Italians are dealing with. We only know one side of the deal, and before we get too weapon-heavy, I want to make sure we're not going to make any other enemies."
"Understood."
"You've also been reached out to by the Yakuza—something about an old deal you made with them back in Russia, and now that you're in the States, they want the terms changed."
"Changed?" My brows twitch. "Do they think the terms of our deals are different now I am here?"
"Something about…" Ethan glances down at his phone. "A change in shipping times that needs to be compensated. They're claiming you led them astray with the original deal if you planned to come here. I'm thinking it might be worth adjusting the boundaries of our deal with them as a gesture of good faith, at least while all this with the Italians is going on. There's also a problem with the…"
I should focus on what Ethan is saying.
