House of Payne: Tag

by Stacy Gail

  “But…” Mrs. Robbins turned to face her, her brow knitted in confusion. “I don’t understand. You’ve done so much—the mural at the youth center that got your picture in the papers. The oncology ward at Children’s Hospital that made national news. The interior of Excelsior Theatre that’s now the main location for that stupid TV show that messes up traffic all the time. Your entire apartment building—a building so amazing it’s become a tourist attraction. Your nail work here at Clawsome and all the competitions you’ve won for your manicures. Even all the cars you used to paint for your uncle’s shop when he was alive. Everywhere you go, you create breathtaking art. Why are you so upset over this one little design?”

  “Because it’s mine, Mrs. Robbins.” Ivy stared at her hands while trying to find the right words. “The thing is… I have nothing. My mom died when I was a kid, and my father was murdered in his cab long before that. My little brother and I were raised by our uncle—this crazy, fast-talking Egyptian goofball who loved life like you wouldn’t believe. When he found out I loved art as much as he loved cars, he decided those two loves could work miracles together, and he was right. I loved working for him, and I thought it would last forever. But then he and my brother didn’t come home one night, and I was forced to realize the truth about life.”

  “What truth is that?”

  “That I have nothing. No home. No family. No place in the world where I belonged. No one to fight for me. No one who even cared I existed.”

  “Young lady, we took you in that very night,” Ji said sternly, looking insulted. “You have something. You have us, your Korean family.”

  Oy. “True, and I know I owe you everything—”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Yes, she does,” Yun Hee cut in sharply, frowning at her sister. “That ungrateful girl owes you everything, and then some.”

  “Jesus, take the damn wheel,” Minnie muttered under her breath.

  “But,” Ivy went on determinedly, “what I said still stands. Something could happen, and like that—” she snapped her fingers, “I could be alone in the world again. There’s only one thing that I have in life that’s permanent—my art. That’s all. Just my art. But that thought has always given me comfort, because I believed no one could ever take my art away from me.”

  “But someone did,” Mrs. Robbins whispered, eyes glistening. “Some man took your gem, and then he called it his own. Oh, honey.”

  “No one’s going to fight for me but me, Mrs. Robbins,” Ivy reiterated, and at last she looked up from her hands. “My art is who I am. It’s me. Sure, I could let this Tag guy snag up my gem, my personal signature that can be found on any number of projects all around this city. I could let him take the credit for something that came from my imagination—something that’s a unique part of my identity. But if I let this guy take this one precious thing from me, where does it end? Who’s going to protect me and my art? No one, that’s who. So I’ll do it. I’ll fight like hell to protect my art, because it’s mine, and no one else has a right to claim it as theirs.”

  “Of course, honey.” Mrs. Robbins said gently, as if fearing she’d disturb the odd quiet that had fallen over the shop while its occupants had turned to listen to her. “I understand.”

  Ivy smiled, relieved, and opened her mouth to try to lighten the mood when the door suddenly burst open. Her jaw unhinged when the gigantic wrestler-like man she’d glimpsed at House of Payne surged through, his black eyes fierce and terrible as they burned their way through the faces that turned his way. When that laser-hot gaze landed on her, she stood out of the sheer instinct to survive.

  “You.” His voice was a shockingly beautiful baritone, like a radio announcer’s or a swoony crooner from yesteryear. But he didn’t look like he was ready to croon something sweet with those golden pipes of his. If anything, he looked like he had Murdering People With His Bare Hands at the top of his list of favorite things to do.

  Winter Soldier, indeed.

  Without conscious thought, Ivy grabbed up the first pointy thing she could get her hands on—her favorite pink-handled cuticle scissors—and held it out defensively. “Stop right there, or I’ll—”

  “What, give me a manicure?” The derision dripping off his words matched his expression as he just kept coming. “Thanks, I’ll pass.”

  “Good, because I’m booked for a solid eight months.” She brandished her feeble little weapon and did her South Side best to look menacing. “You might as well turn around and go back to wherever the hell you came from.”

  “I come from Back of the Yards, which means those dinky-ass scissors don’t mean shit.” In a single step he was in her space and the wrist of the hand holding the scissors was shackled. Then she was being hauled out the door before they came to an abrupt halt just outside the storefront. “All right, let’s have this out. You know who I am?”

  “I can guess.” More flustered than she wanted to admit, Ivy hiked up her chin and prepared for battle. “You’re the asshole thief wannabe-artist who dares to jack other peoples’ work just so you can pretend you have talent.”

  “You got the wrong end of the shit stick, lady. I thought that was Teo’s tag, so I’ve been putting it in my work to honor his memory.”

  Ivy sucked in a jagged breath as if slapped, and took a half-step back.

  Teo.

  Oh, God.

  Teo.

  At that moment the door to Clawsome practically exploded off its hinges and Ji, Minnie and Yun Hee rushed out, with Ji brandishing a nasty-looking bat with nails in it, while Minnie had dagger-like nail files sticking out from between her fingers like a dainty Wolverine, and Yun Hee still held a bag of cotton balls. What she was going to do with them Ivy had no clue, but she was both shocked and grateful the older woman had shown up to have her back.

  “Mrs. Robbins is calling the police,” Ji announced, breathing hard and clearly ready to swing for the fences with her bat from hell. “We have no cash onsite, just like the sign says. We are strictly a credit or debit transaction, so you had best be on your way, now.”

  He gave her a blistering look. “Lady—”

  “Mama Ji, it’s okay.” It wasn’t exactly okay, but Ivy didn’t know how else to diffuse the situation without blood being spilled. “He’s a friend of Teo’s.”

  Minnie had both fists up boxer-style, showing off her pointy files. “I knew Teo. We went to school together. I don’t recognize this guy.”

  “And he’s still holding on to you,” Yun Hee said shrilly, just below a screech. She clutched her cotton balls tighter and stared in terror at her shackled hand. “Mi-chin-nom should not still be holding you if everything is okay.”

  He scowled. “Mi-chin-nom?”

  “Roughly translated, it means crazy bastard.” More alarmed than she cared to admit, Ivy tugged on her wrist. “Which is exactly how you look.”

  Like that, her wrist was released. He stepped away, put his hands in his back pockets and all at once looked bored. “I’ll give you this, you got yourself some loyal friends. Ballsy, too. But this isn’t clearing shit up, now is it?”

  “Ivy, you just say the word.” Ji hadn’t budged, still looking like she wanted to try for a homer with his head. “Say the word and we’ll breathe fire all over this fool. Chase him all the way into the Calumet, if that’s what it takes.”

  “Thanks, everyone, but you’d better calm Mrs. Robbins down and tell her the police aren’t needed.” Glaring pure fury at the man standing in front of her, Ivy balled her fists. “I got this.”

  Yun Hee held the door open for the other women as they reluctantly retreated, but before she followed them inside, she shook her bag of cotton balls at him. “You are definitely not welcome here, mister. You have no manners.”

  “Ballsy,” he commented again after the door shut behind them. “Guess you can’t be all bad since you have friends who’d go to the mat for you.”

  “Whether I’m a good or bad person isn’t the damn question,” Ivy shot back, her fury
reigniting in an instant. “You know what the question is? Just how bad of a person are you, thief?”

  With his hands still in his back pockets, he loomed menacingly over her. “Mind your words, bitch. I didn’t steal a goddamn thing.”

  “Just when I thought I couldn’t think less of you, you call me a bitch for standing up for myself.” With a scathing look, she flung a dismissive hand toward the street. “Hit the bricks, thief. You want to say anything to me, you can say it to my lawyer.” Just as soon as she found one who was willing to work pro bono.

  His exhaled breath was a growl. “Yeah, okay. That was disrespectful, and I got no fucking time for disrespect. How ‘bout this—I won’t call you a bitch if you won’t call me a thief.”

  “What else should I call you? Oh, wait. I know.” She offered a mocking little nod when he didn’t answer. “No one knows the mysterious name of the edgy urban artist known only as Tag. Right. Gotcha. I guess you think you’re going to dodge lawsuits from all the real artists you’ve been stealing from—like me—if no one knows your legal name. It’s almost funny how wrong you are.”

  “Jesus, you’re a piece of work.” He dragged long-fingered hands through his yummy Winter Soldier hair, and she couldn’t help but notice that in the light of the summer sun glaring down on them, she could see warm brown highlights streaked throughout. “Seven years ago, a friend of mine was killed in this neighborhood. We met through our art, and I’ve got to be honest—he wasn’t all that great at it. In fact, he was borderline shitty. But he did have this one design that was genius—the gem that he claimed was his personal tag. After he died, I didn’t want that part of him—that glimmer of genius—to die. I didn’t jack your tag, Ivy Gemelli. Teo did.”

  “Matteo was my little brother.” It didn’t hurt as much as it used to, talking about her family that was no more. There was a time when their violent passing hurt so much she half-feared she’d vomit out blood if she so much as spoke their names aloud. “He wouldn’t steal from me.”

  “Yeah, well, he did. And if you were even a semi-attentive sister, you’d know Teo was more than capable of playing fast and loose with the truth.”

  “I was more than attentive to my little brother. For instance, he hated being called that—my little brother. He was a year and a half younger than me, and he didn’t kick ass at anything other than video games and telling tall tales. You’re right—he wasn’t that great at art, but he wasn’t given the chance to find out what he was good at before he was murdered.”

  “I know.” He happened to look toward the west, where her uncle’s shop had once been, where she and Teo had practically grown up. It was now the area of town she couldn’t bear to go, even after all these years. “I won’t use the gem design anymore, if that’s what you want.”

  “What I want is for you to explain something to me.” She tried to strike a tough stance by crossing her arms and nearly stabbed herself with the cuticle scissors she still held. Oops. “All the times you jacked my tag, are you really thinking I’m stupid enough to believe you didn’t notice the facets in the gem spelling out the name Ivy?”

  He shifted uncomfortably, giving her all the answer she needed. “Teo told me it was a stylized M for Matteo.”

  “That is so much bullshit.” She shook her head and backed toward the door, all the while fighting off a weird surge of disappointment. He could have done the decent thing and copped to seeing her name in the tag, and acknowledge that it could never have been Matteo’s, like he claimed. “You saw my name in that design, thief. You saw it, but it didn’t slow your roll one bit. You heisted the design because you didn’t think I’d say boo about it. But that’s where you miscalculated. I don’t take anything like that lying down. I fight like hell for what’s mine. I’ll protect every single one of my designs—which are everywhere around the city, something you’d know if you’d bothered to do your research on me. So fair warning—as of now, steer clear of all Ivy Gemelli designs, got it? Go steal someone else’s.”

  With that, she turned on her heel and marched back into Clawsome, hiding her shaking hands by balling them into fists.

  Chapter Two

  Tag couldn’t remember when he’d ever been so furious. Through narrowed eyes, he watched the women close up the nail salon—Clawsome, not a half-bad name—and go their separate ways. He zeroed in on the one who’d dragged him back to the neighborhood of his nightmares, watching her wave at the woman who’d pulled down the shop’s security gate, before she turned and headed down the sidewalk toward his ride.

  Ivy Gemelli.

  She was hell on wheels, no doubt about it. And when she wasn’t spitting grade-A venom at him, she was the kind of woman who could stop traffic without even trying. Thick, softly curling hair that was the color of a sun-struck raven’s wing tumbled to her shoulders. Slanted dark brows over deeply set whiskey-pale eyes gave her an exotic, perpetually pissed-off pixie look. Her upper lip was as bee-stung lush as her lower one, and if she ever managed a smile in his presence that mouth would probably be too tempting to resist.

  And her body…

  His mouth tightened at the sudden heaviness of his cock. Abruptly he pushed out of his SUV, irrationally hoping he could outrun the physiological response. Though, truth be told, he’d been running hot since he’d spotted her in the crowd at House of Payne. No one had been more surprised than him when the raven-haired knockout with the hourglass figure did what he’d secretly been doing in his mind already.

  Namely, ripping off her shirt.

  She hadn’t gone all the way on unveiling that booming body of hers, more’s the pity. But damn, he still got way more than he’d bargained for. The sight of those full, rounded globes filling her black bra to almost overflowing had made his mouth go dry and his temperature skyrocket, and he was sure hadn’t been the only one.

  Then she’d called him a talentless hack, and that had been it.

  Game.

  Fucking.

  On.

  As she passed the passenger’s side of his SUV, he gripped the vehicle’s key fob and unlocked it. As she turned to glance at the telltale noise, she caught sight of him bearing down on her. In a flash, she raised the hand holding her car keys and aimed it at his face. Before she could press the button on whatever hell she had bottled up in a palm-sized canister, he snatched it from her grip and backed her against his ride, one hand plastered to her chest above the scoop neckline of the flowery little dress she wore.

  “You don’t get to call me a talentless hack and a thief, and then just walk away.”

  “You fucking psycho, I didn’t walk away,” she shouted, and he could feel her heart surging beneath his palm. “I was dragged away by rented muscle, and you didn’t say anything about it because you knew you were guilty. I’m the one who stands my ground, even if it fucking kills me, so you’d better let me go before I wind up killing you.”

  That wild thudding beneath his hand, even more than her words, got through to him. She was scared. Of course, no one would know that from just looking at her, and she sure as fuck wasn’t giving any hint of it as she spewed attitude at him like it was going out of style.

  But she was definitely scared.

  Of him.

  Damn.

  He’d been out of the neighborhood too friggin’ long.

  “You and I are going to come to an understanding,” he announced, abruptly stepping back and letting her go. “You think I’m not a real artist. I think you’re no way near as good as you think you are.”

  “At least I don’t jack other peoples’ designs. Or their keys,” she added pointedly and held her hand out. “Cough ‘em up.”

  “You’ll get your keys back, after we’ve squared this.” Just in case she wasn’t paying attention and hadn’t yet picked up on the fact that he was in charge, he twirled her keys around his finger. “I’m going to get it through that thick head of yours that I didn’t steal your damn design—or anyone else’s.”

  She scowled and kept her hand out.
“News flash—I already know all I need to know about you. Keys.”

  “Yeah, well, I can’t say the same about you. I need to know if you’re that genius I glimpsed in what I thought was Teo’s tag, or if you’re nothing more than an attention-seeking flash in the pan who pretends to be an artist just because she can do fucking nails.”

  If he thought she’d looked pissed before, it was nothing compared to the outrage that poured into those whiskey-colored eyes. “My art can be found everywhere around this city, especially this neighborhood and unlike yours, my art adds to the neighborhood’s value. Did you know they took an entire wall of a building you tagged, leaving the rest of the structure to collapse a day later? People could’ve been killed, and that pile of rubble is still there even as we speak. What the hell have you ever given to this community?”

  “Get in and I’ll show you.”

  Maybe getting into the enemy’s ride wasn’t the smartest thing she had ever done, Ivy reflected as she smoothed the seatbelt across her chest. No, check that. This was the stupidest thing she’d done since she’d licked a light socket when she was three. She was twenty-four now and didn’t have any excuse, but he’d overstepped when he’d called her abilities as an artist into question. Of all people, this thief dared to question what she could do?

  Gah.

  The fucking nerve.

  But still, she should at least ask some questions.

  “I’m taking you to Sherman Park,” he said as she opened her mouth to ask what their destination was. Shocked that he’d read her mind, she opened her mouth again to ask why he was taking her to the heart of Back of the Yards when he added, “That was where I first met Teo, and where his tag—or maybe your tag—still exists, so I’m going to show it to you.”

  Holy crap, the dude was psychic.