Year of the Scorpio: Part One

by Stacy Gail

  “Got a problem with that?” His eyes were half-closed as he looked at me, making me feel downright dainty compared to his powerful frame. Sure, I’d always been aware that Polo was a masculine wall of indomitable strength; that was what a bodyguard was supposed to be. But the vivid awareness humming through me now had nothing to do with him guarding my body, and everything to do with my body refusing to be on guard with him. “It’s just a question. Why don’t you answer it?”

  “Because I think you’re fishing for compliments.”

  His eyes lit up. “Well, well, well. Isn’t that interesting?”

  “What?”

  “What you imagined would be a compliment, eh? Tell me more.”

  Any second now I was going to Victorian-style faint. “I can tell you that you’re impossible.”

  “Let’s be clear. Are you saying that I’m impossible? Or are you saying that what you imagined is impossible? Because if you’ve got concerns, I can take care of those right now.”

  Fainting was so going to happen in three... two... “And how would you do that, exactly?”

  His head lowered as if in slow motion while his smoldering gaze stayed locked intently on mine. “I don’t have any problem with showing you how big it is.”

  Oh. My. God. “How big what is? Your bed?”

  “That too.”

  “Wow.” My hand went to my chest to make sure my heart didn’t hammer a damn hole through it, and that one gesture gave me away. But there was nothing I could do. When a man such as Polo Scorpeone started talking about size, playing it cool was no longer an option. “Do you realize that in all the years we’ve known each other, this is the first time you’ve ever flirted with me?”

  “Must be the shirt. You look damn fine in it, Fearless. Damn fine.” With his eyes never leaving mine, his hand came to cover mine. When my heart doubled its efforts to escape by brute force, the corners of his mouth curled up. Jerk. “But just between you and me, I think you’d look even finer out of it. Am I right about that?”

  I opened my mouth, but to my horror nothing came out.

  Holy crap.

  For the first time in my life, I was speechless.

  Polo Scorpeone, my protector for over a decade, the young man who barely spoke to me the first few years of being my bodyguard, made me speechless at the thought of him seeing me naked.

  Wow.

  He seemed to find that hilarious, if his low, rolling chuckle was any indication. I was just pondering the possibility of kicking him for laughing at me when an electronic bleep from the front room beyond reached my ears. “My security guys from downstairs,” Polo answered my unasked question as I glanced toward the open door. With what could have been a look of regret, he dropped his hand and headed out of the room, amusement still lacing through his voice. “They’re probably calling to let me know Knives has arrived. Go ahead and get dressed before coming out, all right? I know he’s your brother and you guys are tight, but I still don’t like the idea of anyone seeing you in that shirt except me. I’m the only one who gets that privilege. No one else.”

  And with that astounding announcement, he shut the door behind him.

  The deep rumble of masculine voices reached my ears by the time I left Polo’s guest room, grimacing at the rasp of day-old clothing against my skin. It wasn’t like I was a spoiled princess who thought dirty clothes didn’t belong in my perfect world; I’d been doing my own laundry since high school. My discomfort was a leftover from when I’d had to spend six days in the same outfit, a personal trauma that would make anyone’s skin crawl. That was why I wasn’t in the best of moods when I made my way into the open-plan kitchen that overlooked a swank dining room. That was where my brother’s silent bodyguard, Grigor Dmitriyev, took up his place, hands clasped behind his back. With his unsmiling, bulldog face now sunken with age, Grigor had often reminded me of a member of the Gestapo, though he proudly stated that he was descended from people who had fought the Germans in WWII. No matter what blood ran through his veins, he was someone I never messed with, so I was happy to avoid him by focusing on my brother, who stood in the kitchen with Polo.

  “Heya.” I went right to Nizhy—or Nozhi, ugh, I’d never get used to that stupid name—to wrap my arms around his middle. He was as solid as rock, just like our father had been. And like our dad, he was just a hair under six feet. He still seemed tall to me since I was a shrimp, about half a foot shorter than he was, so my head hit his upper chest while his wiry-strong arms hugged me back. “Are you my ride this morning, or do I have to bum a ride from Polo? I’ll pay for gas, either way.”

  “I think I can afford a ten-minute drive up Lakeshore.” With one last squeeze, he pulled back to frown down at me. We’d both inherited the thick, espresso-dark hair from our father, but where my eyes were so dark the pupils and irises were indistinguishable from one another, my brother’s eyes were more like what our mother’s had been, a hazel mix of brown and green, though obviously I had no memory of her. My father had been the only parent I’d known, and along with my brother, my tiny circle of family had always felt complete. Now, with our father gone it was just the two of us, and no matter what he chose to call himself, my brother meant the world to me.

  That didn’t mean I was loving the irritated look he was giving me.

  “You’re not here to give me a lecture, are you?” I returned his frown with one of my own, because my father had taught me that a good offense made an even better defense. “You and I have been playing poker since elementary school, so a lecture coming from you isn’t going to fly. Fair warning.”

  My brother—I decided then and there to do my best to respect his wishes and call him Knives—heaved an aggravated sigh before he let me go. “Do I look like a fool? I learned long ago to only pick the battles I know I can win.”

  “Yeah, but you think that if you plan far enough ahead, you bellieve you can win every battle.”

  “So far that theory hasn’t been proven wrong.”

  That was so true it made me want to kick him. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

  “I just won,” Knives said confidentially to Polo, who watched the interaction with a crooked smile, his muscle-sculpted, perfectly gorgeous body leaning back against the counters with his arms crossed over his chest. “Whenever my sister comes up with lame-ass shit as a response, that means she’s got nothing.”

  “As a comeback, that was pretty weak, Dash,” Polo said, shaking his head. “You gotta up your game if you want to keep up with the big boys.”

  “Who says I want to? I’ve got better things to do, like working in earnest on a fundraiser for Chicago’s Future, now that my floating poker game has gone belly-up.”

  “Glad to hear you say that.” The humor vanished from my brother’s face. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Ni—I mean, Knives, I thought you said you weren’t going to lecture.”

  “Did Polo tell you who organized that game?”

  My mouth tightened. “Yeah.”

  “The Scorpeones are on their way back up,” Knives went on, obviously deaf to anything I had to say. Not surprising. When it came to the subject of the Scorpeone family, he became deaf and blind to everything else on the planet. “It’s easy to think of their organization as permanently broken. After what Papa did to them once we managed to escape, everyone assumed the Scorpeones would never rise again. But that would be a stupid assumption to make, and the one thing you’re not is stupid.”

  I said nothing, because I still wasn’t completely clear about what my father had done to exact his vengeance. All I knew was that in less than a year, the Italian cartel run by the Scorpeone family had gone from trying to rule Chicago, to Polo’s father Sergio handing over his youngest son in a medieval-style hostageship deal to end the war. Sergio Scorpeone had done this with the understanding that my father would kill Polo if any Scorpeone dared to cross the Vitaliev organization, even in the smallest of ways. It was a brutal act torn
from the pages of history, and it told me that whatever my father’s vengeance had been, it had been so awful that Sergio Scorpeone had feared for his life.

  His life, but not Polo’s.

  “The fact that they’re running an illegal poker game in Chicago proves that those fuckers are alive and well,” Polo chimed in, and the hardness in his eyes matched my brother’s. Once again I marveled at how completely in sync these two were when it came to their hatred of the Scorpeone family. It was almost as though they had a shared hive mind. “For all we know, that game was merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what they’ve got going in this city. And just think, Dash—all this time you were sitting right in their lap, and you didn’t even know it.”

  “Yeah, and they sure as hell didn’t do you the courtesy of telling you,” Knives added darkly, also crossing his arms. “Why would they? A Vitaliev, voluntarily delivering herself to their doorstep. If things had rolled the wrong way, your presence there could have been better than winning the fucking lottery, at least from their perspective.”

  “Not just a lecture, but a tag-team lecture,” I muttered, wishing with everything I had that I could make a run for the door. But I knew them better than that. There was no escape for me. “Okay, boys, I get it. I was sitting at a table created by evil incarnate. What can I do to make this up to you?” And seriously, what could I do to shut them the fuck up?

  My brother’s mouth twitched, as if he’d read my mind. “Promise me that from this point on, you’re done with hitting the tables.”

  Shit. “You know that’s how I’ve been funding Chicago’s Future for months now, right? That’s how I’ve been able to grow it so much this past year.”

  “I’ll fund your charity, if only to keep your ass out of trouble.”

  “The thing is, I win at poker for a reason. I’m smarter than the average bear, I’ve got great instincts, I never do the expected thing, and most of all, I’m not afraid to risk everything.”

  “Why do you think I call you Fearless?” Polo shook his head as if he thought I was some kind of loony lost cause. “Tell us something we don’t know.”

  “Okay, how about this? I take pride in making enough to fund Chicago’s Future, because it’s something I’ve done all on my own. I don’t want anything given to me.”

  “And the real fact of the matter is life is just too fucking boring without a little high-stakes risk to get you through the day.” Polo raised a brow at my brother. “Hate to tell you this, Knives, but your sister’s an adrenaline junkie.”

  “Not exactly a news flash, brother.” Knives also shook his head, in a way that made me yearn to bash both their noggins together. If anyone else had dared to entertain that thought, they wouldn’t have lived to see the next minute, but I wasn’t just anyone. These two men were my safety, the place where I belonged, and now that I had them back in the same room with me, I realized just how much I’d missed them.

  “So?”Knives looked to Polo, brows raised. “What do you think we should we do with her?”

  “Are you sure fitting her with a shock-collar is out of the question?”

  And, poof! My warm-and-fuzzy nostalgia vanished. “Come near me with one of those things and I’ll wrap it around your junk so fast you won’t even know what hit you.”

  When they both burst out laughing, I looked to the ceiling and prayed for strength.

  “We have to come to some kind of compromise on this, Dash,” Knives managed, still chuckling. “It’s either you voluntarily give up your adrenaline rush, or I saddle you with half a dozen bodyguards around the clock for the rest of your existence.”

  The blood drained from my face. I actually felt it go, leaving me frozen in place like an ice sculpture. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Try me.”

  Damn it, no. “Not even Papa went that far, even after our kidnapping. And he eased up on the bodyguards near the end because he’d turned most of his businesses legitimate.”

  “I’m not Papa, and I’ve taken the Vitaliev organization in another direction.”

  “Oh, I know.” I did my damnedest to keep the disapproval from my tone, but it was hard. Every time my brother brought the Vitaliev organization closer to the heart of Chicago’s underbelly, it was like a slap in my father’s face. Why Knives didn’t see that was beyond me.

  “Dash, keeping you safe is a huge priority for me.” My brother spread his hands wide in a gesture of appeal while Polo turned to frown at him. “You don’t make it easy though, and you know it. So, unless you’re willing to move back home where I know I can keep you safe—”

  “Hell, no.”

  “—then help me out by agreeing to forego your poker nights, and I’ll donate whatever money I’d spend on bodyguards to Chicago’s Future. That should make you feel better about it. Deal?”

  “I...” Damn it, I hated being cornered. But I hated being smothered by bodyguards even more, and my stupid brother knew it. “Shit. Deal. On one condition.” At that, Polo chuckled softly, but not softly enough. I shot him an irritated glare. “What?”

  “You. Always playing the angles. Don’t ever change, Dash.”

  “At least she’s not boring,” Knives agreed, though for some reason I couldn’t seem to drag my gaze away from Polo while he was smiling at me. “Okay, let’s hear it. What’s the condition?’

  “You make the donation at the fundraiser I’m throwing Memorial Day weekend—about a month from now. Black tie, catering, hoity-toity bullshit that’s sure to make you break out in a rash. But it’s all for kids who don’t know where their next meal is coming from, so it’ll be worth it.”

  “Man, you sure know how to torture a guy.” With a grimace, Knives dragged a hand through his dark hair. “Okay. Deal. I want to keep a closer eye on you anyway, so this’ll work.”

  “Yay.” I hugged him one more time before glancing back at Polo, who was again frowning at Knives. “Now, how can I talk you into coming to my fundraiser?”

  “Not just no, but hell, no. I’m busy that weekend.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I’ll let you know just as soon as I think of something.”

  “Keep your schedule open, just the same.” My brother’s tone was so bland it was impossible to believe, and one quick glance at Polo told me he felt the same. “You never know what the future holds.”

  Polo was unnaturally still for a heartbeat before his head tilted in a way that could have meant anything. Without another word, he led us toward the elevator.

  Chapter Five

  “I’m never going to be forgiven by your brother.” Looking like a thundercloud, Konstantin pocketed the car keys of his electric blue Roll Royce Wraith, before hustling around to my side of the car to take my elbow. With his head on a swivel, he walked us toward the middle space in the Green Horizon’s strip mall, where Chicago’s Future was based. “Not knowing that the poker game you’ve been hitting was a Scorpeone interest is pretty fucking unacceptable. I’m lucky Knives hasn’t hung me up by my thumbs.”

  “You did look into who was running the game. You can’t be blamed for not knowing who was associated with Moretti.”

  “Yeah, I can, because I should’ve dug deeper. Even my pops called last night to chew me out for embarrassing the family. God help me if my brothers ever find out about this.”

  I winced. “I’m sorry, Kon.”

  “It’s not your fault, it’s mine. I’ve been out of the game too fucking long. This legit life has made me soft.” He kept looking around the little parking lot like he expected a band of rogue ninjas to attack before he pushed me inside the moment I had the door unlocked.

  “Geez, Kon, will you relax?”

  “Relaxed is what a bodyguard should never be.” His sounded about as flexible as granite before he put me against the wall by the side of the door. “Stay here while I make sure we’re good.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  Konstantin ignored me and made quick but thorough work of checking the building
for enemy invaders before coming back to me, a preoccupied frown on his handsome face.

  “Clear,” he announced unnecessarily, giving the front room a sweep. “Just so you know, this is our new routine from today on. Get used to it.”

  It took a hell of a lot to not eye-roll. “I take you talked with my brother as well?”

  “Oh, Knives and I had a nice long chat about how I could be better at my job. He’s not wrong, Dash,” he added when I shook my head in growing anger. “If you’d gotten caught up in a dragnet the other night, or if that raid was just a ruse so the Scorpeones could take you again as a strike against Knives, that would’ve been on me. No more playing it loose and hanging out with each other like we’re best friends.”

  “We are best friends,” I muttered, but I understood his point. To think that I’d been sitting at a Scorpeone table all that time made me want to vomit in my mouth. Sure, I liked some heart-pounding risk every now and again, but that was taking it too far. From now on I was going to walk the straight and narrow and remind myself how lucky I was that Polo had been there to look out for me.

  Polo.

  A low breath whispered out as I sat at my desk in the front office area I shared with Konstantin and Chicago’s Future manager and former Luvabull cheerleader, Shona Rawlins. Something had changed in the six months that he’d vanished from my life. When he’d been my bodyguard, I’d become as close to him as I was to Konstantin, though I had always sensed a part of him held back from me. I understood. His last name bothered Polo far more than it bothered me, once I’d learned what his circumstances were, so I had always tried to give Polo whatever space he needed while still doing my best to bridge that seemingly insurmountable gap between us, a Vitaliev and a Scorpeone.

  It had worked, or so I’d thought. Over the years we’d become close, like best friends. But then my father had set him free, and six months after that Polo had dropped out of my life like he’d forgotten I existed.

  Now he was back, and he was talking about sleeping naked and insinuating that while a particular part of his male anatomy was big, it wasn’t too big.