Year of the Scorpio: Part One

by Stacy Gail

  Dear God. It was a police raid. The second one hitting my life in less than twenty-four hours.

  Obviously I wasn’t living right.

  “Oh, my.” Looking around the room as if she suddenly found herself surrounded by lepers, Tiffany turned a horrified face to me. “What have you done?”

  “Nothing.” But, as embarrassment surged that this fiasco was happening in front of Tiffany-Stoddard-Fanning’s elitist eyes, I couldn’t promise that I’d continue to do nothing. Rage mingled with mortification, poisoning my blood as I tried to kill the approaching man with the power of my glare. “What is this?”

  “Are you Dasha Vitaliev?”

  I nodded sharply. “Who are you?”

  “Detective Martin Schott, of Chicago P.D.’s Vice Unit.” With a shit-eating smile that laughed in my face, he pulled out a folded piece of paper from his vest and handed it over. “I’ve just served you with a warrant that allows us to search the premises known as Chicago’s Future.”

  Dear God, this had to be a nightmare. “For what? Food that’s past its expiration date?”

  “We had an anonymous tip called in about this location, linking it to all the drug trafficking in this area.”

  “That’s insane. This is a free food pantry and clothing donation site, not a frigging drug den.”

  “Oh, of course.” That grin grew, and one by one my muscles clenched at the sight. Logically it was just a smile, but every instinct I had whispered danger. “I’m sure your operation’s totally legit... Ms. Vitaliev.”

  Danger or not, the way this dick said my name brought every last one of my hackles up. “Be careful, Officer. You wouldn’t want to be brought up on harassment charges just because I happen to have a name you don’t like, now would you?”

  “That’s Detective, not Officer.”

  “For now.” Surely my father’s old contacts knew of someone who had the power to bust this guy’s ass down to meter maid.

  Schott seemed thoroughly unimpressed with the threat. “The Chicago P.D. is specifically searching the premises for any illegal substances and/or weapons, Ms. Vitaliev. If we find any of the listed items on said premises, you will be arrested and taken into custody. Do you have any questions?”

  “Detective, excuse me, but I have nothing to do with this place, or... or mobsters.” Tiffany’s shrill voice could have shattered glass, but neither Detective Schott nor I even glanced her way as she shivered in her chair. “I just came here to talk about charities. I have nothing to do with this. I live in Barrington Hills, for God’s sake.”

  “I’ll allow you to leave... after you’ve been questioned,” Schott said without glancing her way. He was too busy having a staring contest with me, but I could tell by his smirk that this asshole got a masochistic kick out of Tiffany’s fear. Sick fuck. “Until we’ve talked to everyone here and we’ve concluded our search, no one leaves. Who knows? This might take all frigging day.”

  Chapter Six

  Call me crazy, but I wanted blood.

  Actually, I wanted a lot of things. I wanted to find whoever dared to call in a bogus tip that my charity was a drug distribution center. I then wanted to hang that bogus tipster up by their feet. Then I wanted to flay them alive inch by agonizing inch, and pin their hide to the wall like a psychopath’s bad artwork.

  After that, I wanted to turn my murderous rage on that piece of shit, Detective Martin Schott, who did everything he could to make things crawl along with such excruciating slowness the search was now into its sixth hour. Not only did he keep Konstantin, Shona and the prone-to-histrionics Tiffany Stoddard-Fanning onsite the entire time, that gold badge-wearing asshole also plowed through a box of Twinkies he’d taken—just freaking taken!—from our pantry.

  The man wasn’t an idiot. He knew what Chicago’s Future was. More than that, he made enough money to buy his own food. But did he do that? No. Knowing full well that whatever provisions we’d collected were meant for people who couldn’t afford such little joy-giving luxuries like snack cakes, he still took that entire box all for himself.

  I would replace the Twinkies.

  The fucking Twinkies weren’t the point.

  The point was that Detective Martin Schott found perverse pleasure in showing me that he had the power, not me. He also clearly delighted in taking food out of the mouths of the hungry, just because he could. That meant this man enjoyed snuffing out potential happiness in the lives of people who didn’t have a lot of joy in their lives to begin with.

  And that meant something else.

  It meant I wanted to mount his skin on the wall as well.

  So, yeah. Call me crazy, because thoughts like flaying people alive probably proved that I was unhinged.

  But my father would have approved.

  Just when I was beginning to think we would never get out of there, Polo walked through the door with the family’s long-time lawyer and owner of the law firm located in Paradis Nouveau, Arnold Papazian. I stared at Polo, not caring how he knew I was in trouble or what his purpose was. In that moment, as he scanned the front room with scary-sharp eyes, all that mattered was that he was there.

  Those dangerous eyes slashed to me, and suddenly my lungs didn’t seem to want to work. He murmured something to Arnold before heading straight for me, his gaze keeping me pinned to the spot. In the back of my mind I was aware of Arnold speaking to one of the officers keeping guard over us, but all I saw was Polo. He’d never looked better, and it wasn’t just because he had appeared in this sea of chaos like a fully tricked-out lifeboat. The room filled with his energy, and his presence commanded the attention of everyone there, even those who didn’t know him. The air itself seemed to crackle around him, and to look at him was to know that something earth-shattering had arrived.

  Had he always been this way, and I’d never noticed?

  No.

  It was because his leash had been removed, I realized. Polo was finally in charge of his life now; he owned his every move and thought, and he was comfortable with it. From this point on, nothing on this planet could hold back the force of nature that was Marco Polo Scorpeone.

  The very thought made me shiver.

  “You okay?” As soon as I was within touching distance, he wrapped an arm around my waist to pull me away from Shona and Tiffany, while his free hand came up to cup my cheek. It was as if he wanted to make sure my eyes stayed on his, but that was hardly a problem. Polo was the only thing in that room I wanted to see.

  “Other than being furious, I’m doing great.” My arms went around him without conscious thought, and despite my upset I still managed to note how well we fit together. “Why are you here?”

  His slow-blink made me feel like an idiot. “Are you serious?”

  “I mean, how did you know this was happening? What are you, psychic?”

  “What I am is thorough. I still keep my eye on you.” With that startling announcement reeling through me, he looked up at Konstantin, who came over to join us. “You know who’s in charge?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Kon growled so furiously he sounded like a candidate for a rabies shot. “Some asshole vice detective by the name of Schott, and he’s going out of his way to be a first-class dick. Never seen anything like it in all the time Borysko Vitaliev was alive.”

  That made my breath hitch painfully as the implication became clear, at least to me. When my father had been alive, he’d been so feared that no one had even dreamed of showing a Vitaliev such disrespect. Now, however, it was open season, as far as my father’s enemies were concerned.

  Cowards.

  The sound of disgust Polo made echoed my feelings. “Is this guy’s full name Martin Schott?”

  Konstantin’s dark brows jerked up. “Yeah. You know him?”

  “I know of him. Years ago when I was doing something for Borysko, Schott and I crossed paths. He was in the pocket of the Scorpeone family back then.”

  “Fuck. Motherfucking fuck.” Konstantin’s sizzling-hot gaze slanted toward a knot of cops
coming out from the back, all of them empty-handed after their hours-long search. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s still in their pocket. He’s enjoying this—and shitting on Dash—way too much. Laughing in her face, eating food she’s personally collected right in front of her, like he’s daring her to do something about it, putting a mocking emphasis on her name that he says constantly...it’s all got a personal vibe to it.”

  “So he likes to make a game out of disrespecting people?” Polo’s voice dropped until it was only a whisper, and the tension in the arms that held me began to thrum in a way that scared me. “That’s nice to hear. I like games. Games are fun.”

  “Polo.” My heart catapulted into my throat, because those crazy Scorpio eyes were back. Years ago I had watched Polo, Yuri Rodin and Konstantin obliterate what had been a car full of men from a rival mafiya family, when they’d rolled up on my father. Alex Rodin had hustled my father and me into a waiting car, but I’d never forget glancing back to see the almost-graceful lethality of Polo as he smiled while washing the world in his enemy’s blood. “Don’t do anything here. They’re the police. Yes, this is harassment, and no, it’s not fair. But eventually they’re going to give up and go away.”

  “This Schott fucker’s tied to the Scorpeone family, Dash. That’s two instances in two days involving them. The first I can accept. But this...” He shook his head, and the tension pumping through his body became so intense he all but vibrated with it. “This isn’t just harassment. Like Kon said, this is personal.”

  “But—”

  “You’re not part of the business. You’re a civilian, a position that should be respected. The same goes for this charity you founded. It should be understood that Chicago’s Future doesn’t get touched. For fuck’s sake, it helps people who need it the most. What you’ve built here stands for something good and wholesome and beautiful, and it has the Vitaliev name on it. To target it—and you—shows that whoever’s behind it doesn’t want the Vitaliev name to be raised up. They’ll do whatever it takes to drag you into the mud, and drown you in it if they can. To me, that’s an invitation to dance. It’d be rude to ignore it.”

  Again the memory of his lethal ease flashed through my mind. “I get that, and I’m just as pissed as you. All I’m saying is that when the police are involved, you play it smart and you don’t respond until you’re absolutely sure you know what you’re doing. In the meantime, we let Mr. Papazian unleash as many hounds on them as the law will allow, and take our time picking them apart legally. It’s not as sexy as a bloodbath, I know. But it’ll annoy the shit out of them while we figure out who the right person is to put in our crosshairs.”

  “That’s why I brought him along.” The waves of danger emanating from him lessened, and a faint smile curled a corner of his mouth. “You really are your father’s daughter, you know that? Scary when you want to be, smart when you need to be.”

  A fever-inducing flush of pleasure curled through me. “When have I ever been scary?”

  “Oh, beautiful. Every damn day that I’ve known you.”

  “You’re so sweet when you flatter me.”

  “It’s not flattery when it’s the truth, crazy woman.” There was movement behind me, and it seemed for a moment that Polo wasn’t going to look away from me. Then, at last, he dragged his gaze up to a point past my shoulder, and I watched that terrifyingly affable smile appear. “Who’ve you got there, Arnold? Is this the big man in charge?”

  “Detective Martin Schott.” My father’s old friend and attorney, Arnold Papazian, looked more like an English gentlemen. He was tall and thin and wrapped in tweed, with Ken-doll white hair and a pencil-thin white moustache. He liked word games, golf, butterscotch candy and Frank Sinatra, and I’d known him all my life. “May I present Marco Polo Scorpeone, Ms. Vitaliev’s friend.”

  I turned just in time to get the pleasure of seeing the smug detective’s eyes widen with recognition. “I thought you retired,” he blurted with zero finesse. Maybe it made me a bad person, but it was a delicious thing, seeing the detective’s self-satisfied cruelty vanish under a wave of pants-crapping fear.

  If anything, Polo’s smile became even friendlier. “Retired doesn’t mean I fell off the face of the fucking earth, Detective.”

  An officer who looked like he was fresh from the Academy stepped forward. “You watch your mouth when you talk to the—”

  “Shut up, you dumb shit.” Schott waved a hand at his loyal underling, though his eyes never left Polo. It was almost as if he expected Polo to be one of the Weeping Angels. “Look, we’re here conducting a legitimate search. We’re just doing our jobs, all right? There isn’t anything personal going—”

  “Save the bullshit, Schott. You’re a puppet, and I know who’s got their strings on you and it sure as hell isn’t the Chicago P.D. That means this shit is nothing but personal. But that’s okay. I like personal. I fucking excel at personal. By the way, you still living in that nice two-story brick house in North Center? You know, the one with the big backyard with the tire swing? How does a clean cop afford a half-acre property in one of the best neighborhoods in Chicago, anyway? Oh wait, that’s right, you wouldn’t know.”

  A flashpoint of rage flared in the detective’s eyes, and it got me moving before anyone else could. Without a thought I went up on my tiptoes and put my mouth over Polo’s, because I knew no tough guy in the world would allow a woman to put a hand over his mouth; that sort of thing would only make him more belligerent. But also, I had this crazy hope that if I could cover him with as much of myself as I could, the detective wouldn’t throw a punch at him. I wasn’t worried for Polo; I knew he could take anything this weak little bully could dish out.

  No.

  The only thing that scared me was Polo losing his shit and killing a cop in front of witnesses. That absolutely could not happen.

  So...

  I kissed him.

  For a second that seemed to last forever the whole world ground to a halt, and I was certain my impulsive gamble wasn’t going to pay off. The second my mouth touched his, he didn’t move, didn’t seem to even breathe. Then he shifted, his arms pulling me flush against him while he pivoted away from Schott, and I instinctively knew he’d done that to protect me. That was the last coherent thought that went through my brain as the enormity of what was happening finally filtered through.

  Holy crap.

  After all these years, I was kissing Polo.

  Logically I knew that only a few seconds passed with my lips locked against his. Really, I knew that. But in that space of time, I found out that entire universes could change. Polo was someone I’d known for well over a decade; I knew the sound of his voice, the way he held his head when he was listening, the swagger in his long-legged gait, the difference between his affable killer’s smile and his real one.

  I knew him.

  But then I tasted him against my lips, a rich, warm flavor that tempted my tongue to seek out more of it, and suddenly he was a dazzling new mystery. A mystery I needed to solve like I needed my next breath.

  A warm hand came up to tangle in my hair in a silent claiming, his palm cradling the back of my head to press me into his kiss as if he wanted to brand the feel of his mouth onto mine. The intensity of it was exhilarating, and when his tongue answered my exploratory caress by boldly invading my mouth, my head spun so dizzily I may have moaned. Then his fingers fisted in my hair and before I could brace for it, he pulled my head back, breaking the contact with a world-shattering jolt.

  No, I thought as I stared into his turbulent eyes, bereft. No.

  “Later.” The one-word promise threaded through a harsh breath, so softly I could have imagined it. Then he put me behind him and nodded to Konstantin, who was watching the scene with sharp, alert eyes. “You and Arnold are to stay with the cops as they conclude their search. Shona, this other lady, and Dasha Vitaliev are leaving now.”

  “You can’t fuckin’ do that,” Schott snarled, moving to block the path to the door. “Y
ou’re not in charge around here, Scorpio. I am.”

  “You know what? I’m glad you chose to call me by that name. I was going to suggest it myself, but you seem to be one step ahead of me.”

  My blood iced over and my gaze jerked to Konstantin, who had gone pale. He knew as well as I did what it meant when Polo invited someone to address him as Scorpio.

  That person was marked for death. Whether it happened tomorrow, or a year from now, this man’s death was assured, and it would happen at Polo’s hands.

  But Martin Schott wasn’t just another enemy that needed to be taken out. He was a cop. A dirty cop, yeah, but taking out even a dirty cop was still a dangerous step, and it was a step I didn’t want Polo to take, least of all for me. I wasn’t worth it, and God knew this King Shit of Turd Hill, Martin Schott, wasn’t worth it either.

  “And as for what we can and cannot do, let’s go to someone who knows the law well enough to not be bullied by people who think they own the law.” Polo jerked a chin at my father’s old attorney. “The ladies are free to leave, right, Arnold?”

  Arnold politely tilted his white head toward Detective Schott. “Have you put anyone under arrest, Detective?”

  Martin Schott looked like he wanted to do nothing more than pull his out gun and shoot everyone in the room. “Not yet.”

  “Under the letter of the law, holding all these fine people here without arresting them could technically fall under one of the legal definitions of kidnapping. At the very least, you and your men appear to be unlawfully detaining these innocent citizens.”

  Schott turned an unhealthy purple while the uniforms around him exchanged alarmed looks. “We’re the police. That means we have the right to do whatever we want to secure a dangerous scene.”

  “If you believe that you’re somehow above the law just because you have a badge, I’m surprised you managed to even pass your psych evaluation, much less the detective’s exam. Hopefully when we bring charges against you, your men, and your precinct, you’ll finally learn that lesson. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll need the names of all the people who are part of your team—a team that held three innocent women and a baby hostage for several hours.” Arnold clasped his hands behind his back and gave his best disappointed professor look. “Between you and me, I can’t wait to see what tomorrow’s papers are going to make of the baby angle.”