Year of the Scorpio: Part One

by Stacy Gail

  “But that’s not your way, now that I think about it. You’ve always been a gambler, a crazy risk-taker in everything you do...except relationships. Or have you forgotten that until very recently I was shadowing your every move?”

  How could I forget? He knew as well as anyone that my social life had been an embarrassing wasteland, mainly because I had never found anyone with enough testicular fortitude to have a meaningful relationship with Borysko Vitaliev’s daughter. That label had followed me from high school and college, and into adulthood, but by then I had learned to guard myself and not get emotionally attached. If I dated someone, it was always for some quick fun times, nothing serious and nothing lasting. I’d never had a relationship that lasted longer than a handful of weeks, so to get involved with Polo, someone I’d known for nearly half my life, was unprecedented.

  “I haven’t forgotten anything,” I managed after a moment. “Like how you’ve been gone for six months. Maybe I’ve changed since the last time you saw me.”

  “You haven’t changed when it comes to men since I’ve known you, so I doubt you’ve altered your MO. Your way is to dip one toe into the water—testing it out, not sure whether or not it’s safe for you to dive in. But I’m good with that. I can wait a little longer.”

  That got my attention. “What? Wait a little longer? What do you mean by—”

  “One thing I’m not going to do is have that conversation on an empty stomach.” He kissed the top of my head before letting me go, though his hand reached out to latch onto mine. “Grab some shoes that don’t hurt your feet. While I feed you dinner, I can work on convincing you to dip a little deeper into that hot water.”

  Chapter Eight

  Of all the places I thought Polo might take me for dinner, Heaven wasn’t one of them.

  “I didn’t know your club was serving food now,” I said as Polo led me out onto a balcony attached to his private office. Though I’d been to the club as a patron a few times, I had never been up in the private area that looked down on the dance floor, and I was intrigued. The curved balcony itself reminded me of a private box in a theatre, except this had a built-in upholstered banquette curved around an oblong table on one side. On the other side of the balcony, a small square of dance floor was embedded into the patterned carpeting, and in the middle of that dance floor...

  A stripper pole.

  Yeah.

  Definitely not something you’d see in a private box in the Cadillac Palace Theater.

  “We don’t serve any food here other than maraschino cherries and cocktail olives. I called ahead and had something delivered for the both of us from a restaurant on one of the floors below us. I wanted to make sure you ate while still making myself available for a meeting with my staff. We won’t open for a couple of hours, so for now it’s fairly peaceful out here.” Polo motioned to a young Latino man who looked barely out of his teens. “On the table, Indigo.”

  “Gotcha, boss.” In less than a minute, covered plates were on the table, along with stemmed water glasses, a bucket with champagne on ice and two flutes. “You want the champagne poured, or what?”

  “Go for it. Half a glass for me since we’ve got a meeting in less than an hour, but fill it all the way up for Ms. Vitaliev. She’s had a day.”

  “Gotcha.”

  I lifted a brow at Polo. “Trying to get me drunk enough to where I think I can dance on that pole?”

  The kid, Indigo, snort-laughed while Polo guided me to a seat before settling in next to me. “Now there’s a thought.” His massive shoulders offered an elegant shrug while his eyes slid like a lover’s caress over me. I shivered, helpless to stop myself. “Is there enough champagne in the world for that to happen?”

  “Are you kidding? I always thought that looked like a kickass ton of fun. All you have to say is I dare you, and I’d be all over that pole.” Then I laughed, all the while looking into the beauty of his dark eyes as they remained riveted on me. “The show might be more hilarious than sexy, but I’ll try anything once.”

  “Good to know.” Polo pointed to Indigo just as the young man opened his mouth. “Don’t dare her. That’s an order.”

  Indigo deflated and finished pouring the champagne. “Yes, sir. Got everything you need?”

  “Yeah, good job. Do me a favor and keep everyone off my back until it’s time for the meeting, yeah?”

  “You got it, boss. I’ll plant Andrew the Giant outside. That should do the trick.”

  “Andrew’s with you now?” I unrolled the linen napkin wrapped around a set of utensils as Indigo left, then uncovered my plate. Steam and the rich, smoky scent of a flame-kissed, perfectly seasoned T-bone wafted to me until my mouth watered. It would be so easy to fall for a man who remembered my favorite cut of beef. “I sort of assumed he’d stay with my brother.”

  “Knives fired him. No-kill muscle doesn’t fit into the business model Knives is building, so when Andrew was put out to pasture he came to me. Best bouncer Heaven’s ever had. All Andrew has to do is stand there, and suddenly drunk-ass dumb fucks calm down like they’ve been scolded by their mommy.”

  “I’m glad you had a place for Andrew. Papa would have approved of that.” What he wouldn’t have approved of was Knives building an organization that had no room for the likes of a gentle giant like Andrew. Then I shook my head. I had enough stress in my life now without thinking about what my brother was up to. “In fact, he would have approved of everything you’ve done to build a new, clean life for yourself. I’m proud of what you’ve fought to build here, but I’m even prouder of the man you’ve become.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” I raised my champagne glass to him and smiled. “You’re really something, Marco Polo.”

  He didn’t raise his glass in response. Instead he rested an arm on the back of the banquette, his fingers coming to toy with the ends of my hair. “I’m something really dangerous, Dash. Don’t forget that, and don’t be too proud of me, you got that? In the eyes of many I’m a monster, and when it comes right down to it, I’m not going to lie—I deserve the label. Don’t believe in me too much.”

  “I’ve got no illusions about who you are.” I took his half-filled flute and handed it to him, then clinked my flute gently against his as our gazes tangled and held over the rims. “I like you anyway.”

  “Fearless.” For a moment his expression grew taut with a raw kind of longing, and I could feel the tension in the hand barely grazing my hair, is if it took all he had not to take a fistful of it. “Is it any wonder I call you that? You really don’t care that a monster could never be good enough for you, do you?”

  My heart spasmed at that. “You don’t actually see yourself that way, so you?”

  “I know who I am.”

  “So do I. I also know something else. A monster would never be my choice to spend my time with, so it’s a good thing you’re not a monster. Not to me.”

  “Not to you.” His eyes never left mine as we both took a sip of champagne. That, more than the bubbly, made my head spin. Then he smiled and set his glass aside. “Eat, beautiful. I’ve got approximately fifty minutes to spend with you, and I want to make sure every single one of them is dedicated to spoiling you rotten.”

  I didn’t know my stomach could melt until that moment. “I’ll eat, but you’re not going to get off that easily. You’re going to have to explain a few things around here.”

  He grabbed up his utensils and dived in. “Like what?”

  “Like this meeting, for starters. Is this how you start every night in Heaven, or is this something special?”

  He paused in cutting his steak to look at me. “You wanna know about that? Why?”

  “Because I’m interested.” Everything about him interested me, even the most mundane things, like staff meetings. If it was a part of his life, I wanted to know about it. “Tell me about it.”

  “It’s no big deal. I usually meet up with my staff before we open. Security team’s always got to know what they’re
doing and who’s covering what. If we have a special guest in—a celebrity, or someone who’s a high roller in the city, or whatever—they get assigned two bodyguards in addition to their own muscle, and their own personal bottle service on the VIP level. If we’ve got live entertainment for that night, that calls for another set of protocols that have to be put in place.”

  “So it’s just a normal, everyday meeting, then.”

  “Nothing’s ever normal in Heaven. We’ve got a shipment of Grey Goose that’s one case light, and it didn’t just sprout legs and walk off by itself. There’s a big motorcycle rally blowing through Chicago—the city’s the start of Route 66, so every year these bikers get together and ride the whole route to California. That means we’re expecting more than our fair share of tough guys coming through our doors, eager to prove what badasses they are. On top of all that shit, I’m opening another club, River Styx, in a handful of months and they’re still hanging fucking drywall and dicking around with parking space. I’ve got to make sure I have the personnel for the new club already in place and trained up so that River Styx is running like clockwork by the time we open our doors. Those are the kind of meetings I have. I’m going to be talking about business for what’ll feel like for-fucking-ever in there, so that means I don’t want to waste another minute on it out here. All I want to do—and all I’m going to do—is focus on you.”

  Honestly, the man was trying to see if he could melt me from the inside out. “But that’s a boring subject. I know everything about me.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You knew I was in trouble today with that absurd joke of a raid.”

  “Konstantin called me, let me know what was happening.”

  I’d figured as much. “Did he forget you’re no longer part of the Dasha Vitaliev security detail?”

  “What he didn’t forget was my final instruction to him before I officially retired from the Vitaliev organization.”

  “Which was?”

  “If Kon ever feels that you need me to be there for you, he’s to give me a call. Day or night, no matter what’s happening or how intense the shit is, he’s supposed to call. He did, so I came over, along with Arnold Papazian. That was all it took to make that shit go away.”

  In my mind, I heard Shona loud and clear—no one’s paying him to guard you. “Looking after my safety isn’t your job anymore.”

  “True. Now it’s my hobby.”

  Any minute now I was going to be a gooey puddle at his feet. “Why?”

  He searched my face as if he couldn’t make his eyes see enough of it. “Because nobody will ever protect you better than me, Dasha. Nobody.”

  My pulse fluttered. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. So I might as well do what I’m good at while keeping your ass out of the fire. Now shut up and eat before your steak gets cold.”

  “That’s not exactly an answer, but whatever.” Trying to regulate my breathing, I focused on making some kind of dent in the steak done to medium-rare perfection, grilled marinated asparagus and a creamy mushroom risotto that was out of this world. As always, Polo bowled me over with his impeccable taste...with the exception of that damn stripper pole, of course. “I suppose everyone should stick with what they do well. I thought I was pretty good at running a charity that kept people clothed and fed, but apparently I was only good at the poker that funded it. Might as well move back into the old homestead and live the vapid, meaningless princess life my brother thinks is appropriate for me.”

  He glanced up from tearing a roll apart. “Is that what Knives thinks?”

  I shrugged. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he thinks the same thing you did—that Chicago’s Future was just a passing hobby. Which, by the way, was totally off-base. Feeding underprivileged families and making sure they have good clothes on their backs so that they can go to school, and job interviews, and make their lives better...that’s a passion for me, not a hobby.”

  “I was out of line to think that, much less say it,” he admitted, surprising me. “You’re not vapid, or princessy, or whatever the hell you just said. You’ve got a damn good heart, because you can see there’s a need in your corner of the world, whereas most people don’t give a shit enough to do anything about it. But then that inherent sweetness in you makes you go that extra mile, and you bust your ass trying to fix all the problems that you see. I just don’t know if you understand that you can’t fix these problems all by yourself.”

  “I do understand that,” I said, my voice soft as I polished off the steak. It was a wonder I could even swallow, I was so touched by his unexpected compliment. “But doing nothing only adds to the problem. I want my father’s living legacy—namely me—to do some good in this world, true. But even more than that, I simply want to help. Though,” I added hollowly as the reality of the day came to smack me right in the face, “I suppose it’s pointless even having this conversation now. Chicago’s Future doesn’t have a future after today.”

  “What the hell, Dash. Are you throwing in the towel, just like that? That’s not the Fearless I know.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, my last twenty-four hours have been kind of shitty.”

  “Oh, I noticed.” His frown morphed into a scowl, and his vision turned inward. “And the thing I noticed about your shitty twenty-four hours was that they had one thing in common, and that one thing can’t be overlooked.”

  “The police?”

  “The Scorpeones.”

  The name rang so loudly through my brain I was surprised it wasn’t echoing around the cavernous nightclub. “Could be a coincidence.”

  “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. That’s what your old man used to say, and believe me—whenever he found a fire, he stomped on it until even the last ember was dead.”

  “Your stomping days are long gone, or have you forgotten that you’ve retired?” I pushed my plate away with more force than necessary. “The only action you should be concerned with now is the kind that involves that stripper pole. What’s it doing here, anyway?”

  His ominous expression faded, and a hint of a smile showed in his eyes. “You’re seriously asking that?”

  “I am.” Anything to change the subject.

  “Would you believe it’s a decorative accent?”

  “Try again.”

  “A conversation starter.”

  “Believable, but no.”

  “Strippers?”

  “Bingo.”

  He settled back into the padded seat with a grin. “If you knew the answer, why bother asking?”

  “Because its presence confuses me. This isn’t a strip joint, and you don’t peddle flesh out of Heaven.” Then my heart paused, because this was a subject I’d really have a problem with. “You don’t, do you?”

  “Not my thing, Fearless. Not only am I working my ass off at being a straight-up legitimate businessman now, but that particular gig is the kind of headache I don’t need. Besides, I was never involved in that part of the Vitaliev operation. Your father recognized that I was better suited for other things.”

  “I know.” Before I allowed myself to dwell on all the hurt and pain my father, and through my father, Polo had inflicted on the world, I tilted my head in the direction of the pole. “Since this isn’t a strip club, you obviously don’t hold auditions up here. So, I have to ask—what’s it doing here?”

  He rolled his head back on the seat and looked up at the ceiling. “Fuck me.”

  “Come on, I’m curious.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Is this your personal kink? It’s okay if it is, everyone has one.”

  “Yeah?” That got his attention, if the way he snapped his head back up was any indication, and his eyes seemed to darken as he stared at me. “What’s yours?”

  Crap, I walked right into that one. “Um...”

  “Don’t be shy. You can tell me.”

  How could I tell him about something that didn’t exist? God, I was embarrassingly vanilla. “Um... massages? Is that
a kink?”

  He lifted a slow brow. “Only if you get off on it.”

  I sighed. “At the moment a foot massage sounds positively orgasmic, so if you’re feeling generous, I guess that could count. But if it doesn’t, that means I don’t have a kink, and that means I need to get out there and do some wild and crazy experimenting to find out what my kink is. With Chicago’s Future dying out from under me, I’m sure I’ll have a lot more time on my hands.”

  “Stop with the defeatist bullshit, already. And if you think I’m going to let you go out and fucking experiment to see what turns you on, you’re out of your damn mind.” With that, he bent, wrapped his fingers around my ankles and almost up-ended me by pulling my lower legs onto his lap. “One foot massage, coming up.”

  My breath caught, loud enough to have his gaze lift to mine. “Don’t be ridiculous, you can’t just... just massage a person’s feet.”

  “Why not?” One by one, he drew off my beaded flip-flops and dropped them to the floor. “It’s my club. My balcony. We’ve got absolute privacy for another—” he flicked a shirt cuff out of the way to glance at his watch, “—eighteen minutes. More than enough time for a foot massage.”

  “But...” A giddy kind of panic welled up even as his fingers curled over my insteps. His thumbs pushed into my heels, then drew twin lines up the middle of my feet to that sweet spot just under the ball of the foot below the big toes. “Oh... Mm.”

  Damn, damn, damn.

  I’d never be able to get through this without moaning. Or crying. Maybe even coming.

  God, this felt good.

  “Never talk about experimenting again, Dasha, you hear me?” His thumbs rotated, rotated, driving into the sore balls of my feet while his fingers squeezed the sides of my feet until bones popped and groaned in an unbelievably good way. “If you experiment, you experiment with me. If massage is the thing that gets you off, we have just enough time to find that out.”

  “I was kidding, I don’t really—ooh.” He worked on that painfully good place in the middle of the ball of the foot, and what I was going to say vanished beneath a wave of achy pleasure. “Oh...ow, ow, ow, ow.”