Year of the Scorpio: Part One

by Stacy Gail

  “Oh, no? You think sending one of your bought-and-paid-for cops to shake down Dasha Vitaliev is a benevolent act? Look ashamed, asshole. She’s a civilian running a charity to help people, and she never should have been targeted.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Looking confused and pissed off about it, Matteo took another step their way. “Marco, I’m out of the game, I don’t have any—”

  “You really don’t want to take another step this way, pal.” Konstantin smoothly stepped into the breach, his tone casual as he positioned himself between Polo and where Matteo stood with his wife. As he did so, he unbuttoned his jacket and made sure his holster could be seen. “There’s no need to upset these classy people by acting like a bunch of dicks, am I right? So go ahead and calmly back your shit up, promise to be a good boy and leave the Vitaliev family alone once and for all, and we’ll just go our separate ways like the peace-loving people we all are. Sound like a plan?”

  Matteo’s scowl was downright lethal. “Who the fuck are you to interfere in family business?”

  “Konstantin Medvedev, thanks for asking. You may have heard of the Medvedevs, actually. Since they came to this country, my family’s been the, shall we say, enforcers for the Vitalievs. But for you, I’m trying to be charming here, so let’s not pull any attitude, all right? You go your way, we’ll go ours, and everyone gets to live another day.”

  Polo had the feeling Matteo wasn’t a fan of being told what to do, but before that could be confirmed the front door to the country club’s entryway opened and a man with a thick neck, salt and pepper hair and a telltale bulge under his jacket came through the door. “I got the car pulled around, Mattie,” he began, then glanced their way. In an instant he dived a hand into his jacket; in less than a second after that both Polo and Kon had their guns out. Furious that this was happening in a public place—in front of Dash, for fuck’s sake—Polo pushed Dash toward the Cigar Lounge door in the hope that she’d take the hint and get out of harm’s way.

  Then again, it was Dasha Vitaliev.

  He should have known better.

  “Stop.” Again Dash had her arms around his middle, and all at once he had the dual tasks of focusing on his target and keeping Dash from getting into the line of fire, something she was trying to do so she could shield him. It was just like when they first met, when she’d decided it was up to her to protect him. But no way in hell was that going to fly. He was the one who protected her. “Everyone just stop.”

  It filtered in that Matteo’s woman had wrapped herself around him in a similarly protective stance and was now clinging to Matteo while she looked torn between hyperventilating and crying her eyes out. Fuck. Only assclowns pulled this sort of bullshit in front of civilians, much less the people in their personal lives. Having Dash involved in a scene like this was beyond amateur hour; it was goddamn unacceptable.

  “All right.” Holding up his free hand, he made eye-contact with the thick-necked Scorpeone goon, hating the twitchy-eyed dumb fuck for causing this embarrassing scene in the first place. “This is not the time. This is not the place. We’re all going to take a breath and calm down. Be professional.”

  “You be professional, asshole.”

  Jesus.

  “Goddamn it, Giovanni, put it away.” Matteo’s snarl sounded as furious as Polo felt, and in another few heartbeats the hardware was gone. Matteo glared pure death at his man while he crushed his woman to his chest while she shuddered in spasms of freaked-out, poorly stifled sobs. “You do that again in front of Emily, I’ll put you down myself, swear to Christ. I promised her none of this shit would ever touch our lives and I mean to keep that promise, you hear me?”

  Giovanni’s thick neck turned an ugly beet red. “Do you even know who that is over there?”

  “Yeah. My baby brother.”

  “That monster ain’t no baby, and whatever was brotherly between you two died a long fucking time ago. You’re holding onto a ghost.”

  “I agree,” Polo offered helpfully, and even smiled. He always tried to smile when people seemed tense, but for some reason his smile only seemed to make things worse. “Especially about the monster part. But not even monsters do their thing in the light. Everyone here is perfectly safe for the time being, despite Giovanni’s insulting behavior.”

  Matteo’s ominous growl shut his man’s mouth before he could think of something to say. “For the time being? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Polo shrugged and called it as he saw it. “You know and I know that while our little reunion wasn’t a Hallmark moment, we were keeping it cool for the sake of our ladies. Since I appreciated your effort on that, I was more than happy to just walk away from this like it never even happened. Then suddenly, an asshat. He didn’t even think about their safety, or about having the shit scared out of them. I may be a monster, but even I find that unforgivable.”

  Giovanni, the moron, had the balls to puff up. “You threatening me, Scorpio?”

  Polo turned the full brunt of his attention on him, growing statue-still as he looked for weaknesses in this new opponent. There were so many it was laughable. “Like I said, monsters don’t do anything in the light. But it can’t stay light all the time for you, Giovanni. You need to be afraid of the dark.”

  The goon’s eyes bulged out of his head, and he opened up his stupid noise hole to make his already-dire situation so much worse. But when nothing came out—either he was finally using his brain or he simply couldn’t think of anything appropriate—Polo tucked Dash close to his side, motioned for Konstantin to bring up the rear, and kept himself between Dash and the Scorpeones as they exited the country club.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “So, let me get this straight. Your sex machine non-boyfriend got landed with your family when he was a kid, due to some crazy shit his family pulled—shit you can’t talk about. This left Polo paying for their crimes, which is so medieval and wrong I want to cut the bitch who made that happen.”

  “Actually, using hostages to end wars between lords is medieval. I think that’s where someone got the idea to do this.”

  “Whatever.” Shona waved a graceful hand. “Now here we are years later, with Polo running into his god-awful family, and it almost became World War III in the entrance hall of a swank country club. Is that about right?”

  “Pretty much.” With a sad sigh, I flicked on the car’s turn signal at a stoplight, heading back to Bronzeville after having caught a bite of lunch with Shona. I had taken the day off yesterday to spend it with Polo, who’d seemed to have lost his smile on a permanent basis.

  The unexpected run-in with Matteo Scorpeone had rattled me, big time. But that was nothing compared to what it did to Polo. He’d become almost as mute as when we’d first met, and I’d been terrified he was going to stay that way. Not sure what else to do, I’d stayed with him as he worked his way through it, hoping he might draw some comfort in at least knowing he wasn’t alone. I’d also kept in physical contact with him as much as possible throughout the day, reading the paper on the couch in his penthouse, my legs tangled with his while he’d flicked through various windows on a tablet.

  Still not talking.

  Still not smiling.

  Even though we were right next to each other, he’d felt as unreachable as the moon.

  It wasn’t until he’d at last set the tablet aside and pulled me into his arms and just held me that I had begun to hope he was going to be all right. But I hadn’t been sure, so I’d maneuvered myself between his knees, unzipped his pants, and let him know with my mouth on his swiftly hardening cock that no matter how bad his days might go, I would always be the solution when it came to making everything better.

  Thankfully he seemed to get the picture, and was much happier after that. At least his smile had come back.

  Ensconced in the passenger’s seat, Shona shook her head, sending her lovely mass of thin braids swaying. “I told you your life’s a soap opera, babe. Does sex machine have any plans o
n hooking up with his brother again?”

  “I think Polo would rather pull his own teeth out with pliers than even think about his biological family. And I can’t blame him,” I added with another sigh. “The Scorpeones have been this horrible, dark presence in Chicago’s underworld for decades, and that doesn’t represent who Polo is anymore. His life is straight-up legitimate now, and that’s a hard thing to pull off when you’ve lived a life that’s been the total opposite of that. I’m so proud of him for keeping his nose clean.” Though, of course, I had a feeling Polo might slip off the wagon when it came to that Scorpeone moron, Giovanni.

  “You can’t get much cleaner than going to some ballet charity thing at some tight-ass country club,” Shona observed dryly, digging a tube of lip gloss out of her purse. “Though if that’s the case, I can’t begin to figure out what Polo’s crime-boss brother was doing there. Shouldn’t he have been gunning down some rival crime family and feeding them to the fishes?”

  “It does seem odd that Matteo Scorpeone was at Castlemont.” And I had to admit, this incongruity had been nagging at me for a day and a half now. “In fact, everything about that whole scene struck me as... I don’t know. Off.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing was as it should have been,” I said, groping for the right words as I tried to pinpoint what had bothered me about that night. “No self-respecting boss goes waltzing around town without a visible contingent of well-armed bodyguards. They have to, considering what they do for a living. But Polo’s brother, the head of the Scorpeone crime family, had just one guy who seemed to be both a driver and a bodyguard. My father never left the house with just one person for backup. He wouldn’t have made it past the age of thirty if he’d done that.”

  “Yeah, that’s how it was with my brother and his gang, too. You go nowhere without your crew—unless you’re actually wanting to wind up dead in the street.”

  “Exactly. And another thing—Matteo didn’t seem to have any idea that Chicago’s Future had been raided by Detective Schott.”

  My friend paused in her diligent application of lip gloss to blink at me. “The Twinkie thief?”

  “The one and only. I was told that Schott was in Scorpeone’s pocket, but Matteo didn’t seem to know anything about that dirty cop harassing us.”

  Shona’s gorgeous brows came together. “He was probably lying through his teeth, Dash. News flash—gangsters aren’t known for their truthfulness.”

  “Yeah, but...I don’t know, Shona. He seemed to be genuinely baffled by the accusation, even going so far as to say he wasn’t in the business anymore.”

  “Uh-huh, sure he did. All legitimate businessmen walk around with a no-neck mountain of muscle and armed to the teeth. Yeah, I totally buy that.”

  “Armed to the teeth,” I repeated, thinking back. Then I almost crashed the car when it finally dawned on me what was so wrong about that scene. “He wasn’t armed to the teeth.”

  “What?”

  “Matteo Scorpeone, alleged crime boss of the Scorpeone family after taking over from his father, wasn’t armed to the teeth. In fact, I don’t think he was armed at all. He didn’t pull his gun. Everyone else did—his goon, Kon and Polo, and I swear I would have drawn on them too, if I’d had my Glock on me. But I didn’t, so all I could do was stand there. Just like Matteo.”

  Shona made a sound of disbelief. “What kind of damn stupid crime boss goes out into the world without a piece?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” I muttered as I pulled into Chicago’s Future’s parking lot. I quickly scanned the cars there, hoping to see Konstantin’s Wraith, but it was nowhere to be found. Since I’d spent all day yesterday with Polo, Kon had been given the day off, but this morning I’d had to drive myself into work when Konstantin was a no-show. After half a dozen voicemails and text messages that went unanswered, I’d even contacted my brother, ending my absolute blackout on all things Knives-related. My mini-feud with Knives was nothing compared to making sure Konstantin was okay.

  But Knives didn’t know where Konstantin was, and by now I was seriously worried. This wasn’t like Kon. At all.

  That dread-edged unease had me scanning the cars once again as Shona and I made our way toward the door, and my jaw almost hit the ground when I saw a familiar Lana Turner lookalike slide out of the backseat of a black Escalade, with a smallish, swarthy-looking man in an off-the-rack suit getting out from the driver’s side.

  Holy freaking crap.

  What the hell was Matteo Scorpeone’s woman doing here?

  “Ms. Vitaliev? Hi hi, sorry to just show up on your doorstep like this.” Before I could tell Shona to get the hell inside and prepare for a siege, the blonde airily waved both manicured hands at me, showing me their emptiness while her Prada bag bounced in the crook of her elbow. “I’m Emily, from uh...the other night. Um, at Castlemont. Do you remember me, by any chance?”

  In less than a heartbeat I assessed the situation. It wasn’t great. I didn’t have Konstantin by my side, but I did have Shona, who was my responsibility to keep safe. I had this seemingly harmless woman from the Scorpeone camp popping up out of nowhere spewing out my name when I know Polo went out of his way not to directly refer to me in front of Matteo. That would have been like waving a red flag in front of a pissed-off bull, and the situation had already been dangerous enough. Lastly, Emily had brought protection with her, since I spotted the bulge of a gun under the smallish man’s jacket, and the assessing way his eyes slid over the parking lot reminded me of every bodyguard I’d ever had.

  Bodyguard.

  Shit, I really could have used Konstantin right about now.

  Where the hell is he?

  Keeping one eye on the man and the other eye on the approaching blonde, I discreetly shooed Shona toward the door. “This probably isn’t the smartest thing you’ve ever done, Ms...?”

  “I’m a doctor, actually. Well, of dentistry. Dr. Emily Fields-Scorpeone, as it happens.” She smiled nervously, displaying the kind of perfect teeth every dentist should have. “Hi there.”

  “Holy shit,” Shona whispered, and instead of saving herself and getting the hell out of there, she grabbed my hand and held on tight. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  I couldn’t have agreed with the sentiment more. “You’re a dentist...and a Scorpeone?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I never thought there could be a combination worse than orange juice and toothpaste, but I think that might be it. Sorry,” I hurried to say when her warily hopeful expression crumbled into dismay. “Really, I’m so sorry, that just popped out all on its own.”

  “I told you this was a waste of time.” The smallish man’s voice clashed in a big way with his vaguely rat-like appearance. He sounded better than James Earl Jones reading Shakespeare. “She’s a Vitaliev. She might look harmless, but she’s not. None of them are. They’re monsters clothed in human skin. I know that’s hard for you to understand since you don’t know the world you married into, but it’s true, Em. You’re playing with fire.”

  “I can hear you, you know.” I thought it was only fair to tell him. I might be a monster in his eyes, but I was a fair monster. “And as it happens, I agree with you. I can’t believe you drove her to meet with me. What were you thinking?”

  The man’s close-set eyes narrowed dangerously. “It was the lesser of two evils. Either I did this with her, or she’d find a way to do it herself. At least with me here, you might not be so eager to take her out.”

  “Shit,” Shona said again, but this time it carried that same flash of irritation I felt at his words. She scowled so hard at him I could almost believe she was trying to knock him on his ass with the power of her glare alone. “Are you for real, asshole? Did you just stand there on our doorstep and insinuate my girl would launch an attack on someone who’s about as gangster as a sorority pledge? Who raised you?”

  The man’s expression became the epitome of a murder face, but before he could say a word, Emily
held up a staying hand. “You’re right, that’s not the note I want to set for this meeting, and for what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re going to take me out, as Bruno put it. You don’t look the type.”

  “Never judge a book by its cover,” I warned her, then had to eye-roll at my idiocy. Here she was, saying nice things and being reasonable, and I had to throw it back in her face because she’d married a Scorpeone. “The thing is, Vitalievs and Scorpeones are like a spark in dry grass, Dr. Scorpeone. Together we make a recipe for disaster, and your man knows it. Forgive me, but you really should leave now before anything goes wrong.”

  “No.” She came to stand right before me, and there was no denying the stress mixed with determination in her pale blue eyes. “I’m not going to leave until I’ve said what I came to say. My husband and my children’s future depend on it.”

  I sighed and looked heavenward. Oy. She just had to bring children into this. “Okay, though this goes against my better judgment. Come on in. You,” I pointed hard at the man named Bruno, “keep your jacket buttoned and hands where I can see them the whole time. My turf, my rules.”

  Murder face still in place, Bruno gave one imperceptible nod.

  “I’d offer you coffee, but we just came back from lunch so we don’t have anything brewing.” As we entered, I led the way to my desk while Shona made a beeline for hers, looking like she was prepared to take cover underneath it if things went south. With my hands up and palms out, I stood off to one side of the desk, my eyes on Bruno. “I’m assuming you want to check the desk.”

  “That’s the procedure.” With calm efficiency, he did his thing, but paused when he got to the locked right top drawer. “What’s in here?”

  “Petty cash and a loaded Glock.” When his gaze flicked my way, I lifted a shoulder. “It’ll stay locked. You finished?”

  He didn’t answer, instead testing the drawer one last time. Then he nodded and moved away. I dropped my hands and took my seat, all the while trying to estimate how fast I could get to my gun if Bruno decided it was open season on Vitalievs. No matter how I sliced it, I wound up the loser without Konstantin there to back me up.