by Stacy Gail
“Don’t you forget it,” she called after him as he headed for the door.
His smile vanished the moment he was out in the hall and had her securely locked inside. Across from him leaning against the wall was Steele, his scarred face looking more sinister than ever as he returned his somber gaze.
“Your lady’s apartment smells like gingerbread, apples and cinnamon—way better than her neighbor’s across the hall,” Steele said by way of greeting. With a nodding glance toward the end of the hall where Nix stood guard, he and Steele headed for the stairs. “I think her neighbor has cats. Lots and lots of cats.”
“Hopefully this’ll be the last time you’ll have to be in this hallway.”
“What, you’re not going to invite me over after this? Some friend you are.”
“If I invited you over, then I’d have to invite Havlik. Otherwise he’d cry.” That reminded him of the message he’d received, and he fished his phone out. When he saw the message, he scowled and came to a stop.
Call me.
In a handful of seconds, Rude listened as the line picked up. “You’re not going to believe this, Rudy.”
“Is he here, or isn’t he?” Rude quickly put the phone on speaker, then modified the sound so only he and Steele could hear it.
“Oh, he’s here,” came the even reply, and that alone ratcheted up Rude’s alertness to another level. Havlik only got that cold, even tone when he was ready to break someone in half. “I’m looking at him right now. Asshole pulled in right across from Sass’s building in a bright red Ferrari, got out, leaned against the car door and waved at all of us in our various fucking positions. He clocked us all. Right now the cocksucker’s smiling up at the sky like he’s enjoying a good long laugh at our expense. Motherfucker.”
Steele’s expression hardened until he looked almost demonic. “Why can’t we shoot him? We’d be doing the world a favor, taking out the fucking garbage.”
Havlik made a grunting sound. “That’s what I said. I said please and everything. For some strange reason, Cap said no.”
“It’s cool.” Unlike Havlik and Steele, everything inside Rude settled and became icily calm. “I’d better get down there. Don’t want to keep our guest waiting.”
Steele resumed his post outside of the apartment while Rude descended the stairs, shrugging into his coat as he headed for the door. Through the glass he could see a hint of red across the street, and without pause he pushed out into the cold November morning, pulling his gloves on as he went.
The first thing he noticed about Marco Polo Scorpeone was that his sunglasses were gone, and a tiny cut now decorated the bridge of his nose.
Good job, Sass.
The second thing he noticed was that the mark Sass had reported seeing on the right side of his neck was, as far as he could tell, the curled tail of a scorpion with a drop of poison on its tip.
And lastly, he was smiling right at him.
Fucker clearly wanted to die today.
“Thanks for not keeping me waiting,” he greeted, his tone light and happy. It was the way a man greeted a good buddy. The mere sound of it made Rude want to rip the bastard’s arm off and beat him to death with it. “I appreciate that. It’s colder than a well digger’s ass out here, know what I mean?”
“I’d never be so rude as to leave you hanging. My only goal this morning is to make sure I help you get on your way as quickly as possible. One way or another.”
“Now, Rude… wait, you don’t mind if I call you Rude, do you?”
“Yeah, I do.” That was Sass’s name for him.
The man, Scorpio, lifted a shoulder. “Just trying to be friendly since we’re all on the same side here. You can call me Polo if you want.”
Jesus, this guy was the fucking limit. “All I want to call you is gone. What do I have to do to make that happen?”
“Come for a ride with me.”
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“Come on. I even brought my favorite car just for you.”
“Not going to happen.”
Another smile bloomed. “You’re not that scared of me, are you?”
Rude’s humorless laugh left a vapor trail in the frigid air. “Yeah, I’m fucking petrified…of leaving Sass’s side.”
“With all the firepower you’ve brought with you today? As of this moment, I suspect Sass is the safest woman in all of Chicagoland.”
And Rude was going to do everything he could to keep it that way. “If I were ordered to take down a target, the first thing I’d do is identify problems around that target, and eliminate them so I could take my time and have a clear shot at the main prize. With that in mind, you should know that the only way I’m leaving Sass’s side is in a fucking body bag. Why don’t you try to put me in one? You might even be able to do it.”
Scorpio pursed his lips and tilted his head, clearly evaluating him from another angle. “Yeah, I might. But one of your buddies would drop me before I could enjoy the victory, so there’s no point in getting into it with you. Though it would be fun,” he added honestly, and Rude didn’t doubt him. Trying to kill him would be considered fun for the likes of this designer-dressed piece of shit.
“You’re still not telling me how I can make you gone. Do I have to put you in a body bag?”
Scorpio went back to smiling, and this time he saw what had scared Sass so much. This guy, if pushed, was dangerous enough to make even the Devil piss himself. “That wasn’t a threat, was it, Rude?”
“That’s Sass’s name for me, and it wasn’t a threat. If killing you is what it takes to make her safe, then I swear to God that’s what I’ll do.”
“Even if you die in the process?”
“I think that’s kinda obvious, Scorpio. If I can take the threat to my woman with me into death, then that’s one hell of a good way to go out.”
The smile vanished, and for a second Scorpio’s expression was so blank it was like the plug had been pulled on the thing that made his human motor run. Rude had seen a lot of weird shit in his life, but this guy was hitting the top of the list when it came to being unnerving.
“So you’re a genuine Romeo, eh? You’d die for her? Don’t answer, I can see you would. You really fucking mean it, you would actually go that far, as long as it guaranteed she’d be safe.” He tilted his head the other way, this time with a curious air. “It’s a very rare thing to run across someone like you, Rudolfo Panuzzi. I wonder if you’re that way because you’ve already looked death in the eye and made peace with it while stuck in some foreign shithole.”
It didn’t surprise him that this asshole had researched him as much as PSI had researched Scorpio, a shadowy but prolific torpedo, or contract killer, in Vitaliev’s army. “I’m this way because I love my woman, and if you can’t understand that, you’ll never get why I’d die for her. And,” he added flatly, putting every ounce of truth he had into the vow, “why I’ll kill for her.”
The man named Scorpio didn’t move. Neither did Rude. Every instinct he had pulled piano-wire tight, because the man standing before him was a bomb wanting desperately to go off. One little twitch would do it, and before he could blink there would be two bodies in the street…
“Yeah, you’re right, I don’t really get it. But that’s basically what my employer wanted to hear from you, so it’s cool. And he’s going to be real jazzed when he hears about this show of force,” he added, sliding back into genial mode so abruptly it left Rude staring. “I counted six outside, plus you and… what? One more dedicated soldier inside with Sass? You’ll get top marks from the old man with that kind of protection for his little girl, no doubt about it.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should. From the moment my employer learned of Sass’s existence, all he wanted was to make sure she was taken care of… but taken care of quietly, and from afar.”
That got his attention. “What do you mean, from afar?”
“This building?” Scorpio tilted his head at Sass’s apartmen
t building behind him. “He owns it. When Sass went apartment-hunting years ago with that hot, inked-out piece—what’s her name, Scout?—my employer made sure they got the deal of a fucking lifetime. The grant Sass received to go to college was also a gift from her father, along with the first newspaper that offered to put her writing into syndication. From the time he knew of her existence, when she was about seventeen or eighteen, Borysko Vitaliev has made sure she’s led a charmed life. He calls it a father’s prerogative.”
Rude’s pulse hammered at the thought of Sass having been watched all that time while he’d been half a world away, oblivious to the danger that had been a breath from her. “He sounds like a real doting daddy.”
“To his children, he is.”
“Then why didn’t he show up on her doorstep and introduce himself years ago?”
“The old man’s got two other kids.” Scorpio shrugged, and for the first time something dark moved through his expression that Rude couldn’t put a finger on. “Considering how volatile my employer’s line of work has been in the past, there have been times when those kids have been targeted for one reason or another. Also, he’s not what you’d call destitute. The old man’s built an empire, and with an empire comes a whole host of greedy assholes wanting their piece of it, including a few family members who don’t want to share with anyone. Because of these factors, he understandably doesn’t want the world to know that Sass exists. Believe me, her anonymity keeps her safer than all the highly skilled, military-trained personnel you’ve got set up around us.”
So Sass had a family that might not be too happy to know she existed. He could only imagine what her reaction would be to that bombshell. “If he doesn’t want the world to know she’s his kid, why does he want to see her now?”
Again that dark something moved through the other man’s expression, and for the first time he shifted his weight, a telltale sign of discomfort. “Fucking Russians. Ever met one? Most of them smoke like they can’t fucking breathe if they’re not doing it through a cigarette.”
The light went on. “Cancer?”
Scorpio grimaced, as though the word had personally offended him and he didn’t know how to get his revenge on it. “Diagnosed last year. He doesn’t have long now. You’d think that’d stop him from smoking, right? When I saw him this morning, sonofabitch was off his oxygen so he could puff away like a goddamn freight train. Could’ve blown himself sky-high with his O2 tanks sitting right there, that stubborn Russian. Though technically speaking, Borysko Vitaliev isn’t Russian. He’s Ukrainian, and Sass looks and acts just like him.”
Considering her mother had been a blonde, blue-eyed nitwit, he’d already figured as much. “So he wants to have a heartfelt family reunion before he kicks, yeah? What if Sass isn’t interested?”
“That’s where you come in,” came the surprising reply. “Haven’t you guessed by now? Giving Sass twenty-four hours wasn’t for her. It was for you.”
Rude’s eyes narrowed as a sick, sinking feeling he’d been played echoed through him. “Bullshit.”
“I was hoping I could talk you into helping me help Sass come to the conclusion that family is everything, and that she really needs to see her father before it’s too late.”
Shit. He had been played. “Normally I’d agree with you that family is everything. After all, I come from a decent, loving Italian family.”
“Gotta love Mama Coco and Papa Bolo. Salt of the earth, they are. Rumor has it you’re putting together their anniversary party this year. How’s that going?”
God, he’d fucking kill this guy before the day was done. “As of the age of fourteen, Sass also comes from a decent, loving Italian family. She has all the family she needs.”
“That may be, and it’s wonderful how well your family looked after her. Sadly, not all the foster homes she wound up in were as loving. But karma’s a funny thing. In the end, people usually get what they deserve.”
Rude’s eyes narrowed. “The Dietrichs and that shithead Cadwallader are prime examples of that, yeah?”
“So it would seem.”
“So it would seem, my ass. You did that.”
Scorpio pursed his lips. “I was just a wide-eyed college kid when the Dietrichs went. And as for that scum Cadwallader…Did you know he spat on Sass as she lay at the foot of those stairs he did his damnedest to kill her on? Not to speak ill of the dead, but in my humble opinion fate somehow managed to give that unworthy scum exactly what he deserved.”
Rage roared through Rude, so overwhelming he was certain the other man could hear it. “Good thing he’s dead.”
Scorpio’s mouth curled. “Thought you’d see it that way. Being Italian, you’re a passionate guy. And being Italian, you understand how important blood is. The Panuzzis aren’t Sass’s blood. My employer is.”
“You want to talk blood? How about all the blood on Borysko Vitaliev’s hands? The FBI’s had him on their radar for thirty fucking years, from hijacking gasoline tankers of his rivals to racketeering, to running the largest drug syndicate in the Midwest. How many bodies has your employer buried to get to the top of the food chain and become the Bratva’s boss? Wait, don’t answer that question. Instead, answer this one—why would I ever allow my woman to go anywhere near someone who’s drenched in that kind of blood?”
Scorpio listened with that thoughtful tilt of his head. “You’ll allow it because one way or another, it’s going to happen.”
“Jesus, you’ve got to have the biggest pair of balls in recorded history. You do understand that all I have to do is raise my hand and three bullets from three separate sniper rifles end your miserable fucking existence, don’t you? I’ve already been asked by one of them to please—I shit you not, he actually said please—let him shoot you.”
Again Scorpio shrugged, though Rude was gratified to see his eyes shift to where Echo, Cap, Havlik, Weitzler, Luke and Xander were positioned. “And yet you haven’t raised your hand. Why?”
“To be honest, I don’t know. Maybe up to this point I’ve found this enlightening. Now I’m just getting pissed.”
“And maybe you understand that deep down every human being deserves to know where they come from. That chance was stolen from Sass the moment she was abandoned by her mother, and she’s been incomplete ever since. I don’t think you can fully grasp what that’s like, being the much-adored youngest of five Panuzzi children. But I can guarantee you that Sass carries around a big blank hole inside her that nothing but family can fill.”
Rude had to lock his muscles in place to keep from beating the shit out of the other man for presuming to know anything about Sass. “If it comes down to a decision between knowing where she comes from and putting herself in danger with the rest of Vitaliev’s kids, then Sass will just have to live with that blank hole inside. At least she’ll be alive to do it.”
“Everyone knows the old man’s on his way out, so the pressure’s eased off on his children. Not to mention I’d be very circumspect in bringing her in. No one, not even the estate’s staff, would see her coming or going. I’ll see to that personally.”
“That’d be a great guarantee… if I trusted you.”
Scorpio sighed. “Look, I’ll bottom-line it for you, Romeo. My employer has expressed a profound and driving need to see his youngest child before he dies. You should know that I always find a way to make sure he gets what he wants, so Sass will be seeing him. But between you and me, I don’t want it to be a traumatic thing for her. She’s had too much of that shit in her life already. So after giving it some thought, I came to the conclusion that it won’t be traumatic if she chooses to see him. If anything, it’ll be cathartic. She’ll finally know where she comes from. Do you really want to keep her from that?”
What he really wanted to do was not accept that this asshole had a point, so he avoided answering by turning back to the building. “I’ll talk it over with Sass, but I’m not making any promises.”
“I’ll need an answer soon, and that’s not jus
t me being a dick. Her father doesn’t have long now.”
“Call PSI and leave your number,” Rude said without turning around. “I’ll let you know when I have an answer.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Panuzzis’ two-story brick Workers Cottage home looked as cozy as a scene from the front of a Christmas card, with its windows aglow and snow covering its pitched roof. Sass stared up at it as she climbed out of Rude’s SUV and wished with all her heart that she could somehow pull the peace of the scene into her.
Like the night before, she couldn’t sleep after Rude had told her of his meeting with the man named Scorpio. That meant she had now gone two nights without any rest, and it was beginning to take its toll. Finally Rude decided she needed to break the ceaseless cycle of worrying over what she needed to do to get her life back under control, and got her out of the apartment. She hadn’t expected to wind up at Mama Coco and Papa Bolo’s house, but his determination to take along the layered pumpkin cheesecake she’d made suddenly made sense.
“I take it we’re having dinner with your parents?”
“Yeah.” After rounding the front of his car, he curled an arm around her shoulders and steered her up the pathway to the front porch steps. “I actually got the invite-slash-summons for the two of us late yesterday afternoon, but considering you were in the midst of trying to put the apartment back together, I didn’t want to put even more pressure on you by telling you about it. So I rescheduled it for today.”
“It’s no pressure to see Mama Coco and Papa Bolo. They’re family.” Then she cringed at the word. She’d once dreamed of being found by her family. It was the most common fantasy of any kid in foster care. She couldn’t count how many nights she’d lain awake, dreaming of some unknown person appearing out of the blue to save her, assuring her that her abandonment had been a terrible mistake and that she’d always been loved and wanted.
Reality left one hell of a lot to be desired.
Rude seemed to sense her discomfort, because his arm tightened on her shoulders. “They are your family, Sassy, and don’t you forget it.”