From behind the thick steel door, Levi’s laughter rang out, followed by the abrupt zing of a power drill.
Knox dug out his keys, but before he could find the one he wanted, the door swung open.
Keeping one hand on the door knob, Danny stepped back enough to bring a good chunk of the loft’s main room into view. He motioned over his shoulder to Beckett and the gorgeous black man with dreads she’d met at the concert. Both were perched on ladders and hanging what had to be at least a fifty-inch flat screen on the wall where a beautiful landscape had been. Five other flat screens just like it were already in place. “You got here just in time. We’ve almost got the surveillance feeds hooked up. If you don’t want bank vault locks and retina scanners on the front door, you better jump in now, ’cause Beckett’s got a security threat boner.”
As if he’d just realized she was there, Danny shot her his huge and totally disarming smile, leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Welcome home, sweet cheeks.”
Four other men she didn’t recognize strode into view, all of them dressed in the same black cargo and T-shirt combo the men outside the gate had worn and hefting everything from tools to computer wire. “Who are they?”
“They’re on Beckett’s crew,” Danny said before Knox could. “Mine’s working the perimeter.”
Knox urged her into the bustling room. “How much longer ’til we’re ready to go online?”
“Already are,” Beckett said, proving that he was one hundred percent aware of everything going on around him despite having his hands full. He glanced over his shoulder and jerked his head toward the computers set up on the previously ignored dining room table. “Got all the feeds piped in first. Saw you pull in.” His gaze shifted to Darya and he winked. “Hey, sassy.”
Levi’s bright voice shot from the open kitchen. “You’re here!”
At his words, Trevor, Natalie, Zeke and Gabe all turned their attention on Darya. Unlike the rest of the people in the room, they’d made themselves at home around the giant island, Trevor and Zeke casually enjoying a beer while Nat and Gabe futzed over what looked like a snack tray.
She braced, expecting a frigid blast of frowns or glares.
One by one, her presence registered in their gazes, but it wasn’t anger that burned behind them. It was the same, friendly greeting they always offered.
Well, expect for Trevor. He actually did frown, but aimed it at Knox beside her. “Jesus, brother. What route did you take to get here? We drove all the way from Haven and still beat you.”
Not the least bit daunted by the wires strung all directions or the chaos around him, Levi hustled their direction, his boots loud on the concrete floors. “Isn’t this cool? Uncle Beckett said he’d teach me how to use all his cool gadgets after he gets everything set up.”
“Uncle Beckett’s smokin’ crack.” Knox ruffled Levi’s head and steered Darya toward the kitchen with a hand between her shoulder blades. “Anything with an electrical current is mine. He’s just in charge of muscle. You wanna know how stuff works, you come to me.”
Knox peeled her purse off her shoulder and tossed it on the kitchen counter like it was any other normal night instead of one where they were bracing for lockdown.
Natalie waved toward the snacks they’d laid out on the island and headed for the fridge. “Grab something to eat. You want anything to drink?”
“Beer for me.” Knox kissed her cheek and squeezed her shoulder. “I’m gonna check the feeds real quick. Have a seat and settle in. Grab something to eat.”
Have a seat.
Settle in.
Grab something to eat.
Completely relaxed. No different than the other occasions they’d gotten together as a family except that this time the security was escalating to Fort Knox. No matter how much she wanted her mind to do something useful and offer up an explanation, it wouldn’t budge. Nor would her feet, incredulous wonder keeping her locked in place.
“You okay?” Levi said.
She surfaced from her dumbfounded stupor to find Levi clutching her hand and Zeke beside her. Except the man on her right wasn’t the patient and kind brother she’d come to know over the last several weeks. This was the doctor, his narrowed and assessing gaze roving her face.
“You’re not mad?” She hadn’t meant to ask it. Hadn’t even really realized the fear she’d walked into the room with until her subconscious had set forth the question, but now that she had, she really wanted to know the answer.
Zeke’s mouth crooked in a goofy grin. “Are you kidding? If someone in our family hadn’t done something to perk things up soon, I’d have had to start doling out antidepressants.” He looped an arm around her neck and motioned Levi toward the food. “Load her up, Levi. Doctor’s orders.”
“Right,” Levi said with the single-minded focus she’d come to appreciate in the little boy. “Food fixes everything.”
Trevor snickered and lifted his beer off the counter. “Well, it will for another year or two, then you’ll find another delightful mood fixer.”
Natalie popped the top off Knox’s beer and scowled at Trevor. “Cut it out.”
“It’s okay, Mom. It’s just sex.”
Gabe and Zeke did their best not to let it out, but their chests both shook on a rich chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” Knox said as he came up behind her.
Natalie handed Knox a beer and pursed her mouth in a rueful mew. “Trev’s been bonding with Levi over the birds and the bees, and Gabe and Zeke are earning some serious karmic debt giggling about it.”
Knox eyeballed Levi, total seriousness. “Remember what I said about coming to me for electronics?
“Yeah.”
“Same goes for sex.”
“Don’t listen to him, kid,” Zeke said. “I’m the one with a medical degree. I know how it all really works. Especially the important parts.”
Just when Natalie looked like she was about to grab Zeke and Knox by the ears and kick them out of the loft, the front door opened to a chorus of boisterous voices.
“Sorry we’re late!” Sylvie bellowed, her arms full of grocery bags.
Ninette and Vivienne were equally loaded down right behind her, while Jace and Axel brought up the rear. “Only woman I know who thinks a store run is mission-critical in a crisis situation,” Axel grumbled, though his eyes danced with mirth.
Already halfway to the kitchen, Sylvie handed off her bags to Danny while Jace locked up the front door. “I’ve seen what these boys keep in their refrigerator. If we’re holing up until we get a decent plan for whatever’s going on, I’m not doing it without something to satisfy my stomach.”
And that was that. In seconds, Sylvie had commandeered the kitchen and set all the women to different tasks. The men gathered round the makeshift control center on the dining room table, their voices low and attention zeroed in on the screens now lit up with every view of the building. The only person dazed and motionless in the room was her.
Ninette moved in beside her and motioned to the untouched plate Levi had left on the counter in front her. “Are you saving yourself for Sylvie’s cooking, or is the general idea of food not something you’re up for right now?”
One glance at the white ceramic plate and anyone would guess a child had prepared it. Only one cursory carrot, a celery stick and three red grapes sat isolated in one spot. The rest of the space was loaded with three different kinds of cheese cubes, crackers and Nacho Cheese Doritos.
Such an amazing gift. Levi’s open kindness as genuine and unshaken as the reception she’d received from everyone else. Three times she’d had amazing people go above and beyond to help her. This time she had a whole team of guardian angels.
She lifted her gaze to the other women working in the kitchen, then slid her attention to the men. “I can’t ever repay this,” she said
so quietly only Ninette could hear. “Ever. Not what they’re doing. Not how everyone has treated me. None of it. It’s too much.”
Just as softly, Ninette answered back. “What makes you think we’d want repayment?”
It was a good question. One she’d never really contemplated before. Only knew how many times she’d been blessed and wanted desperately to share what she’d been given with someone else.
Ninette moved in tight beside her and slid her arm around Darya’s waist. Together they watched the men as they worked, their low voices rumbling in a comforting cadence that somehow anchored all the activity in the room. “I’m not sure where you got the idea there’s some karmic tally being kept, but to my mind, family doesn’t work that way. Especially not ours.” She paused long enough to dip her head toward Knox front and center with his fingers flying over the keyboard. “But if you’re worried about payback, then take a good look at my boy and think about this. I’ve seen him happier the last many weeks than the whole six years I’ve known him. He’s always been funny, but I’ve never seen him free. Not the way he is with you. So, if you ask me, any repayment’s been made a hundred times over.”
She met Darya’s stunned stare head-on, jerked her head toward the island and winked. “Now, get your plate and plant your ass on a bar stool. If you need a stiff drink, I’ll pour you one, but I’ll be damned if I’m the last one who gets to hear all the sordid details of why we’re on lockdown.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The last straggler from Beckett’s install crew closed the door behind him, leaving only Knox’s family safe within the loft. For the last thirty minutes, Knox, Danny and Beckett had tweaked camera angles throughout the building via remote access controls on their computers, each man seated next to each other at the massive dining room table they’d finally found a use for.
Lined up on the opposite side with their backs to the row of six flat screen monitors, Jace, Axel, Trevor and Zeke looked surprisingly calm for the curveball Knox had thrown on family night. Despite all the chaos buzzing around them and the lack of information as to why Beckett was pulling out all the stops, not a one of them had pushed for answers.
Now that the coast was clear, they were about to get an earful. It also meant he was one step closer to having logistics over and done with and Darya next to him again.
On his left, Danny waited until the elevator doors closed on the install crew then nodded. “They’re clear.”
“Good.” Knox twisted to see Beckett ambling back from a trip to the fridge with a fresh Bud in hand. Levi and the women were gathered round the island well behind him. “You checked for bugs, right?”
Beck chuckled and slid into his chair next to Knox. “Ninette’s been draggin’ details out of Darya for the last thirty minutes. Even with her sly references to cover what they were talking about from Levi and keepin’ their voices low when outsiders were close, you think I’d let them talk if I hadn’t swept the place first thing?”
So, he’d caught the same bits and pieces Knox had. Which meant the rest of his brothers probably had as well.
Sure enough, Jace leaned into the table and braced both his forearms on the dark-stained wood. “All right, brother. Break it down. What the hell’s going on?”
“In a nutshell? Some jackass in the Russian mob named Ruslan Sokolov is after Darya.”
Jace stared at Knox another beat, scanned the row of computers on the table, then glanced at the screens on the wall. “I take it the fact that you’ve got this place locked up tighter than the White House means things between you and Darya have shifted?”
“Oh, they’ve shifted all right. She’s mine.”
Axel chuckled and Beckett scoffed a classic I told you so. The rest of the guys shared a mix of knowing grins and eye rolls.
Jace just twirled his ever-present toothpick, the look on his face a mix between humor and pride. “Gotta say, when you go down, you go big. Care to share when you ramped from taking things slow to a quarter mile sprint?”
“About a nanosecond after I found her with her bags packed and ready to bolt.”
Beckett’s head whipped from the screen he’d been looking at to Knox, the surprise on his face no different than if Knox had pulled a gun on him. “What?”
Despite the volume behind Beckett’s question, the women kept on with their chatter, only Darya’s gaze sliding to the men with a touch of curiosity.
Knox cast what he hoped was a reassuring smile her direction then refocused on his brothers. “Apparently, me sleeping with her makes me not only an automatic target, but a fluorescent one with landing lights pointed to it.” He couldn’t give a shit less about being a target, but remembering the punch that had come with seeing her bags packed on her bed kicked his heart up to an uncomfortable rhythm. “I love my family. With what she says this guy is capable of and the risk it could bring down on everyone else, it might have been safer if I’d let her go, but I can’t.” He scanned his brothers. “She’s mine and I’m keeping her.”
“Now, there’s a lad who knows his mind,” Axel said. He looked to Jace. “I’ll back his play.”
Beckett reclined against his seat back. “Took him long enough, but I’m in.”
“Hell, yeah,” Trevor said.
Zeke lifted his Bohemia Weiss. “Then the taken men officially outweigh the free agents, ’cause I’m in, too.”
Danny twisted in his chair enough to lean one elbow on the table and met Knox’s gaze head on. “If I vote yes, does this mean your little black book’s up for grabs? If it does, you get my vote.”
“Not thinkin’ Darya’d let me within a city block of any woman I’d even thought about sleeping with, so yeah.” He crossed his arms on his chest. “Although, I’m a little incensed you’d think I’d actually store the names and numbers of phenomenal hookups on paper.”
Jace huffed out a low laugh. “Well, I’m not gonna say no to Knox nabbing himself a good woman, so aside from passing down Knox’s top ten list, that only leaves one more thing to deal with.” He locked gazes with Knox. “Tell us more about the Russian jackass we’ve gotta take out to get our girl safe.”
For the next twenty minutes Knox did just that, rehashing the same details Darya had haltingly shared with him on the ride to the loft. How she’d caught Ruslan’s attention. About her job with Yefim and how he’d used his ties with another mafiya family to help her escape to the US. How she’d tied the name Koschei and the security footage outside their building together and realized Ruslan was closing in.
“And she thinks this Ruslan guy would stoop to leveraging one of us to draw her out if necessary?” Trevor asked Knox.
“She was certain of it. Said he was cutthroat enough to whack his own boss to take over the family.”
“Greedy,” Danny said under his breath. “If he’s ballsy enough to take that route, a woman or kid wouldn’t even be a blip on his conscience.”
“Nope,” Beckett agreed.
Zeke nodded as well. “Makes sense to keep an eye on the women, but if you knew you were gonna claim her, I don’t get why you came here. Yeah, you’ve got more gizmos and gadgets and a whole slew of new screens to keep an eye on things, but we’ve got a hell of a lot more room at Haven.”
He’d thought about that. Had even started to point his car toward 75 North the second he’d pulled out of Darya’s parking lot, but his instincts had taken over and steered him home. She belonged with him. Someplace where he not only knew every nook and cranny, but had eyes on them, too. Not to mention a host of escape routes and easy cover.
Axel chuckled and answered before Knox could wrap words around his thoughts. “Yeah, he’s not budging on that one. Gonna be a while before the caveman lets his new prize out of his bed. Doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t spread out at Haven. Sends the wrong message for us to all be cooped up under one roof anyway.”<
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“Right,” Jace said. “Best way to tip our hand is to let on we know we’re being watched by huddling under one roof. Better we split up tonight and make it look like it was just a family get together on the off chance you didn’t catch their tail. The women and Levi can bunk with me, Axel, Trevor and Zeke at Haven. Danny, Beckett, Knox and Darya can stay here.”
“That’s not gonna fly with the moms and you know it,” Axel said. “You saw the haul they brought in from the store. Darya’s their new little chick. If she doesn’t go to Haven with the rest of the women, those groceries aren’t comin’ out of the cabinets and their butts will be right here making sure she’s got their kind of support until this shite is over.”
Damn, but he liked that. Not just the fact that the women who’d all but adopted him approved of the woman he’d chosen for his own, but that Darya would finally have the maternal support she’d lost way too early in life.
“We can make that work,” Beckett said. “Got a corner loft open right beneath Knox’s suite that Danny and I can use to crash in when we need to. Ninette and Sylvie can have my rooms since this floor’s secured.”
“Think it’s smart all of us stay visible, too,” Trevor said. “The idea of the women and Levi being exposed rubs me wrong, though.”
“So, we limit the exposure,” Zeke said. “If they go out without us, they do it only with backup.”
“Well, we’ve got plenty of that,” Beckett said. “I’ll rearrange schedules and make sure our top guys are freed up for family detail when we need it.”
Fighting the need to get up and pace, Knox snatched one of three pens he’d tossed to the table while unpacking his laptop and twirled it between his fingers. “So, what’s our next step on Ruslan?” he said to Beckett.
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