by Stacy Gail
“Um, Polo? Could you hand me a shirt, please?” Seriously, I couldn’t help it. No more than five feet away stood a Dolly Parton lookalike, while my much less impressive rack was out there for all to see. Considering Polo’s well-defined, breathtaking pecs were also on full display, I was pretty sure I had the smallest boobs in the room.
Perfect.
Jubilee waved a manicured hand at me, her jewel-tipped claws glittering in the light. “Trust me, you’re more decent than ninety-five percent of this building’s current occupants—and one-hundred percent of the occupants of the Orgy Room.”
My eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. “The… the what?”
“It’s a swinger’s club,” Polo muttered, looking like he didn’t know whether to laugh or roll his eyes. “There are a lot of themed rooms.”
“I’ll give you the grand tour when you’re feeling up to it,” Jubilee promised brightly, looking proud. “Though for today, I suspect you’ll just want to eat and rest, am I right? Poor thing, you’re just covered in bruises. You don’t happen to have anything to sleep in or have a change of clothes with you, do you?”
“Oh.” I looked down at my dirty, blood-spattered jeans and itched to get out of them. I couldn’t stand sleeping in my clothes, an unfortunate leftover from when I’d been kidnapped as a child. “I’m afraid not.”
“Not to worry, little bird, I’ll come up with an entire wardrobe for you by the end of the day. Quick question—do you like animal prints, or are you more of a spank-me leather girl?”
Help. “Uh, anything is fine. And please don’t go to any trouble—”
“It’s no trouble at all, believe me. Back in the day, I loved taking care of the girls who got on the wrong side of a man who didn’t deserve that label, because no real man uses his strength on someone who’s weaker than him.”
“Amen to that,” I said, relaxing enough to smile at her. “I feel the same way.”
If possible, Jubilee’s smile got brighter. “Of course you do! That’s why you’re with Polo—every instinct you’ve got tells you he’d never raise a hand to a woman in anger.”
My heart swelled. “Exactly.”
“And you’re extra-lucky to be with him because I made sure I trained this boy right. He knows how to treat a woman, if you know what I mean. But if he ever forgets his manners, you just come to me and I’ll straighten him out.”
Once again I had no idea what to say. “So far I have no complaints.”
“And here I thought this couldn’t get any more awkward.” Though his voice was hard-edged with irritation, there was a world of gentleness in the way he brushed the backs of his fingers against my uninjured cheek. “As if I would ever forget my manners with Dasha. She’s my only thought.”
The sweetest happiness blossomed through me, and I lifted my head to gaze up at this beautiful man I thought I’d lost forever.
For a heartbeat, I half-believed he’d suddenly fly backward with a gruesome geyser of blood shooting from his chest.
God, no…
“Aww, that’s exactly what every woman wants to hear from her man,” Jubilee approved while my pulse stuttered sickly and my stomach lurched. I blinked hard and jerked my gaze away on a sharp breath. It hadn’t been real, I told myself firmly, gritting my teeth and focusing on getting my heart rate back to normal. None of it had been real. Now that I knew that, the agony that went with experiencing his “death” shouldn’t have been real, either. “It’s like I said, Dash. You’re lucky to have him.”
“Lucky?” I took a careful breath to make sure I wasn’t going to puke, before I turned and made myself smile at Jubilee with a serenity I couldn’t seem to hold onto. “Oh yeah, absolutely. Believe me, I know.”
Chapter Five
Polo
As far as Polo was concerned, it took forever for Jubilee to go the hell away. She dithered over Dash like she was a lost kitten, getting ice packs for her ankle, arm and face, providing an extra bottle of pain reliever and propping Dash’s wrapped foot up on a poufy, fringed footstool Jubilee had retrieved from her private rooms.
But at long last, they were finally alone.
“You still haven’t tried the oatmeal.” After double-locking the door behind Jubilee—not that that would stop the crazy woman—Polo slid into the chair next to Dash and studied her closely. With her shadowed eyes too big in her gaunt, bruised face, it was no wonder Jubilee’s protective instincts had kicked into hover-mode. From here on in, hover-mode was the only mode he had when it came to Dash. “Come on, beautiful. Try to eat for me, yeah? Just try.”
The unenthusiastic way she picked up the spoon worried him even more. “I’m more tired than hungry. Do you happen to have a phone I could borrow? I need to call Shona to let her know I’m not going to be in until some time after lunch today.”
“Rudy’s already let Shona know that you’re not going to be in for a couple of days, and why. He also picked up your purse when he went back to get your car,” he added when she opened her mouth to protest. “You can call her after you’ve eaten and rested.”
“Rudy did that, did he?” A strange expression crossed her face before she turned her attention to the oatmeal, shoveling in a spoonful with something like grim determination. “I didn’t see my car in the parking lot out back.”
“It’s hidden away under a tarp in the private garage Jubilee uses, just in case anyone’s interested in looking for it. Since I’m supposed to be dead and there’s no reason for you to be out here, it’d be kind of awkward if your car was spotted here at a swingers club.”
“I guess.” That odd expression zipped by again, so fast he couldn’t decipher it, before she put her spoon down. “Things have been moving so quickly that I haven’t even had time to ask you about that whole…you know.” She waved a vague hand his way. “Not-being-dead thing.”
“You can ask while you eat.” Reaching over, he put the spoon in her hand once more. “Come on. You can’t be full on just one bite.”
“There’s so much I don’t understand, though. How could you have lived through all that? I saw you get hit. I saw you fly backwards. You…you flew back away from me, Polo.”
“I know.” The memory of listening to Dash’s hysterical, agonized screams was something that would live with him forever, but he sure as hell didn’t want it to live with her forever, too. “I wish I could have spared you that. If you’d stayed away from your brother like I’d told you to, you would have been spared that.”
BOOM.
The moment the words were out of his mouth, he realized he’d stepped on a landmine. Instantly her eyes filled with not just tears, but echoes of a nightmare no human should have to endure. “I know what you told me, and I tried to get away from Knives, but he dragged me and I couldn’t get away, and I know it’s my fault—”
“Hey, hey, calm down, all right? I know, baby.” Kicking himself for the careless dick comment, Polo hauled her out of her seat and onto his lap, cradling her to his chest. She didn’t sob, or even make a sound, but she was shaking in a deep-in-the-core way that vibrated through her whole body. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he was such an asshole. “I saw you try to pull away, all right? I know you tried.”
“I didn’t try hard enough. I should have tried harder, and oh God, it’s all my fault. It was because of me that you died.”
“Dash, baby, stop. I didn’t die. I’m right here.” He gave her a hard squeeze for emphasis, and when her arms at last snaked around his neck to squeeze back, a knot of anxiety he hadn’t known was there loosened in his gut. “It’s all over now, okay? Just put it all behind you like it never even happened.”
“But…it did happen, and it’s not over.” Her words were muffled against his neck, because she’d buried her face there. And damn it, she was still shaking so hard he could almost believe something vital was coming apart inside of her. “You’re still here, pretending to be dead. Why?”
A rough sigh escaped him. He’d jumped through so many damn hoops and sacrificed
so fucking much to avoid having this conversation with her. He knew better than anyone what it was to be betrayed by the people closest to you. The last thing he’d ever allow was for that same vicious wound to be gouged into Dash. If she had to hurt for a while, or be upset or confused, or even come to hate him, he’d gladly make that sacrifice for her. But the one thing he would not fucking allow was for anyone to hand her the same god-awful wound his family had handed him. Not on his watch.
“Polo?”
He searched his mind for an answer they could both live with. “I guess I should start with what you first wanted to know—how my fake death came about. You up to hearing about it?”
At that, she straightened away to look at him. An invisible hand fisted around his heart at how those tears were still there in her too-big eyes, but she was stubbornly refusing to let them fall. “Absolutely.”
“You eat. I talk.” Taking the spoon from her, he dipped it into the cooling oatmeal, then brought it to her unpainted, closed mouth. “That’s the deal.”
For an answer she took the bite. When her eyes never left his, he found out there and then that when it came to Dasha Vitaliev, even oatmeal could be sexy.
“Even before Konstantin was murdered,” he began cautiously, picking his words with care, “there were a few indicators that whatever force was moving against you had nothing to do with the crime family that’s historically been the Vitaliev family’s Nemesis.”
“The Scorpeones.” She said the name without discernible distaste, something that was new for her. The Scorpeone family—his family—had been behind her kidnapping when she was a kid, an act that had changed all their lives forever. “I’ve never been convinced of their involvement.”
That was his Fearless—reading the situation as easily as she read a poker table. “I had Yuri Rodin and Indigo Ruiz check out what my biological brother, Matteo, has been up to since he took control of the Scorpeone business.”
“Matteo’s wife is convinced he went legitimate for her.”
“He must really love that woman.” As he spoke, he kept up a slow but steady pace of spoon-feeding her, all the while watching the softness of her full, pouty lips close over the spoon. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he leaned in to brush them with his own. But when their crushed silk softness readily responded, all it did was make every part of him ache for more. “He’s been clean-living for years, as far as Yuri can tell. There’s some shady shit going on with his vintage car hobby, but nothing drastic, and it sure as hell doesn’t have anything to do with organized crime.”
“So the threat’s coming from another source entirely.” She shifted in his lap, leaning into his chest as if she couldn’t get close enough. Desire stirred, smoldering deep in his gut and tightening his balls with a heavy, needy ache. “I knew it. The question is, who?”
“I have a question for you.” He paused in the task of feeding her to bring her head around until she faced him fully. “Why have you shut your brother out of your life? Yuri tells me you have.”
She nodded, again shifting that ass of hers around in his lap. If she was trying to distract him, she was doing one hell of a job. “I don’t recognize the man Knives has become. He’s way too dangerous to have around. The way he lives his life is what got you killed. I love him because he’s my brother, but I want nothing to do with him or the Vitaliev Bratva.”
“It’s good you’ve got your eyes wide open when it comes to Knives.” I love him because he’s my brother. Her words echoed in his head, reinforcing his already-ironclad determination to protect her no matter the cost to him. Keeping his expression calm, he spooned the last of the oatmeal into her made-for-sin mouth. “You need to be done with him, you understand, Dasha? Thoroughly, totally done.”
“Why do you say that? Before you died, you said Knives was involved in something that was going to be the end of him, or words to that effect.”
“That’s about it, and stop saying that I’m dead. I’m sitting right the fuck here.”
She waved this comment away. “What is Knives involved in? Did you get shot because of some sort of trouble going on with my brother? How did you survive getting shot, anyway? I saw the blood. There was…there was so much of it. I saw it…”
“One question at a time.” Not at all liking the tremor in her voice or her sudden pallor, he held her too-thin body closer. Her fragility didn’t matter to him; she was just as addictive as she had always been. “I’ve been working my ass off trying to get proof as to who’s behind everything, including tonight’s attack on you. Once I have that proof, the current plan is to go to Pavel Medvedev and get him to join me in eliminating this piece of shit once and for all.”
“Pavel Medvedev,” she repeated, her brows coming together. “Are you thinking that Konstantin’s murder was part of all this?”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking. But I need that proof, because mobilizing against this particular enemy…it’s no small thing. I can’t get to this target all on my own. Believe me, I’ve tried, but my target is too well-fortified for me to just roll up and take him out. I’ve been trying for two fucking months and I haven’t been able to get a clear shot at the bastard.”
“Who’s your target?”
He shook his head. No. He’d never allow her to be hurt like that. Not as long as the memory of his father’s betrayal festered in his soul, even after all these years. The last goddamn thing he’d ever do was saddle Dash with the misery that came with that kind of unmitigated betrayal.
“Since I don’t have that smoking gun yet, I’m not going to lay all my cards on the table until I’m good and ready.”
“Polo—”
“That part of the discussion’s closed, Dash. As for how I survived a sniper’s bullet…” He took a deep breath and tried to figure out how to clear the air without bringing the world crashing down on her. “A few hours before you and Knives were out on that rooftop terrace, the guys at PSI were doing a security sweep of the area. That was when they discovered a sniper’s nest across the street. That sniper was switched out for one of PSI’s men—a military-trained sniper who hit right where I was best protected with body armor.”
Her eyes widened. “Wait, what?”
“Yeah. Whoever paid that sniper to pull the trigger undoubtedly believed the sniper missed his target. But my getting shot was actually the plan we came up with.”
Shock darkened her already-dark eyes as she stared at him in disbelief…and something else he couldn’t decipher. “You…you let yourself get shot?”
“That wasn’t our first choice when it came to planning things out, but once Knives dragged you out onto that terrace, that was the best play we had to get some breathing room,” he said, setting the spoon aside so he could hold onto her. He did this because his instincts were telling him that she was on the verge of going off like a rocket. “The original sniper had a damn knife hidden in his boot, and he jammed it straight into his neck before we could get much out of him, like who was paying his fee. All we could get before he died was that his target wasn’t Knives, or me. It was you.”
Her face lost whatever remaining color it had. “What?”
“You were the target that night, Fearless. Someone’s put a contract out on you, and after tonight’s attack two things are obvious. One, that contract is still in play. And two, whoever’s put that contract out on you, they’re watching your every move.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Think about it. Tonight was the first time you’ve been without a bodyguard, right? Obviously whoever’s gunning for you saw it was a perfect opportunity to strike, so that means you have eyes on you. You’re not going to do that again, by the way,” he added fiercely, his blood chilling at the thought of what could have happened if PSI hadn’t alerted him that Dash was out without protection. “No more climbing out of bed to paint walls in the middle of the goddamn night. That’s fucking nuts.”
“Polo, what’s fucking nuts is what you’re saying. That snip
er had to be lying.”
“He wasn’t.”
“Killing me doesn’t make sense.” She shook her head, a helpless gesture that tugged at his heart. “I may be a Vitaliev, but there’s no tactical advantage to having me killed. I’m not in the business. I haven’t pissed anyone off, and since I don’t know anything about the new and improved Vitaliev Bratva, I can’t compromise it. Why would anyone waste good money putting a hit out on me?”
“I’ve got some theories on that, but I’m not saying what they are.”
“Polo—”
“No,” he interrupted, and he glared at her until she settled down. “The only thing you need to know is that the contract that’s out on you will vanish once I wipe out the cocksucker who put it into play. That’s all that matters. I won’t let anyone get to you, so you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“I’ve got nothing to worry about?” she repeated weakly. “What am I supposed to do in the meantime, go into hiding like you? Or are you coming back to life now that I know you’re alive?”
“Shit, Dash, I wasn’t hiding from you, or anyone else for that matter. Until I get my proof of who our enemy is, it’s better if the world thinks I’m six feet under so I can move around without eyes on me. You are a different story. Once you’re mobile, I’m good with you going back into the world, as long as you have a shit-ton of bodyguards around you. One thing, though—I know it sucks, but you’re going to have to keep up the pretense of me being dead until I’m ready to make a move against the fucker who’s putting you through hell.”
Her nod was distracted. “Okay. It’s just…”
“What?”
“I’m just not getting this. Did you recognize the sniper? Or for that matter, the man who tried to kill me tonight?”
“No.” He watched her closely for signs of hysteria, an understandable reaction from anyone once they found out they were marked for death. But other than looking confused, Dash appeared like she wanted to go out and shake the damn bushes until some answers fell out.