by Stacy Gail
“I can’t. I need to finish my game.” With that, he calmly went back to watching the knife move through his now-mutilated hand, seemingly mesmerized by his own self-destruction.
Knives faded from my view, and before I knew it I was beyond the desk and heading toward the sliding door that led out to the balcony. It was already open, a silent invitation I couldn’t help but accept. Part of me wanted to find my brother and pull him to safety, but in my heart I knew I’d never be able to find him again. And even if I could, I couldn’t save him.
This place had made him crazy.
Would it do the same to me?
Unease hummed through me until my skin prickled, and my heart beat so fast I could feel it in my throat. I moved out onto the balcony, but paused when the vastness of the silence hit my ears. Something wasn’t right. Usually the club was jumping with people and music, but all was still as I ventured farther out onto the balcony to peer over the railing.
What the…?
I couldn’t see the floor, it was so far down. Baffled, I glanced up only to find the ceiling was just as out of sight, it was so high. As the enormity of the world held within the club dawned on me, I suffered the sensation that I was shrinking into nothingness, even though I could see the rest of the world stayed in proportion with me. I felt…small. My place in the world had become no more important than that of an ant’s. I was…I was…
“Insignificant.”
Distorted, off-key music started behind me, and I turned to see who had spoken. Shock reverberated through my system when I saw myself in my old school uniform swinging around the pole on Polo’s private balcony. Polo was seated at the table, not watching the other me dance provocatively. Instead, he chose to focus on cleaning the array of guns he had laid out before him.
“That’s what you are to me, Dash. Insignificant. As long as I’m off-duty and don’t have to babysit you like you’re a fucking five-year-old, you’re nothing to me, understand? When I’m off-duty, that means I’m off my fucking duty. And since I’ve been off-duty from the moment you got me killed, I don’t have to put up with your bullshit. Understand? I’m off my fucking duty.”
His words hit me like poisoned darts. “Polo… wait. You can’t mean that. You’re the most important person in my life, so give me a chance to be important to—”
“You’re still here. What do I have to do to make you understand that you being here’s the last thing I wanted? I fucking died to get away from you, bitch, but you’re still. Fucking. Here. When are you going to get that you don’t matter?”
“Please don’t say that.” I began to cry, but he never even glanced my way. I was invisible. I was nothing. To him, my pain was…
Insignificant.
Just like he’d said.
“Yeah, you’re just not getting it.” With quick, impatient moves he started loading ammo into a clip before jamming the clip into place. “I think we both know what I have to do to make you see the light.”
“Polo, please listen to m—”
He never looked my way, never gave any indication at all that I was even there as he came to his feet. As he did, I realized the lower half of his body was drenched in blood, as if he’d been sitting in a tub full of it.
Oh, God.
“Getting rid of you is going to be like getting rid of a toothache. I can’t fucking wait.” His face moved in a smile that chilled me to the bone. That smile belonged to Scorpio, the deadly torpedo of the Vitaliev Bratva. It was the only warning he gave before he raised his gun and emptied his clip in the me that was dancing so hard in an effort to please him.
I screamed, though no sound came out as I watched the other me jerk with each bullet’s impact. Then I watched myself fall to the floor, lifeless. Broken.
Dead.
“Don’t scream, Dash. You’re okay. You’re safe.” For the first time, Polo turned to acknowledge my existence, with that same blood-curdling Scorpio expression carving his face into a ghoulish death mask. He dropped the gun and reached for me, and I backed up against the railing, terrified. “You’re safe. You’re safe. You’re safe…”
The hand that reached out didn’t pull me to him, like I’d half-wanted, half-feared. Instead he shoved me hard over the railing, and the last thing I saw was his face looking over the railing at me, smiling in relief that I was finally gone.
“No!”
“Baby, it’s just a dream. It’s just a dream. Don’t scream, you’re okay. You’re safe. Sh-sh…”
Arms were around me.
The railing. He was killing me.
Oh God, he was killing me.
“Get the fuck away from me!” I gave it everything I had—arms, knees, fists, feet, elbows. Whatever it took, wherever I could land a punch, I put everything I had into it. When those arms loosened, I got the hell out of there, running blindly to get away, but my feet got tangled in the sheets. The next thing I knew I was on the floor with a hard body on top of me. Wildly I kicked my legs, stubbed my toe hard on the floor, and that brought my brain into sharp focus.
Shit.
“Dasha, stop.” I froze as the harsh voice from my dream and the voice hitting my ears merged into one, and irrational fear nearly made my heart explode out of my chest. “It’s me, it’s Polo, do you hear me? You’re safe. It’s Polo.”
“You…” Cries of horror built up so fast in my throat I could almost feel it bulging under the pressure. I tried to keep all that poison inside, but the smallest sob still escaped my tightly clamped lips. “God, please…just…go…away.”
It was his turn to go still. Then his head dropped until his bearded chin was almost on my shoulder, and his mouth was next to my ear.
“Not going to happen, beautiful.”
I tried to elbow him. Like the rest of my life, it was an exercise in futility. “Get. Off. Me.”
“Not until you’re calm.”
“I’m calm.” I nearly screamed it.
“And not until you know who I am.”
“Oh, I know who you are. You’re…”
The bastard who let me suffer in agony for two months for nothing.
The burning inside me ignited to become a wildfire, and it rocketed into the stratosphere so fast I had no hope of getting a handle on it.
“Get the fuck off me now, Polo, or I swear I’ll find a way to break you across my knee like kindling.”
At first he made a sound that was very close to amusement—something that added more fuel to my fire. Then he went still. “You’re serious.”
“Get. Off.”
He was still for another heartbeat. Then without another word, his weight lifted from me. I was up half a second later, dragging the sheet I’d stumbled over completely off the bed. I wrapped it around myself toga-style before marching over to where my now-clean jeans and shirt were tucked in the armoire along with a bunch of Jubilee’s frilly, impossible costumes.
“Why the hell are you so pissed off at me?” Polo kept his distance as I shoved my legs into the jeans while still trying to keep my sheet in place. My back was to him, but I could hear the dangerous scowl in his tone. “Whatever the fuck that brain of yours cooked up while you were asleep, it wasn’t real, Dash. You were having a nightmare. I woke you up. I’m not going to apologize for pulling you out of a fucking nightmare.”
“Apologize? No, of course not. Not you.” I dropped the sheet to shoulder into my bra, then yanked a shirt on before turning back to him with eyes that leaked my pent-up fury, leaving tracks that were as hot as the fires burning out of control inside me. “Scorpio never apologizes for anything. You do what you do because you’re a cold-blooded bastard who knows how to get things done in the most efficient way possible. Who the fuck cares about who gets mowed down in the process? What matters is you achieving your goal. Your ends always justify the means.”
He stared at me like I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I wanted to die, do you understand me? I wanted to die.” I
threw the words at him like an accusation. His actions had brought me to that horrifically hopeless point where a wish was made for life to end just so the pain would stop. Whether he liked it or not, that almost indescribable suffering was his responsibility to bear. “When you died, I wanted to die, too.”
He flinched, and even with the room separating us, I could hear his swift intake of breath. “But now you know I didn’t die, Dash. I’m standing right here, so let it the fuck go.”
I held back a fresh wave of fury-induced eye-leakage by sheer strength of will. “God, how insensitive of you. Let it go?”
“Yeah. Let it go. It’s poisoning you, even in your sleep, so just…fucking let it go.”
Man, he so did not understand the depth of damage grief could do.
Let it go.
God.
“Let me get this straight. You think that just because it was a pretend death, I should have only suffered pretend grief? That I’d bounce back like nothing happened the moment I found out everything you put me through was a lie? That I should just accept the fact that you were happy to let me suffer for months, and I should just move the hell on from that?”
A fierce growl gritted out from between his teeth. “Happy? Hurting you was the hardest goddamn thing I’ve ever done, but I made myself do it in order to protect you.”
“That doesn’t even make sense. How did your death protect me?”
“Two months ago I found out you were being targeted—”
“You already told me that.”
“If you’d been shot—a Vitaliev—war would have broken out between the Vitalievs and the Scorpeones. That would have been a one-sided slaughter and a fucking crime against humanity. But with me taking that bullet—a Scorpeone—that lopsided war was avoided. It was the only play I could think of to protect everyone, while still being free to make moves on the bastard who’s trying to play us all.”
I nodded reluctantly, because that made sense. But it wasn’t the damn point. “I still don’t understand why you didn’t at least tell me you were still alive after the smoke had cleared. A phone call or a Skype message. A text. Fucking Morse code. Anything. Instead you left me to suffer in hell for two months.”
His teeth were bared in a harsh grimace. “You think you’re the only one who suffered? Every fucking day I got reports back from Rudy, and those reports weren’t good, Dash. At one point it was touch and go whether or not you were even going to make it.”
“Yet you still didn’t contact me.” That horrible unease settled over my heart like a shroud, and at last I could put a name on it. For the first time since I’d known him, I realized I didn’t trust him enough to keep me safe. “Why, Polo? Why did you do that to me?”
“I put you through hell, and I know that, but you have to understand that I needed your reactions to my death to be real. The person who was behind that sniper…” He looked up to the ceiling as if he’d somehow find the right words there. “That bastard’s closer than you can possibly imagine, so close he could take you out at any moment. But my death brought about an unexpected result—it created a distance between you and your would-be killer, and that kept you alive. I wasn’t about to tamper with that.”
“Not even to send me a text?”
“I couldn’t risk it. I needed your reactions had to be genuine, because you were being watched so closely, and because your grief made you distance yourself from the source that wants you dead. By keeping you in the dark, I was keeping you alive, Fearless,” he reiterated, using the nickname that crushed my heart. “That’s my only mission for now and always—keeping you alive.”
“Maybe you did keep me alive,” I said, my breath coming in shallow little gasps. “I can’t say for sure that your actions did the trick, since you won’t tell me the whole story. I only know you didn’t keep me from harm, and I can’t keep trying to pretend that didn’t happen.”
He winced. “Dasha—”
“You should know something about hurting so much you lose all interest in living. That feeling causes a wound that goes all the way to your soul. No matter how often I tell myself that I should just be happy you’re alive and let it go, that wound is still there. Your death might not have been reality, but it was my reality, Polo. I won’t allow you to overlook the fact that I was forced to live that reality. You’re the one who forced me to live it, because you said it yourself—you wanted my reactions to be genuine, so I could play the role of someone crippled with grief. Well, congratulations. You got what you wanted. I was crippled. Part of me still is.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “Dasha, I had a shit choice to make, and I—”
His voice cut off as a faint sound, a kind of muffled pop, reached our ears. A split second later, a fire alarm blared throughout the building, along with what could have been the faintest sound of screaming.
Oh, no.
Chapter Twelve
Growing up in the violent world of the Vitaliev Bratva, certain noises acted like dog whistles to me. Particularly gunshots. I didn’t react to cars backfiring or firecrackers, though they did make me scan my surroundings for possible enemies. There was just something about the sound of a firing weapon that I recognized, without my brain even having to think about it.
Like now.
I dived to retrieve my shoes and purse, slinging its strap across my body while Polo grabbed for his gun with one hand and dragged his phone out with the other. “Judd said he and a couple guys are security for Celestial Bodies,” I said, trying not to wince as I tugged my shoe on over my wrapped ankle. “Do they have guns?”
Polo’s eyes were as black as hell as they slashed to me. “Not on them.”
Shit. “So they’d be sitting ducks if someone rolled up on them?”
“I told them to start carrying. Assholes gave me lip about Jubilee insisting it wasn’t a sexy look on them. Fuck.”
Yeah. That sounded like Jubilee.
“Okay, listen up.” He moved to the kitchenette and pulled a gun out of a drawer, checked the clip, jammed it back in and handed it to me. “We’re going out into the hallway and through the door directly across the hall.” His voice was tight as I tossed his shoes his way when I noticed he was barefoot. “It’s a service door that leads to a set of stairs that goes down to the basement. Once you reach the bottom level, look for the lit exit signs that point to a fire door on the north side of the building. That’s the side closest to a thick stand of trees outside. I want you to hide there.”
I tucked the gun into the back of my jeans. “But there’s the exit just down the hall—”
“That exit empties out onto the back parking lot—line of sight’s perfect for an enemy. It’s exactly where I’d have men stationed to shoot whoever came running out that door.”
God, I hated it when he was right.
“The exit you’re going to find downstairs is never used, and harder to cover from the outside since it’s a basement-style exit. Check to see if anyone’s around the stairs leading out before exiting, understand? And don’t stop to help anyone—it could be a trap. Avoid cars that seem parked out of place, or people milling around outside. Just go through that door and head straight into the tree line no matter what anyone says or does. Hide there and wait for me to come get you.”
“My car—”
“If you were my target and I had tracked you here, I would have already scouted out where your car is hidden in the garage. That’s where I’d be waiting for you while someone else flushed out the joint. It’s what your father taught me to do,” he added when I sucked in a breath to suggest we stay together. “Your ankle. Can you run?”
“Yes.” My adrenaline was surging so fast I could no longer feel it. “Come with me.”
“I’ve gotta find Jubilee, make sure she’s okay. Trouble wouldn’t have found her if it weren’t for me.”
“But—” I bit my tongue to keep from reminding him that he’d just said keeping me alive was his main priority. Trying to take care of everyone was just the k
ind of man he was, and I couldn’t make him be anything less than that. “Okay, yeah, you need to get Jubilee out of here. What do I do if you don’t come to get me? Should I call Alex? Rudy?”
“I will come find you.” He hooked a hand around my neck and pulled me in for a hard, searing kiss before he broke it off to burn me with his fierce gaze. “I love you.”
“Don’t.” Everything inside me turned to ice, and it was enough to kill the fire raging within me. “You died the last time you said those words to me that way, so don’t you ever say those words like that again, Polo. And don’t you dare die on me again. I won’t survive it this time, I swear to God I won’t.”
His expression twisted into a look of near-torture before he planted another hard kiss on my lips. “Stay hidden and don’t come out for anyone but me, you understand? Even if you see your brother, even if he fucking calls out your name, do not go to him, you hear me? You stay the fuck away from him.”
“My brother?” But Polo had already turned to the door, holding up a hand for silence. He waited a beat, then opened it a crack before he turned to motion to me with his finger pressed to his lips.
I hustled to him on noiseless feet, getting the message that from this point on we were running silent. As I waited for him to release me out of the suite, I was reminded vividly of the first time we met. That was the day he’d decided he was going to protect me, a stranger, no matter what. I had the same view of him then as I did now—his strong back, his powerful shoulders, the readiness stringing his fighter-ready muscles taut.
That’s my only mission for now and always—keeping you alive.
From that first day, my safety had been his priority. Maybe that was part of why my hurt went so deep. His idea of keeping me safe focused on one thing—making sure I stayed alive. But my concept of Polo keeping me safe had been built on an assumption that he’d never do anything to cause me pain.