by Sybil Bartel
He wasn’t an idiot. I didn’t lie. “Only if one of the women says something.”
He eyed me for a second. “This makes us even.”
Fucker had balls. This wasn’t close to equitable in my book. Seven women didn’t compare to a deadbeat father with two decades of dirt on his sons and a team of lawyers I’d had to handle, but I gave him the win. “Copy that.”
“Do I want to know what happened to Fedorov?” he asked.
I gave Jacek credit. He’d never served, but he was shrewd as fuck and he didn’t take shit from anyone. The brothers’ entire empire was built on Jacek’s decisions. “He mistreated his wife.”
A rare smile spread across his face. “Let me guess. She’s a young, hot Russian and she’s now yours?”
“Need to know.”
“Of course. Need to know.” He walked into the house.
I made to follow and my cell vibrated. I glanced at the display and swiped across the screen, then I waited for Luna to speak.
“She’s at your place and she’s refusing medical attention. I didn’t get a good look at her, but there wasn’t any blood on the blanket. Your call.”
“Leave her.” I didn’t thank him. I was still too fucking pissed at him for overstepping.
Luna sighed, but he didn’t comment.
“Speak,” I demanded.
“She’s not talking.”
I wouldn’t either. “She doesn’t have to.”
“Jesucristo, she’s going to have to talk eventually, and she needs clothes, at a minimum. Grab something from Fedorov’s and I’ll have Collins run it over.”
She wasn’t going to wear a fucking thing from this house. “I’ll get her clothes. Leave her alone.”
“I already fucking left, pendejo. Chill the fuck out. I’m waiting for the elevator.”
Luna rarely lost his shit. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened. I took her exactly where you wanted me to take her, which was not where she wanted to be. You need to get your shit together. You pull me out in a fucking hurricane for a damn pick up, get me caught in the crosshairs of some asshole’s scope, you take out one of my men, then I’m explaining four dead bodyguards to the cops only to turn around and have another half dozen of them down along with a dead Russian arms dealer. How the fuck am I supposed to explain that? I’m pissed the fuck off.”
Neil stepped into the garage. “Put Luna on speaker.”
I didn’t know how he knew who the hell I was talking to, but I’d ceased questioning his shit years ago. I put the phone on speaker. “Neil’s here.”
“What the fuck are we doing to contain this?” Luna snapped. “We’ve got one hell of a cleanup.”
“I will call ATF,” Neil interjected.
Luna swore. “That prick agent Ben Olsen you know?”
Neil didn’t nod, he didn’t even blink. He stood perfectly still. “We give this to him.”
“How the hell do we know he’ll leave us out of it?” Luna argued.
“I will tell him to,” Neil stated.
I wouldn’t fuck with Neil if he told me to do something, but I had to at least ask if he had leverage over the agent. “What do you have on him?”
“He owes me a favor.”
“That doesn’t tell us shit,” Luna quipped. “Everyone owes you favors.”
“You are out of options,” Neil warned. “I will call ATF.”
“Mierda. All right, all right, but wait until I get back there and do a sweep of Fedorov’s computers before you call. He has shit on Marek, and I want to wipe his security cameras.”
“Fine,” Neil answered.
Luna exhaled. “What’s up with the women? Do I need to bring more transport?”
I looked at Neil.
Neil answered. “The triplets are taking them.”
“Are they gonna talk?”
“I spoke with them. They will not say anything,” Neil confirmed.
“How’d you manage that?” Luna asked. “None of them spoke English.”
“I speak Russian.”
“Christ,” Luna muttered. “Of course you do.”
“We are wasting time. Get back here, wipe the computers and we will handle the rest.” Neil inclined his head once at the phone.
I hung up. “What’s up?”
“Is your female going to talk?”
“She’s not mine.” Not at the moment.
“Is Fedorov’s wife going to talk?”
I ground my teeth. “No.”
He ignored my denial of her being mine. “You will have repercussions once you go public with her.”
“I’ll handle it.” I’d kept myself alive this long. I wasn’t a fucking idiot.
“It will appear that you orchestrated this.”
“Nothing’s going to come back on me. If Luna does his job and wipes the computers and if your ATF agent does his, my name will stay out of it.”
“That is a lot of ifs.”
“Your point?”
“You have handled your business alone up to this point. No man is an island.”
That’s why I fucking wanted her. Any damn way I could have her. “I don’t plan on staying in the business. I’ll be fine.”
Neil stared at me like he could see every fucking lie I was telling myself. “The female does not deserve a warrior who brings the battle home with him.”
I threw it back on him. “One day, you’re going to be that proverbial warrior.”
“We are not discussing me.”
“I wasn’t aware that we were having a discussion at all.” He was lecturing.
“We are not.”
Fucking great. “Anything else?”
He opened the garage door. “Have Luna’s man drive you to the female. Tend to her. We will handle the rest.” He looked over my shoulder.
Sure enough, a Luna and Associates black SUV was pulling up the driveway.
If I was a bigger man, I would’ve fucking thanked him and told him I owed him. But I didn’t. A weight the size of every mistake I’d made with Irina sat on my chest, and I couldn’t fucking focus.
I walked to meet the SUV as Luna got out. “I need a ride.”
Luna nodded and glanced at the driver. “Collins, take him wherever he needs to go then check in.”
“Roger that.”
I hated not driving, but I got in the passenger seat. Luna inclined his head once and shut the door.
“Where to?” Collins put the vehicle in gear.
I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Nine fifteen. Fuck. “I need to get some clothes.” I set my AR15 on the floor behind my seat, dumped my extra magazines, then shrugged out of my vest.
He gave me a sideways glance. “For the girl?”
“Yeah.”
“Target’s still open.”
I unstrapped my thigh holster and shoved my 9mm in my back waistband. “Fine.” I untucked my T-shirt to cover my weapon.
We drove for ten minutes before he spoke. “Tyler did two tours. He knew what he was doing earlier.”
Could’ve fucking fooled me. “Yeah?” I didn’t wait for a response. “Then why were your targets under control within a few shots while he kept unloading on his?”
“Both of mine were in the front seat. The windshield was easy to breach. Tyler’s second target was behind a body. The projectile wasn’t in his favor.”
“And that made it okay to fire into a vehicle with two innocents?”
“Not how I would’ve handled it, but he wasn’t firing at the women.”
“One was shot,” I reminded him. Not that I gave two fucks about her mother.
Collins didn’t comment as he pulled into the parking lot of the store.
“Drop me off.” I took a few bills out of my wallet and handed them to him. “Get her some food then meet me back here.”
He pocketed the money. “You want anything?”
I thought for a second. Would she eat with me? Fuck, would she even let me into the condo? I shook my head. �
�No. Give me ten minutes.”
“Got it.” He pulled up front.
I walked into the fucking store.
My body bruised and beaten, my core throbbing, the smell of heavy, sick cologne all over me, I didn’t speak as André carried me into the elevator.
“Almost there, chica, almost there.”
The floors ticked up to the top.
The elevator pinged and the doors slid open.
“Come on, let’s get you settled.”
I didn’t know why he was bothering. I wasn’t going to be settled. I was in a dead man’s blanket, going to another man’s condo while my mother was in a hospital somewhere with a gunshot wound.
Viktor didn’t die of a gunshot wound.
André punched in the code and let us into Dane’s penthouse. The faint smell of Dane that had lingered earlier this afternoon after he’d left was gone.
“Couch, bed or do you need the restroom?” André asked.
I didn’t answer. I stared at the one window not covered by shutters.
André followed my glance. “You want the shutters open?”
I might’ve nodded.
His muscles bunched as he set me down on the couch, then he made quick work of opening all the shutters.
Moonlight danced across the waves and the lights of adjacent condos lit up the night as if life was picture perfect. If I concentrated, I could smell salt and sand and soft breezes.
I stared at the view.
A six-foot ex-marine made his way back to the couch, put his hands on his hips and looked down at me. “Talk to me, chica.”
I knew he was looking for something from me, but I was out of somethings.
“You need a doctor?”
I shook my head.
“What can I get you?”
I sunk further into the couch and pulled the blanket around me. The ghost scent of the ocean at night fell away. I was back to a dead man’s cologne mixed with desperation and sweat.
André sank to a squat. “You know what my madre always says?”
There was kindness in his eyes, but there was also something else. Something a lot like Dane. I didn’t give him an answer because I had no idea what his mother always said.
“She says God gives us tomorrows.”
I didn’t want a tomorrow. I wanted a next year.
“You know what I say, chica?”
I pulled my legs up.
He didn’t wait for a response. “I say it’s up to us how we use those tomorrows.”
Nothing was up to me. Nothing had been up to me for five long years. That’s why I’d left, but now here I was in another man’s clutches.
André continued as if we were having a two-sided conversation. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen come sunup and I can’t predict the future, but I know this—your story doesn’t end here. This is just temporary. You’re gonna get a tomorrow, you hear me?”
If someone had told me twenty-four hours ago that I was going to be getting a pep talk from an ex-marine who quoted his mother after I let my husband beat me with a paddle, then watched the stranger I’d had unprotected sex with kill my husband, I would’ve accused them of being insane.
But here I was, lucky to be alive, waiting for a promised tomorrow.
André put a hand on my shoulder. “I know you hear me, chica. I’m not gonna force you to talk, but I need to know if you’re gonna be okay for a bit by yourself so I can go handle a few things. Give me something, baby girl.”
I nodded.
His hand squeezed then let go. “Gracias. Me or Marek will be back in a bit.” He pulled a phone out and messed with it a moment, then placed it on my lap. “You got mine and Marek’s numbers in there. You need anything before one of us checks on you, call. Understand?”
I turned away from him. More than the bruises on my body, it hurt to think about Dane.
He stood. “All right, I hear you, chica. Try to get some rest. Tomorrow’s coming, I promise.” He walked out.
I waited until I heard the door shut then I slowly got up. The phone fell to the floor and I stared at it a moment. Then I stepped over it. Walking wasn’t as painful as I thought. In fact, it didn’t hurt at all like my ego hurt. Not even close. Sore, I made my way to the door and threw the dead bolt. Then I dropped Viktor’s bedspread. Refusing to look down at my naked body, I made my way back to the couch and picked up the blanket lying on the back. I wrapped it around myself then sat back down.
I stared out at the ocean.
Viktor’s blanket on the floor by the front door, Dane’s around my body, I’d traded one blanket for another.
One man for another.
Except I didn’t have the second man and the first one was dead.
I should feel something about that. But I didn’t. Not gratitude, not guilt, nothing. It was as if I’d gone numb.
I was still staring at the nighttime ocean when a quiet knock sounded on the front door. My heart leapt and I pulled the blanket that didn’t smell a thing like Dane tighter around me. You had to enter a code into the elevator to even get up to the penthouse, so I knew it could only be one of two people, but I was sure it wasn’t André.
I didn’t get up. I didn’t have to. A second later the dead bolt was unlocking and I could feel him.
I didn’t turn. I didn’t shift. I didn’t take my eyes off the ocean, because I didn’t want to see him. I couldn’t see the look on his face when he saw me.
I smelled him a second before the soft rustle of plastic bags landing on the coffee table broke the silence in the penthouse.
The couch dipped.
“Irina.”
His deep, quiet voice rumbled from his chest and spread across my skin like comfort. My heart ached, and I longed to reach for him, but I stayed perfectly still.
Gentle fingers brushed my hair aside and swept it behind one ear.
“I brought you some clothes and food.”
I wanted to cry. Gone was the rage that’d had me kicking him away from me. In its place was sorrow so profound, I didn’t understand it. I felt bonded to a man I’d known less than twenty-four hours and losing that bond was gutting me worse than anything Viktor had ever done to me.
I forced the truth past my dry mouth. “You will never unsee tonight.”
He didn’t hesitate. “I don’t need to.”
Yes, he did. He needed to never see me as I was with Viktor. That woman could never be with a warrior like him. The temptation to just lean into him and feel his warmth was so great, I had to inch away from him.
His voice dropped so low, it barely disturbed the air. “I’m sorry I failed you.”
I looked up.
Anguished storm-colored eyes stared at me with the same intensity I’d grown addicted to. “I was selfish,” he confessed. “You never should’ve been a witness to the meet. I should’ve taken you to Luna’s where you would’ve been safe.”
“He would have killed your friend and given the cops the information on Peter’s tracking device.” I saw the red dot from a laser scope on André’s forehead. I knew what it meant.
“I would’ve handled it.”
It was what he didn’t say that alarmed me. He would’ve handled a dead friend and Viktor destroying his life, but he wasn’t handling what he saw Viktor do to me. I turned back toward the ocean. “What’s done is done.”
“Is it?”
I didn’t know if he meant what Viktor had done or if he meant us, but it didn’t matter. It was the same answer. “Yes.”
He grasped my chin and turned me back to face him. “There is nothing I blame you for.”
Shame burned my cheeks. “I’ll leave tomorrow and you can have your condo back.”
He didn’t move, or even blink, but I saw the shift. Part of him shut down. “Stay here. However long you want.”
I pulled out of his grasp. I would beg my mother to take me in before I’d stay here. “I just need my suitcase from your house.” Because I was never going back to Viktor’s. I didn’t
want any of the clothes I’d left behind that he’d bought me.
“There’ll be federal agents crawling around the Key Biscayne property.” The softness in his voice when he’d said my name was gone. “It’s not safe to go back there.”
His tone made my guard go up. I turned and looked at him. “Not safe for me, or not safe for you?”
“You,” he ground out.
The connection I’d felt to him last night took a major blow. I could’ve told him I was never going back there, even if I’d inherited the whole damn estate, which I knew I wouldn’t. Viktor never missed an opportunity to tell me I would get nothing if he died. I could’ve told Dane all of this. But the fact that he thought I wanted to go back there told me I had no connection to him. If he couldn’t see that I’d only gone back to save his friend and my mother, then I had nothing to say to him.
I turned away from him. “You can go now.”
“Because you’re angry with me or because I saw what he did to you?”
I hated how he picked up on the truths I wanted to hide. Subtle, obvious, it didn’t matter. He was either incredibly perceptive or I was a hell of a lot worse at hiding my emotions than I thought I was. “Does it matter?”
“Look at me,” he demanded.
Swirls of awareness crawled across my skin, and the hair on the back of my neck stood at attention. Nothing about my reaction to his command felt sexual, because the mere thought made my stomach turn. But there was a power in his voice, and in his presence, that made me want to crawl onto his lap and forget who I was.
I wanted to feel his arms around me, to hear his heartbeat, to have his scent erase every memory of Viktor. It would be heaven. But to have his voice be the first and last thing I heard every single day? That would be a dream.
Except that dream was ruined.
“Just go,” I whispered.
The need to claim her was so fucking intense, I fought from pushing her back on the couch and sinking inside her. Knowing what she’d been through, knowing what her body looked like under that blanket, I hated myself for even thinking it. In the same damn breath, I was fucking certain she needed it. We both did. We needed to remember what we felt like together.
This bullshit wall she was putting up was going to come down. One way or another, I’d find a way around it. That’s what I fucking did. I found solutions. I fixed problems, and I was going to fucking fix this. Strategically.