by Stacy Gail
“Fuck that, Luke, you know I’m right. We should have brought her in through one of the service entrances as just another faceless worker.”
“I wanted to be on display.” I had my key ready, so when they half-jogged me down the hall to my door, I had it in the lock in seconds. “More importantly, I wanted to put my security on display.”
Rudy made a sound that could have been a growl. “Why?”
“Because historically speaking, I’ve never been attacked whenever I’ve had clear and obvious protection in place. That tells me that no matter what I do—even sneaking in through a service entrance—I’m going to have eyes on me all the time. Since that’s an inescapable truth, the next best thing to do is show off the daunting muscle that PSI has put on me. But that was just one of my objectives.”
“You mean there’s another one?”
“When it comes to poker, nobody’s better at bluffing than me,” I muttered, pushing the door open. “That’s what I’m doing now—carrying on with my life in a normal way, like I have no idea there’s a contract out on me. I don’t want to put out any signals that I’m now on high alert, because more than likely that’ll make Knives go into all-out battle mode.”
“Going on high alert is exactly what you need to be.”
“I know that and you know that, but I don’t want my brother to know that I know that. That’s why it’s called a bluff. Now, are you going to go ahead of me to clear the apartment, or do you want to loan me your gun so that I can do it myself?”
Luke huffed out a faint laugh before he pushed through the door, hand moving into his jacket to slide his gun out from its holster. “Well, at least one of you is being professional.”
It took less than a minute for them to go through the apartment, before Luke went back downstairs to make sure he was a visible sign of security. Ten minutes after that, I was stepping out of a much-needed shower and into white capris and a lightweight blue and white-striped boat neck sweater. Trying to wash away all the crap I’d experienced over the past several hours was impossible, but being in my own place and wearing my own clothes gave me a much-needed sense of control.
Also…
There was something else I needed that would boost that sense of control.
Dragging out the gun case I had stowed away under my bed, I sat down on the mattress’s edge and popped the gun case’s locks. Seconds later I had the dainty snub-nose Smith and Wesson Shield .9mm handgun and spare clip shoved into my purse. The gun had been a gift from my father before he’d died, and that was probably the only reason why I still had it. My personal weapon of choice was my Glock, but since it was still in a drawer at Chicago’s Future, this would have to do.
I dropped my purse beside the nightstand and took a calming breath, but it didn’t do much good. My life was so screwed up. It felt like I was surrounded by lies; my father had known Knives was dangerous, but he’d hidden that from me, probably because he hadn’t been able to face that fact himself. He’d even hidden the existence of a little sister from me. It was as though my whole life had taken place in some whacked-out fantasy world, and it could no longer hold up against the pressures of reality.
What the hell was left for me to believe in?
“Dash?” A quick knock brought my head up just as the door opened and Rudy appeared. His glance took in the empty gun case sitting beside me on the neatly made bed. Leaning against the doorjamb, he slid his hands into his pockets and tilted his head. “Feel better?”
Great. With one glance he made me feel like a naughty kid who’d gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar. “Generally speaking, everyone feels better after a nice, hot shower.”
“And arming themselves.”
There was no reason to deny it. “Isn’t that the natural response when someone has a hit out on them?”
“I don’t know if there is a natural response to that kind of pressure. But for you, I’d say it’s a pretty good one. Healthy, even.”
That surprised me. “Why’s that?”
“For months now, you haven’t given a shit about whether you lived or died. Now you’re willing to fight. Kind of a big improvement in my book.”
I tried not to lock my jaw at the pointed reminder of the hell they’d conspired to put me through. “Must’ve been a real hoot, watching someone mourn the death of a still-living man.”
“It sucked shit, actually. Every goddamn second of it.”
Tell me about it. “How terrible that you suffered. Do you think you’ll recover?”
A ghost of a smile appeared, pissing me off all the more. “Man, you and your sister are fucking scary, you know that? When Sass gets unsettled, she reacts in the exact same way as you—prickly and frosty and about as unshakable as bedrock. The latter part is great, so I’m not complaining. It’s so much easier to protect someone who doesn’t break down into full-blown hysterics every time you turn around. But the prickly and frosty shit…yeah, that isn’t necessary with me. We’re on the same side here.”
“I never said we weren’t.”
“Yet you still feel the need to carry. Why? Don’t you trust us to take care of you?”
“I don’t trust anyone to take care of me.” How could I? Everyone around me lied.
“What about Polo? You trust him?”
What the hell was with the Twenty Questions all of a sudden? “Look around, Rudy. Polo isn’t here.”
“I didn’t ask where he was. I asked if you trusted him.”
“Polo kept me alive all the time that he was my bodyguard, so I obviously have tremendous faith in him. But if you have any doubts about his abilities, I suggest you approach him directly, instead of talking to me about it.”
“Prickly and frosty.” He looked to the ceiling a moment before he loosed a deep breath. “Funny thing about lies. Even when they’re created to protect, they still do damage. You can trust Polo to keep you safe—”
“I know that.”
“—and with everything else that’s going on in your head,” he went on pointedly. “I can’t say I know every last thing about the man, but I do know he’d do anything for you. You’re the first thought he wakes up to in the morning, and the last thought he has as night. I know that, because I’m like that about Sass. When shit’s hitting the fan in the Vitaliev world, Polo’s actions might not always be what you want, but they’ll always be what you need. Even if those actions make it impossible for you to be with him—and he fucking knows that—he’ll still do whatever it takes to make sure you’re safe. He’ll make the sacrifice of losing you, if it means you’ll be kept safe, because you are the only thing that matters to his existence. The only thing. Taking all that into account,” he added, straightening away from the doorjamb, “if you still can’t find it in your heart to forgive the man enough to let yourself trust him, then the problem doesn’t lie solely with him. Know what I mean?”
I did, though I didn’t appreciate that fact being thrown in my face, I thought as Rudy headed back out to the front room. What Rudy wasn’t saying was that Vitalievs were notorious for holding grudges. Being married to one, that unfortunate fact was something the man probably already knew. It wasn’t an attractive trait, and when it was coupled with a hair-trigger temper, it was a killer combination.
At times, literally.
I didn’t want to hold a grudge against Polo. With Knives gunning for me, I didn’t have the energy or headspace to wrestle with something like a grudge. I needed to be clear-headed, but with Polo storming out after telling me he couldn’t wait to kill my brother, being clear-headed seemed about as reachable as Mars.
A sound from the front room had me on my feet and out the bedroom door before I made the conscious decision to move. My heart staggered in relief when I saw Polo, perfectly healthy, tugging off a ball cap and shades to toss them into a built-in niche beside the door. Before I could make a move his way, however, Rudy beat me to it.
“How the hell did you get past Havlik?” The hard edge in his voice was en
ough to make my eyes widen. “And how did you get in? One of the first things we did when Dash moved into this place was install a first-class titanium deadbolt.”
“If you’ve got a key that fits, it doesn’t matter how good your lock is. I’ve had access to Dash’s purse for days now,” Polo added, holding up an unfamiliar silver key. “I had duplicates made as soon as I could. And any middle school kid can tell you it’s a fucking cake walk to get past one measly guard patrolling the hallways. Gotta say, it kind of sucks that I have to tell you that.”
“Great.” Rudy plowed a hand through his short black hair. “We’ve got a blind spot a mile wide and we didn’t even know it.”
“That’s usually how blind spots work. What shits me is that you’re even here,” Polo went on, trying to level Rudy with a furious glower. “I left Dash in your care so you could tuck her away someplace safe. Letting her pop up at her apartment like the whole world didn’t burn down last night was the last fucking thing I thought you’d do.”
“Blame me,” I cut in with more force than necessary, but I couldn’t help it. Damn it, he wasn’t even looking at me. I understood he blamed me for Jubilee’s death, but to not even acknowledge my existence was like a dagger in the heart. “Since Knives has no idea I was holed up at Celestial Bodies, it’s pretty obvious that I wasn’t the reason for its destruction. All I’m trying to do now is display a semblance of normalcy—just move forward like I’m unaware that anything happened last night.”
At last Polo’s dark, carefully blank eyes touched on me before returning his glare to Rudy. “What purpose does that serve?”
“I want Knives to believe I’m oblivious to all the shit he’s been pulling. It’s a bluff, pure and simple, but I’m hoping I can pull it off so well, he won’t even notice I’m working on stacking the deck against him.”
“Jesus,” Polo muttered, and the angry tone grated against my already-frayed nerves. “This isn’t a fucking game, woman. For the past six hours, you know what I’ve been doing? I’ve been looking for a way onto the Vitaliev estate to take that fucker out without getting his entire army up my ass. Yet here you are, talking about motherfucking poker.”
So, this was what it felt like to be only two inches high. “It’s how my mind works, and it’s how his mind works as well. In that respect, we’re virtually the same.”
“Don’t.” His face hardened so fast it resembled a mask. “Don’t you ever compare yourself to that soulless piece of shit.”
A pained breath hitched out of me, and I couldn’t decide if it was because it hurt that this was the reality of who my brother had become, or if it was relief that Polo refused to lump me in the same category. “I’m just saying that in some ways, I know Knives better than you. Trying to get at him when he’s at the estate won’t work. By now, he’s made that place an impregnable fortress. You’d have no hope of winning if you go at him by yourself in a direct attack. In order for you to have the advantage, you need to make him come to you.”
“And how am I supposed to do that? Call him up and tell him I’m not dead?”
“I’m sure that would do it,” I acknowledged, perfectly serious. “At the time, Knives seemed almost as upset over your death as I was. But if you reveal yourself to him now, you’ll lose the element of surprise, and I’m not willing to gamble that edge away. The only way I see Knives voluntarily coming out in the open without being totally on guard and surrounded by his army is if…”
“What?”
“I could lure him out.”
“Absolutely not.” Polo’s rejection drowned out Rudy’s, but since they were pretty much saying the same thing, it didn’t matter. “You’re out of this mess, as of now.”
“Believe me, I’d love to be out of it. You think I want to face my brother again, knowing he’s chosen to see me dead so he can finish his grudge against a long-ago mob family that’s no longer relevant? After everything he’s done, I’d be happy if I never saw him again.”
“Glad you feel that way, because you really are never going to see that fucker again. You don’t ever even have to think about him.”
“It’s not that easy, Polo.”
“It sure as fuck is. You just keep running and don’t look back, while I wait for him to make a wrong move. After that, he’ll be nothing more than a bad memory for the both of us.”
“What kind of life can I possibly have on the run? No matter where I go or how far I run, I’m still me. Knives is still my brother, I’m still a Vitaliev, and that contract he put out on me is still going to be there dogging my every step.” I waited for him to set up some kind of argument that pointed out how wrong I was. When he didn’t, settling instead for glaring furiously at me, I knew I’d hit a bull’s eye. “Believe it or not, I really am trying to get out of this mess. But the way I see it, the only way out is through.”
His mouth flattened into a grim line. “We’re putting this conversation on the backburner until I can get cleaned up. I still smell like burning building, and I’m getting pretty fucking sick of sucking in the stench.”
“Shower’s through here.” Not sure if I’d just won or lost, I stepped back into my bedroom to lead him to the bathroom.
Chapter Sixteen
Polo
Polo hated the world. Every fucking inch of it. He hadn’t been able to protect Dash from anything.
The knowledge that her brother wanted her dead.
The late-night attack that nearly got her throat slashed in the street.
The trauma of seeing her new friends die and Celestial Bodies burn to the ground.
The trauma of seeing him die.
Congratulations, you got what you wanted. I was crippled. Part of me still is.
And what was his response?
He’d yelled in her face about how much he looked forward to killing her brother, and blamed her for Jubilee’s death while she was already in tears.
What an unbelievable prick he was.
He squeezed his eyes shut before he stripped out of his clothes, turned on the water in the walk-in shower and closed the glass door behind him. Jubilee’s execution was something he’d carry with him forever. A fitting punishment, as far as he was concerned. Of course, Knives deserved punishment as well—and by God he would make sure that cocksucker received that punishment in full—but Polo knew he shared some of the blame. Sweet, harmless Jubilee and her never-ending pursuit of all things pleasurable had been an innocent in almost every sense of the word. So what had he done to that innocent being? He’d put her in the path of a fucking killer. It would be a long time before he ever forgave himself for that, if ever.
But there was one thing he could do that would ease his grief.
Kill Knives.
He stepped in under the shower as steam began to billow. As the hot, needle-sharp spray flowed over him, the scent of smoke and death disappeared and was replaced by everything Dash. How well he knew this scent—heady and floral, with a sensual undercurrent of musk. Without thinking about it, he grabbed up a bottle of soap sitting on a bench on the other side of the shower stall, poured some out and lathered himself up, trying to drown himself in that scent.
As good as it was, it didn’t fill the emptiness inside him.
Don’t you ever say those words…
A fierce growl escaped him as her condemnation rang in his ears. When he’d faked his death, he’d known what hell he was going to put Dash through. Not a night had gone by during their time apart that he hadn’t tortured himself with thoughts of what his own reaction would have been if he’d seen Dash die. The horror of it had filled him with rage, and he’d lost count of how many times he’d had to stop himself from going to her. At the time he’d believed he was saving her from an even greater agony—the agony of her brother’s betrayal. But now that it was too late, he saw he’d called it wrong. He had crippled her. And for what? In the end, he hadn’t saved her from a damn thing.
No wonder she didn’t want to hear any shit from him about love.
“Hey.”
His head came up sharply, water running into his eyes as he whipped around to see Dash had cracked the shower door open, still fully clothed and holding out a neatly folded towel.
“Sorry, but this is pretty much it in the towel department. I, uh, never really got around to moving in completely, I guess. Weird, right? I never saw a problem with how spartan this apartment is, but now that I’ve got guests and there’s no food, or towels, or even a couch for people to sit on…” She petered off with an uncomfortable shrug, as if belatedly realizing she was babbling.
“This apartment’s not where you live. It’s where you’ve been existing. I guess that’s my fault too, isn’t it?” He laughed, but it sound strangely harsh in the echo chamber of the shower, and he didn’t miss her faint flinch at the sound. “Every damn thing that’s gone wrong in your life has been because of me. You know why? Because I’ve been trying to be like some normal guy whose first instinct isn’t to kill whatever’s pissing him off.”
“Polo, no—”
“But I’m not a normal guy. I tried, honest to Christ I did, because I know a normal guy is what you deserve. But I fucked it all up. Not only did I scar you in ways that make you scream in your sleep, I also didn’t shield you from how I’m going to take your brother right the fuck out. Even if you didn’t want me to love you anymore, killing Knives… that is going to be the end of us. We’ve been doomed right from the start, and there’s not a damn thing I can do to change it.”
“Polo, stop.” Ignoring the spray of water, she reached out to press a hand to his mouth. “What do you mean, I don’t want you to love me anymore? That’s all I want. I love you so much that all I want in this world is for you to love me back.”
He stilled. Everything inside him stilled, and slowly the world began to right itself.
“But I know that it’s probably impossible now,” she went on, looking on the verge of tears when his tough Dasha did her damnedest to never cry. She didn’t even realize when she was crying, it was so alien to her. “I know you blame me for Jubilee—”
