by Stacy Gail
“Knives paid Chicago’s Future and Shona a personal visit with several members of his army. I gather they executed some kind of wolf-pack formation on her while she was alone in the back warehouse area, which would scare the crap out of any woman. Then Knives, wanting to know where I was, somehow managed to mention Shona’s baby girl by name. Understandably, Shona found that threatening. Obviously so did Whit.”
He paused in his typing to glance at me. “Any man would. Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“Everything was happening so fast with us, I never had a chance.”
“Is there anything else I need to know about?”
I pursed my lips, thinking. “After I finished getting updated by Shona, I texted my brother and basically told him to go fuck himself.”
“Just as well Shona and her family are getting out of Chicago for a while,” he muttered after a moment to digest this, and continued typing out his text. “Knives poked at her, which made you react. Knowing how your father raised us to think, Knives is going to interpret that as a weakness that he can exploit. But bringing a little baby into this shit…that’s something your father never would’ve been comfortable with. I’m not saying he wouldn’t have made a play to threaten a child back in the day, but he never would’ve been comfortable with it.”
“It’s Knives’s comfort level I’m concerned with. I have no doubt he would be perfectly comfortable with killing baby Arabella, Whittaker, Shona, and anyone else just to get to me, all the while blaming his shit on the Scorpeones.”
“Sounds about right.”
“That’s why there can’t be any thought of playing it safe, Polo,” I went on earnestly, closing the distance to place a hand on his chest. “Jubilee was family to you, and she was a friend to me. Shona, Whit and Arabella…” My chest tightened as a wave of fear welled up so fast it made my skin prickle. Grimly I swallowed it down and pushed on. “The same thing could happen to them. It will happen to them if I don’t do everything I can to stop Knives.”
“If we don’t do everything we can to stop Knives,” he corrected, his hand coming to press against mine. His free hand curved around my waist, and as I watched his eyes softened. “You’re not going to rest until I agree to you luring him out of his stronghold, are you?”
“No, I’m not.” The lives of the people I loved depended on it.
He sighed and dropped his forehead to mine. “You can be a real pain in the ass, you know that?”
I smiled. “Yeah. But I’m your pain in the ass.”
“Damn straight.” He tilted his head to brush my lips with his before he retreated just enough to look into my eyes. “Since I know you’ll try to pull some kind of shit on your own, you’re leaving me no choice but to allow you contact your brother. But make no mistake, Dash. Step by step, this operation is going to be done my way. You try and go off-script on me by so much as a single word, I swear to God I’ll have Rudy lock your ass up in a safe room until Christmas. We understand each other?”
“Absolutely. As of now, you are completely in charge. I’ll do whatever you say.”
“Why do I get the feeling that statement falls into the category of famous last words? Don’t answer,” he sighed when I opened my mouth. “Since I know that’s the best I’m going to get out of you, I’m going to quit while I’m ahead and be grateful about it.” With that, he gave me one more kiss before heading off to answer Rudy’s knock on the front door, heralding the arrival of our dinner.
Chapter Eighteen
Polo
A low but unmistakable pulse of tension thrummed through the tangle of back halls threading through Private Security International’s headquarters. Standing in the far corner of the glass-enclosed conference room, Polo could feel the hum of it along his wire-taut nerves. He wasn’t the only one; he could see the locked-and-loaded readiness in all the military-trained personnel that populated PSI. It was in their ceaselessly assessing eyes as they scanned their surroundings for danger, and in their subtle movements as they checked to see how readily accessible their firearms were beneath tailored suit jackets.
No matter how Dash tried to paint this as just a business meeting, no one was fooled. This gathering was a powder keg in a fireworks factory with faulty wiring. One spark, and they’d all be blown sky-high.
The thought of Dash had his gaze slanting her way. As always he braced himself for the impact she made on him, but still he felt his face soften. Leave it to Dash to call an impossible meeting and approach it like it was just another day in the office, wearing a purple dress that wrapped around her slim form, and was held together by a wide belt. It was the worst possible time to wonder what would happen if he took away that belt—because damn, that whole wraparound thing looked like it’d just fall right the hell off—so he tried to distract himself by scanning the other people in the room.
Dash was huddled with the only other woman in the room, Mary Jane Fogelmann-Case, PSI’s receptionist. He’d bet his Ferrari that Mary Jane was a hell of a lot more than a mere receptionist, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she had every single secret in the building memorized behind those innocently smiling eyes. Since she was busy explaining to Dash the remote that controlled the entertainment system built into the conference room’s wall, his concentration moved to the bespectacled man seated at the table perusing background files of the people who’d been invited to the meeting.
James “Cap” Fogelmann, retired Marine Corps colonel and Mary Jane’s father, had founded Private Security International over half a decade ago. In that short span of time, Cap had built PSI into the premiere private security company on an international level, playing backup to organizations like the Secret Service and MI6, and providing a diversity of services including personal bodyguard detail, corporate and cyber security, and even high-risk courier services that he personally would never do unless he was feeling suicidal. Cap made it all run like clockwork, and Polo had learned the man’s sterling reputation had been well-earned.
Rudy stood opposite him near the door, and looked equal parts the no-nonsense ex-Marine he was and the bouncer he was ready to be. Since he had married Sass—and therefore into the Vitaliev family, though Sass had been oblivious that she even had a family—Rudy had become extremely familiar with the players Dash had invited to the meeting. That explained the tension radiating from him in waves.
Polo didn’t have to be a mind reader to know what was going through Rudy’s head. This gamble of Dash’s could get very ugly, very fast if someone so much as twitched the wrong way.
Finally there were two men standing beyond the glass conference room door, at parade rest. One was Havlik, the blonde jarhead he’d enjoyed chewing up one side and down the other after both he and Shona had waltzed undetected into Dash’s pitifully barren apartment. The other man had black hair so short it was almost stubble, and his latte-hued skin could have come from anywhere, from Brazil to South Africa, to South Lawndale. His eyes were a startling gray and so light they were almost opaque, but there was no mistaking the look in them. Like every professional employed at PSI, the man called Echo was a living, breathing weapon. One appraising glance at him told Polo that he’d be a bitch to fight with almost no visible openings to take advantage of.
There were cameras all over the facility, and every PSI employee who was currently in town and not on assignment had been called in for this meeting. If there was a problem—and that was about as likely as water being wet—Polo had no doubt the place would be locked down by a platoon of military-trained badasses desperate to bust a cap in someone’s ass.
Just as long as it wasn’t Dash’s ass, he was fine with that.
Movement beyond the thick, bulletproof glass of the conference room brought Polo’s attention to the first group to arrive. His stomach filled with acid while his muscles locked with a rage so vast it almost blotted out the reason why they were there. He’d known they were invited to come to this neutral-territory meeting, but he’d hoped they wouldn’t show. Even thou
gh it was clear they had to be a part of this, he’d fucking hoped fate would have mercy on him for once and they’d just stay the hell away.
Too bad for him they weren’t as spineless as the man who’d sired them.
Leading the way was his biological older brother, Matteo Scorpeone. Clean-cut and dull-looking—at least as far as he was concerned—he walked down the hall with his wife Emily by his side. It surprised him that Matteo had brought the petite blonde along, but then it had been Dash who’d reached out to Emily first to get this meeting to happen. Despite being a farm girl and a squeaky-clean dentist who had zero familiarity with the mob world, Dash respected her spirit, so maybe it wasn’t that much of a surprise, after all. If Emily was anything like Dash had described, the woman had probably insisted on coming along.
Directly behind Matteo was a dark-haired, square-faced woman nearly as tall as he was. If he’d passed her on the street he wouldn’t have recognized her, but the same satin-smooth dark brown hair that he had and deep-set dark eyes marked her as a Scorpeone. She walked alongside a balding man with a Nintendo Mario moustache—Fabian Moretti, small-time hood—so he surmised the woman had to be Moretti’s wife and his biological sister, Angelina. A cadre of men orbited them, each of them grizzled and hard-faced, and though some of them had clearly gone to seed, they all had that telltale bulge of a firearm under their coats.
Those bulges were there because he was allowing them to be there, a fact he hoped like hell he didn’t live to regret. He wasn’t sure he would have agreed to it if it hadn’t been for Dash whispering in his ear that it was a gesture of faith and goodwill.
He could only hope the Scorpeones saw it that way, and not as a sign of weakness.
The moment the new arrivals entered the conference room, Dash broke away from Mary Jane to welcome them. Before she reached them, however, Matteo’s wife Emily came to an abrupt stop when she caught sight of him and gasped out loud.
“Matt,” she breathed, grabbing her husband’s arm even as she stared bug-eyed at him. “It’s…it’s…”
Polo had been expecting this, so he didn’t bother to move. But damn, it really was a pain in the ass, having to go through this die-and-resurrection thing all over again.
“Holy fuck.” For his part, Matt also came to a stop along with the rest of his party, and as one they stared at him with varying expressions of disbelief. “Holy fuck, Marco. You’re alive.”
“Marco died a long time ago, long before that sniper’s bullet ever got fired. I’m Polo now.” He paused as Dash hurried over to him, and with a sense of relief that calmed the chaos, he pulled her close. “And yeah, I’m most definitely alive. Well friggin’ spotted. Being such a smart guy, it’s no wonder our bastard of a father decided to keep you while throwing me to the wolves. Real winning move, that.”
“You’re alive,” Matteo said again. When a dazzling smile suddenly bloomed on his brother’s face, Polo became convinced Matteo hadn’t heard a word he’d said. “I can’t fucking believe it, you’re standing right here and you’re fucking alive.”
“Yes, we’ve pretty much covered that. Don’t.” He put up a staying hand when Matteo made a move like he was going to fucking hug him, as if he actually meant something to Matteo. The hypocrisy and weirdness of it all froze him solid, and the only thing he could do was try to shove all that shit aside so he wouldn’t lose focus on the seriousness of what was going down around them. “You weren’t invited to this neutral-ground meeting to go through some ridiculous Hallmark moment, all right? We’re not here for a sappy family reunion. This is business, so grab some coffee and have a seat, yeah? And do me a favor—try not to do or say anything stupid. If you can pull that off, we might get through this shit without everyone killing each other.”
“Wow.” The muttered word came from the woman behind Matteo. Polo’s attention slashed to her while she stuck a hip out in a show of attitude he didn’t like. “You were right, Mattie. Irony of ironies, Marco’s become dear old Dad all over again. Ain’t that a kick in the teeth.”
“Oh, boy,” Dash muttered under her breath.
“What the fuck.” Every muscle in Polo’s body turned to stone, and he ignored Dash’s arm tightening around him as if to hold him in place as he turned a lethal look the woman’s way. “You don’t fucking know me, lady. Who the hell are you to talk to me that way?”
“Your sister, Angelina, though I’m told you don’t remember me. I call bullshit on that, by the way, and I’m glad you’re alive so I can tell you that to your face,” she added, jamming her hands on her hips to make sure her attitude couldn’t be missed. “Who taught you to whistle? Me. Who taught you to swim? Me. Who took the blame when you broke the side view mirror on the car with your baseball bat? Me. No fucking way have you forgotten any of that.”
“Angelina,” Emily said stiffly, looking like she was about a half-second away from clapping a hand over her sister-in-law’s mouth.
“Look, I don’t give a shit what you believe, but I’d swear on a stack of Bibles that I’ve never met you before in my life. A fact that’s easy to believe,” Polo added when the idiot woman opened up her mouth again, “since I basically killed you in my head a long, long time ago. After that, I moved the fuck on. I suggest you do the same.”
When those Scorpeone brown eyes widened in outrage, he knew with a sinking heart she was going to ignore his supremely excellent advice. “You’re acting like it was my fault and Mattie’s fault that we lost you—”
“What the hell is it with you people? I was never fucking lost.”
“Believe it or not, dealing with Scorpeone family dysfunction isn’t the reason I asked everyone to meet today.” Dash gently nudged her way into the conversation with what she probably thought was a diplomatic smile. Only he could see the double-edged dagger lurking behind it. “We’re waiting on a couple more groups to arrive, so please feel free to get your people settled in, all right?”
“Maybe you don’t remember us, Polo,” Angeline muttered, and Emily’s extravagant eye-roll wasn’t lost on him. “But blood will out, that much is obvious. You may not remember who our father was, little brother, but you sure as hell have followed in our old man’s footsteps.”
Fury poured through him. “Woman, you watch your mouth.”
“Like you, our father was a cold-hearted sonofabitch.” Angelina’s recklessness kept right on trucking, proving to him that sadly, the capacity for idiocy was woven somewhere within his genetic makeup. “That bastard single-handedly destroyed my whole world when he gave you to the Vitalievs. He didn’t give a shit about who he hurt, just as long as he got his way. Jesus, it’s heartbreaking you’ve wound up just like him.”
“You just went way too far.” To his surprise, Dash squared off with his sister, looking like she was one thin hair away from knocking Angelina’s block off. Her cordial mask slipped to show the temper underneath, and unlike the fiery explosiveness of the Scorpeone temper, Dash’s was downright arctic. “I sincerely hope you’ll be able to find some peace regarding your father. Really, I mean that. But comparing the one person who suffered the most at that man’s hands isn’t constructive.”
“And whose fault is it that Marco suffered, huh? The Vitalievs.”
A snarl escaped Polo. “Don’t you—”
“I don’t deny it, and if he were still alive I know my father wouldn’t deny it, either,” Dash said, her gaze boring holes through Angelina. “Borysko Vitaliev was ultimately responsible for everything that happened to Polo. Like the man he was, he owned that responsibility, and he went to his grave never forgiving himself for what happened. But before he went to that grave, my father poured all he had into making sure Polo knew he was valued, respected and even loved.”
“Yeah,” Angelina snorted, rolling her eyes. “Your pops was a real fucking saint.”
“No, but he excelled at reading people, and in Polo he saw all the qualities he admired most—loyalty, generosity, courage and a goodness that went all the way to his soul. So
when you compare your god-awful father to Polo, that’s when I have to waste my precious time schooling you on how ignorant you are. I can only hope that somewhere within that tiny brain you possess, you’ll one day understand that you owe Polo one hell of an apology.”
Damn, Polo thought, glancing down at Dash while fighting a smile. She had no idea how sexy she was when she got pissed.
Angelina recoiled. “What the hell did you just say to me? To me?” she semi-repeated, hitting her chest with her palm.
“Oh God, the drama,” Dash muttered with such cutting coldness it was obvious to Polo she was struggling to not just walk away in disgust. “Obviously you’re trying to become the center of everything today, but let me point out that this meeting isn’t about you. It’s not about your daddy issues, or how pissed off you are that Polo doesn’t know you from a hole in the ground. The fact is, you weren’t even invited to this meeting. Your husband, Fabian Moretti, was. I’m this close to having you bounced from the building, so you have a choice to make. You can either shut your mouth, have a seat and enjoy my hospitality, or you can say one more crappy remark about Polo and be escorted out of here while the adults go ahead and get on with things.”
“No lie, if you didn’t already make me hot just by being you, Fearless, that verbal bitch-slap would’ve done it,” Polo murmured close to her ear, before he looked up at his biological family with a grin. “Anyone else have any bullshit to get off their chest?”
“What I want to know is why you said you needed to discuss whether or not we were trying to start a war with the Vitalievs due to our employment habits.” Fabian Moretti, who had obviously been content to have his woman act as his shit-slinging mouthpiece up to that point, finally decided to act like he had a pair. “This isn’t about the poker game you used to hit, is it? I’ve had to shut that racket down, so I’m too busy trying to make a dollar to even think about war.”
