by Stacy Gail
“Yeah. It’s a good name. The name of a brave explorer, and a strong survivor.”
“I don’t like it,” Marco offered, scowling up at his father. “All the kids at school make fun of me by yelling ‘Marco’, and then ‘Polo’, like that’s so funny. Lame-o jerks.”
“I remember going through that,” Polo said, and the fact that he actually did remember it shocked the shit out of him. He had almost no memories from his life as a child; he’d had to repress them just to survive. But for some reason that one memory floated to the surface, and he couldn’t help but smile at his namesake. “There are always going to be jerks out there who want to mess with you, kid. No matter how old you get, they’re out there, just waiting to put you down. But you know what? Nothing they do matters, unless you let it matter. You can’t control what those jerks do, right? You can only control your reaction to them, so give them exactly what they don’t want.”
Marco frowned uncertainly. “What’s that?”
“Ignore ‘em. If you react, they’ll feed on you like starving piranhas, because they like your pain. But if you show them that they have no power over you, eventually they’re gonna get bored and wander off to torment someone else.”
The boy looked dubious. “Does that really work?”
“Nine times out of ten, yeah.”
“What do you do about the tenth one?”
For an answer, Polo smashed a fist into the palm of his hand.
Marco grinned. “Cool, Uncle Polo!”
Holy shit. He was Uncle Polo now.
“Let’s just hope your mother didn’t see that.” With a sigh, Matteo glanced over at Emily before shaking his head. “If she did, I’ll just blame it on Grandma. That’s the same speech she gave Polo at your age.”
Polo glanced sharply at Matteo. “It was?”
He brother nodded, his gaze steady. “It was. She was good woman, Polo. Still is, though she’s very much a broken woman now. In a way, it’s almost a kindness you can’t remember what she used to be. If you saw the way she is now… well. That woman’s just not who she used to be.”
Marco scrunched up his face. “Grandma’s kind of… weird. Nice, but weird. She keeps thinking I’m you,” she added, nodding at Polo. “But I think it’s because she’s old, so you can’t blame her. It’s not her fault.”
“Nothing was her fault, son. Nothing. Now, what do you say we go find a bathroom for your baby sister?”
“Why can’t she just go behind a tree? Michael, Mo and I do that all the time.”
“Because she’s a girl and has better manners than boys.” Before his son could question that particular logic, Matteo turned and offered his hand to Polo. He shook it before he gave it a thought. Then, after giving it that thought, he was still okay with it. “It was good to see you, Polo, despite the circumstances. Please pass along my sympathies to Dasha.”
“You got it.” As Polo watched his brother gather up his family, it stunned him to realize that it had been pretty damn good to see Matteo too.
Hell of a note.
Four months later
“Congratulate me,” Shona announced the moment she reached the table I’d reserved next to The Secret Garden’s raised flagstone fireplace. She dropped into a seat between me and Mama Coco, Sass’s foster mother, and swept the table a superior look. “You are looking at a woman who is done with her Christmas shopping. I feel like doing a victory lap, but I’ll settle for a Bellini and a round of applause, thank you very much.”
“Tell me you didn’t get that crystal-studded Cinderella carriage bed for Arabella,” I said, handing her a menu while my sister Sass, Emily Scorpeone and Mama Coco offered applause. “I know she’s your little princess, but if you spoil her this much right from the beginning, she’s going to expect a castle to go along with that bed by the age of five.”
“The only reason I didn’t get that bed was because I couldn’t figure out how to get it through the damn door. But I did get Arabella the cutest dress-up wardrobe of every princess dress that has ever existed.” She did a happy-dance butt wiggle in her seat. “I can’t wait to have tea parties with my baby girl, wearing a tiara and a cape.”
“Now I know what to get you for Christmas,” I said, smiling as I perused the menu. “What color do you want your cape to be?”
“Just as long as it matches my tiara, I’ll be happy.”
“It’s so much fun having a little girl at that age,” Mama Coco sighed, then perked up as our waitress headed our way. “When my girls Izzi and Frankie were small, I dressed them up like dolls. Then the ingrates grew up and insisted on dressing themselves. I still haven’t recovered.”
“See? That’s what I’m talking about. This woman understands.” Shona did a quick fist-bump with Mama Coco, and I almost laughed out loud. As I’d gotten to know my half-sister over the past several months, I’d discovered that her foster family had big hearts and an insane love of family. The more the merrier seemed to be their motto, and before I knew it, I had been adopted by the foster parents that had raised Sass from the age of fourteen.
At first I hadn’t been too hot on the idea of letting anyone other than my actual family—Sass and Rudy—into my life. Old habits died hard, and when you grew up in the world of organized crime, you learned to be selective about the people in your life. But thanks to Polo letting me know that Mama Coco and Papa Bolo had been admired by my father, I was able to relax my guard around them. They were certainly worth that gamble; Mama Coco and Papa Bolo were good people who had a knack for turning friends into family.
At a time in my life when I felt bereft of all the family I’d ever known, they were a blessing that I would never take for granted.
“So, what about the rest of you?” Shona wanted to know after we had ordered. “How’s your Christmas madness coming along?”
“Matt is impossible to buy for,” Emily muttered with a frustrated growl. “Thankfully, the kids are easy. Marco wants world-building video games, Michael wants a BMX bike and karate lessons, Mo wants everything Captain America, and Madelina, my one and only princess, is going to have a Barbie Christmas.”
Sass’s brows went up. “Wow, that’s advanced. Maddie likes Barbie at three years old?”
“I have no idea if she likes Barbie. I like Barbie, and if the Dream House, Barbie’s palomino and the remote controlled pink corvette are too old for her, I’ll be more than happy to play with them for her.”
“That’s a big perk of having kids,” Shona nodded at Emily. “You have a built-in excuse to play with all the toys without looking like a total whack job.”
“Scout’s looking forward to that part of being a mom as well,” Sass offered, absently frowning at her water glass before taking a sip. Scout, I now knew, was Sass’s foster sister and best friend, and a woman I’d come to respect. Scout was a streetwise powerhouse of a woman who was expecting her first child any second now—the main reason why she wasn’t there with us, according to an exasperated text she’d sent earlier. Her husband was keeping her in bed and not taking his eyes off her, which definitely wasn’t a bad thing, since Ivar Fournier was second only to my Polo in the hotness factor. “When baby Gunnar arrives, Scout swears she and Ivar are going to buy out an entire toy store.”
“They’ve already started,” Mama Coco confided. “And I may have picked up a four-foot tall stuffed bear as well, along with a rainbow of receiving blankets that I need to drop off at their place later today. I have a right to spoil my latest grandbaby, so they can’t refuse.”
I smiled at her as our food arrived. “You really like being a grandmother, don’t you?”
“Sweetie, it’s the best of both worlds. I get to spoil my grandbabies rotten, and then hand them over to their parents when they turn into monsters. I love it.” She leaned over to touch Sass’s hand. “Now, if you and Rudy just got going on the grandbaby front, my Christmas would be made.”
Sass bit her lip. “Um, actually…”
The whole table went still.
“Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” Mama Coco was pearl-clutching with her free hand. “Sass, sweetie. Are you pregnant?”
“I was kind of expecting everyone to realize I hadn’t ordered any caffeine or alcohol with my meal today, so…yeah, I’m pregnant. Merry Christmas.”
“She’s having a baby!” Mama Coco whooped so the entire restaurant could hear, and it sparked off instant pandemonium. Amidst the chaos that broke out at our table and the surrounding tables bursting into spontaneous applause, I quietly set aside my own water glass—I hadn’t ordered a coffee or a Bellini either—and joined in the happy torrent of congratulations raining down on my sister.
Family. It truly was what you made of it.
Ten hours later
The thrum of rave music pulsed against my eardrums as I walked through the doors of River Styx and headed straight for the stairs leading to the night club’s private offices. The nightclub’s opening had been delayed due to Polo’s “death,” but construction on it had still gone on, thanks to Alex Rodin keeping that particular ball rolling. Its doors had only been open a month, but since this darker, more gothic version of Polo’s other nightclub, Heaven, had been in business, it had been packed to the gills every single night.
Though Polo insisted it was too soon to tell, I was convinced he had another hit on his hands.
“Good evening, Stanislaw.” I smiled at the massive man standing beside the entrance to the stairway, his pale head shaved, hands folded neatly in front of him and his thick coke-bottle glasses perched on his nose. Everything but the glasses screamed bouncer, which was pretty much what he was now. Stanislaw Smyrnoi had been a devoted member of the Medvedev crew, but had been badly injured the night the Medvedevs launched their attack on my brother. He wasn’t capable of handling the daily rigors of being an enforcer anymore, so Pavel had approached Polo to see if Stanislaw’s trustworthiness and expertise could be used in some other capacity.
I still wasn’t sure the man was altogether happy, filling the position that had been left open by Andrew the Giant, but I was thrilled he was now Polo’s personal shadow. Knives Vitaliev was gone, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other enemies lying in wait to take out the now-legendary, back-from-the-grave torpedo known as Scorpio. Stanislaw understood this, and I for one was grateful he took his job seriously.
“Miss Vitaliev.” With a curt nod, he gestured toward the stairs, then followed behind to make sure I arrived safely at my destination. The moment the office door closed behind me, the pulsing music was shut out, an effect that made the heavy tension within the office that much more palpable.
What in the world…?
Curious, I scanned the ominously silent office. Currently it was populated by Polo, Alex Rodin, and two women in River Styx’s bartending uniforms—black satin corset-style tops, black skirts cut on a daring bias and severely pulled-back or slicked-back hair to give a dominatrix-y, punishing-demon vibe. I had designed the uniforms, doing my best to channel Jubilee in an effort to figure out what the denizens of the River Styx would wear. No doubt Jubilee would have gone all out with demon horns and a swishy tail, but I chose to leave the more exotic accessorizing up to our lady bartenders.
The two women—one blonde, one redhead—sat in the two chairs facing Polo’s desk, with the redhead perched on the armrest of one while the blonde sat properly in the other. Alex, arms crossed in front of his chest and looking the picture of irritation, leaned back against the edge of the desk while Polo sat behind it. His expression was a bookend-match of Alex’s, but when he caught sight of me, his features softened with a warmth that melted me from the inside out.
My man was happy to see me, and he didn’t give a damn who knew it.
“Fearless.” At once he pushed out of his chair and went to the bar on the opposite wall. “You look thirsty. Kir Royale?”
“My stomach’s a bit off, baby. Don’t worry about me, I can grab a ginger ale for myself. Please, don’t let me interrupt your meeting,” I added, waving a hand toward the bartenders. “If I’d known you were busy, I would have waited downstairs.”
“It’s pretty much done, except for the shouting.” He caught a hand at my nape to pull me in for a quick but thorough kiss, before attending to my drink. “Funny that I should be playing the role of bartender when there are two supposedly competent bartenders already in the room. But then, looks sure as hell can be deceiving. Isn’t that right, ladies?”
Quickly I studied the women. The redhead looked irked, while the blonde glanced around the room with fear-filled eyes.
Oh, dear.
“I guarantee that I know how to mix every drink on your list.” The redhead—done up in smoky black eye shadow, black lipstick and coffin-shaped black nails that Jubilee would have approved of—stuck her chin out in a laudable show of defiance. “Test me. Name a drink and I’ll have it in front of you in less than a minute.”
“You’re not the one who took a tray up to the VIP section—a section that’s got their own fucking servers manning their own fucking bar—and made an ass out of herself stalking the lead singer of some hometown metal band I’ve never heard of,” Polo growled. “That bitch sitting next to you did.”
Oh, dear.
“In fact, none of this shit had anything to do with you until you decided to insert yourself into the drama by saying you’d handle it, and then proceeded to march her out the door like you were a bouncer as well as a bartender,” Alex added, his scowl downright menacing. “Should I put you in charge of every damn thing that goes on around here? You seem to think you can do it all.”
The redhead’s mouth tightened, but when she spoke, her tone was respectful. “I only know that Jerilyn needs this job because she’s got a baby at home that she’s raising by herself.”
“Then she shouldn’t have blown it acting like a freaky stalker with one of our VIPs,” Alex shot back.
“Oh, no.” The blonde, Jerilyn, seemed to crumble at Alex’s words. “I didn’t mean to blow my job or cause any trouble, I swear. It’s just that something snapped when I saw Joey tonight—decked out in all this bling and drinking Stoli like it’s water, and I can’t even keep the heat on for my kid, much less buy her a damn present for Christmas. He can afford to live like a rock star, but he can’t even acknowledge his own kid…” The rest dissolved into a sob that she clearly tried, and failed, to stifle.
Alex’s scowled softened around the edges. “What are you saying? That this Joey-whatever is your kid’s father?”
With an air of utter defeat, the blonde nodded while tears made black streaks down her cheeks. “I’ve tried talking to Joey for two years, but he bitch-slaps me every time I come near him, saying I’m just a gold-digger trying to pass someone else’s baby off on him. So when I saw him drinking tonight, all I could think about was getting one of the glasses he drank from. I just wanted to get his DNA so that I could prove to him that he’s the father. I swear I wasn’t trying to disrupt anything, Mr. Scorpeone,” she added, still crying as she turned to look to Polo. “I just don’t know what else to do for my little girl. Verity’s only eighteen months old, and already life is so hard for her because she has such shitty parents…” The rest was lost in a heartbroken sob.
“Okay.” Polo grabbed up a neatly folded hand towel from under the bar, crossed to the crying woman and shoved it in her hand. “Mop up your face and take a breath, all right? This isn’t the end of the world.”
“I-I’m so s-sorry—”
“Take a breath and calm the hell down, woman.” The order was so authoritative it worked almost like a slap in the face. The blonde quieted almost immediately while Polo rounded his desk to lean over his computer’s keyboard to tap a few keys. “So, Jerilyn. Here’s what’s going on. You just got a raise that should make things a little better for you and Verity. You’re also getting a Christmas bonus, because why the fuck not? It’s Christmas. And lastly, I
’ll see to it that this guy, this uh… let’s see, pulling up the VIP reservation list…ah. Joey Dutton, aka Joey D,” he read off the screen, then looked to the blonde. “Is that Verity’s father? You’re absolutely sure?”
With her breath still hitching, she nodded. “We went to school together, then wound up going to the same community college. Like a total idiot, I thought it was destiny. He was my f-first. My, uh… my only, if you know what I mean.”
“Geez, you sure know how to pick ‘em, Jer,” muttered the redhead.
“Not helping,” Alex admonished her.
“Okay.” Polo nodded once and straightened to his full height. “As of tonight, you and Verity have nothing to worry about, you hear me? Joey Dutton’s going to do right by you and your kid.”
Alex shook his head.
I smiled into my ginger ale.
Jerilyn stared at Polo in confusion. “Th-thank you so much for the raise and bonus, sir. But, uh…I’m sorry, I don’t understand. How can you make Joey do anything? You see, I’ve tried everything I can think of for two years to get him to acknowledge Verity is his—”
“I’m sure I can persuade him to volunteer some DNA, and that’ll be that for you and your kid. Now, if you promise to never again lose your shit and harass my VIPs, you’ll have a place here at River Styx for as long as you want. Deal?”
She looked like it was taking her last drop of strength to not burst into more tears. “Deal.”
“Great. Don’t worry about finishing out your shift, yeah? Just go on home to your daughter, give her a hug and a kiss, and for God’s sake turn on the fucking heat. It’s going to be a merry Christmas for you two, I can feel it in my bones.”
“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” I asked him when the ladies were led out of the office by Alex. Alone with my man, I closed the distance between us to wrap my arms around his neck. “You always do your best to protect those who need it the most.”
