In Safe Hands (The Safe House Series Book 1)

by Leslie North

  Alexa frowned. She had seen the expression on her protector's face when she flashed him a glimpse of her tattoo in the forest clearing. If it were possible to feel sorry for a grown man—an ex-cop at that—she might feel sorry for whatever Damian Stone had suffered through at the hands of her father's mob. The pain on his face had been raw and real before he had forced it back beneath his granite exterior. She didn't know him well enough to enjoy this first break in his character.

  Yet.

  "Why wasn't that information in the file? Didn't you think that was something I needed to know? Look, we’ve got one week until the trial, but after this is over, we talk face-to-face. You really screwed me here, Jason."

  Alexa sat up. Her hair was down, and a flaxen strand of it fell into her eyes. She pushed it aside and got out of bed. She hadn't been able to bring any of her things, so everything located within the tiny room—the clothes, the toiletries, even the hairbrush—had been provided for her by strangers within Rockwell’s agency. Faceless people she would never meet. People who didn't know the first thing about her or her situation.

  She forced herself to go through the dresser, the wardrobe, the closet, slamming each wooden door shut one by one. If Damian Stone's phone call quieted suddenly downstairs, she didn't care. He had an issue with her? She had an issue with him. What were they thinking, putting her life in the hands of someone who could be so easily bought off? He hadn’t even bothered to deny he was a dirty cop when she accused him.

  And on top of that, why would anyone place her with someone so infuriatingly gorgeous? Weren't there common-sense procedures in place to prevent this sort of thing? Where were all the female safe house operators or grandfatherly ex-marines? No. Alexa Volkov had drawn the straw that went with the tallest, most thirst-quenching glass of water. It seemed dangerous that the tension already existing between them should be compounded by something as unnerving as sexual attraction. If she was anything close to lucky, Damian Stone would remain professional, and she could snuff the beginnings of that torch in peace.

  Alexa slipped out of her bra and changed into cotton shorts and a tank top, without trying to dwell too much on the fact that her measurements must have been part of her physical description in the file Stone read. The phone conversation continued downstairs. She pulled her hair into a high ponytail, and was just about to settle down for the night with a random book she had selected off the shelf when a quiet knock at the door made her start.

  She hadn't heard him hang up, and she definitely hadn't heard him coming up the stairs. The realization that a man of Stone's formidable size could move soundlessly throughout the house quickened her pulse. Alexa got up from the bed and pulled the door open.

  His jacket and hat were gone. Stone stood in her doorway in tight jeans and a domestic-looking T-shirt. Alexa wouldn't be surprised if the regimented ex-cop ironed them himself.

  Any private thoughts about how well he filled out those garments intensified when she witnessed his gaze trickle downward to the thin cloth covering her breasts. His face reddened six shades, by degrees. He showed a sudden, absurd interest in an ordinary light switch past her shoulder.

  The open door ushered in a cool breeze from the hallway. She knew exactly what he would have seen; she felt the abrasion of the fabric against her pebbled nipples. She could let him off the hook—grab a hoodie or cross her arms. But where would the fun be in that? If she had to be here, she could at least turn his code of ethics into a chess match.

  "Can I help you?" She propped her forearm against the doorframe and leaned, asserting ownership of her new room and clothes. "Or did you already get all the help you could handle from our mutual acquaintance, Jason Rockwell?"

  "Come downstairs."

  Stone turned his back on her and retreated swiftly down the hallway. Alexa, who had been hoping for a more spirited confrontation, frowned and followed. Once they had arranged themselves in the downstairs kitchen—Alexa at the table and Stone leaning against the sink with crossed arms—he continued their exchange.

  "How much did you hear?" His voice matched his eyes. Sheepish. Guarded.

  "Enough to guess that you weren't told who I was. Even though you probably should have guessed on your own. I assume you weren't a detective in your former profession."

  "Enough about my profession," Stone countered. "What’s your story? The real story. Don’t dick me around. I can’t protect you on a foundation of lies.”

  Alexa wanted to pursue discourse on the most tempting part of his statement, but one look at the rigid line of his lips, and she reined in her sarcasm. "I'm here to testify against my father."

  "So the file says."

  Alexa took her time crossing one long, smooth leg over the other, just to see what would happen. His eyes didn't budge from hers. So much for the torch, she thought.

  "The police took me into custody after… after something horrible happened." Alexa paused to process her next words, scratching her perfectly-manicured thumbnail along table’s woodgrain, refusing to glance up at him for fear she would see anything but what she knew him to be—corrupt, self-serving, the way all cops go given opportunity and bankroll. "My mother was shot in a business deal gone wrong, and my father was arrested."

  "Some business you're running." Stone's voice steeped irony.

  Alexa glanced up sharply. "I don't run anything, okay? I didn't choose what family I was born into. But they're my family, and I'll do anything to protect them."

  Damian Stone—the man whose job it was to protect her—blinked back the sharp tenor of her words. His expression hardened once more, clearly unconvinced.

  "So why testify? If you're so loyal to the Volkov family, why act as the government's lynchpin in putting Nico behind bars?"

  "My father has done some terrible things. I always knew, but I didn't realize the scope until they sat me down at the precinct and showed me the evidence—crime scene photos, severed body parts with cryptic messages carved into the skin, surveillance video. I always thought anything he did could be justified away—that the people who crossed him in business deserved what came to them or that he was doing what he had to for us, to give us a better life than he had in Russia. As a little girl, I fantasized that my father didn't enjoy leading a life of crime.”

  “And now?”

  Alexa ran an anxious hand over the back of her neck and squeezed the tension from her muscles. “Now that I'm older, I see that his decisions come from that past—the gulags. Labor camps with inhumane conditions. Preservation is all he knows, but that doesn't mean I don't love him. I'm doing this for him, even if he won't forgive me for it. Even if my family disowns me and throws me out on the street, at least I'll know my father is locked up safe where no one can put a bullet through him."

  Not like my mother.

  But she didn't say any more. The air between them thickened, charged with all she had not revealed and all he had yet to confess. And Stone, to his credit, didn't press her.

  He pushed off from the counter. "I have something to show you."

  “Don’t tease me, now, Stone. I can match any heat you may be packing.”

  “That work often for you?”

  “What?”

  “Your ability to disarm people with a mixture of immature innuendos and adolescent wiles?”

  His words landed like a blow to her belly. Alexa stormed after him into the living room. “I’m twenty-three.”

  “Going on fourteen.” Damian crossed to the centerpiece cabinet. “Sheltered by your daddy and his bullets.”

  The blows kept coming. This time, she had her gloves on, far from defenseless. “You know nothing about my life.”

  “I know enough to do my job.” He pressed a number sequence into the cabinet. The lock suctioned free to reveal a mini arsenal. “Past that? Your suggestive words, your sharp tongue, your associations hold no meaning for me.”

  The sight of so many weapons might have been disturbing to another woman, but not to the daughter of Nico Volkov. Ale
xa looked at Stone pointedly, as if to say, get on with the lecture. Ever since the revelation of her tattoo, she had been expecting ground rules.

  "I keep all the guns in here. Don’t attempt to figure out the code. It revolves forward and resets at random intervals."

  Stone shut the cabinet. The number blinked red.

  She raised an eyebrow. "Is that really a good idea?"

  He rearranged himself to mirror her, arms crossed high against his pecs. His stance caused his biceps to leap into casual prominence. Alexa had only ever known the byki of her father's crime family to affect such a pose when trying to appear better built than they actually were. On Stone, the gesture was authentic. Mesmerizing.

  Alexa's eyes scanned to his expansive chest. She thought she saw Damian's eyes traveling down her body again, but unless he was looking for contraband, she decided any perceived interest was only a trick of her imagination. He had, after all, practically called her a child.

  "In the event of an emergency, come and find me," he said finally.

  "Controlling much?" Alexa asked.

  "Clearly you haven't spent any extended time with Jason Rockwell." Stone checked the cabinet’s keypad again. "If it was up to me, I would have you locked up in a cell beside your father. But since I have less authority over our situation than I was given to believe, I'll settle for you following my orders."

  "My life is in your hands," Alexa said, her rising temper more than evidenced by her caustic tone. She decided that she had endured quite enough of Damian Stone for one evening. She scaled the stairs in paired steps. By the time she reached the loft, she had committed herself to a mutiny of epic proportions.

  CHAPTER 4

  Damian had lied to Alexa Volkov. There was still one gun left unlocked, and that was his personal Glock 22. He kept it on him at all times now, concealed in a holster at the small of his back.

  Damian Stone wasn't taking any chances.

  That wasn’t all he lied about. Alexa Volkov was definitely not fourteen. He didn’t find her seducing banter obnoxious or immature, either. If he was truthful, he found it a complete fucking turn on. Disarmingly sexy with the ability to smother his focus. Focus he desperately needed if he was to protect someone who embodied everything he despised.

  His glacially cold shower hadn’t mitigated his body temperature. He slept terribly. He almost always did. Memories and visions that he was able to suppress during the daylight hours came knocking when he was at his weakest. The memory of his bloody showdown with Nico's mob, however, didn't haunt Damian's subconscious that night.

  Alexa Volkov’s body did.

  Damian woke before dawn, a thin sheen of sweat covering his neck and chest. He kicked the covers off and paced to his bureau to dress for his morning run before doubling back to retrieve the gun fixed beneath his bed frame. He fastened his holster before shrugging on a sleeveless gray hoodie and shorts. He secured the door behind him.

  Besides acting as a perimeter check, running purged his mind of unwanted thoughts. Today, the blood pumping through his veins and the racing of his heart reminded him of his waking condition: saturated, amped, his physical drives overpowering anything his mind offered. While he couldn't remember the content of last night's dreams, he could remember, all too clearly, was his forbidden housemate and her complete willingness to linger in his fantasy.

  Just what he needed—a dangerous mob boss’s daughter needling him on a conscious and subconscious level. Not only was he betraying his duty by allowing his thoughts stray from protocol, he was betraying himself. Ultimately, he was betraying his partner.

  Damian’s return surveillance took him along the lake’s perimeter. The water looked glass-still in the early morning, disturbed only by the occasional ripple of a breaching fish. He passed a lone heron standing in the shallows like a statue. The bird did not start, not even when Damian paused his run briefly to admire its regal stance. The creature embodied patience, a resoluteness he identified with. If only he could get back on track.

  For the first time ever, he allowed his thoughts to slip back into his darker memories, drawing them out to eclipse the maddening blonde vision that had been the inspiration for his run. In his memory, he was back at the warehouse, bullets spraying the air, blood splashing across the concrete like abstract art.

  Damian took cover behind a cargo crate. He dropped at least five of Volkov's goons, but they kept coming. Bam. Bam. Two officers dropped—Kopecky and Weddell. Hands reached out to drag them along the concrete, out of harm’s way. Something didn't smell right. It felt like an ambush, a set up.

  His partner, Paulson, took similar shelter behind a crate several yards away. Damian swiveled, waiting for a break in the action to make the run, to join Paulson and tell him he suspected a mole. Damian lunged across the warehouse as Paulson raised himself up, gun trained to deliver another punishing round of shots to Volkov's gang.

  A single crack echoed through the cavernous warehouse, loud enough that it might have come from anywhere.

  He thought Paulson's M&P 9 had discharged, but by the time Damian arrived at his partner's side, Paulson’s gun had dropped from his limp fingers to the floor.

  On the north side of the mountain lake now, Damian pushed his memories past physical exertion. His legs pumped, his arms knifed the air. He sprinted as if his strides could carry him back in time, back to the split second before his partner had taken that bullet. If he had been quicker, he might have saved Paulson's life, even if it meant trading his in the process.

  Damian would have sacrificed without a moment’s hesitation.

  If he had kept his focus, Paulson wouldn't have died that day in his arms.

  Circling back toward the safe house, he recaptured his single-minded focus: do his job, protect his charge. End of story. Rehashing the sins of her father made the line drawn between him and Alexa clear again—more than clear. The sooner she was out of his protection, the sooner they could all swallow the bitter rehashing of past events.

  A mile out from the house, he came upon a late-model Jeep, parked along a wide trail near a boat slip.

  Damian drew his gun. His stride immediately shifted, becoming more swift and covert; he trained his forward shoulder instinctually toward the vehicle as he approached, making himself a slimmer target. In the next moment, he realized he needn't have bothered—the Jeep was completely empty save for a lidless coffee cup and a couple of fast food wrappers littering the backseat.

  He pressed his palm to the Jeep’s hood.

  As cold as the morning air.

  Damian relaxed a little. The safe house wasn’t the only residence around the lake. Neighboring houses scattered here and there, mainly summer homes, but he couldn't discount the few locals who stayed year-round. The relatively small and private-minded population surrounding the safe house property lines was preferable to complete isolation. Humans who isolated themselves from society naturally attracted suspicion.

  In all his time at the safe house, Damian had never encountered another soul who hadn't been placed directly under his supervision. Still, that didn't mean finding evidence of others was anything out of the ordinary. If anything, he probably should have found something like this sooner.

  He photographed the vehicle. As he strode home, he made a call to Rockwell.

  "Plates?" the gruff voice on the other line prompted.

  "I'm sending them to you now."

  "Good. We'll run 'em, see what turns up. I wouldn't lose sleep over it."

  Sleep. Right. "Roger that."

  "Feeling a bit better about Miss Volkov this morning?" Rockwell inquired, as if reading the silence between them.

  "Not especially."

  "Good. As long as you don't feel any worse about it. A healthy level of suspicion will keep you on your toes. Wouldn't want you to get complacent."

  "Wouldn't want to keep me informed, either."

  "Is this about the file again?" Rockwell sounded annoyed. "Redaction is standard in this sort of case. I gave you wh
at you need to do your job. So do your job, Stone."

  The call severed.

  Damian sighed. He didn't like Rockwell controlling all of the information and leaving him in the dark, but the man was right. He needed to get his head straight about Alexa Volkov and do his job. He needed to keep her from entering his thoughts, unbidden, even while remaining in her proximity at all hours.

  Routine protocol. Keep busy. No problem.

  For Paulson.

  ***

  The safe house Damian operated was an updated lodge-style home. From the outside, it appeared warm and inviting—nothing at all like the stoic man who was only pretending to pay the mortgage on it. The house was picturesque, from its aesthetic square windows to the top of its stone chimney, and Damian was fond of it. He felt a complete sense of ownership.

  He jogged down the steps descending from the dirt road to the front door. A broken fence post snagged his attention, and he made a mental note to repair it after breakfast. Projects kept him occupied and focused on things other than houseguests in bottom-hugging shorts.

  Volkov's bedroom door was closed, and Damian saw no sign of the blond beauty. He pulled his muddied shoes off in the foyer. His eyes scanned the downstairs, but the house was just as he had left it. Satisfied, he moved into the kitchen to start breakfast.

  Like everything else in his life, Damian adhered to a breakfast routine: a stack of pancakes poured from a protein-rich grain mix and slathered with butter, no syrup; eggs, sunny side up; and bacon charred to a crisp. These had been his staples since he had entered the police academy, and he didn't see any reason to change.

  "Do you make all your guests suffer through burned bacon smell?"

  He frowned and turned away from his busy stovetop. Volkov stood in the doorway, still wearing last night's little number. Little didn’t begin to describe the skin-to-fabric ratio. The shorts were twisted from sleep, as revealing as ever, and the dark outline of a lace-black push-up bra beneath her tank top concealed her assets he had jogged three miles to forget.