by Stacy Gail
“Your client’s not here yet,” Scout warned as Styx pulled Sydney toward the stairs and Echo lingered with Scout. “But that could change at any moment, so no hanky-panky up there, yeah? Not unless you like the thrill of being walked in on at any moment.”
The spark that lit Styx’s eyes was so bright it was a wonder the entire lobby didn’t see it. “Great idea, Scout. Thanks.”
“If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, you’d better think again, pal,” Sydney muttered to Styx as he pulled her up to the second floor’s mezzanine area. “There’s no way in hell we’re going to try to sneak in a quickie.”
“It’s like you’re a mind reader, babe.” His grin suddenly turned razor-sharp, and when his eyes narrowed in a way she’d never seen before, she glanced around to see what he was glaring pure murder at.
Whoa.
Her eyes widened at the magnificent beast stalking toward them—tight, ripped jeans, Harley T-shirt, black leather biker jacket and lace-up steel-toed boots that had more than a few well-earned gouges in them. Her gaze bounced from the skull rings on his fingers to the shoulder-length dark blonde hair, before moving on to the close-cropped beard and the steely, hooded eyes. It was one hell of a package, and that package carried a tag that had one word on it.
Trouble.
“Well, well, well. Look who’s here.” To her horror, the beast of a man returned Styx’s look in spades. “Hey, lightweight.”
Oh my God.
If anything, Styx’s smile turned all the deadlier. “If it isn’t Loki, the second-best cover-up artist at House Of Payne. How’s life as a perpetual runner-up, man? I’m not a loser, so wouldn’t know.”
Oh my God!
The man, Loki, shook his head, and the closer he got, the more she realized just how huge he was. The Chicago Bears were clearly falling down on their recruitment job is they didn’t sign this guy up. “I’m always shocked when you talk shit to me. It’s like you have no sense of self-preservation. How’d you get to adulthood without someone killing your sorry ass?”
“If we ever tangled, you’d get your answer.”
“Oh, I’d love that.” At last the beast reached them, and there was no denying he had a good two inches on Styx. But Styx leaned in with that fuck-you smile still in place, daring Loki to start something just so he could have the pleasure of finishing it. “Too bad I love this gig even more. Payne put it in my contract to not fuck with any members of the House, because, well… he knows me.”
“Convenient.” With a shake of his head, Styx put his hand to her lower back and steered her around the beast. “Let me know if you’re ever willing to break that contract. I’d be happy to dance with you any time you want.”
“Dance?” Sydney hissed in horror as Loki muttered a curse and disappeared down the stairs. “I take it you don’t mean anything that would happen at a cotillion?”
He glanced at her in apparent surprise before he burst out laughing. “No, Fun-Size. Loki and I definitely don’t have a cotillion kind of relationship. We’ve hated each other from day one, don’t ask me why. Probably because we’re both cover-up artists. And he’s a dick.”
“I kind of got that impression.” Nervously she glanced over her shoulder, half-fearing Loki would come back up. “He’s a scary guy, Styx.”
“Babe, I grew up with people who know how to take scary guys like that down, and they taught me everything they know when it comes to fighting. Not that I’m ever going to use it against Loki,” he added when he saw her expression. He slid an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “You’ve got enough trouble in your life without worrying about that rabid dog, so don’t give him another thought, yeah?”
“I’m sorry. I just don’t like someone that crazy around you.”
“Don’t apologize, and it’s cute that you’re worried about me.” He planted a kiss on the top of her head and steered her toward a hallway made up of frosted glass embossed with the House Of Payne logo. The doors on both sides of the hall were closed, all had lights above them, and about a third of them were lit up. “Now, as I recall, you were agreeing to a quickie in my booth, right?”
She had to give him props for a first-rate attempt to distract her. “As I recall, I was saying there was no way in hell we’re going to sneak in a quickie when we could be walked in on at any moment.”
“Exhibitionism’s not your thing?” His smile was all sorts of hot and sexy as he headed toward one of the unlit booths on the right. “I’ll bet I can change your mind once I get a hand down your pants.”
Oh, boy. “You have a screw loose.”
“True that.”
“Too bad for you that I don’t.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Styx.” Determinedly she dug in her heels and stopped them both in the middle of the hallway. “Upside down? Not a problem. Multiple orgasms? I’m all in. But public sex? Not. Freaking. Happening.”
He sighed patiently. “I’ll turn the light on outside my door. If Scout comes up here to show my client to my booth, she’ll see the light and stall.”
That was enough to make her glance past him to the lights over the doors. “That’s how it works?”
“That’s how it works. Come on. I’ll be quick.”
“That doesn’t sound like much fun.” Though her panties were getting uncomfortably hot. It would be such a relief to take them off…
“Syd, quick doesn’t equal bad.”
“Not in my experience, pal.”
“Then I have something to prove, don’t I?”
If anyone could do it, he could. “Well…”
To their left, a door with the light on overhead snapped open and a scowling, bearded blonde man in a House Of Payne T-shirt with tattoos on his neck, arms and hands filled the doorway.
“Fuck each other,” he growled at them, his accent as Russian as her mother’s ever was. “Don’t fuck each other. I don’t give a flying shit what you do. Just don’t have this fucking conversation right outside my door. I’m working, goddamn it.”
“No, you’re not,” Styx said with a maddening smile while Sydney wondered if she really could die of embarrassment. “You’re standing there having a lazy-ass chinwag with us. If you think this is how you get work done, you’re not doing it right, dude.”
The tattooed man with the beard seemed to swell, making him appear even more dangerous than he already did, so this time Sydney stepped in before death threats started flying. “Sorry to have bothered you. It won’t happen again.”
The bearded man barely glanced at her before he turned away. “Chertov idiota,” he muttered, starting to shut the door.
Fucking idiots.
Oh no, he didn’t.
“At least have the balls to call us fucking idiots to our faces,” Sydney shot back in Russian, like a reflex that got hit, and all at once she was more enraged than she could ever remember being. It didn’t make sense, getting this angry; the rage exploding in her brain was completely out of proportion to the muttered insult. But there was nothing she could do to prevent the white-hot fury from gushing out of her like some horrible pyroclastic flow. “I apologized to you and I meant it. You dare call me an idiot after a genuine apology, then you’re the one who’s a fucking idiot, and a spineless asshole as well. Unlike you, I have the balls to say it straight to your goddamn face.”
An impressed whistle came from the depths of the man’s tattooing booth even as the bearded man turned his head to look back at her with ice in his eyes. Then he headed toward her like dismantling people was his reason for living, and he couldn’t wait to see how easily she came apart.
“You,” he said, his eyes unblinking as he closed the distance between them, “are Russian.”
“Whatever my woman said to you, you must’ve fucking deserved it, Max, so you’re gonna take it like a man and back the fuck off.” Styx was in front of her without Sydney even knowing how he got there, and the humor she’d seen in him moments before was nowhere to be
found. He looked downright scary as he planted a hand against the bearded man’s chest and curled his lips back in a feral snarl. “My lady’s been through hell the past couple of days with people trying to fucking kill her, so she’s working on a short fuse right now. You obviously triggered it by spewing whatever that Russian shit was, so that’s on you, not her.”
“Of course she has a short fuse,” the bearded man all but yelled in Styx’s face, eyes wild. “She’s Russian.”
“I’m not Russian, I was born in Northwestern Memorial right here in Chicago, and I don’t have a short fuse. I’ve just had it with all the bullshit in my life, and I’m not putting up with another goddamn second of it.” And if yelling at some Russian dude with crazy eyes helped her feel like she had some modicum of control, then by God, that was what she was going to do. “Next person who says boo to me, I swear I’m going to kill them.”
“I don’t doubt you for a minute, miss.” A dark-haired man pulling on his shirt came from the Russian’s booth. There was a reddened patch of skin over his heart with a black outlined name that looked something like “Gloriana Konstantin,”—the obvious beginnings of a beautiful, scroll-like tattoo. “But see, not being able to put up with any more bullshit is the very definition of having a short fuse. And unless you’re a secret ninja, that’s going to land someone like you in a shitload of trouble.”
Sydney considered demanding to know what business it was of his, but since they’d interrupted his tattoo session, she’d allow him that much. “Someone like me? Care to expand on that, pal?”
“Okay, we’re done.” Styx turned to wrap a firm arm around her to steer her away from the two men. “It’s cool for you to bark at Max—hell, I loved that shit so much I could’ve watched it all day, even though I didn’t understand a damn word of it. But I can’t allow you to start barking at innocent clientele, so it’s time to put you in timeout.”
“You’re hitting out at everything that moves because you’re pissed off and scared, and since the people who’re trying to hurt you aren’t around, any moving target will do,” the man went on calmly. Sydney crashed to a halt and looked back at him in unvarnished shock, while his words rang through her so hard they calmed the ragey chaos inside her. “Believe me, I know a powder keg about to go off when I see one. But you’re only helping your enemies, whoever they may be, if you lash out without thinking. Hell, that’s probably what they’re wanting you to do. If they can’t get a clear shot at you, their only hope is to take nerve-wracking potshots at you from afar until you unravel under the pressure and do something stupid. If I were gunning for you and you weren’t an easy target, that’s what I’d do to get you out in the open.”
“He would know,” came a deep baritone from the mouth of the hall. Echo and another man—a huge mountain of muscles that would have looked right at home in a Roman gladiator ring—headed toward them. “Hello, Miss Bishop. My name is Rudy Panuzzi, the other half of the team that’s going to be guarding you while you’re within the walls of House Of Payne. The man you’re speaking to happens to be my brother-in-law, Polo.” The mountain of muscles gave her a surprisingly charming smile, complete with adorable dimples. “You could say we’re all just one big, happy family here at the House.”
“Oh. That’s nice.” What else could she say?
“The thing about Polo, Miss Bishop, is that he knows more about guarding a body and gunning for a body than just about anyone on the planet, so I’d listen to him if I were you. You are Sydney Bishop, right?”
“No.” The Russian, Max, shook his head before she could open her mouth. “Sydney Bishop isn’t a Russian name. A woman filled with such insane fire and speaks with no fear can’t possibly be named Sydney Bishop. That’s fucking ridiculous. She must have a Russian name.”
“Ksenia-Koroskova,” Sydney said, then lifted a brow when Styx turned to gape at her. “What are you staring at?”
“Who the hell is Ksenia Koros-whatever-the-fuck you just said?”
“I am. I’m Sydney Ksenia-Koroskova Bishop. It’s my mother’s full name. She insisted that my sisters and I all have her full name as our middle name. It’s hyphenated, if that helps any.”
He stared at her. “You have a full name as your middle name?”
“You should see me try to fill out official government paperwork. It’s hilarious. I didn’t even bother putting my middle name down when I applied for the marketing job at Market Place. No way would it have fit on the form.”
He waved this aside. “And your sisters have the same middle name?”
“Yep.”
“You’re telling me your mother went full-on George Foreman and gave all her daughters the same name, her name. Ksenia whatever you said.”
“Koroskova,” Max muttered, shooting him a bewildered frown. “What are you, deaf?”
She sighed and prayed for strength. “Honestly, Styx, you would have already known this about me if you’d made up a questionnaire for me like I’d suggested.”
“Syd, you know that’s not normal, right?”
“I know a questionnaire is a little unusual, but under the circumstances—”
“I’m talking about how your mother decided to brand each of you with her own name right out of the womb.”
“Oh. That.” She wrinkled her nose. “My mother might be tiny in stature, but her ego knows no bounds.”
“I’m saying it right now. I never want to meet your mother.”
“Funnily enough, I have that same reaction. I love how we keep finding things in common.”
“If we could get back to the subject at hand,” Rudy with the charming dimples said, and all at once Sydney realized that if she’d been in a better mood, she might have been able to appreciate being surrounded by nearly half a dozen crazy-hot men while being the only female around. “My associate, Echo, will continue with his duties overseeing the property’s overall security, while I act as your bodyguard during your time here. I’m told the police are investigating your case, correct?”
“The entire Hardwick family’s on the case, from the higher-ups in the police force all the way down to my youngest cousin who just graduated from the academy,” Styx said, nodding. “Trust me, they’re looking under every rock in the city, and they’ve already got one in custody.”
“Hardwick? Are you related to Arthur Hardwick, by any chance?” Polo asked, causing Styx to glance his way, brows raised.
“Arthur Hardwick’s my dad. How do you know him?”
“Small world.” The other man grinned, but there was an edge to it that made something inside Sydney want to crawl away and hide. “My former employer and your father got to know each other very well throughout the decades. They clashed more often than not, but the man I used to work for had a tremendous amount of respect for Arthur Hardwick—probably respected him more than any other person in this city. Since I saw your father at my former employer’s funeral, and I watched as he gently placed a rose on the casket, I suspect that feeling of respect was mutual.”
“Sounds like it,” Styx said, tilting his head. “Who was your employer?”
“Borysko Vitaliev.”
Sydney jumped when Styx’s indrawn breath resembled a violent hiss. “Holy fuck.”
“It was another life, and I’m now just a boring old businessman and father of two,” the man named Polo went on with a blithe lift of a shoulder. “But I’d like to carry on that tradition of respect between our two families by doing whatever I can to help. Tell your dad the word’s going out from me personally that Sydney Ksenia-Koroskova Bishop is not to be touched. Tell him I’ll shake whatever bushes there are on my end to see what pops out, though no promises on results, since I’ve been out of the business for so long. If your old man has any questions, I’m sure he knows where he can reach me.”
Styx’s brows slammed down in a terrible scowl she’d never seen from him before, not even with Loki. “If you are who I think you are, you can damn well deliver your own messages yourself. I’ve got a pretty g
ood idea what he’ll say to you.”
“You might be surprised, so lighten up, man. I genuinely want to help.” Again Polo smiled that smile that chilled Sydney to the bone before he nodded at her. “I know you’re under pressure, Sydney, but don’t forget—reacting to it is playing into their hands, yeah? So do me a favor and remember these words—be smart, keep a cool head, and whatever you do, don’t show your enemies any weakness. Believe me, they’re waiting for you to fuck up. So don’t.”
“Got it. Thank you, Polo,” she couldn’t help but add. She wasn’t sure what Styx’s problem was, but this man had given her a perspective she hadn’t had five minutes ago, and she’d needed that perspective in the worst way. “I mean it. I needed to hear those words, so… thank you.”
“Jesus, you’re a sweetheart. You,” he added, pointing at Styx, “keep this woman safe, yeah? A man’s got to protect his treasure, and that’s what you’ve got there. And you’re right. I’ll call your dad myself, just to catch up on old times and shoot the shit like the good buddies we are. Should be a fun call.”
“Uh-huh, I’ll just bet.” Styx’s scowl lessened a fraction, and a corner of his mouth curled. “I’ll give you this much—the two of you both think Sydney is a treasure, and you’re both right, so there’s that. Enjoy your call.”
Polo’s non-scary smile resurfaced just as Scout appeared with a hipster young man at her side. “What’s this, a hottie convention and no one told me it was going on? How rude. Sydney,” she went on brightly, “Styx’s client is here, so let’s go downstairs while everyone else gets back to work. I have plans on keeping you busy.”
