by Roxie Rivera
With renewed determination, I sorted out my projects and chose three of them. Two needed finishing touches. Punching holes in leather proved to be rather therapeutic. Setting grommets and eyelets felt even better. A few times, Stas came to the open door to watch me as I slammed a mallet down again and again. The thick board I used as a working platform absorbed most of the energy but the loud thud echoed in the office.
When I was finished with those two handbags, I wrapped them in pillowcases, tagged a note to each one and then then picked up the third order form. The client had chosen a fawn shade of leather for her handbag and wanted some feathery designs burned into it. I selected the pyrography tips I would need and attached them to the pens before plugging them in to heat.
Carefully, I unfolded the sheet of vegetable tanned leather and inspected it again for any blemishes. Satisfied with its condition, I measured out the leather I needed and cut it with my super sharp shears. I found the design we had settled on and used the copy of it as a template. I traced the template with a ballpoint stylus.
When I was finished, I set aside the paper and picked up the stylus pen I needed for the tracing. The heat radiating from the tip warmed my fingers and reminded me to use excess caution. In my early days of leather burning, I had scorched my fingertips so many times. It had taken two years of working with these tools regularly to feel comfortable with them. Even now, I worried about safety all the time, always looking for things that would melt or catch fire and keeping my fingers safe from the blazing hot tips.
While I methodically traced the imprint the stylus had created, I couldn’t stop thinking about Alexei and the redhead. Embarrassed, I remembered the way she had looked at me when Kylee had made her ill-timed joke about my sugar daddy. Even worse, I remembered the way Nisha had glanced back at the salon’s cutting floor when she was talking to me in private. She must have known that Alexei was stepping out on me with the glam redhead.
Feeling sick to my stomach, I realized what a fool I had been the last few days. The worst part? I had let Alexei put me at risk of not only pregnancy but an STD. I couldn’t be sure he was telling the truth about always using protection with his other partners. Ashamed, I decided that tomorrow morning I would go straight to the clinic. My days of being cavalier with my health and future were over.
Distracted by thoughts of pregnancy and sickness, I wasn’t paying attention when I reached out for the copy of the design to check my work so far. The cord of the pen I held tugged on the other pen plugged in next to it. I heard the other pen falling and reacted on instinct, reaching out to grab it before it fell on the floor.
Idiot!
“OW!” I screamed in pain as the sharp skew tip burned my fingers. The unbelievable pain as it simultaneously burned and sliced was so bad I shrieked again and ripped it away from my blistering skin.
Stas barreled into the room. “What happened?”
Gripping my injured hand, I sobbed in pain. “I burned myself.”
He was at my side in a second. “Let me see.” When I pulled my hand back, he took it firmly and repeated himself. “Let me see it, Shay.”
When I showed him, he winced. Reaching down, he unplugged the pyrography pens so we wouldn’t start a fire. In a flash of speed, he scooped me up and rushed me to the kitchen. He put my hand under the faucet and started running cold water onto my wounded fingers. The heat in my fingers was almost too much to bear, and the cold sting felt even worse.
“I know it hurts but you have to cool it down.” He found a plastic sandwich bag in a drawer and took it to the refrigerator where he filled it up with ice. He wet a towel under the faucet and wrung it out before wrapping the ice pack with it. “Put this on your hand. We need to get you to the emergency room right now.”
It was the last place I wanted to go, but he was right. This wasn’t a small burn I could fix with some antibiotic ointment and a bandage. Holding my hand to my chest, I followed Stas out of the house and into the car. He helped me fasten my seatbelt before jogging around and getting behind the wheel.
Backing out of the garage, he shook his head. “You have the worst fucking luck of any woman I’ve ever met.”
Hand throbbing and heartbroken, I could only nod in quiet acceptance of that fact. The worst luck ever…
Chapter Twenty-Three
Pulling into the penthouse parking garage, Alexei wrapped up his phone call with Ivan and parked in his usual spot. It felt strange coming back here. This was usually a place that filled him with excitement and lust. Today he felt none of that. The woman he wanted wasn’t waiting for him upstairs. She was on her way home.
Sitting here waiting for Marissa, he had never been more sure he was making the right decision to sell this property. Everything he wanted was waiting for him in the house that always seemed so empty and cold. With Shay’s help, he would turn that place into a home. He wanted pictures of their smiling faces on the walls. He wanted her books on his shelves. He wanted her socks mixed in with his. Someday he wanted their noisy, messy children running through the halls.
He sighted Marissa’s flashy Mercedes and exited his SUV. He buttoned his suit jacket and welcomed her with a smile. The elegantly dressed woman who embraced him in a cloud of floral and musk was nothing like the woman who had seduced and propositioned him over a year ago.
Back then, Marissa had been one of Besian’s most popular girls, but she’d known her days were numbered on the stage. She’d been putting herself through school, but she’d needed connections and money to create a new life for herself. In that first negotiation, she had proven to him that she had a mind for business. He’d been impressed with her drive and ambition and had never doubted that she would find success.
“Alexei!” She embraced him and kissed his cheek.
“Hello, Marissa.” Not so long ago, her shape and warmth had been so familiar to him. Today, he was surprised by how wrong it felt to hug her. Too tall. Too thin. Too much perfume. He mentally catalogued all the ways she was different from Shay.
Stepping to his side, she linked her arm with his. “So how was your day?”
“Busy but good.” He escorted her to the private elevator. “You?”
“I had a business breakfast with John Mueller.”
“Really? What did he want?”
“He asked me to join his firm.” She preened like a peacock. “He wants to give me a department and everything.”
Whatever his disagreements with Mueller over Shay and her sister, he grudgingly acknowledged that the man ran a successful business. If Mueller was being serious about asking Marissa to come onboard, it could be a huge career shift for her. “Get a lawyer and negotiate the fuck out of whatever contract he offers.”
She laughed and stepped inside the elevator. “I heard your voice in my head while I was at breakfast with him. His terms were favorable, but I have some points I want to negotiate.”
“Push hard, Marissa. He knows what an asset you’ll be to him in this new market. Make him pay.”
“You don’t need to worry about that.” They exited the elevator and walked to the door of the apartment. While she waited for him to unlock the door, she leaned back against the wall and smiled coyly. “I’ve missed that elevator ride and the walk to this door.”
When she reached out and trailed her fingers down his arm, Alexei realized he had to say something. Though he had hoped to avoid any awkwardness, he could tell that was no longer a possibility. “Marissa,” he said her name in the gentlest way possible, “I’m involved with someone.”
Her smile slowly collapsed and her hand fell. “Involved?”
“It’s serious.” Not wanting there to be any doubt, he added, “I’m going to marry her.”
Marissa seemed flabbergasted by that admission. “Is she pregnant?”
“No!” But he wasn’t sure of that, was he? “It doesn’t matter if she is or isn’t. She’s the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with,” he answered simply.
Gawking at him as
if she had never seen him before, she asked, “What makes her so special that you want to marry her? After all of us that have come through those doors?” She gestured to the penthouse entrance. “What does she have that we didn’t?”
“It’s not easy to explain. She just—she’s the one.” He touched his chest. “I felt it right here the first time I met her.”
Narrowing her eyes, Marissa asked, “And when, exactly, did you meet her?”
He wasn’t going to lie. “When we were together.”
“I see.” Her mouth thinned to a perturbed line. Knowing that Marissa could make trouble for Shay, he wanted to set the record straight.
“You don’t. Shay had no idea about me and you or any of the others before you. Shay and I never dated or even kissed until months after we had ended things. I don’t think she even realized I was interested in her until very recently.”
“How is that possible? You are living, breathing, walking sex!”
Alexei shrugged. “She’s not like us. She doesn’t understand the games we played or the arrangements we enjoyed.”
Marissa wrinkled her nose. “She sounds like a naïve little romantic.”
“She probably is,” Alexei agreed. “But that’s what I love about her. She’s a good person with a big heart.”
“She makes you happy?”
“Very.” Happy didn’t even come close to describing how he felt with Shay.
“Then I’m glad you found her,” Marissa said with a warm smile. “What we had together was fun, Alexei, but it never would have lasted. I’ll confess that I was hoping this was an invite for another round of fun with you, but I won’t pout now that you’ve told me you’re getting married.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that we can be adults about this.”
“You never promised me forever. I never promised you forever. I’d like to think we can be friends.” She paused. “Well—we can be friends if your soon-to-be wife allows it.”
“She will.” Despite that bit of jealousy this morning, Shay wasn’t the controlling type. More than that, she would trust him to behave like a gentleman.
“All right.” Marissa inhaled a deep breath. “Well, if you’re done breaking my heart, let’s get inside this penthouse and start talking numbers.”
Relieved their conversation had gone well, he followed her into the penthouse and let her give him the rundown of the property’s value. She had done her homework, presenting him with recent comps as well as a look at the current inventory of similar properties. She presented him with a plan for selling this penthouse and the other slightly smaller apartment he owned on this floor and admitted that she had four prospective buyers in mind.
“Give me a week to get it staged, photographed and listed. I can’t guarantee a closed transaction by Christmas, but I’ll work hard to make it happen.”
“I know you will.” Alexei extended his hand, and they shook on their deal. “Do I need to come by the office to sign paperwork?”
“I’ll email you. We try to do as much electronically as possible in our office. It’s easier for our very busy clients.”
Their plan in place, they left the penthouse. Alexei made sure Marissa got into her car safely before getting behind the wheel of his SUV. He checked his watched and decided he had enough time to swing by his attorney’s office to pick sign some paperwork and pick up a sample contract and business structure forms that he had requested.
By the time he was finished, he had just enough time to drive to B&B for the reservation Nikolai had arranged. When he arrived at the restaurant, he was quickly seated in a private corner and ordered a beer. He wasn’t left to wonder about the identity of his dinner date for long. The moment he spotted Mueller coming through the door, he knew.
As Mueller drew near, his gaze shifted from their table to the various entrances and exits into the main room that put him at risk. Alexei had already taken the chair that put his back to the wall. If Mueller wanted to feel safe, he should have arrived earlier.
“Alexei.”
“John.”
Mueller took his seat and ordered a whiskey, neat, to start off his night. Picking up the menu, he glanced over it. “The boss decided it was better for the two of us to meet in public on neutral territory. At least he chose a restaurant where we can settle things over steak and whiskey.” He glanced up and grinned. “Like real men.”
Alexei let loose a rough laugh and sipped his beer. “Real men don’t send hoodlums after innocent women.”
The waiter stopped at the table and left Mueller’s whiskey. They weren’t ready to order yet so he offered to return in a few minutes.
Once they were alone, Mueller leveled a dark look his way. “I will admit that my men went beyond what was expected or authorized. Your girl was never part of my beef with the sister. They were only ever supposed to scare her.”
“They succeeded.” Alexei’s jaw tightened as he remembered Shay’s terrified face when he found her in that parking lot.
“And you succeeded in putting them all in the hospital,” Mueller retorted. “You could have killed them.”
“Touch Shay again and I’ll do exactly that,” Alexei warned.
“I suppose that would be fair,” Mueller allowed. “If someone put hands on my wife, I wouldn’t let them walk away either.”
Wives. Children. Parents. The underworld code demanded that they all be protected from retaliation or harm. The men who broke those rules were considered untrustworthy and ostracized. If a man couldn’t do business, he couldn’t earn and that meant he couldn’t eat.
“I know the score when it comes to Shay,” Mueller assured him. “She’s completely safe from me.”
“Good.”
“But you must realize that I can’t be seen to just let you walk away without any consequence, Alexei.” Mueller kicked back his Macallan. “You’ve been out of this world for a while, but you know the way it works. If I’m seen giving you a pass, it makes me look weak. I can’t grow and build my business here if people think they can walk all over me.”
“You should have thought of that before you went against Shay.”
“She’s not your wife. Hell,” Mueller sat forward, “she’s not even your fiancée. I had it checked out. She doesn’t wear your ring.”
“She will soon.”
“But she wasn’t when the attack happened,” Mueller insisted. “How the fuck was I supposed to know she was protected by Nikolai? I can’t read minds.” He spread his hands out in front of him. “That’s one rule I never break. Black, white, Mexican, Vietnamese—I don’t give a shit what color your woman is. I don’t touch them.”
He didn’t want to see things from Mueller’s point of view, but he had to admit that the man had a point. Shay hadn’t technically been his when the trouble had started. Mueller might have—probably would have—reacted differently if Shay had been openly claimed.
Alexei shifted in his chair and exhaled loudly. “What do you want?”
Mueller leaned forward. “We’re starving on these streets. I’m boxed in tight. I need to grow.”
“You know I can’t help you with that. Your territory problems have to be sorted out by the council. That’s a vote I can’t sway.”
“No? Because I hear you’re very good friends with Besian…”
“That friendship goes back many years,” Alexei agreed, “but he’s a man with his own mind. He’s looking out for his family first. It’s about blood with them. I have absolutely no influence over his decisions.”
The waiter approached their table again, and both men placed their orders. When the waiter was gone, Alexei drummed his fingers on the table. “There might be something else I can offer you.”
“And what is that?”
“A piece of something legitimate.”
“I’m listening.”
Alexei laid out his plans for the pieces of commercial real estate he had been quietly and cheaply collecting for the last six years. He explained that he needed a partne
r to develop those sites, handle the leases and support the businesses that would occupy them.
Sketching out one of the buildings on the back of a business card as they ate, he explained, “This one is a special case. It’s in a prime location. We’re going to install a jewelry store in this center spot, an art gallery here on this side and a high-end luxury women’s boutique here.”
“We?”
“Nikolai and I,” Alexei clarified.
“And the work?”
“Nikolai will expect that his construction firms get first pick. You would get second. We’ll have to offer pieces of the action to the other families in town. If we don’t, we’ll run into problems with deliveries and supply thefts.”
Mueller grumbled with irritation, but he nodded in acceptance of that fact. It wouldn’t be easy parceling out the jobs to develop these properties, but it would have to be done.
Mueller would always be an outsider in the city. After his predecessors had so brazenly attacked Sergei’s woman and caused all those problems for Nikolai, Besian and Mr. Lu, Mueller would never be able to reach the inner circle of the top bosses. He would be blocked at every turn. Furthermore, the AB syndicate’s philosophies made it impossible for the crews under Nicky Jackson or the Hermanos and the cartels to trust them or work with them unless it was absolutely necessary.
But if Mueller played his cards right, he might be able to gain their trust and find ways to work with them that didn’t violate either party’s honor codes.
“And can I interest either of you in dessert?” the waiter asked as he cleared away their plates.
“None for me,” Alexei said with a wave of his hand.
“I’ll have another Macallan.” Mueller touched his empty glass. “And then I’m done.” When the waiter left, Mueller asked, “What have you heard about Lalo?”
Alexei turned it around on him. “What have you heard?”
“That he’s missing.” Mueller eyed him with thinly veiled suspicion. “That there’s a burned up body on ice down at the morgue that is closed to his size.”
