“But it was dirty once?”
“Some of it,” he said. “It’s complicated, but if you really want to know all the secrets I have, I can tell you about it some other time. It’s not something I can do in ten minutes.” Certain she was concerned about his well-being and safety and the security he could provide, he assured her, “I don’t owe outrageous debts, Shay. This house will be mine in two years. I have a comfortable amount of money tucked away in various safe places.”
“And what about all the favors you’ve called in to protect me? What kind of debts are you going to owe because of me?”
“You don’t need to worry about any of that.” Rising out of his chair, he came around to her side of the table and leaned down to kiss her. Gliding his hand over her braid, he said, “You’re worth every fucking penny, Shay.”
The doorbell rang, interrupting their moment, and he left her in the kitchen to answer it. He found Stas on the porch and welcomed him into the house. “Shay is finishing her breakfast. She’s expecting company today. She’ll let you know what else she wants or needs to do. There will also be a delivery later this afternoon.”
“What kind of delivery?” Stas removed his damp jacket and placed it in the coat closet Alexei pointed out to him.
“Spider is having Shay’s house boxed up this morning. They’re bringing the truck when they’re done. Take the boxes upstairs to one of the extra bedrooms. Shay will let you know which boxes need to come into the master suite.”
Stas nodded. “Consider it done.”
“She has the keys and access to my garage. I would prefer that you drive her around town in one of my vehicles.”
“All right.”
Alexei flicked his fingers and Stas followed him into the kitchen. He found Shay standing at the sink washing dishes by hand. It didn’t surprise him that she was cleaning up after herself even though a housekeeper was on her way.
Picking up an envelope, he checked it to be sure it contained the proper amount and handed it to Stas. “To cover her expenses and yours,” he said in Russian. “Whatever is left at the end of the week, you can keep.”
Stas nodded and slipped the envelope into the back pocket of his jeans. Rightly guessing that Alexei wanted to be alone with Shay for a few minutes, Stas left the kitchen.
Envelopes in hand, Alexei came up behind Shay and embraced her. He kissed her temple. “I have to go.”
Shay leaned into his kiss and reached for a dish towel to dry her hands. “What time will you be home?”
For the first time in his life, Alexei had a reason to come straight home. The house wouldn’t be empty. Shay would be right here waiting for him. “Seven or eight.”
Turning in his arms, she put her hand on his chest. “I’ll make something for dinner.”
“You don’t have to cook. We can go out for dinner.”
“Not like this,” she gestured to her healing face. “I need a few more days and some strategic makeup buys before I can go out in public. I don’t want people getting the wrong idea.”
He didn’t fancy the idea of people assuming he had been the one to hit her either.
“Do you need any errands run today? Anything specific you want done around the house?”
He realized what she was doing. “You don’t have to earn your keep, Shay.”
“I’d feel better about taking money from you if I was actively doing something around here to help. Otherwise, I’m basically earning my salary on my back.”
He didn’t care for that comparison but he understood she felt strongly about the money issue. “Listen,” he said, an idea forming, “why don’t you sell me a piece of your company.”
“What?” She seemed baffled by the offer. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. I’ve seen your business plan.”
“You saw my business plan?”
“At your house,” he explained. “When I went to pack up some of your things. It’s a solid plan. I’ve seen your work. You produce quality pieces. You have strong sales. What you need is a capital injection.” He handed her the envelopes. “Consider this your first disbursement. Use it to cover your living and operating expenses.”
Shay hesitantly took the envelopes from him. “We need a contract or something legal between us, Alexei. Someday you’re going to want to be repaid for your investment.”
“We’ll talk about it tonight.” He captured her mouth in a lingering kiss. “Thank you for breakfast.” He kissed her again. “Try not to get Stas in trouble today.”
“Alexei!” She smacked his chest with the envelopes, but he kissed away her annoyed retort.
He allowed himself a moment to simply appreciate how lovely she looked. “Call me if you need anything.”
“I will.”
Not wanting to leave her, he pivoted on his heel, picked up his jacket from the back of the chair where he had draped it and left the kitchen. Out in the garage, he slid behind the wheel of his SUV and cranked the engine. Rolling down the private driveway, he experienced the strangest sensation of dread and fear. It took him another block of driving before he figured out why.
I’m happy.
He was finally, truly happy—and it terrified him. After the intense stress of the last few days, after Shay had nearly been killed twice, Alexei was painfully aware of how easily and quickly she could be taken away from him.
His first instinct was to clamp down and keep Shay isolated, but she would wither away and die like a flower starved of sunlight if he did that. She needed her freedom, and he wanted her to have it.
And if that meant he had to make deals with some of the city’s worst devils? So be it.
Chapter Nineteen
“Holy. Fuck.” Kylee exclaimed for probably the twentieth time as she followed me on a tour through Alexei’s house. “I mean, the house I grew up in was big but this place is crazy, stupid huge. What the hell does he do here all by himself?”
“I don’t think he spends that much time here.” I led her into Alexei’s office and shut the door after sharing a look with Stas. It was going to take some time for our fledgling relationship to recover. Right now, I wanted privacy and I didn’t want to have to worry about getting in Denise’s way as she worked.
“Really?” Kylee walked around the perimeter of the room before plonking down in an overstuffed leather club chair. “Why do you think that?”
I shrugged and dropped into the chair across from her. “Think about the hours he puts in at work. Then add in the time he spends at the gym, restaurants, bars…”
“You’d think he’d just keep that penthouse,” Kylee remarked. “Less upkeep, lower monthly expenses and all that.”
“I’m sure he had his reasons.”
“Listen to you being all protective of your Russian sugar daddy!”
I rolled my eyes at her teasing. “He’s not my sugar daddy.”
“Did he or did he not give you stacks of cash in envelopes this morning?”
“Well…”
“Exactly,” she announced triumphantly.
“It’s not like that and you know it,” I insisted, feeling a bit hurt.
She must have realized that I wasn’t keen on her teasing because she immediately stopped. “You know I don’t mean it in a bad way, Shay. He’s a good guy, and he obviously adores you. Hell, after seeing him in the motel the other night? I’m pretty sure Alexei is like legit in love with you.”
“Don’t say that,” I pleaded quietly.
“Why not?” Perplexed, she blinked at me. “Shay, the guy kicked in a door for you. He beat up all those men. He let Lalo put a gun in his face for you. I thought he was going to cry when he thought you had been shot. He was panicked because he thought you were hurt.” She sat forward in the chair. “He loves you.”
“I want to believe that. Alexei loving me is the one thing in the world I want, but if I’m wrong, it will gut me, Ky. His track record with relationships is terrible. Right now, I’m new and interesting, but in six months? Seven months
? I don’t know.” I rubbed my face between my hands and tried not to cry as I imagined him walking away from me forever. "I need to be realistic. I don’t want to be my mother, always chasing after men who will never love me.”
“You are not your mother. You will never be your mother.” Kylee leaned forward and squeezed my hand. “Alexei is showing you how much he loves you. You just need to trust what he’s shown you and be brave enough to love him back. God, Shay,” she said with a laugh, “what else does he have to do to prove what you mean to him? Actually get shot?”
“No!” My stomach lurched and twisted painfully at the very idea of such a terrible thing.
“You worry too much. You’re always waiting for that other shoe to drop. You need to live in the moment. We aren’t guaranteed a tomorrow, Shay.”
I placed my hand on top of hers. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. You always know what I need to hear.”
“That’s what best friends do.” Leaning back in her chair, she mirrored my cross-legged position. “Speaking of other shoes that are about to drop…”
I made a face. “What now?”
“A detective came to see me yesterday.”
“And?” I held my breath as I waited to hear what she had to say.
“He was looking for you. I told him you were spending the weekend with your boyfriend. He seemed to be really curious about your relationship with Alexei.”
“Was it Eric Santos? The detective, I mean.”
“Yeah. I sensed that you two had some history. I was careful in what I said. I told him you two had been an item for a while and left it at that. Anything I should know?”
“Eric was one of the cops who used to come to our house when the neighbors would call 9-1-1 on Mom. He works in some gang unit now. He’s been in it for a few years. Remember when Shannon got busted in high school?” Kylee nodded. “He was the cop who cut her a break and helped her get community service instead of juvie.”
“It didn’t help her much.”
“I don’t think Shannon was ever interested in being helped or saved. I think she is a true ride-or-die girlfriend. She’ll do anything for Ruben.”
“Even die for him?” Kylee said what we were both thinking. “Because I’ve got to tell you, Shay, I have a feeling that Ruben is wearing cement shoes and sitting on the bottom of the Gulf. We haven’t seen or heard from Shannon since Saturday. That isn’t good.”
“I think Ruben is dead too,” I agreed somberly. “But I don’t think Shannon is.” I touched my chest and tried to explain how I knew. “I think I would feel it if something had happened to her. Shannon must have escaped the motel and went underground. She’s hiding out somewhere. I know it.”
“If she’s smart, she’ll stay hidden. People are going to start asking questions about Lalo, and they’re going to draw the obvious conclusions about her and Ruben. If she pops up alive? It won’t be good for any of us if people realize we’re the ones who killed Lalo.”
“We didn’t kill him!” I glanced at the closed door, suddenly paranoid that Denise might be lurking nearby and hear our conversation. “He shot himself.”
“Yeah, after you shoved the gun to his face and kicked him in the stomach and I hit him in the head with the same paperweight that you bashed him with a day earlier,” Kylee said.
“Well he shouldn’t have tried to rape me or kill us,” I argued. “It’s not like we’re psychopaths who go around beating people with crystal paperweights. And he shot himself in the face,” I said forcefully. “I didn’t pull that trigger. You didn’t pull it. Alexei didn’t pull it. He killed himself.” Shaking my head, I said, “I’m not putting that on us. He was a terrible person. I’m not going to sit around and cry and feel guilty about defending you and Alexei or saving my own life.”
“I’m not saying that we should feel guilty.” Kylee bit her lip. “I just keep playing it over and over in my head trying to figure out where it went wrong.”
“It went wrong the second we decided to go after Shannon without help. We shouldn’t have done that. It was dumb and dangerous—and now we have to pay for that mistake by keeping this secret for the rest of our lives.”
“Do you think it will stay a secret?” She was obviously worried. “That motel fire was in the news, Shay. It was just a short piece in the Chronicle, but it mentioned an unidentified body. What happens when the cops figure out it’s Lalo?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I really don’t.”
“We’re so fucked,” she said with dramatic resignation. “Like seriously screwed.”
“Maybe not, Kylee. I mean, we’re talking about drug dealers and mobsters, you know? I’m pretty sure they have ways of making things like this go away. When was the last time you saw one of these guys hauled in on anything bigger than a gun charge or slinging dope?”
“I hope you’re right because I was not made for prison.”
I didn’t point out that we probably wouldn’t survive the first night in county lockup. Either one of the cholas down with the Hermanos would take us out with a plastic shiv or one of the guards owned by the gang would turn a blind eye to us being beaten to death before we made it to our arraignment. But Kylee didn’t need to hear that, and I didn’t want to think about it.
“So, um, changing the subject,” she said while reaching into the leather tote I had made her for Christmas last year, “I kind of did some research on Alexei.”
“What?” Her admission startled me. “What do you mean?”
“Look, you know I love you like a sister. I needed to be sure there wasn’t anything super sketchy in his background.”
Not wanting her digging around in Alexei’s criminal past, I said, “I already know about the sketchy things he did. I know he was in prison. I know he used to be part of the mob.”
“Obviously,” she said. “It’s kind of hard to hide his tattoos.”
“So why go looking into his history?”
“His recent history,” she clarified. “You know I keep up with the gossip and society pages. I like to keep an eye on familiar faces.”
What she really meant was that she had some serious hang-ups about the wealthy folks who had turned their backs on her and her mother and shunned them after her father’s crimes came to light. Not a single one of her mother’s country club set had lifted a finger to help them out. Sometimes I wondered if Kylee secretly had some crazy revenge plan in the works…
“So I remembered Alexei’s face in some of the big galas and charity events around town,” she said, “and I decided to have a look at his usual arm candy. It got me thinking that we really need to improve your game.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Kylee retrieved her laptop and motioned toward Alexei’s desk. “I’ll show you.”
Reluctantly, I joined her at his desk. I sat in his chair, and she stood beside me, plunking down her laptop in front of me and typing in her password. She brought up a browser window with twenty different tabs.
One by one, she clicked on them and introduced me to my competition. My heart sank as I got a good look at the incredible women Alexei had paraded around town at society events. Judging by the number of photos from the society pages and local gossip blogs, he had a very full social calendar. The same woman would be on his arm for three or four events and then a new woman would appear. My stomach ached as I imagined myself as just another in a long line of pretty faces.
And they were such pretty faces. Alexei seemed to have a type, and it worried me that I didn’t resemble any of them. They were all taller than me with knockout bodies and lush blonde or red hair. Their cocktail dresses and evening gowns put my shabby collection of thrift store finds to shame. I zeroed in on their evening clutches and shoes and jewelry. They were so beautifully put together.
Elegant.
Sophisticated.
Confident.
Sexy.
“Oh my God.” I sighed as the worst feeling in the world swamped me. Glancing d
own at my old, oversized tee and faded black leggings, I wanted to cry. “How the hell do I compete with that?”
Next to me, Kylee clicked her teeth and rolled her eyes. “Do you really think they look that good when they roll out of bed? Hell no! These women work their assets. We’ve just got to teach you to do the same thing.”
“How?”
“I’ve already booked appointments for both of us at Allure,” she said with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “We’re going tomorrow morning. The full package. Hair, nails, makeup, waxing—”
I squeezed my thighs together. “I am not going on a trip to Brazil.”
“You are such a baby!”
“Look, I keep the landing strip tidy. My landscaping is neat.” Feeling a bit smug, I added, “I didn’t hear Alexei complaining.”
“Wait. What?” Kylee slammed her laptop closed and whirled the desk chair so that we were eye to eye. “Did you—? Have you—? Oh. My. God. You did!” She hugged me so hard I nearly came out of the chair. “Why didn’t you tell me when I walked in the door? That’s the kind of news you lead with, Shay.”
“I wasn’t going to talk about my sex life in front of Stas and Denise!”
“Well they’re not in here now and I want all the juicy details. Like all of them.” She hopped up onto Alexei’s desk. “What’s he like in bed? He’s pretty good, right? Like a Russian tiger?” She pawed at me. “Rawr!”
I tipped my head back and laughed. Blushing as I tried find the right words to explain my experiences with him, I finally said, “He’s very…generous.”
Now she looked really interested. “Tell me more!”
So I did. We sat there and whispered and laughed for the next hour. Kylee offered a handful of tips that I filed away for later. For the first time in days, I felt totally relaxed and safe. It was like nothing horrible had ever happened to us.
“I’m going to miss seeing you at work.” Kylee pouted. “It won’t be the same.”
I had to roll my eyes at her dramatic pout. “We text and Snapchat all day long. I’m sure we’re going to see each other every day.”