Zel: Markovic MMA (41 page)

Alexei reached into the backseat for Shay’s purse and dropped it onto the console. He felt uncomfortable going through her personal things and found her keys quickly. Holding the small set in his hand, he traced her stamped initials on the small leather rectangle and the beautifully stitched edge. When this bullshit with her sister was done, he planned to ask her to make him something, maybe a wallet or a belt.

He left the SUV. Brittle grass crunched under the soles of his shoes. He had mounted exactly one step on the small, rickety staircase leading to her front porch when he heard the unmistakable whir of a spinning revolver chamber. The click of the chamber locking into place made his heart skip a beat. Frozen stiff, he waited for the steel bite of a bullet tearing through his skull.

But it never came.

“You’re awfully jumpy tonight, Alex.” Spider’s raspy voice drifted from the side of the small mobile home. A moment later, the snap of a lighter and the bright orange glow of cigarette helped Alexei locate the outlaw vice president. He leaned against the edge of the home, right behind a bush and crape myrtle.

“You fucking asshole,” Alexei hissed. “What the hell is wrong with you? My friend might have shot you.”

“Not before my two prospects shot him,” Spider answered between puffs.

Alexei glanced toward Boychenko and found the kid leaning against the door of his car, arms crossed against his chest, while two young men wearing the Calaveras colors stood on either side of him. Not liking this situation at all, Alexei stepped off the stairs and back onto the grass. He walked toward Spider to face him like a man. “Is there a problem here?”

“Not at all,” Spider replied in that slow, easy way of his. “I’m here to protect my property and make sure that you get out of here unscathed.”

The irritation in Spider’s voice was impossible to miss. “I don’t blame you for being pissed off about all of this. I realize that you’re in a bad situation here, but I’m grateful for the help you gave Shay earlier today. I fully intend to pay back that favor.”

Spider stepped out of the shadows and flicked his cigarette ash toward the ground. “You better believe I’m going to take full advantage of that debt, but I would have helped Shay regardless of her connection to you.” He took a long, final drag on his cigarette. “She’s a good person. She doesn’t deserve any of this shit.”

“I know she doesn’t.”

Spider stubbed out the cigarette on the bottom of his boot. “You two kept your relationship quiet.”

The suspicion in the biker’s tone came through clearly. The last thing Alexei needed was Spider digging around in his personal business or making trouble for them. “Shay is a private person.”

“She’s a good girl.” He tossed down the cigarette butt. “She deserves to be treated properly. Her old man is cold and dead in the ground so he isn’t here to keep you in line, but I am. If I hear one fucking whisper about you hurting her, I’ll start with your kneecaps and then I’ll let the rest of the club have a turn.”

Alexei took the threat in stride. He could see that Spider felt strongly about Shay’s welfare. He was glad that she had a father figure looking out for her. “My intentions toward Shay are what you would want from any man who dated your daughter.”

Spider issued a harsh laugh. “There isn’t a man in Houston with balls big enough to ask me to date my baby girl.” He gestured toward the house. “Do you need keys?”

“I have Shay’s set.”

“You want some help?”

“Sure.” Alexei climbed the stairs, crossed the porch and unlocked the front door. Shay had left on a lamp in the living room. A pleasant cinnamon and vanilla scent lingered in the air. Just like the last time he had visited her home, the place was neat and tidy. There was a new throw and pillows on the old, worn out sofa and more recent pictures of the two sisters on the wall.

“The girls are some of my best tenants,” Spider said as he shut the storm door. “Shay always pays the rent a week early. She keeps the house and the yard clean. I never have to worry about late notices for the utilities.” He rested his arm on the wall and shook his head. “I’ll be sad to see the girls go.”

Alexei hadn’t considered that Spider might toss them out of their home. He had been planning to let Shay stay at his apartment until she felt safe to come home or able to make a decision about her future without the added pressure of homelessness hanging over her head.

“You understand why I can’t keep them here.” Spider reached into a vest pocket and retrieved a stick of gum. “I’ve spent most of the year cleaning up this neighborhood. I’m moving in families and oilfield guys. I can’t have the trouble that followed Shay and Shannon home in my park.”

“I’m a businessman. I understand when hard choices have to be made to protect your bottom line.”

“I know you won’t let Shay end up on the streets or sleeping in her car. Shannon?” He shrugged and jammed the stick of gum into his mouth. “If she survives the weekend, it will be a fucking miracle.”

It was a cold, unfeeling statement but that didn’t make it any less true.

Not wanting to waste any more time talking, Alexei crossed the cramped living room and kitchen. There was a short hallway just off the kitchen. He stopped at the first door he reached, opened it, switched on the light and peeked inside. Even before he spotted the worktable against far wall, he knew it was Shay’s room.

If he had felt uncomfortable going through her purse to find her keys, he felt completely out of his depth standing in the middle of her bedroom. It was decorated simply and plainly. She seemed to have sacrificed her sleeping comfort to make room for a wall of industrial shelving that held finished handbags, wallets, belts and packaging and mailing supplies. He investigated the tiny space, running his hands over the tools she used to make such beautiful handmade items. The mismatched initials etched into the tool handles convinced him she had probably purchased these at pawn shops and garage sales.

The laptop on her bed captured his interest. He dragged his finger over the mouse pad and awakened the sleeping machine. A sticky note tacked onto the corner of the screen had her password printed in bright green ink along with a reminder for Shannon to recharge the battery. A faint smile played upon his mouth as he imagined Shay getting irritated with her sister for the millionth time over that.

He typed in the password and found himself staring at extremely detailed spreadsheets. With a couple of clicks, he was able to read through Shay’s current profit and loss statement, her bank account balances and her projected expenses and profit for the coming year. A word document in another window showed a five-year business plan broken down into yearly, quarterly and monthly goals and tasks.

By the looks of it, Shay was well ahead of her goals. She was very cautious with her money, putting almost all of it back into the business or into a savings account marked for the store she wanted to open with a friend. He noticed the friend’s current savings were much lower than Shay’s and her expenses were higher too.

She wouldn’t like it if he started nosing into her business, but he felt a duty to talk through the problems of partnerships with her. He had been so desperate to get out of the mafia life that he had taken on Nikolai as a silent partner without a second thought to how it would impact him years down the line. Now that he was so very successful, he wanted nothing more than to shed those old connections to organized crime, but it was impossible. He was chained to the mafia for the rest of his life.

But maybe he could save Shay from making that mistake. If she wanted to go into business with a friend, she needed to do it with those beautiful brown eyes of hers wide, wide open and with an airtight contract in place.

He opened another window and discovered the household budget and her shopping list. He wasn’t surprised to see that Shannon had been running short on cash or that Shay had been covering the household expenses on her own. Judging by the extremely short shopping list and the stack of clipped coupons he had spotted on her worktable, Shay had been cutting every possible corner to stay afloat.

Closing her laptop, he set it aside and returned to her closet to grab the one suitcase hidden away there. He wouldn’t be able to fit much inside of it so he chose carefully from her wardrobe. He was picking his way through her dresser and lamenting the lack of lacy, silky things when Spider appeared in the doorway.

“If you want, I can have the prospects box up the house room by room. We can store it over in the building behind the main office.”

“Start with Shay’s room,” he instructed. “I want this all boxed up carefully.”

“I’ll see if Marley can come over and take care of Shay and Shannon’s things,” Spider offered.

“I would prefer that.” As he packed up Shay’s tools, he gave Spider instructions for the delivery of her things. He found a couple of empty boxes on the supply shelf and put everything she might need for her work into them. He recognized a handbag from her virtual storefront, a site that he often found himself checking out late at night when he was thinking about her. It was among her most popular designs but the work she put into each one made it difficult for her to produce at a fast rate.

Her leather goods were made by hand, but there was no rule that said they had to be made by
her
hand. The seed of an idea blossomed. He needed to investigate the feasibility but he might have discovered a way for Shay to grow her business while maintaining her high quality standards.

He left Shay’s bedroom and stopped in the bathroom to gather up her toiletries. He wasn’t sure which toothbrush was hers but it was easy to pick out her shampoo and conditioner with a simple sniff. He ducked back into her bedroom to grab a couple of things off the top of her dresser like her hairbrush and watch.

She didn’t have much jewelry, just a pair of gold hoops, a set of tiny diamond studs that were less than a quarter carat and a fragile golden heart necklace. He carefully traced the thin heart shape. This was the type of jewelry a father gave a young daughter on her birthday or for Christmas. He imagined Shay wearing the necklace and thinking of the father she had lost so suddenly.

Very carefully, he wrapped the necklace and earrings in a monogrammed handkerchief. He tucked it away in the interior pocket of his suit for safekeeping. Finished packing, he gathered up her things and left the house. Spider waited for him to lock the door and trailed him down the front steps and over to his SUV. The raucous laughter coming from the prospects and Boychenko made them frown.

“Young, dumb and full of cum,” Spider remarked dryly.

Alexei let loose a snort of laughter at the biker’s rough way of describing the trio. What he could hear of the salacious, raunchy tale was enough to make him shake his head. The wild parties thrown by the motorcycle club were infamous around the city. Poor Boychenko would never experience debauchery like that in Nikolai’s service.

Tuning out the filthy story, he loaded up his SUV and held out his hand. “I’ve got a bottle of Dalmore with your name on it.”

Spider gripped it hard. “Should I be flattered that you remembered it’s my favorite?”

Alexei grinned and let go. “You know where to find me when you’re ready to claim that favor owed.”

“Remember what I told you about Shay.”

“I heard you.”

“If there’s anything you need from me—for her—you just have to ask.”

“I will. Thank you.”

Alexei whistled at Boychenko, signaling that it was time to leave. He slid behind the wheel and drove away from Shay’s home. Boychenko shadowed him to the first drug store where he picked up a toothbrush, toothpaste and two pints of the ice cream that he had seen on her shopping list.

By the time he reached the apartment building and waved off Boychenko, it was nearly three in the morning. As he was gathering up Shay’s things and trying to figure out how he would get everything upstairs in one trip, he heard a vibrating sound. Thinking it was his phone, he patted his jacket but then realized it was coming from under his seat. He reached down and smacked around on the floorboard until he patted a cell phone.

During his rush to throw her handbag and the bloody evidence into the SUV earlier in the night, Shay’s cell phone must have fallen out of her purse and under his seat. He studied the screen and noticed four missed calls and five increasingly more worried text messages from someone named Kylee and exactly one text message from Shannon.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Alexei gritted his teeth and dropped the phone into her handbag. Sorry? Shannon was fucking sorry? She had almost gotten her sister raped and murdered tonight. Sorry didn’t come close to fixing all that.

He wasn’t going to take a hard line with Shay tonight about her sister. She had been through enough and needed to be treated gently. But tomorrow? Tomorrow, he would have to tell her that the relationship she once had with her sister no longer existed. It was the only way for Shay to survive.

Upstairs, he unlocked the door and was immediately greeted by the sight of Stas striding toward the opening door, his hand on the gun holstered at his hip. The street soldier relaxed and hurried to help him with the luggage and boxes.

“Is she asleep?” Alexei asked quietly as he carried the ice cream into the kitchen.

“No, she’s not asleep,” Shay piped up from the living room.