NIKOLAI (Her Russian Protector #4) (5 page)

Her face a mask of concern, she touched my leg.
"I know you told me that your cousin and Nikolai think they can
keep you safe, but, baby girl, I've got friends in Manhattan. If
you need to get out of town, you say the word, and I'll find you a
place to go."

"It's a tempting offer." I pushed the crushed
mint against the side of my glass with the straw. "But these people
could get to me there just as easily as they can get to me here.
Maybe even easier," I added with a shiver. "The thing is I don't
really belong with the Russians—and the motorcycle gang and the
cartel know it."

Bianca frowned. "What does that mean? You're
half Russian. Nikolai has basically taken you under his
wing."

"It's not the same thing as being
part of the
family
. My grandparents weren't part of that group. They kept their
noses clean, you know? My mother burned every damn bridge she came
across within the family by marrying my father and then pulling her
identity fraud and credit card and check stealing
schemes."

I tried to figure out the best way to explain
it to her. "If I was, like, a daughter of one of the guys in the
family, the guys my dad has betrayed wouldn't dare to come after
me. They'd know that the Russians would come down on them like
hellfire—but I'm not blood and that's not the case."

While she considered my explanation, a series
of loud cries erupted from the dance floor. We both popped out of
our seats and hurried to the railing so we could see what the fuss
was. The DJ cut the music with a loud squeal. Shouting into her
microphone, she urged the crowd to calm down and back away from the
bar, but everyone was rushing forward for a better look.

A fight had broken out near the bar. Four or
five men were beating the crap out of one another. Bouncers were
trying to claw their way through the crush of bodies on the packed
dance floor but it was proving difficult to move the crowd.
Finally, a bartender in tight leather pants and a halter top jumped
onto the bar and lifted a mop bucket filled with dirty water and
bar towels. She hurled the contents onto the fighting men, stopping
them cold.

By now, three bouncers had reached the
brawlers. Big V, the massive bull of a head bouncer, grabbed two
men by the scruff and dragged them toward the front doors. His
colleagues quickly followed suit.

I spotted Kelly standing next to the bar and
holding his hand up to a young woman in a tiny hot pink mini-dress
who seemed to have been dancing up there. From the looks they
exchanged, it was clear they knew one another. He looked infuriated
and she looked embarrassed. Had she been the cause of the
fight?

A janitor rushed out with a mop and the
bartender hopped over the bar to help him gather up the wet towels
and clear away the mess. Almost immediately, the DJ started a new
track and the revelers returned to their dancing. It was actually a
bit wild to watch how quickly everything turned to
normal.

"Okay, ladies, it's time to go." Sergei's low,
rumbling voice carried over the music.

I turned around to see him holding our purses
and coats in his big hands. He wore an expression that told me
arguing wasn't going to work. With a dramatic sigh, I grabbed my
purse from his huge paw. "Fine."

Clamping Bianca's purse and coat under one arm,
he shook out my coat and helped me into it. While I buttoned up, he
helped Bianca slide her arms into her jacket. I noticed the way she
gazed up at him and took a few quick steps away from Sergei. I
couldn't decide if she did it out of genuine discomfort or to nip
any growing attraction in the bud. I knew her type and Sergei
definitely didn't fit that mold.

"Come on," he said with a flick of his fingers.
"I'll drive you home."

"I'll get a cab," Bianca replied.

"It's cold and late. You'll come with us,"
Sergei all but ordered.

She glanced at me with a slightly bemused
expression. "Are they always bossy like this?"

I smiled up at Sergei. "He's pretty tame
compared to some others."

She shook her head and tugged her purse out of
Sergei's grasp. "Well—let's go Hulk. Take me home."

He looked down at her as if he wanted to say
something. The way his lips twitched with the tiniest hint of a
smile confirmed that it was probably something outrageously
inappropriate. He was smart enough to know that Bianca wasn't the
kind of girl who would let him get away with it.

Ushering us forward, he used his wide shoulders
and intimidating size to create safe passage through the packed
dance floor. We caught up with our friends and exchanged quick hugs
and air kisses before ducking out of Faze.

Out in the cold night, I shivered as a blast of
chilly air swirled around my bare legs. The temperature seemed to
have dropped twenty degrees while we were in the club. They'd been
forecasting a winter storm to hit in a few days but it seemed to
have arrived a bit early.

Safe inside Sergei's SUV, we rolled out of the
Faze parking lot and onto the busy streets. I leaned over and
punched Bianca's address into his GPS unit. It started to drizzle
as we left the downtown area for the historic neighborhood where
Bianca lived. The house she'd purchased a few months earlier was in
the same area as Nikolai's so the trip didn't take us very far out
of our way.

As Sergei navigated the narrower streets, his
phone started to ring. He fished it out of his pocket but I swiped
it from his hand with a frown. "You can't talk and
drive!"

He frowned at me and tried to grab the phone
but I smacked at his hand. Bianca laughed in the backseat.
"Children, do we need to pull over?"

Grinning, I answered the call.
"Hello?"

"Vee?" Nikolai sounded surprised. "Why are you
answering Sergei's phone? Where the hell is he?"

"Calm down. He's driving. We're taking my
friend home."

"When you're done dropping off your friend,
tell him to bring you to the warehouse."

His unnaturally harsh tone worried me. "What's
wrong?"

"Someone vandalized your studio." His
reluctance to tell me came through clearly. "I'm sorry. I should
have had someone here."

"It's not your fault." My heart ached and my
stomach soured as I imagined what the miscreants had ruined in my
art studio. My gaze jumped to the windshield. Bianca's house had
come into view. "I'll see you in fifteen minutes or so."

After we ended the call, I glanced at Sergei.
"Someone vandalized my studio. Nikolai wants you to bring me
there."

His hands tightened around the steering wheel.
"Yeah. Okay."

"Um, what's going on?" Bianca leaned forward
and gestured to herself. "Doesn't speak Russian,
remember?"

I hadn't realized I'd slipped into the other
language. "Sorry." I shot her an apologetic smile. "There was some
vandalism at my studio."

"Oh no! What about your paintings? Oh, I hope
they're all okay. Do you want me to come with you?"

"No, this is probably going to keep me up all
night. You have brides coming for their last-minute fittings
tomorrow." I squeezed her hand. "But I really appreciate the
offer."

The SUV rolled to a stop outside her darkened
house. Sergei pointed at me. "You sit here. I'll be right
back."

Before Bianca could protest that she didn't
need to be walked inside, Sergei already had the door open and an
umbrella waiting. She seemed flustered by his attentions but
allowed him to walk her to the front door and see her safely
inside.

After stowing the umbrella in the backseat, he
slid behind the wheel. I wanted to tease him about Bianca but
decided to let it go tonight. I didn't want to get his hopes up
when it came to her. There was one thing she swore she'd never do
and that was date any guy in the underworld. After what had
happened to her brother, I understood that rule.

By the time we reached the warehouse Nikolai
had converted into studio space for me, there were already two guys
out front trying to paint over the filthy words that had been spray
painted on the façade. My lips parted with a shocked gasp as I
realized what had been written there.

The vandals had tagged the wall with
the word
snitch
in
English and Spanish. There were numerous gang tats badly outlined
too. Someone unfamiliar with Russian had scrawled
mob whore
in badly shaped
Cyrillic letters. They'd translated awkwardly but the meaning was
clear enough.

Sergei swore under his breath. I was still
taking in the ugliness of it when my door was wrenched open. One
look at Nikolai's furious face and I knew I was in deep shit. He
reached in, unbuckled my seatbelt, and lifted me right out of my
seat and onto the pavement. Firmly grasping my arm, he escorted me
into the warehouse and up the stairs to my wide-open studio space.
The door slammed behind us, the sound ricocheting like gunfire in
the big room.

"What is your problem?" I asked when we were
safely beyond the sight and hearing of his minions.

He didn't let go of me but his grip loosened. I
saw the immediate guilt flashing in his eyes. Though he hadn't even
come close to harming me, I sensed that he was angry with himself
for going all caveman on me.

"When were you going to tell me?"

I tried to read his expression but couldn't. He
was definitely pissed off but there was more I couldn't quite
pinpoint. Was he disappointed in me? Was he feeling betrayed? "Tell
you what?"

"About the paintings," he growled and flung his
arm toward the canvases on the opposite end of the room.

"Oh." Panic gripped me. "Well—I wanted to
surprise you."

"Surprise me?" His eyebrows shot
skyward.

"They're my best work. They're provocative and
dark and—"

"Provocative?" He cut me off mid-sentence.
Swearing a blue streak, he shook his head. "I thought I made myself
explicitly clear when you came to me asking about my tattoos. What
did I tell you, Vee?"

I remembered that awkward conversation from
three years ago when my fascination with gang tattoos had first
taken hold. Quietly, I answered, "You told me to leave it alone and
not to go digging in other men's histories because I wasn't going
to like the things I uncovered."

"And what did you do?" He stormed to the far
wall and started flicking aside the canvases mounted on their
swinging display hooks so each one was momentarily visible. "You
created an art show out of tattoos that are evidence of violent
crimes!"

I heard his sharp intake of breath when he
reached Kostya's canvas. "Is this…?" he trailed off in disbelief.
"I'll wring his damn neck."

"Will you calm down? I mean,
seriously
! They're just
paintings, Nikolai. They're my interpretations of the stories of
these men and women and their tattoos."

"Calm down?" He gestured to the
wall. "Did you not see the filth painted outside? You don't think
these
interpretations
of yours are going to piss off a lot of people? You think
Besian is going to be thrilled when he sees the back of one of his
captains hanging in a downtown art gallery?"

I gulped nervously as I considered what the
Albanian mob boss might think about the story his captain had told
me about that particular tattoo. "It's just art."

"It's not
just
anything, Vee. Nothing in this
world of mine is simple or black-and-white. The stupidest, silliest
thing can get a man killed. Look at this mess with the loan shark
and the Hermanos!" He drew his fingers across his neck in a quick
cutting motion. "That was probably kicked off by something as
stupid as an interest disagreement on an outstanding
loan."

Disappointed and exasperated with me, Nikolai
muttered angrily and started flicking through the canvases
scheduled to be picked up by the gallery in the morning. When he
reached the one at the very back, the one I'd kept covered with a
cloth, I raced forward to stop him. After the way he'd reacted to
the others, I figured this one was going to push him over the edge.
"No! Not that one!"

But it was too late.

He jerked free the cloth and froze rigid.
Staggering backward, he put a hand to his chest. For a moment, I
thought he was actually going to have a heart attack.
"Kolya?"

Chapter Four

Throat tight and gut clenching, Nikolai fought
the panic threatening his control. That picture—that fucking
picture!

She'd painted the night she'd been shot. It was
the broken window, the panes smeared with her blood, and the chest
of the man who had pulled the trigger. She'd left all of the man
except for his tattooed chest blurry. He supposed that her
traumatized, eleven-year-old brain had only taken in that much of
the shooter.

He glanced at Vivian, taking in the worry
contorting her beautiful face. Did she know? Had she somehow
finally managed to remember more? Or was this image the extent of
her memories?