Barefoot With a Bodyguard (6 page)

“A few weeks.”

“All alone?”

He half-shrugged. “When I got here a while ago, I was…”
In pretty bad shape.
His broken rib had almost healed, and a doctor Gabe knew had set his busted nose. The bruises on his hands were gone now, and he was able to start slow workouts. Since he couldn’t leave the villa, he’d improvised training on the back patio.

“You were what?” she prodded.

“Waiting for my cover.”

“Which would be me.” She sounded like a woman who’d finally accepted the truth.

“I couldn’t go anywhere,” he continued. “So I watched about six hundred movies on Netflix, read some books about how to be a bodyguard, and meditated a lot. And I cook.” He gestured toward the gas stove next to him, an appliance he’d come to love.

“You meditate?”

“I do a lot of yoga.”

“I thought you were making fun of yoga before.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s a big part of my training.” He felt her intense gaze on him and tried to remember the last time anything that wasn’t a fist in the face made him feel like squirming as much as right that minute. Maybe never. What the hell? She was just looking at him.

He cleared his throat and gestured toward the spread of sofas and chairs in the living room, a dining area off to the side. Wide planks of hardwood gleamed in the sunlight that came in from the patio doors, the overstuffed pale yellow sofas not the most practical things in the world, but the whole place looked like a model home to him.

“The living room,” he said, gesturing toward it. “And over there is the master and a bathroom. It connects to the patio, too.”

“There? Past that vestibule?”

“Vestibule?”

She stepped under the archway that led to an open space that served no purpose except to hold a huge vase full of fake flowers. “This is a vestibule.”

“If you say so.”

She opened the door to glance into the master that was big enough to hold a king-size bed and plenty of furniture. She didn’t go in, but nodded and came back to where he was standing in front of the counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of the main living area.

“A fully stocked kitchen,” he said. “Oh, and there’s a laundry room behind those doors.”

“Mmm.” She didn’t seem too interested in the laundry facilities. “Where’s the TV where you watched all those movies?” she asked.

“Back here.” He led her to the other side of the kitchen to a media room with a wraparound sofa. “And there’s this other bathroom.”

“A powder room,” she said, probably wondering where the hell he would shower as well as sleep.

He was wondering, too.
One shower problem at a time, Alec.

“Now you’ve seen the whole place.”

“This is where you’ll sleep?” She pointed to the leather sofa in the media room, a cushy, sizable thing where he’d zoned out for days on mindless action flicks.

“I’ll sleep where I can see you at all times.”

She grunted softly, letting her head tip back to show how much she really didn’t like that, but all the move did was reveal her feminine and slender neck. He tried not to stare at how…flawless it was.

“There’s a sofa in the bedroom,” he said. More like a two-person chair, but he’d already thought that through. “I’ll be there.”

“Watching me.”

“Watching the entrances to the villa. I told you there are doors in your room that lead right to the patio.”

She opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling. “This is crazy.”

“It’s not crazy after you’ve seen the threats your father is receiving.”

She lowered her head and tapered her gaze. “
You’ve
seen them? How?”

“I’ve been over to the security offices, and Gabe showed them to me. Well, copies. The FBI has the originals.”

Her brows furrowed with a question, then her whole expression grew pained.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

She pushed out of the narrow doorjamb and away from him. “I don’t even know where the security offices are, and you’ve been there and know my whole story and have seen these threats I’m not even allowed to lay eyes on. I don’t even know your name. Does any of that seem fair to you?”

Actually, no. She was in a crappy place to be and probably felt like a POW. “The security offices are on the other side of the resort, by the farm that supplies most of the food to this resort. It’s a full-service agency that handles the resort, but also provides personal protection to some Mimosa Key locals.”

“People on this little island need bodyguards?”

“There are a few billionaires running around putting together a minor league baseball team. Nate Ivory is one.”

She looked impressed. “I’ve heard of him.”

“Plus, a shipwreck that apparently has gold was found recently off the coast, and that brings security issues with it.”

Back in the living room, she paused at the patio doors to check out the pool area again. “For a guy living in hiding for a few weeks, you sure know the local gossip.”

“Just what Nino tells me.”

“The grandfather.”

“He’s been bringing me food and giving me some cooking tips. Also, Poppy.”

“The housekeeper.”

“That’s it,” he said. “The list of who I know in Barefoot Bay. Oh, and Luke, who’s been training me.” He realized how that must sound. “Not that I need much training.”

She considered that, still studying the outdoors intently. “And do you have…” She finally turned to finish the question with a direct look. “A gun?”

He held up his hands, silencing her. “Deadly weapons.”

She didn’t turn away, but stared at his hands, no doubt trying not to recoil at the sight of his ugly, marked paws.

“Is it Russian?” she asked.

He glanced at the tattoo, then nodded. Gabe already told her what it said. What difference did the language make?

“Vladimir? Boris? Mikhail?”

He laughed again at the first names of some well-known Russian leaders, names he’d heard all his life. “None of those.”

“I’ll figure it out.” She turned and headed toward the master bedroom, leaving him to wonder just how long it would take Miss Smarty-Pants to do just that.

“You must be desperate to come here.” Dmitri Vlitnik poured vodka into a glass and slowly twirled it, not looking up while he waited for an answer.

Desperate? Robyn Bickler was so far past desperate, it wasn’t funny. Now the rent was late, she’d been fired from her job, and the boy she’d followed from Philadelphia to Brighton Beach because she thought he loved her had disappeared into thin air.

“You owe me money,” she replied, trying to sound like some cool, street-smart con girl instead of a knocked-up eighteen-year-old runaway.

The fat Russian smiled, the glass he held distorting his skin and making his red, raw pockmarks even deeper. He reminded of her father, a drunk she hated with every bone in her body. Vodka mad her dad mean, too. Mean
er
.

“Can you please pay me the ten thousand dollars you owe me, Mr. Vlitnik?”

He sipped and made a noisy slurping sound with his tongue that turned her stomach. And spit the booze right in her face.

Jerking back, she swallowed the hot curse that rose up and fought to still the hands that wanted to fly at him. Instead, she closed her eyes and wiped the droplets off her cheek.

He put the glass down and leaned his large frame forward. “I don’t owe you shit, you little whore.”

The two meatheads on either side of him moved closer, like trained dogs waiting for the signal to attack.

Robyn managed to swallow, her throat already closing up.
Come on, girl. Don’t let him smell your fear.

“We made a deal,” she said.

“But I still don’t have what I want,” he said, slowly moving his girth back in the chair.

“The reward wasn’t for bringing him to you,” she fought back. “You said ten thousand if someone could tell you where he is. And I did.”

“You didn’t deliver him.”

She choked with indignation. “The reward was for ‘supplying the whereabouts’ of the guy with that tattoo. And I did.” She’d seen the flyer not long after her then-boyfriend got a job in Brooklyn and she moved with him from Philly. She’d been sitting in Cole’s new gym, bored out of her mind, when her gaze landed on a picture of a hand she’d seen before.

$10,000 reward to anyone who can supply the whereabouts of a man with this tattoo.

There’d been no picture of the man, just that tattoo that she immediately had recognized. She had an eye for things like that, and she remembered the strange letters and could see them in her mind’s eye right now—the big six, the backward N, the capital T and little b.

бить

And she’d known immediately that it belonged to that trainer Cole had worked with in Philadelphia. She’d ripped the phone number off the flyer at the time and forgotten about it, until she was broke, pregnant, and abandoned by her boyfriend.

So she’d called the number on that flyer. and some guy picked her up and brought her here, to this fancy house just outside of town, surrounded by high walls and plenty of trees. Right here in this room, she’d met Dmitri Vlitnik, big, ugly, and scary as hell.

“You promised to follow up on my information, and I’d get ten thousand dollars.” Her voice rose in frustration. “You
promised
.”

“Shut up.” He gulped another drink of vodka, staring at her, thinking. And Robyn braced for another mouthful in the face.

Cole had taught her that: Don’t let your opponent see you dance around. Look him right in the eye. Defy him.

A sudden clutching ache for the boy who’d left her high and dry threatened to bring on a rush of unwanted tears. Great. Some tough chick she was, crying and emotional and shit.

“I really need the money, Mr. Vlitnik.” She wasn’t above begging.

He narrowed cold, dark eyes. “I really need Alec Petrov, Miss Bickler.”

She took a slow, stuttering breath. How did he know her last name? She’d never told him that.

“I already told you where he works in Philly.”

“He’s not there anymore. Find where he went, and I’ll give you the money.”

“How can I trust you?”

Vlitnik’s fat mouth quivered. Then it pulled into a smile. “I like you,” he said.

She flicked at a remaining drop of vodka on her cheek. “Really. You have a funny way of showing it.”

“I like you a
lot
.”

She felt her stomach clench, suddenly realizing how ridiculously defenseless she was in this room with three giant men who might not realize the baggy shirt she wore hid her pregnancy. Or might not care.

She tightened her grasp on the sofa cushions, steeling herself for what might come next.

“I’ll give you a thousand dollars to find him,” Vlitnik said.

Her exhale came out in a loud rush. A thousand would help. It might cover a clinic visit and some back rent. But it wasn’t close to enough. “You promised ten
.”

“One now.” He inched closer. “And if you can
bring
me Alec Petrov, I will pay you the rest.”

“Nine more?”

He nodded and raised his right hand as if his sausage-fingered oath meant anything. “You have my word,” he said solemnly.

Without thinking, she put her hand on her stomach. Ten thousand dollars meant a doctor and a safe place to live while she was pregnant. Maybe she could call one of the girls she’d met at that studio and have them look around.

Vlitnik pushed himself up and reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wad of cash the size of her fist.

Before she knew what was happening, he was peeling off hundred-dollar bills until he had ten, and then he handed them to her. She was almost afraid to reach for the money.

Was this a trick? Would he snag her arm and throw her down so they could all gangbang her for laughs? But there was the money, held out like a real offering. She took it with a shaky hand, and nothing happened to her.

“Find him,” he said. “You know what he looks like, what kind of places he hangs out.”

She nodded, squeezing the bills so hard it was a wonder the edges didn’t cut her palm.

“If you do, I’ll pay the whole reward to you. If you don’t, you’ll be fucking sorry if you come sniffing around here again.”

She nodded, wondering if she had to shake his hand or something. She stepped away from the sofa, and him.

If only she could find Cole. Maybe he’d have a cell phone number for his former trainer. And maybe…pigs would land at Newark. Her man had ditched her before she even had a chance to tell him she was pregnant.

“Thanks,” she murmured, a little disgusted with herself for thanking him, but whatever.

Nobody moved, so she headed to the front of the house. Were they going to let her walk out of there with a thousand dollars? She waited for one of them to grab her from behind and take it away, but that didn’t happen.

Instead, she walked toward the door. A hissing sound coming from a darkened corridor to her left made her glance there without slowing her step. She had a grand in her pocket, nothing was going to make her stop.