NIKOLAI (Her Russian Protector #4) (3 page)

"You shouldn't be punching your attackers. You
should make a hell of a lot of noise and run." He'd tried to give
her a concealed handgun course and a gun for her last birthday but
she didn't want a weapon. Instead, he'd finally convinced her to
carry pepper spray. "Were you carrying the pepper spray I gave
you?"

She refused to meet his questioning gaze. "It's
too heavy and too big for my pocket."

"Vee," he chastened softly. "If you insist on
running in the dark, you have to carry some kind of
protection."

"Okay." Frustration edged into her voice.
Finally lifting her gaze, she asked, "You're here about my dad,
aren't you?"

He confirmed her suspicion with a tight nod and
then glanced at Santos. "You've heard that he flipped on the
Calaveras?"

"Yeah."

"It may be worse than that. I've heard
rumblings that he may have gone so far as to finger the cartel for
some killings inside the prison."

Vivian's sharp intake of breath pained him. As
if she hadn't survived enough in her young life, now her father had
put her in an impossible position. Nikolai didn’t believe for one
second that her rotten shit of a father cared one way or the other
about Vivian's life. He'd already used her as a drug mule and a
partner in his burglary schemes when she was a child. To put her
life in jeopardy now would be nothing to that man.

Santos swore and ran his fingers
through his hair. "I tried to get a security detail on her or even
have her taken into protective custody, but they shot me down.
There's no
credible
threat."

"No credible threat? What the hell do the
police want? A head in an ice chest?"

Vivian visibly jerked. Guilt speared his belly.
He rubbed his thumb along the underside of her wrist. "I'm
sorry."

Her shoulders bounced. "You're not saying
anything that isn't true."

"Look," Santos said, "I'll agree that our
system isn't perfect but it's the best we've got. I'm going to pack
her a bag and get her out of here until this thing dies
down."

Nikolai's gut clenched at the very idea of
Vivian being out of his sight and beyond his reach. His grip
tightened on her wrist as possessiveness overwhelmed him. "She's
not going anywhere unless it's with me."

The detective's eyes narrowed as
anger flashed across his face. "You don't get to make decisions
for
my
family. I'm
a cop. I'll protect her."

"And what makes you think that the cartel or
the club gives a shit about the badge you carry? Have you seen what
goes on south of the border? The weight of the Houston PD means
nothing to these men."

"But the Russian mob does?" The detective's jaw
clenched. "How the hell am I supposed to trust a man who makes his
living running guns and drugs and whatever the hell else you push
out of the back room of that restaurant of yours to protect my baby
cousin?"

Despite the fact that Samovar was completely
and totally legit, Nikolai didn't correct Santos about the
restaurant. "Whether you trust me or not isn't the question." His
gaze dropped to Vivian's worried face. "She can make her own
choice."

Santos scoffed loudly. "Give me a break! You've
got her wrapped around your dirty little finger so tightly she
doesn't know what she needs or what's right anymore."

"Excuse me?" Vivian turned angry eyes on her
cousin. "Who the hell do you think you are? You're my cousin—you're
basically all the blood family I have left—but I'm not going to
stand here and let you talk about me as if I'm some stupid
child."

"I didn’t call you stupid or a child," Santos
retorted, "but sometimes you do very stupid things." She gasped
with outrage but her cousin talked right over her. "That car
outside? You think I didn't know about that? What the hell, Vivian?
Why are you letting this guy buy you a car with his dirty
money?"

As if on cue, the tea kettle began to whistle.
Nikolai dropped Vivian's hand and switched off the burner. He
reached into his pocket and withdrew the keys to the Christmas gift
he'd tried to give her yesterday morning, the gift she'd gently
refused on principle. He tossed them onto the countertop where they
landed with a clatter. "She didn't accept the car—and it wasn't
bought with dirty money."

The detective ignored the facts presented to
him. "And your job at his restaurant? The tuition he pays? Your
health insurance? The professional art studio he gave you?" He
waved his hands. "Do you understand what that looks like to the
outside world? Do you realize what everyone thinks about you? About
what you are?"

The unspoken words hung in the air between
them, the ugliness of it all suspended on the thick tension.
Nikolai had a very good idea what Santos thought. He'd done
everything he could to keep Vivian's reputation spotless but he'd
clearly fucked up somewhere. What were they saying about her? Were
they calling her his mistress or his kept woman—or
worse?

Vivian didn't take the bait.
"
I
know what I am,
Eric. That's enough for me. Everyone else? They're not my
problem."

Bewildered by her calm reply, Santos
stared at her. "Jesus, I never thought you were
that
naïve."

"Enough." Nikolai didn't like to get involved
in Vivian's family issues but he had to draw the line at allowing
her cousin to attack her with baseless accusations.

As if proving his point that Vivian was a kept
woman under Nikolai's thumb, Santos shot her a disapproving look.
"So now he speaks for you?"

"You know he doesn't. Stop being such a jerk.
This isn't like you, Eric."

Her words seemed to hit home. With a
ragged exhale, the detective shook his head. "It fucking
kills
me to say this, but
you need to stick with him until this thing blows over. I'd do
anything to protect you, Vivian, but I don’t have the power he
does. I can't save you from this."

"Maybe no one can," she replied sadly, her soft
voice barely above a whisper.

An invisible band squeezed Nikolai's chest at
the thought of her being hurt.

"Maybe," Santos reluctantly agreed, "but he's
your best chance."

Vivian turned those worried blue eyes of hers
on him, and it was all he could do not to slide his arms around her
petite frame and drag her into his embrace. He wanted to whisper
that it would be all right, that he would keep her safe and out of
harm's way.

But he didn't. He'd lied to her once—and only
once—and the gut-gnawing pain of it had never left him. He'd sworn
after that first lie there would never be another between
them.

"I'll do everything I can to protect
you."

Her expression softened. "I know you
will."

Whether he deserved her trust or not, she'd
willingly placed her life in his hands—and he'd give his own before
he betrayed that trust.

Santos' phone started to ring. He plucked it
from the pocket of his jacket and frowned before answering. "Santos
here." His eyes widened briefly. "When? Yeah. Okay. I'll be there
in ten."

"What's wrong?" Vivian asked as her cousin
ended the call.

"Looks like the Hermanos and the Albanians are
at one another's throats again." He pulled a knit cap emblazoned
with the police department's logo from a different pocket and
slipped it onto his head. "They just found Afrim Barisha's body
stuffed in the trunk of a car in one of the park-and-ride lots. He
had the Hermanos gang sign carved into his chest."

Vivian recoiled. "That's awful."

She didn't know the half of it. Nikolai had
brokered a peace between the two outfits earlier in the summer,
right after that mess with Erin's sister had been settled. He kept
his finger on the pulse of Houston's underworld so he was fully
aware of the beef between the Hermanos gang leader Diego Montoya
and Afrim over the loan shark's refusal to lower the interest on a
debt incurred by one of Diego's captains. Though Diego could be a
hothead, the man wasn't an idiot. It made no sense for the Hermanos
to take out the Albanian's highest earner and invite that hellish
wrath upon their heads.

As a detective in the special gang unit, Santos
would know that. They shared a look but neither spoke aloud what
they were thinking. This wasn't a simple cut-and-dried case of
gang-on-gang violence—and it wasn't going to end with one man's
death.

Santos stepped closer and pecked Vivian's
cheek. "I'll check in with you later." He headed for the front door
and Vivian followed him. When he reached it, he turned back to face
her. "I'm sorry."

She smiled and gave him a quick hug. "Apology
accepted."

Nikolai marveled at her ability to forgive and
forget so quickly. After the way she'd been treated by her mother
and father, he would have expected her to be so mistrusting and an
expert at holding grudges, but she seemed determined to never let
the ugliness of her childhood define her. He envied her kindness.
God only knew there was very little of that about him.

She shut and locked the door before slowly
spinning to face him. Leaning back against the door, she stared at
him. "Do you really think the people my dad has pissed off will try
to hurt me?"

"Yes." He didn't hesitate to answer. "Whether
it would actually affect your father or not isn't the issue. Their
motivation is fear. They'll want to make sure that no one else in
the organization gets any funny ideas about stepping out of
line."

She inhaled a slow, steadying breath. "What
happens now?"

Nikolai shrugged out of his jacket and draped
it over a nearby chair. "You shower and get dressed while I make
breakfast. Pack a bag or two. You'll need them."

She blinked. "I have to leave the
apartment?"

"It's impossible for Sergei or Kostya to keep
an eye on every entrance here. There are too many blind spots." He
slashed his hand through the air. "You'll come stay with me so I
know that you're watched around-the-clock."

Shock filtered across her face. "At your
house?"

"Of course."

Panic brightened her eyes. What scared her so
much about being alone with him? "But—"

Because she could negotiate him better than
anyone else on the damn planet, he put his foot down. "This isn't
up for debate, Vee. Take your shower and pack your
bags."

Her shoulders tipped back. Her fiery gaze
warned him to watch his step. "Saying please would be
nice."

He eyed her carefully before inclining his head
toward her. "Please don't fight me on this."

Her full lips slanted in a smile that seemed to
be a mix of amusement and annoyance. "As if I've ever been able to
fight you on anything."

"You fought me on the car and won." He tried
not to let his disappointment in her rejection of his Christmas
gift infiltrate his voice.

"One time in all the years we've been friends,"
she reminded him. "And I didn't say I didn't like the car or
appreciate the offer. I just said that it was too much."

"Nothing is too much for you."

Their gazes clashed as the words he'd meant to
keep silent escaped his mouth. To her credit, she didn't push the
subject. Instead, she shoved off the door and strode by him toward
her bedroom. At her door, she paused and glanced back at him.
"There are some of Benny's pastries in the
refrigerator."

While she showered and dressed, he prepared a
simple breakfast and steeped tea in two different mugs. While
scrambling eggs, he attempted to ignore the yearning within him.
This quiet domestic scene reminded him of all the things he'd
denied himself with Vivian. They continually danced around their
mutual attraction, both of them pretending the easy smiles and
playful teasing they shared amounted to little more than a platonic
friendship.

He told himself she was too young,
too innocent and too good for him, but the fact remained that from
the first moment he'd really opened his eyes and viewed her not as
the child he'd assumed guardianship toward but as a
woman
, there had been no
one else for him. He couldn't look at another woman without
comparing her to Vivian. With that dark hair and those pale blue
eyes, she'd enthralled him—irrevocably and completely.

When he heard the bathroom door open, it took
every ounce of his self-control not to glance down the hallway in a
desperate attempt to catch a glimpse of her in a towel or a robe.
His mind wandered along a rather lascivious path.

What if he walked down that hall right now and
knocked on her bedroom door? Would she tell him to go away or would
she invite him inside? The very idea of her wrapped in a fluffy
towel and nothing else sent heat rolling through his
belly.

He'd slide his fingers through her wet hair and
cup the back of her head—and then he'd kiss her. And she would let
him. She would welcome the sensual touch of his mouth against hers.
She would welcome the erotic tangle of their tongues
until—