Protector (Grim Legion MC #1) Read online

  I chuckled.

  “Sure, you are.” Jack wouldn’t say anything different. “Why are we here, again?”

  He adjusted his leather jacket, smoothing back his short-cropped hair.

  “We are here for a job.”

  A job? I narrowed my gaze.

  “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

  He shook his head, a gleam in his eye.

  “Trust me, you are gonna want to take this job. The price… Man it’s probably more than you have seen in your entire life.”

  I looked up at the mansion behind us. Our jobs consisted of the occasional security detail for some of the Grim Legion partners, including bouncers for the strip joint, but it was rare that we took anything outside of the inner circle, and that mansion was not in our inner circle.

  “What are you getting us into Jack?”

  He winked.

  “You’ll see, boy. Trust me on this one.”

  Well, Jack had never steered me wrong before. Giving a little shrug, I motioned for him to lead the way, smoothing a hand over my face. When he had asked me to follow him earlier, I thought we were going to check on the Legion establishments, maybe have a beer or three.

  But I hadn’t expected us to take a ride to this part of town. Hell, the only time I had ever been on this side of town was when I was twelve, trying to sell fundraiser shit. I had more doors shut than I had success, the snubbed noses making me realize that we weren’t all the same. I wasn’t from money, nor did I care to be after that day.

  Jack walked up to the glass-and-iron door and rang the doorbell. The door opened almost immediately. A short man dressed in a uniform stood in the doorway, a stone-cold expression on his face.

  “Yes?”

  “We are here to see Mr. Zebrovskiy,” Jack said, giving the man a grin. “We have an appointment.”

  “Of course,” he answered, moving out of the way. “Come in. I will show you to his study.”

  I followed Jack inside and fought the urge to whistle at the lavish surroundings. Growing up in a three-bedroom wood-framed house, I hadn’t ever seen marble floors or wrought iron in any house I had been in.

  And this was no fake shit either.

  The man led us down a hallway, past a living room draped all in white, and a kitchen that had more gleaming appliances than you could find in a home improvement store. We entered a room with dark paneling, one whole wall full of books. There was a large desk, with two leather chairs positioned before it.

  “Have a seat, gentlemen,” he said, motioning toward the chairs. “Mr. Zebrovskiy will be here shortly.”

  I waited until the man left the room before taking a long look around.

  “What the hell, Jack…?”

  Jack flopped into the chair, the leather squeaking under his large frame.

  “This is the life, Fox. What would you do if you had this kind of dough?”

  I snorted, easing myself into the other chair.

  “There’s no reason to dream about what you won’t have.”

  “Oh, there’s a reason to dream, boy,” Jack chuckled. “I dream about having a place like this, with a big-titted woman in my bed and another in my lap.”

  “Yeah, right,” I laughed, thinking of Sarah, Jack’s wife.

  She was as tough as nails and would likely shoot his cock off he ever so much as thought of another woman.

  “A man can dream,” Jack uttered, as the door opened behind us.

  I watched as Nikolai Zebrovskiy strolled in, followed by another man, his hands stuffed in his pockets.

  I knew who Zebrovskiy was. Hell, there weren’t many in Greenwood who didn’t know the Russian. He held more real estate ventures than any other club in town, his money tainted with the same as that of the rest of us: drugs, guns, and women.

  Still, I was intrigued to know what we could do for the man.

  “Mr. Carry,” Zebrovskiy said, his native brogue thick as Jack stood. “Thank you for coming to my humble home in such a quick manner.”

  I raised a brow at ‘humble’. The man wouldn’t know humble if the damn thing bit him in the ass.

  “Of course,” Jack said smoothly, shaking the Russian’s hand. “This is my second-in-command, Fox Lawrence.”

  Zebrovskiy nodded toward me. “Lawrence.”

  I nodded back, not bothering to get out of the chair. I didn’t know why we were here, but I wasn’t going to like it.

  “This is my soon-to-be son-in-law, Bryan,” Zebrovskiy continued as the other man came to stand beside him. “He’s engaged to my Nataliya.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, the unhappy look on his face telling me that it wasn’t because of him that we were here tonight.

  “Can we cut the niceties?” I finally grumbled. “Why the hell are we here?”

  Jack shot me a look, but Zebrovskiy just chuckled as he walked to the bar that had been built into the wall. He pulled out a bottle of vodka.

  “A drink?”

  “No,” I said.

  Bryan eyed me with disdain. I knew what he was seeing: a man dressed in jeans and a worn leather jacket, the Grim Legion emblem emblazoned on the back. I hadn’t bothered to remove my ballcap, and the two-day-old beard on my face made me look rougher. My boots were scuffed, and I smelled faintly of motorcycle oil. Nothing like the well-dressed appearance that he was portraying.

  I was his damn worst nightmare.

  Jack accepted a glass, as did the two other men. Zebrovskiy took a seat behind the large desk.

  “As I said on the phone, I am looking to hire you for a bodyguard.”

  “For you?” I asked, surprised.

  The man had some of the best security surrounding him.

  He shook his head.

  “No, for my Nataliya. She has been threatened in my own house, and I will not have her safety compromised.”

  “I can keep her safe,” Bryan growled. “I have already told you. We do not need them here.”

  The sneer did not go unnoticed, and I clenched my jaw to keep from embarrassing Jack further.

  “Enough!” Zebrovskiy barked, waving his hand at Bryan. “I have made this decision. I need her safe.”

  Jack cleared his throat.

  “We are willing to take the contract. I assume the price is still the same?”

  Zebrovskiy confirmed the price, and I swallowed. Damn, that was a lot of money, more than I had seen in my lifetime.

  I had not grown up poor but as close as one could be, I guess. My parents were legit hippies, having a total of six kids and a farm we lived off. Growing up, I had learned the art of milking cows, gardening, raising chickens, slaughtering pigs… You name it. We lived off the money the livestock brought in, which meant hand-me-downs from my older brothers and nothing worth value.

  Still, if nothing else, we had known our parents loved us, which was more than some did. I had aspirations to go to college, learn a trade, until my mom had started falling over her feet, forgetting where she had put things. The prognosis had been devastating. Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

  We had watched her progressively lose control over her own body. She had gone from being a vibrant woman, who enjoyed her day-to-day chores on the farm, to a woman who was starting to struggle with the simplest tasks. My dad, a man of few words, then had the burden of taking care of the farm and of her, with very little money to do so.

  So, I had turned to taking odd jobs, getting mixed up with the Legion when I had taken on a bouncer job at the strip joint. Jack had taken me in, giving me the bigger tasks that paid the most money, and I was going to be forever grateful for what he had done for me and my family. My dad had initially refused to take the money, not stupid enough to know where I was pulling that kind of cash from.

  But he had relented after he realized what kind of treatment my mom could benefit from, and for six years we had been able to keep the disease at bay.

  Now, there was an experimental treatment her doctors wanted to try, if only I could get the ten thousand dollars
needed for the upstart.

  But this job… It would support that treatment and then some.

  Jack looked over at me.

  “What you think, Fox? You want to handle this one?”

  Babysit a spoiled brat for one hundred thousand? I would be a fool to turn it down.

  “How long?” I asked, my eyes on the Russian.

  He leaned back in the chair, templing his fingers together.

  “Until she is married. The wedding is one month away.”

  So, I gotta babysit for one month. Easy enough.

  “Two hundred thousand.”

  He arched a brow, and I heard a strangled sound come from Jack, but I was going to press my luck just to see what he said. How much was his daughter’s life worth?

  “That’s ridiculous!” Bryan snorted, his eyes blazing. “Throw these bastards out. We can get someone else.”

  Zebrovskiy ignored his son-in-law, his eyes boring into mine. “If she dies, you die as well. Understood?”

  I made a grunting noise. I wouldn’t expect anything different.

  “Two it is,” he finally said, after a tense moment. “But it will be you, Fox Lawrence. No one else for my daughter.”

  “Understood,” I answered, the blood rushing into my ears.

  Two hundred thousand. My parents would be well taken care of, even be able to get a private nurse if they cared to do so. My mom could get the treatment without having to worry about how to pay the bills, and my dad could go back to what he loved doing, taking care of the farm.

  It would bring so much relief, and all I had to do was keep a Russian alive for a month.

  The Russian stood abruptly and walked back to the bar, pouring hefty glasses of vodka for the four of us.

  “A drink to solidify the contract, then,” he announced, handing out the crystal glasses. “Then you shall meet my Nataliya.”

  I accepted the glass, holding it up until the Russian took the first gulp before throwing it back.

  The liquid burned down my throat, but I fought the grimace, setting the glass on the desk gently. Jack coughed as he did the same, his face red from the alcohol.

  “Well, then! I hope this is the first of many partnerships between us.”

  Zebrovskiy nodded while Bryan glowered behind him, his eyes on me. I couldn’t blame him. He was going to have another man around his fiancée, potentially every second of the day. I would be pissed as well. Part of me wondered why the Russian wasn’t trusting him to protect his daughter, and – more so – why he wasn’t trusting his own security detail.

  But at two hundred thousand, I didn’t give a shit, really. After all, whatever threat that had been posed to her couldn’t be that difficult to combat.

  I had clawed and fought my way up to my position in the Legion. There had been some who had thought I wasn’t worthy of the position, and more than once I had found myself scrapping with those unbelievers. My body was full of scars, including a few stab wounds, of trying to prove myself.

  No, this would be a piece of cake.

  “Come,” the Russian finally said, motioning for us to follow him. “Let’s go introduce you to my daughter. I expect you to start tomorrow.”

  “Done,” I answered, rolling my shoulders as Bryan gave me a look as he passed.

  I wasn’t scared of him. I wasn’t scared of whoever was targeting the young woman.

  I could handle this.

  Chapter 3

  Nataliya

  The music floated through the headphones, distracting me from the bright sun. I tapped my fingers on the side of the lounger. I enjoyed a warm day, preferring it over any day that was cold, which was why I didn’t think I would like Russia at all. I had been once, when I was a young girl, and all I remembered were the piles of snow as we drove past on the way to my mother’s family. They had not approved of her move to America, and she appeased them by going back home once a year to show them that she was perfectly fine here.

  I had only gone once, finding them to be just as judgmental as she was. They had declined the invitation to the wedding, which was fine with me. In fact, I wanted to forgo all the guests and just go to the courthouse to get married and start my new life.

  With my money.

  Letting out a sigh, I shifted against the cushion on the lounger, feeling the sun soak into my skin. While I did not tan well at all, I still wore enough sunscreen to keep from getting burned. My skin was porcelain, like my mother’s, and no matter how much time I spent out here, I never saw those tan lines that other women coveted.

  In fact, I looked like one of those porcelain dolls that my mother had purchased for me when I was younger, though she would say I wasn’t skinny enough to be one of those dolls.

  It didn’t matter though. I would soon be out from under my mother’s thumb and living my life as I saw fit. I could eat what I wanted, without having her criticizing me about it, sleep in my makeup if I so chose, and travel. Oh, how I wanted to travel!

  That, and maybe I wouldn’t be targeted because of my last name any longer. Thinking about the dead cat in my bed, I shivered despite the heat. My father had been outraged, and I imagined some of his personal security had been fired as the result. It was an insult to my family and a warning to me. Someone wanted me dead, and I had no idea why.

  A shadow crossed over me, and I looked up to see my father standing there.

  “Get up, Nataliya, and meet your new bodyguard.”

  A bodyguard. When he had told me he was going to hire someone to protect me, I had fought him. I was already under enough scrutiny from my mother and this upcoming wedding. The last thing I wanted was to have some man in a suit following me around as well. I craved my privacy, and that privacy was getting harder to have.

  Still, this was my father. With a sigh, I slid off the lounger, not bothering to adjust my bikini top as I did so. The micro bikini barely covered my nipples and my ass, and I could see the frown on Bryan’s face as I stood. There were two other men with my father, one older, who was staring at me outright, his tongue nearly hanging out of his mouth. I gave him a saucy smile, wondering if he would fall over dead if I touched him in any way.

  The other… He seemed to be annoyed that he was here, giving no indication of what kind of affect I was having on him. He was tall, dressed in ratty jeans and a jacket that had seen better days. His head was covered by a ball cap turned backwards, but it was the glint of ginger colored hair on his strong jaw that had me intrigued. He was an odd-looking man, his face all sharp angles, though I could see that some women would find him attractive.

  Not me of course. I preferred a dark-haired man myself.

  “Where is he?” I asked lightly, looking for a sausage in a suit.

  Those were the typical guards my father hired, wearing those ridiculous ear pieces that gave them away every time.

  My father turned to the tall rough-looking man.

  “This is Fox Lawrence. He will be your detail until you are married.”

  I flushed as his keen eyes assessed me. This man? This was going to be my protection?

  “No,” I bit out, pulling off my sunglasses so my father could see the anger in my eyes. “Where did you find him anyway? The garage? He smells like one.”

  A brow lifted on this Lawrence guy’s face.

  “Forget to put your manners on with that bathing suit today, Princess?”

  Oh, how I hated being called Princess! I stepped forward, but Bryan moved quickly, grabbing my arms and gently moving me backwards.

  “Calm yourself Nat. You are about to fall out of that damn bikini. Where is your robe?”

  I looked up at my fiancée, a new spot of anger filling me.

  “I will wear what I want, when I want.”

  He leaned close, brushing a stray hair out of my face.

  “Not unless I say so. Put the damn robe on.”

  I glared at him, before snatching up the robe and throwing it toward the massive infinity pool, giving him a sweet smile.

  “Oo
ps.”

  A snort came from behind Bryan as his face reddened, anger radiating out of every pore.

  “Enough!” my father barked. “Let go of my daughter.”

  Bryan instantly dropped his arms, a cool mask sliding over his face as he turned to his idol.

  “Of course, sir. Nat… Well, she could drive a priest to drink sometimes.”