His Christmas Assignment. Lisa Childs

done that, you would already be dead,” Viktor told him.

      And this was why he hadn’t given up or entrapped Chekov. The sentence he’d served out had been for something that hadn’t actually been a crime.

      “I never would have betrayed you.” Then. But he was a different man now. He was actually a man now whereas when he’d worked for Viktor he’d been a desperate kid, living on the streets.

      “You’ve been out of prison a long time, Garek,” Viktor reminded him. “But until tonight you have never come back to the family.”

      Viktor and his organization had never been family. They had preyed on his desperation and utilized the skills he’d learned from his jewelry-thief father before Patek Kozminski had gone to prison.

      “I made my sister a promise,” he said. And while it had been a struggle at times, he had kept that promise—to never leave her again for either a jail cell or a grave. They had already lost their father—first to prison and then to death. “I vowed to her that I would stay on the straight and narrow.”

      “You’ve been working for her husband, that former detective, Logan Payne.” Viktor had obviously been keeping track of him over the years.

      “Still am,” Garek said. Unlike Candace, he wasn’t about to quit a job he loved—even for another job that had to be done.

      “So why are you here?”

      Garek wiped the blood that continued to trickle from the corner of his mouth. Maybe Viktor had hit him harder than he’d thought. “To offer my services.”

      Viktor glanced at his gargantuan goons and chuckled. “You think I need another bodyguard?”

      “I think you need a good one,” he said.

      The two muscular guys glared at him.

      Viktor shook his head. “I am perfectly safe.”

      “But the people close to you aren’t,” Garek said. “I heard you recently lost a member of your family.” Not a blood relative but a very close associate.

      That muscle twitched again in Viktor’s sagging jaw. “It is too late for Alexander.”

      Polinsky had been murdered just days ago—shot in the head execution-style. The feds believed that Chekov had been the executioner.

      “What about Tori?” Garek asked. “Aren’t you concerned for her safety?”

      Viktor’s face flushed with color at the mention of his daughter’s name, so Garek braced himself for another blow. But Viktor didn’t swing his fist. Instead his shoulders slumped. “Tori is safe. Safer without you near her.”

      Garek nodded. “I thought that once, too.” Actually he’d thought the opposite. He was safer if he was nowhere near her. Viktor loved his little princess so much that he would probably kill anyone who made her unhappy. And Garek hadn’t ever seen the young woman happy.

      “Why are you really here?” Viktor asked. He stared at him again, as if trying to see through him.

      “You already checked me for a wire,” Garek reminded him. He needed more than a recording with Viktor’s admission of guilt. He needed evidence. And he had to get close in order to get his hands on it. “I want to make sure Tori is really safe,” he said. “For old times’ sake.”

      “What about that promise to your sister?” Viktor asked, his dark eyes still narrowed with suspicion.

      Garek shrugged. “I haven’t been happy with my sister for a while now.”

      “Then why work for her husband?”

      “Logan didn’t lie to me and Milek,” he said. “Stacy’s the one who kept secrets.” That secret had affected and devastated Milek. While Garek had already forgiven her, he wasn’t sure that their brother ever would.

      Viktor nodded with understanding. He had obviously kept very apprised of not just Garek’s life but Milek’s and Stacy’s, too. A shiver of unease chilled Garek’s skin. He didn’t care about himself but he cared that his past association might have put his siblings in danger.

      “I think Tori would like it if I hire you,” Viktor admitted. “Despite all the years that have passed, I don’t think she ever quite got over you.” He stepped closer, his hand reached out as if to shake, but he slapped Garek instead. “And if you hurt her again, I will hurt not just you,” Viktor threatened, “but everyone close to you.”

      The unease turned into a shiver of dread and foreboding. It was good that Candace had left town; she would be out of danger. It was just everyone else that Garek had to worry about when he took down the godfather of River City.

       Chapter 2

      The lock rattled—just a couple of quick clicks—before the doorknob began to turn. Candace reached for her weapon, grasping it tightly in her hand as she approached the door to the condo she’d rented at a ski resort in northern Michigan.

      Nobody knew where she was. And nobody here knew her at all. So who the hell was breaking into her unit?

      Had Garek tracked her down—like he had that night at her apartment? Her heart rate accelerated, and her hand trembled slightly as memories of that night rushed through with a wave of heat.

      Embarrassment—she called the heat. She was embarrassed for being such a fool. She couldn’t be feeling desire. Not for Garek Kozminski.

      Not again...

      She lifted her weapon and pointed the barrel at the person stepping through the door. Disappointment rushed through her now. Her intruder wasn’t Garek.

      She recognized the dark curls and eyes of the petite young woman who stepped through the door, her hands raised. “Don’t shoot,” Nikki Payne said, but her smile belied any fear.

      “What the hell are you doing here?” Candace asked. “And why are you breaking in? Did Garek Kozminski teach you how to do that?”

      “No, I picked the lock,” another voice replied as the door opened farther to Stacy Kozminski-Payne. The woman dropped a packet of lock-picking tools into her purse.

      “Doesn’t anyone in your family wait for a person to open their door?” Candace asked.

      Stacy shrugged. With tawny-colored hair and dark gray eyes, she didn’t look that much like her brother Garek but for the quick, sly smile that crossed her face. “Why put you through the trouble of answering the door?”

      Since the two women had already stepped inside, Candace closed the door. “See, look, no trouble.”

      But it was trouble that they were here. Neither of these women was her friend. Nikki had resented that her brothers had chained her to a desk at Payne Protection while they routinely assigned Candace dangerous field work. And Stacy...

      Maybe that was more Candace’s fault than Stacy’s. She had disliked the female Kozminski even more than the males—because Stacy had posed such a threat. Candace had thought the woman had been a threat to Logan Payne’s life, but she’d been a threat to his heart instead. Not that Candace had ever had a chance of winning his heart. He’d never been attracted to her the way he’d been to Stacy. The way he still was...

      Candace couldn’t blame him. Even though Stacy had given birth just a few months ago, she’d regained her petite figure with little effort. Candace wanted to hate her. But Stacy couldn’t help that she was beautiful and lovable.

      Candace turned away from her and focused on the youngest Payne. “You went to an awful lot of trouble to track me down.” Since her brothers had strapped her to a desk, Nikki had become a computer expert.

      Nikki shrugged her thin shoulders. “It was no trouble.”

      “I