Barefoot With a Bodyguard (Barefoot Bay Undercover) (Volume 1)

  Barefoot with a Bodyguard

  Barefoot Bay Undercover #1

  Roxanne St. Claire

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to a whole new twist on the love stories of Barefoot Bay! In this new series, readers can expect a light splash of suspense and a dash of danger on the gorgeous sun-baked shores of this tiny island off the Gulf Coast of Florida. Like every book set in Barefoot Bay, this novel stands entirely alone, but why stop at just one?

  The Barefoot Bay Billionaires

  Secrets on the Sand (ALWAYS FREE!)

  Seduction on the Sand

  Scandal on the Sand

  The Barefoot Bay Brides

  Barefoot in White (Currently FREE)

  Barefoot in Lace

  Barefoot in Pearls

  Barefoot Bay Undercover

  Barefoot Bound (prequel)

  Barefoot with a Bodyguard

  Barefoot with a Stranger

  Barefoot with a Bad Boy (Gabe’s book!)

  Want to know the day the next Barefoot Bay book is released? Sign up for the newsletter! You’ll get brief monthly e-mails about new releases and book sales.

  http://www.roxannestclaire.com/newsletter.html

  Dedication

  For the WriterChicks…a brain trust without equal, a circle of friends who never let go, and women I love with my whole heart.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  Books Set in Barefoot Bay

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Blood trickled from Alec’s shredded knuckles, red trails sliding over the purple Cyrillic letters that marked him. The cuts stung like a mother under a dribble of water, the best he could get from a sink that barely hung on the wall with a pipe and a prayer. His head throbbed from the last few hits, and his chest heaved from the run for his life. He leaned against the rusty metal door of the gas station bathroom and finally looked in the dingy, cracked mirror at his face.

  And wished he hadn’t. Oh, he was used to seeing a fighter’s mug in the glass, but now blood crusted around his broken nose, and one eye had already swollen shut. Somehow he’d managed to keep his teeth, but…he winced on the next breath. One rib, at least, was broken.

  Bastards.

  That was the third time this month he’d been ambushed, and things were getting worse.

  He’d taken out one of them with well-placed elbow strikes and got another guy in a leg lock that probably wrecked the son of a bitch’s knee for life, but Alec had no finesse with that last moron. He just slammed that fucker’s head on the concrete and grounded-and-pounded with all he had. Might have killed him.

  Wouldn’t be the first man he’d killed, but it would have been the first time he’d actually done it with his bare hands using the mixed martial arts he taught. Firing at an insurgent who’d just buried an IED in a Baghdad schoolyard didn’t count as murder—it was war.

  But now he was in another war, for his life, not his country. The enemy wasn’t a ruthless terrorist, but filthy, murderous Mafiya enforcers who loved nothing more than following Dmitri Vlitnik’s orders.

  Alec stared at his hands, raw and swollen from the fight. He didn’t think it was possible for his hands to get any uglier, but they had tonight. Too bad. They were all he had, all he needed. And his knees, feet, elbows, and head—all his weapons of choice. Could they keep him alive during the next attack? And the one after that?

  In his pocket, his phone vibrated. He blew out a breath when he saw Grigori Nyekovic’s name on the screen. Of course. The former KGB agent turned Russian millionaire who had a soft spot for Brighton Beach kids and a determination to bring down the notorious “brotherhood” had always been there when Alec needed him the most.

  After that dark night when Vlitnik “tested” a thirteen-year-old Alec, Gregg showed up and led Alec to martial arts to channel his anger and frustration. When Alec needed that financial boost to pay for college, Gregg wrote the check. And when Vlitnik came calling again only a year after that, determined to have his due, Gregg pulled strings to get Alec into the Marines. And when Alec could no longer fight for his country, Gregg had helped him heal and found him a home in Philly so he could open an MMA training facility.

  And now, here was Gregg again, when he was needed the most.

  “Yeah?” Alec answered, copping the attitude that had gotten him through the shittiest of shitty times. Even though he owed Gregg his life several times over, Alec wasn’t about to go all gooey on him now.

  “Two hundred thousand dollars.” The man’s voice was still tinged with a Russian accent, despite the fact that he’d traveled the world and lived most of the past decade in New York City.

  “You want it? You have it? Or I need it?” Alec asked.

  “That’s the price Dmitri Vlitnik has put on your fucking head. After tonight, it might be more.”

  His head? Alec’s gaze slipped to his hands again—the price should be on those things, not his head, which, after that last patrol in Iraq, was good for only one thing: butting an opponent. Dropping onto the edge of the yellowed toilet seat, he ignored a cockroach that scurried under the door, letting it escape. Alec had kicked enough ass for one night.

  “I figured I had some value,” he finally said. “Considering what they sent after me tonight.”

  “You have to get out of Philadelphia now.” Gregg spoke with complete authority.

  Damn it. He’d finally made the place a home and had his training business in the black. “There’s no other way?” Like someone take that bastard out for good? “Isn’t he ever going to back off?”

  “You know he won’t,” Gregg said. “It’s like he’s obsessed with the idea of getting what was promised to him.”

  And Alec had been promised to him.

  “I don’t belong to anyone,” he ground out.

  “That’s not how Vlitnik sees it.” True enough, in the rules of the Mafiya, Alec did, technically, “belong” to the mob leader. Alec’s father had forged the deal in blood, from his cancer-ridden deathbed, bartering for krysha, protection that normally cost thousands. Sergei Petrov didn’t have thousands, but he had something that the Brighton Beach mob boss wanted—a big lug nut of a teenage son who would grow into a fine enforcer someday.

  Protect my wife, and you can have Alec when he’s ready and trained.

  So, Alec had been essentially sold into slavery, sealing his fate as a man whose only value was his ability to kill. Yes, Vlitnik’s monsters had left the family butcher shop alone; Mama had never been beaten, raped, or robbed. But when Alec was nineteen and his mother died, Dmitri Vlitnik came to collect what was his.

  Alec had been running from the
mob boss ever since, and he was so damn sick of it. “He’s never going to give up.” Alec could hear the resignation in his voice, and he hated it.

  “Unless we get him on something. And we are close.” In his role as a protector of the Brighton Beach kids, Gregg might be on the side of the angels in this war, but he had spies in Vlitnik’s mob. That was how he quietly, secretly, and carefully fed information to the authorities to assist in the effort to stop one of the worst gangs of Russian mobsters in the US.

  “I can wait him out,” Alec said. “I can fight him off.”

  “Not forever, and not now. It’s better if you hide.”

  “Fuck that. I’d rather face him down and choke the life out of him with my bare hands.”

  “I’m sure you would,” Gregg said. “And then you couldn’t testify when we do get him, because you’d either be dead or in jail.”

  “Okay, look, I’m in an Exxon bathroom in the middle of north Philly. My car is—”

  “Probably wired to blow the minute you stick a key in the ignition.” Gregg nearly growled the words. “You’re done, Alexander. You have to hide or die before the sun comes up.”

  That was a great choice.

  “Alec, I want you to go somewhere they can’t find you.”

  “Like where, the moon? Vlitnik has eyes and ears everywhere.”

  “Not quite everywhere, not where I’m sending you. You know my wife’s boss owns one of the best security firms in the world.”

  “I don’t need a fucking bodyguard, Gregg.” He held a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and trained MMA fighters for a living.

  “You’re not getting a bodyguard. You’re going to be a bodyguard. And that’s going to take you as far off Vlitnik’s radar as we can get you.”

  Alec opened his mouth to respond, then shut it again. We. Gregg was more than a friend—he was like a father. And too smart, good, and connected to deserve Alec’s argument.

  “Raquel’s boss knows a guy who has just started a covert operation that is essentially the equivalent of a privatized wit-sec deal down in Florida.”

  Witness security? The government wouldn’t give him protection, since he had nothing concrete to put Vlitnik away. “How?”

  “That’s what this guy does. He’ll get you a new identity and find you a place to go. In the meantime, you hide on an island in the Gulf of Mexico.”

  “Bet the price is steep.” How many times could Gregg throw his money at Alec’s problems? How many times could Alec let him?

  “It is, and I would pay it, but he wants you to work instead.”

  “Okaaay.” He dragged the word out, more in response to the way Gregg said work—like it was something he wouldn’t like. “As a bodyguard.”

  “Yeah, but you’ll be undercover, too. On your honeymoon.”

  “What?”

  “This guy’s got another client who also needs to hide out for a while, since she’s been the target of some threats. You’ll be there as newlyweds, staying at a resort on a secluded island, and you will be with her twenty-four seven to be sure she’s safe. Both of you will have assumed names—the same last one—and no one, not a single soul except this guy who runs the operation and his top people, will know you are anything but head over heels in love with your new bride.”

  Alec blinked into the shadows of the foul bathroom, not even able to wrap his head around this plan. “Look, I know I’m not firing on all cylinders right now, but there’s no way in hell you said what I think you said.”

  Gregg laughed softly. “I thought you’d like the idea.”

  “I didn’t say I—” The scuff of a footstep outside shut him up. “Shit. They found me,” he whispered.

  “No, I’m using an advanced satellite tracking system on this call. That’s my man outside your door. Go with him.”

  Alec closed his eyes, a cocktail of mixed feelings rising up. “Guess I’m running again, huh, Gregg?”

  “Running to stay alive long enough to testify if the feds can shut down Vlitnik’s mob.”

  “And if they can’t?”

  “Then you get yourself a new name and move your ass to a new country. There’s nothing cowardly about keeping yourself alive.”

  Alec let the advice sink in, pinching his throbbing nose as he tried to think. “Okay, what do I have to know about this chick?”

  “That she’s not a chick. She’s the daughter of a high-profile judge who wants his precious girl protected. You have to act like her husband in public and treat her like daddy’s little princess in private. Hands off.”

  He looked down at his raw, bruised knuckles and his ugly, blistered fingers. Hands that could do nothing but hurt and maim and fight and…kill. Hands that wouldn’t know how to touch a bride if he’d even deserved one.

  “No problem,” he promised.

  “But in public, the two of you are madly in love.”

  Alec looked in the mirror and saw his bruised and battered face, shadowed with the pain he was either receiving or inflicting. “Hope she has low standards,” he muttered, but Gregg had already hung up.

  *

  Kate Kingston leaned back into the leather sedan seat and exhaled with the exhaustion of travel, pulling the elastic from her ponytail and shaking out her hair as an act of pure relief. As she rubbed her head and gave in to a satisfied smile, her driver, Mr. Rossi, a little old man with a slight accent she guessed to be Italian, occasionally glanced into his rearview mirror to make sure she had everything she needed.

  Or to evaluate her. Despite his efficiency and kindness, she couldn’t help but feel the man was examining her.

  She shrugged it off, determined to wallow in what she craved: silence, sunshine, salt air, and solitude. And, staying with her mental alliteration, a chance to study. Don’t forget safety and security, a voice in her head whispered. A voice that sounded an awful lot like Dad. Okay, if it made him happy to think she’d be safer outside of Boston, so be it.

  For the first time since she signed her married name for the last time—on divorce papers—five months ago, Kate actually let go of her personal mantra: No man, no husband, nobody takes care of Kate Kingston except Kate Kingston.

  She unclenched her hands as if she could physically remind herself that independence should be clung to with both hands. And this journey along a mile-long causeway over the Gulf of Mexico on her way to a place with the precious name of Barefoot Bay was not exactly an infringement on her independence.

  Yes, she’d compromised her principles and mantra when she let her father make these arrangements, but, as he noted over and over again, it was his fault that some weirdo kept leaving him untraceable messages and notes that threatened Kate. In thirty years on the bench, Judge Kingston had never had anything like this happen, and he’d certainly dismissed plenty of cases due to lack of evidence, which seemed to be what launched the threat campaign.

  That was enough to get her to agree to what was essentially a vacation that gave her time to study for the Massachusetts Bar Exam. She’d stay under the watchful eye of Mr. Rossi, who Dad claimed was some kind of legendary former spy and security specialist.

  She fought a smile, doubting the little old man could fend off any attackers in his ill-fitting jacket and crooked, red bow tie. If he’d been a spy, it was probably in World War II. But she didn’t think there would be any attackers fifteen hundred miles from Boston, so she didn’t question the age or capabilities of the nice man who’d met her at the regional airport in southwest Florida.

  He certainly took his job seriously, expertly guiding her through baggage claim, rolling her luggage to a neatly appointed black sedan with the words “Casa Blanca Resort & Spa” printed in tiny letters on the driver’s door. He kept conversation to a minimum, which Kate appreciated. She didn’t come here to talk or make friends or even to hide from some nut job in Boston. She just wanted to study for the test she should have taken five years ago. She was finally going in the direction she should have gone before Steven Douglas Jessup III deraile
d everything by persuading her to marry him and give up her dream to practice law.

  It didn’t matter, she reminded herself, enjoying the deep-blue waters of the gulf below instead of wallowing in past mistakes. The future was bright with possibilities, especially once she passed the bar and started practicing. She would never, ever again let a man make decisions for her, run her life, control her actions, or trample all over her independence. And she sure as hell would never be anyone’s wife.

  Live and learn, Katie. Live and learn.

  She watched a formation of sea gulls take flight over the sun-sparkled water, a few pleasure craft leaving long, white wakes in the cobalt waves. All beautiful, peaceful, and calm. By the time they arrived at the resort, she was practically humming with happiness over this lovely turn of events, secretly thanking the anonymous note-leaver, especially since he seemed to pose no threat to her father.

  It had all worked in her favor.

  Mr. Rossi parked in a far corner of a large lot, a good distance from Casa Blanca’s main hotel building. With effortless competence that belied his age, he unloaded Kate’s bags and ushered her onto a waiting golf cart.