afraid for Logan because her brothers were very protective of her—to the point that they had even killed for her.
Were they about to do that again?
Chapter Two
Logan released her—so abruptly that Stacy stumbled back. He would have reached for her again, just to steady her, but one of her brothers caught her. The other one reached for him. Garek or Milek—he didn’t know who was whom. They weren’t twins, but they looked nearly as much alike as he and Parker did. These guys were tall, too, but with blond hair and gray eyes.
Stacy had the same smoky-gray eyes—with thick lashes she kept blinking. Not to flirt with him—he was the last man she’d ever flirt with—but to fight back tears over her father’s death. Her hair wasn’t as blond as her brothers. It had streaks of brown and bronze and gold.
He jerked away from whichever brother was grabbing at him. Then he dodged the fist the man swung, even more easily than he had dodged Stacy’s attempts to slap him. Maybe he should have just let her hit him. Maybe then she would have gotten the revenge she sought.
No. He doubted her quest for revenge would be satisfied until he was as dead as their fathers.
She might have been telling the truth about not owning a gun. But she didn’t need to; she had brothers who would do anything she told them and that was the same as pulling the trigger.
He reached beneath the tuxedo jacket for his gun.
“Really?” Stacy asked, her voice shaking with anger. “You’re going to pull a gun at my father’s funeral?”
He paused with his hand on his holster. “Would you rather I just let them kill me?” He mentally smacked himself for the dumb comment. Of course she would rather he just let them. That was the whole point of trying to murder him.
“They’re not going to kill you.”
“Don’t lie to him, Stace,” one of them said.
“You’re not going to kill him,” she said with a meaningful glare at both of her brothers. “We are not going to ruin our father’s funeral.”
And that was the only reason that she wouldn’t let them kill him here—in the dark church with its dingy stained-glass windows and scratched up tile floor. It wasn’t as pretty and bright as the church he’d just left—the one his mother had bought and turned into a wedding chapel and reception hall.
“You don’t think he’s ruining it,” one of the brothers asked, “by showing up here in a freaking tuxedo?”
Regret flashed through Logan, but he’d been so damn angry—and with damn good reason—that he hadn’t considered how he was dressed before he’d rushed over from one church to another. “Sorry, I didn’t have a chance to change between my brother’s wedding and getting shot at.”
“If you were shot at during your brother’s wedding, maybe it had something to do with him or his bride,” she said. “Why do you automatically assume it had anything to do with me or my family?”
“Because it did,” he said with total certainty.
She shook her head. “We can’t be the only enemies you’ve ever made.”
Probably not, but he wasn’t about to admit that to her. “Usually people appreciate what I do for them.”
“You expect us to appreciate you keeping our father in prison?” she asked, her gray eyes widening with shock and outrage.
“Let me kill him,” one of the brothers pleaded with her.
She was younger than them, but she was definitely the one calling the shots, literally, in the Kozminski family. She stared at her father’s body lying in the bronze casket and shook her head. “Not here, Garek.”
Not “no,” just “not here.”
“And you wonder why I think it’s you behind the attempts on my life...”
“Attempts?” she repeated.
The one she’d called Garek laughed. “And there’s your proof that it’s not us,” he said. “We wouldn’t have had to try more than once to kill you.”
“I own a security firm,” he reminded them. “I will not be easy to kill.”
“I don’t know...” the other brother, Milek, mused as he walked around Logan. “You showed up here alone.”
“He’s not alone,” a deep voice very much like his own announced from the back of the church.
Of course Parker would have figured out where he’d gone. But he hadn’t come alone, either. Their little sister had tagged along like she always had when they were kids. She hadn’t outgrown that annoying habit yet. Fortunately, one of Payne Protection Agency’s most loyal employees had come along, too. Candace Baker stood next to Parker, her hand beneath her jacket, probably on her holster.
Instead of being grateful for the backup, Logan was incredibly annoyed with the interference. And the doubt. He could take care of himself and them, and he had proven that again and again.
“What the hell are all of you doing here?” he demanded to know.
“Mom sent us,” his twin replied.
“Of course she did.” Their mother had a problem remembering that he ran Payne Protection—not her. Logan had overlooked her interference when it had involved her matchmaking his brother with his new bride. But he didn’t want her interfering in his life. “She had no right...”
“That didn’t stop you,” Stacy bitterly remarked.
“I had no right to what, dear?” Penny Payne asked as she joined them in the church. Unlike him and Parker who wore the wedding tuxedos, she’d changed from her bronze-colored mother-of-the-bride gown into a black dress. She hadn’t been on the steps to see off Cooper and Tanya. She must have been changing then—as if she’d always intended to attend the funeral of the man who’d murdered her husband.
“Why are you here, Mom?” he asked. He doubted he would ever understand her, but neither had his father. It hadn’t stopped Nicholas Payne from loving her, though. And it wouldn’t stop Logan, either, unless he wound up like his father: dead at the hands of a Kozminski.
Out of respect for Mrs. Payne, Stacy motioned her brothers back, but they were already stepping away from Logan. They wouldn’t touch him now—not in front of his mother. She couldn’t promise they wouldn’t exact some revenge later.
Even now she wondered...
Could one of them have fired those shots at the wedding? Her heart pounded heavily with dread and fear. She couldn’t lose one of them like she’d lost her father—to prison. They had both already spent too much time behind bars.
And she couldn’t lose Logan Payne, either. Not for herself. She didn’t care about him. But his mother loved him. And it would kill her to lose a child like she’d lost her husband.
Mrs. Payne swung her hand
