Page 1 of Coach (Shady Valley Henchmen #8)

Este

“Well, that’s… certainly a color.” I stared down at the open can of paint I’d nabbed for nothing on one of those free town groups.

The gifter had been cleaning out their parents’ place, and all signs pointed to ‘packrats,’ judging by the random junk piled to the ceiling in teetering rows in the open garage when I’d stopped by to grab the random paint cans and spare tile they found lying around.

Thanks to all that mess, the color swatch had gotten scraped off this particular can, so it had been a complete gamble at what color I was getting.

Eggplant purple.

It didn’t exactly go with my vision for my new place. But, hey, beggars couldn’t be choosers. And free was free. So, something was getting the eggplant treatment.

“What do you think?” I asked, looking over at the black-and-white dog staring at me from her giant saucer of a bed in the corner of the room.

Trix had been a lucky find in a specific area of an overcrowded shelter. Deemed ‘aggressive,’ she’d been sitting there without a home for two years before I—someone very interested in an aggressive dog—stumbled across her.

She was a beautiful black-and-white purebred Akita with the softest, fluffiest coat ever, making nighttime snuggles all the more comforting.

But since our move to California, she was also the reason my electric bill threatened to bankrupt me, since she was definitely a dog meant for colder climates.

“I know. You’re sick of all the home improvement projects,” I said as she stared at me. “But I am determined to make this place feel like home.”

It was the first time we’d stopped moving around from one short-term rental to the next since I’d adopted her. Since well before then.

Something about this town felt right, though.

I couldn’t put a finger on it. I’d been to many small towns in my travels. But as I drove down the main street in Shady Valley, something clicked.

Maybe it was the beauty of the Death Valley mountains. Or the coziness of the main strip of stores—even if some weren’t operational. Perhaps it was how, as I drove, I saw many people standing on the sidewalk talking to one another. Or on their front lawns having friendly discussions.

Sure, there was a moody prison staring down at the town—all barbed wire and bright security lights at night.

But this wasn’t the 1950s anymore, when prisoners were routinely sneaking out of their cells and escaping to nearby towns to steal money, clothes, or a car. Modern prisons were pretty secure.

Besides, a local prison likely meant a pretty strong police force and a general population heavy with corrections officers.

Both of those things were comforting to me.

When I secured a spot at the shady motel for a night so I could explore the local real estate and job market, I discovered something else.

Because the town was in the middle of nowhere, because there wasn’t much chance of upward mobility career-wise, and because no one wanted to live so close to an active prison, the local housing market was slow and cheap.

Hell, I didn’t even have an active job when I asked about the duplex that I now called home. But I had the first, last, and security, and that was all the landlord cared about.

Surprisingly, the job had been easier to come by than I’d anticipated.

I hadn’t actively been seeking employment at the place, actually. I’d just stopped to try to look in the window of the closed pool hall when a brick from the step wobbled and fell out beneath my foot.

I just so happened to have the supplies in my trunk—thanks to needing to fix the bricks on the duplex’s front porch—so I took it upon myself to fix the step.

I was just relishing a job well done when a shadow fell over me.

“You like this kind of work?” a deep, smooth voice asked in a thick Russian accent. I whipped my head around to see a tall man in an all-black suit (in the middle of the day) towering over me in all his dark-haired, wide-jawed, brown-eyed beauty.

“I, uh, yeah. I, you know, probably should have asked first. But it fell out under my foot, so I sort of felt responsible. And, well, it was a safety concern.”

“But you like it? You… fix things?”

“I mean, I’m no master craftsman or anything, but I know a thing or two.” I knew more than that, but it was a bad habit of mine to play down what I was capable of.

“What about cleaning?”

“What about it?” I asked. Feeling at a disadvantage in that position, I moved to stand, but still found myself craning my head up to look at him.

“When you’re not fixing things, do you care to clean?”

“I mean, we all have to clean, right?” Except, judging by the man’s gold watch and cufflinks that probably cost more than my rent—for the year—maybe he didn’t.

He wasn’t the kind of man I could picture on his hands and knees cleaning out the lower cabinets or swishing a wand around a toilet bowl.

He was the kind of man who had ‘people for that.’

“You’re not answering the question.”

Huh.

Okay.

Super hot physically.

But kind of cold otherwise.

“Yeah, I clean.”

“Would you be interested in fixing and cleaning?”

“I’m sorry… fixing and cleaning what, exactly?” As an answer, his arm rose, gesturing toward the building we were standing in front of. “The pool hall? Is this your place?”

“It is. Mine and my brother’s. And we just… lost our maintenance person. It’s a position we need filled immediately. Because, to answer your question, no, I don’t clean.”

Was there a really weird emphasis on the word ‘lost’ there? Sure. But what did I know?

“Right. Uh. Well, as it so happens, I am looking for a job. I actually have some of my résumés in my backseat.” I started toward the car, but the man’s voice stopped me.

“No need. The job is yours if you agree to the terms.”

“You don’t even know my name.”

“I know that brick has been loose for a year and the previous man I had for the job never noticed nor cared. I like people who see problems and fix them without being told.”

“Oh, well, yeah. I’m the girl for the job then. I mean, I don’t have any certificates or anything. I’m not, you know, a professional.”

“I don’t need a professional. But I do need someone who wears something other than… that.”

I honestly almost laughed at the disgust on his face as his gaze slid over my very worn overalls, which I’d had literally since I was a teen, doing home projects at my grandfather’s side.

Were they worn soft and white at the seams with age?

Sure. And there were random paint and stain splashes that no amount of scrubbing or bleach could remove.

But that’s kind of what I liked best about them. They were full of memories.

“I have other clothes.”

“Black.”

“Oh, uh, okay. Sure.” I didn’t own a single piece of black clothing. But that was what the secondhand store was for, right?

“Shoes too.” I pretended not to notice the way he grimaced at the once-white sneakers that were so covered in paint now that you could only see a sliver of the original color here or there.

“Got it. So… what are the terms?”

“The work is five days a week, with the days off being Monday, when the hall is closed, and Wednesday, when we are typically slow. But you will need to be available for emergency calls if something breaks when you are not scheduled to work.”

“That’s not a problem. I live right down the side street over there.”

The man followed my gesture, brows scrunching.

“The old Miller place?”

“I have no idea. It’s a duplex.”

“It’s practically condemned.”

“Well, I’m working on that.”

To that, he gave me a tight nod.

“The pay is thirty an hour, and you will have a credit card for repair expenses and cleaning supplies.”

Thirty?

I was hoping to score a job at the state minimum wage, which was somewhere around sixteen. And according to my math, that would be enough to keep me comfortable. I mean, I’d still have to chase sales and get things from the thrift stores and free marketplaces, but I wouldn’t be hurting.

Getting twice that?

To do work I actually liked?

That was a dream.

“That sounds great.”

“Good. Then you start tomorrow. Three p.m.”

With that, the man walked toward the door. He sidestepped the still-setting brick, then stabbed a key into the lock.

“I’m Este, by the way,” I called to his back.

His head swiveled.

“Konstantin Novikoff.”

With that, he was gone, disappearing inside the darkened pool hall.

I was left alone, standing on the street, staring at the reflection of myself in the mirrored window.

How I nabbed a job from a man in a suit like his was beyond me. What with my coppery hair mostly falling out of its claw clip, my face completely bare, save for the smudge of dirt I must have rubbed on my cheek, wearing my ancient overalls, I looked like I’d just fallen off a boxcar somewhere.

You know, if people still stowed away on those things.

I was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, though.

I quickly cleaned up my supplies and then got out of there before the Konstantin guy could second-guess his decision.

“Maybe the hall bathroom?” I asked Trix, who let out a big yawn and dropped her head down on her paws. “Right? I think the darker color might look nice contrasted with all that white. If I hustle, I might be able to get both coats done before work tomorrow.”

Fate had other plans, though.

I was on my knees trying not to get any paint on the trim because I was too lazy to tape it off when my cheap little burner phone started to ring loudly on the counter.

“Hello?”

“You need to come to work,” a female voice with the same accent as my boss, barked.

“Oh, uh, sure. Did something break?”

The line went dead.

“Alrighty then,” I said. I carefully tapped closed the paint can, then took the brush with me to the kitchen to wrap in a plastic bag for later use.

“I’m sorry, my girl, but we are going to be late for a w-a-l-k today. Mama has to go in to work, according to the rude lady on the phone.”

I’d only been at the pool hall for three days, so I was still getting to know everyone.

There were a surprising number of people who seemed to be working there.

Or hanging out with the owners. I wasn’t quite sure what everyone was doing.

I just knew they were all dressed to impress and always hanging on Konstantin and Mikhail’s every last word.

So I had no idea who the woman was, but she seemed to have some sort of authority, if she was being so clipped with someone else who worked there.

I rushed into my bedroom, pulled my hair up into a high ponytail, then looked for one of my three new all-black outfits.

The only one clean was the one I was least sure about wearing to work, given how much Konstantin hated my overalls.

It was a black sleeveless jumpsuit that cut close in the legs, so it wasn’t some sort of hazard while working.

But I was worried it gave more of a customer vibe than an employee one.

Oh, well.

It was the only thing clean.

And I wanted to get to the pool hall as quickly as possible.

“I’ll be back soon, I hope,” I told Trix as I rushed to the door.

When I got to work, it was the same woman who met me at the door, tapping her heeled foot as if I was late, when I probably only took ten or fifteen minutes to get myself together and get to the pool hall.

“What’s broken?” I asked, trying not to gawk at the woman’s beauty.

It was the cold kind of gorgeous. Her perfect body was hugged by a black dress.

Her lovely brown eyes were lined in a way that made them look perpetually sultry.

And the press of her ruby lips suggested she knew just how beautiful she was…

and that, perhaps, was the least interesting thing about her.

I was only a little bit jealous of her confidence.

“The air. It’s too hot in here.”

It was practically a meat locker in there. But the brothers seemed to prefer the place to be glacial, even when the weather was pretty temperate outside.

“The air feels like it’s working,” I said. “Is it just one vent or—”

“That’s your job, not mine,” she said, shrugging, then walking away.

“Right,” I agreed.

The place was already kind of busy for a random Wednesday night.

I still couldn’t get over how upscale the place was in such a small, nowhere town like Shady Valley.

Sure, you could maybe make an argument that if you painted a place matte black, had nearly black flooring, then brightened it all up with soft warm lighting, it made just about any place look fancy.

But being as closely acquainted with the place as I’d become from scrubbing and doing small repairs, I knew that the tile in both bathrooms was imported and pricey, that the cleaning supplies were top of the line, and that the damn chalk they used for the cues was special ordered from some boutique.

Yet the table fees were somehow not only reasonable, but kind of cheap.

I wouldn’t claim to have a head for business, but it seemed like something wasn’t adding up.

Still, it was a nice place to work. I felt fancy by association whenever I looked at the black felt tables or the snack bar manned by a blonde woman in a skintight dress.

Or, yes, even when I looked over at the office where the Novikoff family spent most of their time, often accompanied by friends or employees.

I’d only been in their office once, but it had the same swanky look as the rest of the place, with their own coffee and snack station, a full bar, seating, and desks.

Forcing myself to stop gawking, I made my way out back to check out the HVAC system.

Did I have any kind of schooling with it?

No. But I once assisted my grandfather in replacing his, so I knew a thing or two.

Besides, I’d told Konstantin that I wasn’t an expert.

If I couldn’t figure it out, he would just have to hire someone else for the job.

When nothing seemed off there, I checked the thermostat. Then, finally, I started going vent by vent to test the amount of flow and the temperature of the air escaping.

It was there, standing on a ladder to reach one of the vents near the ceiling in the pool room, when my heart shot up into my throat as the ladder suddenly jerked hard to the side.

My hands flew out.

But there was nothing to grab but the ladder itself as it started to slide toward the side.

My stomach twisted.

There was nothing I could do but brace for impact. And pray I didn’t do any damage to something too expensive for me to replace.

Just as I was sure I was about to fall, though, the ladder jerked back into position, knocking hard against the wall as my belly bottomed out and my heart fluttered.

“I got you,” a voice called from below.