Tears and sweat mingled together on Ronald’s colorless face. His Adam’s apple bobbed rapidly.
“Please … please, I don’t have her.”
Dimitri exchanged a quick glance with Rocco. “Then who does?”
Ronald shook his head. “I have a family…”
“No, you don’t. You have no one, Ronald. No one that will notice if you go missing, you know why?” He crouched so he could peer up into the other man’s bloodless face. “Because you are filth. You prey on the innocent because they can’t fight you. But I can. I can do many, many terrible things to you and enjoy each one.” He waited a heartbeat. “Where is she?”
The man dissolved into tears. His wide shoulders shook with the heavy sobs. Dimitri fought not to lose his patience, but the longer he stood there in suspense, the more he found himself wanting to just end the other man’s misery.
But his patience paid off when Ronald inhaled a wet, sniveling breath and raised watery eyes.
“There’s a trap door in my closet.”
“We got the girl.” Dimitri balanced the phone between his shoulder and ear as he used his freed hand to dig out a crumpled bill from his back pocket. He slapped it down on the counter. “Rocco’s taking her home now.”
On the other end, there was a short moment of silence followed by the sound of Erik Tasarov’s voice.
“I knew you would find her.” Another pause. “Was she hurt?”
One pack of gum, a bottle of Coke, and a Mars bar was dumped into a plastic bag. His money was snatched up and pitched into the register by the bored kid behind the counter. Dimitri took his items and stalked out, letting the bell bolted above the door jingle wildly.
“Not from what I could see. A few scratches, but mostly scared.”
“Good.” His uncle paused before asking, “And Lovell?”
Dimitri fished out the chocolate bar. He tore off the wrapper and took a chunk out of most of it.
“Dead.”
Erik clicked his tongue. “Too bad. We could have used him.”
“Mom doesn’t want to get into the origin business.” He stuffed the rest of the bar into his mouth and chewed. “Too gross, she says.”
“I know, but it’s good money.” There was a clink of something glass being set aside. “Anyway, where are you headed now? Want to grab lunch?”
Dimitri crumpled up the wrapper and pitched it into the passing trash bin. He dug out the Coke and unscrewed the cap.
“No, I just ate.” He tossed back a mouthful, let it burn his tongue before swallowing it down. “Maybe tomorrow.”
His uncle sighed. “A chocolate bar and a bottle of pop isn’t lunch. That’s an unhealthy snack.”
“I’m fine. I’m too busy.”
“Busy doing what?” Erik challenged. “Heading up to that damn cliff again?”
Dimitri replaced the cap and dropped the bottle back into the bag. He reached his car and fished out his keys.
“I need to clear my head.”
The bag was tossed into the passenger’s side seat before he closed himself up behind the wheel.
“You went to see him.” It wasn’t a question.
Maybe it was a tell on his part, a sort of nervous twitch gamblers got during an extreme poker game. The hill had become a place of peace for him. He couldn’t fathom what it was about the lump of rock, but the moment he was up there, surrounded by a carpet of glittering lights and endless air, everything just clicked. It was as though the altitude had the ability to unclog his lungs of everything constricting them and his mind was finally enough at peace to simply be. Maybe that was why McClary had built his home there. Maybe that was why he hadn’t left. Dimitri had only met the man on the rare occasion, but he’d always had a calm about him Dimitri had envied. The moment he’d gone up on that cliff, he’d felt it.
He couldn’t exactly remember why he’d gone up there originally. After the accident, maybe it was just his way of showing respect. In the days that followed, he just kept going. He’d even considered buying the property. It was on the market. He’d checked. But if he did, he wouldn’t live there. He’d get the ruined remains of the charred house out of the way, then he’d simply keep it as an escape, a place he could empty his thoughts and be nobody, something he’d been doing a lot lately with John Paul in mind.
He started the car, a stall tactic to prolong having to answer. The car picked up the call and his uncle’s breathing filled the cabin.
“Not by choice.” He rubbed a hand over the rough grain of his stubble. “His house was closest.”
Erik exhaled a Russian curse that came out sounding like a groan. “I’m guessing it didn’t go well.”
Dimitri said nothing, too old to be tangled up in hurt feelings. John Paul may have donated the sperm to make Dimitri, but there had never been any misunderstandings between them. Dimitri had known from the time he was old enough to understand that his father only saw failure when he looked upon him. Dimitri had accepted that. He had agreed it was better to simply stay away. He had kept that promise for the first sixteen years of his life.
Then she had come into the picture.
Ava.
His female replacement. The girl his father had accepted, welcomed into his life without judgment. She had slipped into the life that should have been Dimitri’s and had taken everything from him.
He’d hated her.
He would have killed her. Had gone to kill her. Had made it right up behind her, his sweaty fingers clenched tight around the smooth handle of his flip blade. He’d never killed anyone before that, but he’d wanted to end her. He’d thought about it for days before finding the courage to follow through.
The thing he remembered most about that afternoon was the unforgiving heat. Only the very stupid could afford to withstand the hell upon the earth. Every house on every block had their air conditioners blowing. Those who couldn’t afford it had cleverly rigged fans and buckets of ice to keep cool.
Dimitri had considered it a sign when he’d found her and she was completely alone, huddled behind a game booth in the ugliest dress he’d ever seen. But it was the tears on her face that had stopped him. In all the months that he’d envisioned himself sinking his knife into her chest, he had never really believed she was a person, a girl. In his mind, she’d been a monster, a hideous creature with red eyes and a forked tongue that could spit up acid. In reality, she’d been small and so broken. Something about that had stopped him. He’d stood there, watching her, wondering how she could be crying when she had everything. Even in that moment, John Paul had rented an entire carnival for her birthday. There were children everywhere. The tinkle of music and laughter rose into the oppressing heat. There were mounds of brightly wrapped presents cascading over three picnic tables. But there she was, huddled in the dirt, face bunched up against her knees, weeping.
“It’s not true what they say, you know,” he’d told her. “You’re not really supposed to cry because it’s your party.”
Her head had come up and he was struck by a pair of enormous green eyes, the kind of green that reminded him of damp moss, clear and vivid, if not wet and slightly red around the edges.
She’d stared at him, bemused, and then did the oddest thing, she looked over her shoulder. There was no one else there. It was just them, hidden in the shadows of a game booth.
“Are you talking to me?”
The question had been so ridiculous, Dimitri had almost laughed. “Are you supposed to be invisible?”
She’d sniffled and scrubbed at her face with the back of her hand. “Do you know who I am?”
He did know. His mother had spoken of nothing else for months, not since the news that John Paul was getting married to some redheaded bitch. That hadn’t concerned Dimitri all that much. But it was the girl he’d been most interested in.
“Ava, isn’t it?”
Her lips had parted in surprise. “You know?”
“Of course I know. It’s your party, isn’t it?”
; That hadn’t been the right thing to say, because she had burst into tears, and it wasn’t delicate, girly sobs. She’d fallen apart like someone had run over her cat. Dimitri had almost abandoned ship and made a run for it. Almost. He’d begun to edge backwards when she raised her face from her hands and looked at him.
“I didn’t think anyone knew.”
He’d had no idea what he was supposed to say to that.
“What are you doing back here?” he’d asked instead. “Shouldn’t you be out there, shaking all those presents?”
“I don’t know anyone out there,” she’d whispered. “They all think I’m weird and pathetic.”
“Because of the dress?”
It seemed like the correct answer. The monstrosity of fur and lacy was a disturbing shade of yellow that made him think of cat vomit. Plus, who wore fur in that kind of heat? A crazy person, clearly.
“What?” She peered down at herself. Then back at him. “My mother chose this dress. It’s a designer.”
A designer monstrosity, Dimitri thought, but kept it to himself.
“Why do they think you’re weird and pathetic?”
She lowered her gaze. “Because I haven’t got any friends. Everyone here are the children of my stepfather’s friends. He invited them. I’ve never even met them before this.”
“I never would have guessed that,” he’d told her honestly. “My guess would be that you’re wearing that when it’s five hundred degrees without the humidity. Who wears a dress, with stockings, to a carnival?”
That had changed her face. She’d gone from miserable, to surprised, to furious in the blink of an eye. She’d lunged up to her feet and stood before him, fierce and mildly adorable.
“It’s a very important dress by a very important designer, and just who are you supposed to be? Why are you here?”
He’d begun to tell her when John Paul found them. He’d taken one look at Dimitri and gone rigid. His nostrils had flared. He’d grabbed Dimitri by the front of his shirt and demanded he leave at once and never return.
He had. He’d walked out of there without looking back.
Fifteen years later, he still wasn’t allowed near her. As children, it had been an almost sort of challenge to discover new and creative ways to disobey. As adults, he understood why it was important to keep away.
“Dimitri?” Erik’s voice broke into his thoughts, reminding him he was still on the phone.
“It was fine,” he lied.
“Did you ask him?”
He’d considered it during his walk with John Paul to his office the night before. He’d studied the other man’s back the entire way and deliberated the best way to broach the subject. It just didn’t seem like the right time when he’d essentially broken into the man’s house, bled all over his floors, startled his guests, and disturbed an important celebration.
“No.” He tapped his fingers against the wheel. “Never got the chance to bring it up.”
Erik sighed, though Dimitri couldn’t be sure if it was out of relief, or disappointment. “It really doesn’t matter, you know. I told you, you don’t need him. You have the Russians. You just secured the Colombians. You already have two of the biggest Syndicates in the city behind you, and once you get the south, John Paul’s vote won’t matter at all.”
He’d already done the calculations. The five chairs didn’t necessarily require all five votes to initiate a new member. With the north without a leader, that left only four seats in charge of his fate. He had negotiated his mother’s vote. As chair holder of the west, only she could vote him in. Finding Yolanda Huerta had earned him favor with the Colombians. It was left to win the south, or the mainland, and his father hated him too much to back him. That left Theresa Maynard and she was a power hungry shrew who would kill her own grandmother for money.
“Theresa won’t back me,” he mumbled to the empty car. “Neither will John Paul. I’m sitting at a tie.”
“Have you talked to her?”
“Would it make a difference?
“Do you know why your mother sends you to do the negotiating? Because if anyone can talk that woman into giving her vote, it’s you.”
That wasn’t it. Not getting the vote had never been the issue. He knew he could convince Theresa. But the challenge was getting John Paul. Dimitri may not have needed the French vote, but he wanted it. All his life, he’d turned the other cheek. He’d allowed himself to be pushed into the shadows without a fight and lived there, in the darkness, from the time he realized his own worthlessness. John Paul had done that. He had stripped Dimitri of his self-worth. He had abandoned him, shunned him, denied him. He had made Dimitri question himself, his life, his own existence.
“I’ll see you at home.”
He hung up before Erik could say anything further. He put the car into drive and pulled out of the parking spot.
It was a ten-minute drive from the inners of the city to the scorched remains of what had once been the glory of the former king. Even as a kid, Dimitri would bike up to the gates and sit there, wondering what it had to feel like to be the man everyone loved and feared. It had to be amazing.
Back then, it had been Killian’s father on the throne. Callum McClary had paved the road for his son to one day take the reins. He’d had the unwavering loyalty and respect of his people, and a kingdom that had been handed to him by his father before him. Maybe that made the entire line lazy, but each McClary had ruled with an efficiency and strength that would forever go down in history. It was all Dimitri had ever wanted. Not so much the power and wealth. But the acceptance. The being a part of something he could be proud of.
As eldest, Ivan had laid claim to their mother’s empire from infancy. For the rest of his life, Dimitri would be under the ownership of another person. He would be a nobody until the day he died. Taking that chair was his ticket to becoming the man he needed to be to help others. It was his chance to earn his place in the world, because wanting that seat had nothing to do with merely proving himself. It wasn’t about John Paul or his mother, or going down in history. He needed that seat for Yolanda, for all the children before her. He needed it for the men and women who worked themselves to the bone every day to feed their children only to have thugs rush their homes and take what little they had. It was for the empty stomachs of the children who dug in the trash for a scrap of something to eat only to be shooed away. John Paul lived in his ivory castle with his perfect family, his mother cared only when it served her. There was no one looking out for the lost souls swallowed up by the city.
But he would.
At the entrance, he fished out his phone from the drink holder and scrolled until he found the number he was searching for. He studied the series of numbers and the name etched just on top. He contemplated his next course of action. He dug into his consciousness, past the hurt, pain, and doubt, and focused on his training, on what he was good at—negotiating. Everyone had a price. Everyone could be bought. And it was his job to find out how much.
He hit dial.
The car buzzed as the line connected. Each ring echoed loudly in the fraught silence. He gripped the wheel tight, ignoring their clamminess around the leather.
“Hello?”
Part of him hadn’t expected an answer. The other part had prayed for it. When the voice broke through, he was momentarily rendered dumb.
“It’s me,” he blurted after John Paul had said hello for the second time.
There was silence on the other end and he wondered if the man was not sure who it was or if he was trying to decide if he should hang up.
“Is it your shoulder?”
The thing had been throbbing all morning, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t ignore. He’d had worse.
“No, it’s fine.”
“Good.” John Paul cleared his throat. “What do you need, Dimitri?”
There it was, the thread of annoyance woven tight around a wedge of disappointment. He had done his fatherly duty by inquiring about Dimitri’s shou
lder. Now, he was ready to get off the line and go back to pretending he had no son.
“I wish for an audience.” Dimitri reminded himself he was a thirty-one-year-old man and this was just another negotiation. “There is something we need to discuss.”
“I don’t think there is,” John Paul said almost immediately. “I already told you—”
“You will see me.” He squinted hard at the blackened heap of concrete that had once been someone’s home. “You will want to hear what I have to say. I will be by your house in an hour.”
“No!” There was no missing the anger that cracked through the warning. “You will not come here.” He paused, then added with great resignation, “The pier in an hour.”
The line went dead.
Dimitri ended the call on his end, then sat there, staring at the ruins, while his mind decided what exactly he was going to tell the other man.
An hour later, he still had nothing. He pulled into an underground parking garage a block from the pier and listened to the odd hum of traffic vibrating along the concrete box. His heart was an uneasy creature skittering in his chest. His stomach was in knots. But when he stepped out, his expression was cool, confident. His strides were long and even. He had done this a million times and this was no different, he told himself the whole way.
John Paul was already there, a severe silhouette darkening the space around him. Rain had begun to fall in fat drops, leaving broken circles in the concrete. A few splattered over Dimitri’s face and ran down the collar of his coat, but they went unnoticed as he drew closer.
Murderous was the look on John Paul’s face when Dimitri joined him. Light, brown eyes were dark pits of rage, narrowed on a face that could have cut stone. He was practically vibrating with his anger.
“There had better be a very good reason for this,” he warned, stiff lips barely moving to spit out each word. “I do not like being summoned or commanded like some dog.”
“It wasn’t a command,” Dimitri said, voice carefully even. “It was a request, and I offered to come to you.”
“To my home.” Livid fury blazed across his eyes, illuminating them. “I allowed it last night because I couldn’t afford a scene, but you will not ever allow yourself entry there again. Is that clear?”
The Devil's Beauty (Crime Lord Interconnected Standalone Book 2) Page 5