The Devil's Beauty (Crime Lord Interconnected Standalone Book 2)

by Airicka Phoenix

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  She took down a magazine clipping of Paris’s Pont Des Arts Bridge and the thousands of locks glittering in the sunlight.

  “Because we’re not nature people,” he reminded her.

  Clipping in hand, she went back to him. She climbed into his lap, straddling his sprawled legs and sat comfortably on his thighs.

  “I want to do this,” she whispered, turning the photo around for him to see. “More than anything else. This is what I want.”

  He took the picture from her and looked it over.

  “I want to put our names on a lock and hang it on each of the lock bridges around the world.”

  “You’re not allowed to anymore,” he reminded her, still eyeing the photo.

  “I know.” She took it back from him and peered at it longingly. “But I have this whole scenario in my head where we dress up in black and sneak onto all the bridges ninja style, snap on the locks and run away before we’re caught.”

  He arched an eyebrow, his eyes dancing in the gold light of her bedside lamp. “You want to commit a dozen felons in several foreign countries?”

  “But think about it,” she pleaded. “Our locks will be there forever … or until the whole lot tumbles into the water, but…” She sighed heavily. “We’ll have done it, you and me. A piece of us, of what we have will be out there in the world. Besides,” she grinned at him. “It’s only a felony if we’re caught.”

  He took the photo from her and studied it a bit longer. She watched him watch it and nibbled her lip anxiously, waiting for an answer.

  “This is what you want?”

  Ava nodded enthusiastically. “More than anything.”

  He pursed his lips. “All right,” he said finally. “Then we’ll do it.”

  Euphoric, she squealed and punched the air above her head.

  “Shh!” Laughing, he hooked her middle with his arms and tackled her down onto the mattress, stifling her high pitched sounds with his mouth. “You’re going to get John Paul in here,” he said once he’d properly silenced her.

  Still giggling and squealing, but quieter, Ava hugged him, practically choking him. “I don’t care. I am so happy!”

  He gathered her in close and kissed her until she stopped her flailing. Once he was certain she wasn’t going to start screaming again, he raised his head. He smoothed hairs off her cheeks and peered into her eyes.

  “I like seeing you happy,” he remarked softly.

  She continued to grin wide enough to make her face hurt. “But did you mean it? You’ll really go with me?”

  He gave her a droll glower. “Well, I clearly can’t let you go alone. What if you get caught and thrown into some Turkish prison?”

  Ava laughed. “Exactly! Yes, you need to come with me and we’ll travel the whole of Europe together and see everything and make love everywhere possible and—”

  “Christ, woman, how many laws do you plan on breaking during this expedition?”

  She beamed. “All of them! We’re going to make so many memories and tell them all to our children one day and maybe write a book and—”

  “Children?”

  Ava stilled. She hadn’t meant to bring up the C word. She hadn’t even realized she’d said it until he was peering down at her like she’d struck him.

  “I didn’t mean this minute,” she tried to explain. “One day.” She bit her lip hard, but her next words came out anyway. “You do want them with me, don’t you?”

  “Children?” he said again. His eyebrows had tangled together between his eyes as he pondered her question. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Ava.”

  Willing the hurt down, she frowned. “Why not?”

  “I’m a criminal,” he reminded her. “I could be caught or killed—”

  “Stop it!” She pushed at his chest until he’d climbed off her. “I hate when you talk like that.”

  “But it’s the truth.” He touched her face lightly. “There’s no changing that. I would give it all up to have a family with you, if I could, myshka, but I can’t.”

  She knew there was no point asking him to quit. She knew he couldn’t, even if he’d wanted.

  “Could we talk about it in a few years?” she asked instead. “I don’t want to give up on the idea entirely. Maybe by then something will have changed.”

  He nodded even while his eyes told her that wouldn’t happen. “In a few years then.”

  Ava woke with a groan. The memories of her last night with Dimitri dissolved with the rapidness of a sugar cube dropping into tea. It blended into the nothing, becoming what it was—a distant past she couldn’t change. It had taken countless hours of regret to conclude that her asking for a family had mostly likely been the trigger that had sent him running. It just didn’t explain why her skull was thrumming with an intensity of a live bee’s nest or why her ribs ached. There was distinct pang every time she inhaled that made her think maybe one of them was broken or fractured.

  She pushed up with her good arm and squinted at her surroundings, not entirely certain why Ilsa wasn’t tucked against her. The loss of the girl’s warmth was startling.

  “Ilsa?” She scanned the row of faces, all so careful not to meet her gaze. “Ilsa?”

  It all came back to her in a roar. The pain vanished instantaneously, becoming a dull numbness that clapped against her chest.

  They’d taken her. She was gone just like the other girls. They’d taken her and never brought her back.

  “They … they took her,” she said to no one in particular.

  The other girls averted their eyes, ashamed, uncaring, a little of both. It hadn’t been them. It had been someone else. Ava hated them in that moment. She hated herself. Mostly herself, because she had thought the exact same thing every time that door had closed over another girl’s pleading wails.

  “It’s not me. It’s not Ilsa.”

  Ilsa was gone and history insisted Ava would never see her again. She had broken her promise. She hadn’t been able to save the girl, hadn’t been able to take her home.

  She had failed.

  The door opened. Ava didn’t jump. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t even glance up as the thump of boots filled the space. She sat staring at her pale hands contrasting against the scarred sheet of metal spread out beneath her.

  Something was said, could have been in English. Maybe Spanish. Those who could, shuffled to their feet. The rest were forcibly lifted, Ava included, and half carried, half dragged to stand in a line to the door.

  Ava barely noticed the five fingers biting into her arm. Her gaze kept flitting over the faces around her, desperate and hoping she’d somehow missed the girl, that she was there, scared, but safe and unharmed. But even as she searched, she knew that wasn’t the case. Ilsa was gone. They’d discarded her like the others. They had taken what they could and … what did they do with the bodies? Toss them over? Burn them in the boilers? Did it matter?

  She was shoved forward. She barely had time to lift her feet over the ledge when a dark bag was forced over her heads and her hands were fastened behind her backs with itchy rope. The rest of the walk was done in darkness. The muggy interior of the boat was replaced by hot, sticky heat.

  Uncaring hands nudged and prodded, guiding her forward every time she slowed.

  Metal turned to wood, turned to gravel. Loose stones scuttled under the march of many feet. Ahead, she heard the clump and thump of bodies climbing into something hollow. She tried to pinpoint the exact sound, but it wasn’t clear until it was her turn and she was shoved up metal rings and into a box. No. A truck or van. It was impossible to tell when so many other bodies squished into her from all sides.

  “That’s it!” someone called and several doors rolled shut; Ava counted at least a dozen bangs.

  The stifling air hung thick with sweat. There were seconds when she was certain they would all die from asphyxiation. There was very little circulation and even less room. The walls around the
m rattled, sounding close, which made her think definitely a cube van or a moving truck. Gravel road broke to smooth asphalt beneath the wheels. Ava tried to listen for markers, sounds she could identify later, but wherever they were, it was miles from anything or anyone.

  It was possibly hours later before the faint hum of civilization filtered through the metal. They made more frequent stops. Not exactly full blocks, but enough to make her think they were fairly close to residences.

  The vehicle stopped. The engine flicked off. What little air there vanished with the simultaneous inhale from the girls.

  This was it. Whatever was to be their future, this is where it would start.

  Rusty wheels squealed as the door was wheeled open. The rattling bang made Ava wince. Rough hands ripped them out, shouting when cramped legs sent girls to the ground with no way to stop their falls. Some cried out, but they were immediately hauled upright and told to move.

  There was gravel beneath their feet. Ava could hear the crunch and scuffle as they went somewhere right. She could hear a woman’s voice in Spanish, barking orders. A door banged. The truck continued to vibrate every time a girl was pulled out.

  Ava was next. Hands with jagged nails bit into the flesh of her arm and she was forcibly dragged to the edge. She slid most of the way on her knees before hitting the ledge and being swung down. Her feet spiked with a million needles and her legs screamed at being unfurled for the first time in hours. Her knees buckled and she was caught under the arms, held a full second before shoved. She stumbled, but somehow remained upright.

  “¡Vamonos!” someone snapped.

  Oddly groggy from the journey, quite possibly dehydrated, Ava wove her way forward at an almost drunken stagger. Her head pounded and there was a very real possibility she was about to be sick inside the sack.

  Someone grabbed her elbow and she was marched up a rickety ramp. The thing clattered dangerously the entire way to the top.

  The sounds of outside melted into a thick, relentless buzz of machinery. She was led down a set of steep stairs. From there, she had no idea where she was or where she was going. The entire place smelled heavily of grease, machines, and something burning. It was a large place. The vibrations around her seemed to be coming from a long distance. She thought maybe a warehouse, but couldn’t be sure.

  A woman’s voice snapped something. It was only then Ava realized the hand holding her was small and narrow.

  “I don’t speak Spanish,” she said weakly.

  The woman might not have been talking to her, because Ava got no response. She was pushed forward. Her sneakers slapped against wet pavement. The air held the clammy and humid thickness of a bathhouse and the stench of backed up sewer.

  “Strip,” the woman said in clear English.

  “What…?”

  Her restrained wrists were grabbed. The ropes were tugged free. The bag was liberated off her head and Ava blinked. Her shoulders screamed from the lengthy imprisonment. Her eyes burned as the sickly light from the single bulb overhead broke through her darkness.

  It was a cubical, a filthy, slimy slab of cracked stone painted a dull, mint green. The floors were tiles, slippery and wet beneath her sneakers. A bronze manhole was punched into the center where the ground dipped inward slightly. Against one wall, a leaky showerhead dripped, leaving muddy brown water stains down the wall. There were no windows and the woman stood guarding the only way out with a Glock clasped in her hand.

  She was a slender thing with a narrow face and a wide forehead. Her eyes were sunk deep in her skull and her eyebrows extended like awnings. She glowered at Ava, her lips curled back over her horse teeth.

  “Shower,” she barked, pointing to the faucet with the barrel of the gun.

  The woman didn’t move. Ava had a feeling she wouldn’t, not even to turn her back while Ava stripped out of clothes that had to be literally peeled off. Part of her didn’t care. Getting an actual shower trumped modesty, except the part where she wasn’t given slippers. The very idea of walking on the floor barefoot made her skin crawl.

  Toeing off her sneakers, she stepped gingerly on the cold tiles. What she had assumed were puddles squished between her toes in a clear, white glob that had her biting back a scream. She edged to the faucet on her toes, hoping the less contact she had, the less chance she’d lose her feet from some flesh devouring disease.

  The water gushed out in a sputter of brown sludge before clearing to a dirty gray. It was stone cold and had a tendency to spike out in razor sharp pelts or trickle out in lazy drops. Either way, it cut into naked flesh with the accuracy of a blade. But it was a shower and getting cleaned was her only focus.

  She was handed a sliver of used, scentless soap with black edges and a bottle of some foreign shampoo. Ava made use of both liberally. It wasn’t the kind of clean she wanted, but it was better than nothing.

  She wasn’t given any clothes. Not even a towel. The woman took hold of Ava’s elbow and propelled her naked and dripping out of the cubical and down a long, narrow corridor painted the same green. Ava tried to struggle, tried to wrench her arm free and run for her soiled clothes, but the woman was surprisingly strong for someone so small. It was some comfort to see other girls being marched out of similar showering stalls, naked and wet, leaving dark footprints in the concrete.

  It wasn’t a warehouse. She couldn’t tell what kind of place it was, but the ceiling was high and the walls didn’t fully meet it. Each one was only seven feet high and broken occasionally by open doorways that led into various chambers.

  “Where are you taking me?” Ava demanded, putting as much force into the question as possible.

  The woman said nothing.

  Her question was answered anyway when Ava was forced into one of the rooms, this one strung closed by dangling beads that clattered when disturbed by the force of Ava’s body crashing through.

  It was an office, cramped by a desk in the center, a chair on either side, and a single filing cabinet behind it. There was a man in the chair opposite the wooden table, squat, hairy, yet oddly bald, and stinking of enough cologne and cheap cigars to kill a horse. He wore a green and orange bowling shirt streaked with grease smudges. Ropes of gold hung from where his neck ought to have been and tangled with thick, black curls sprouting from where the two top buttons gaped on his top. His oddly shaped head tilted when Ava stumbled in. Thick, angry eyebrows furrowed like a pair of wrestling caterpillars over the mud brown of his eyes. His scalp shone a smooth patch of rusty brown surrounded by a full ring of dark curls that hung to fat shoulders.

  He was an ugly little man and he was studying her the way dog show judges scrutinized a thoroughbred.

  He grunted. “Nice tits,” he said in a gruff English. “Pussy could use a trim, but not unbearable. Good hips. Face is okay.”

  “Excuse me?” Ava snapped, trying to cover herself unsuccessfully with her hands.

  “Turn around.”

  Ava was wrenched around by the woman when she refused.

  “Decent ass,” the man muttered. “Virgin?”

  Ava twisted out of the woman’s hold and whirled around. “What?”

  The man waved away his own question. “Unlikely. You’re too old. You’re still pretty.” He glanced past her to the woman. “Put her in the truck with the others. She’ll fetch a good price on the block.”

  “The … block…?”

  Her answer was being dragged back out of the room.

  They put her in white shorts and a white camisole. Both were sheer enough to be nothing more than thin layers of onion skin draped over parts of her only a small few had ever seen. She may as well have been naked, but it was a comment she did not dare make in case they took it as an invitation.

  She was being sold. They may not have said as much, but she wasn’t an idiot. The man’s comments combined with the outfit, there was no other explanation. The worst part was that she knew that once she was bought, the odds of Dimitri ever finding her would drop to zero. There would be no chan
ce of it. She would be lost forever. It was up to her now. She couldn’t afford to wait any longer. She needed a plan and she needed it before she hit that auction block.

  No idea came, nor would it through the drug induced haze they put the girls under. Ava could barely keep her eyes open. The world was a blur of faces and smudged colors. Sound rolled in an endless tumble down a dark corridor. Moments seemed to flicker from one instant to another. Whole rooms appeared and vanished with every blink. She tried to focus on where she was, but everything would spin and she would be somewhere else.

  Somewhere in the back recess of her mind, she knew she’d been drugged. How, was a question her mind couldn’t fathom through the fog, but somehow they had and she couldn’t even remember her own name.

  Blinding lights flared and swayed. A voice boomed in the distance and she felt everything tilt as her head rolled towards it. A dry grainy sensation worked around in her mouth, making speech impossible as she struggled to swallow the spit she couldn’t generate.

  “Where…?” Her voice was swallowed in a slur.

  The lights were too hot. Her skin was beginning to blister. She could feel her skin melting. She gasped and threw up her arms to shield her face and the ground dipped beneath her. She tried to catch herself, but she was tumbling for what felt like forever.

  Something caught her. Hands under her arms. Their cool dryness felt amazing against the burning of her flesh.

  “¡Espere!”

  The voice was a booming force exploding deep in the cavities of her skull. Her eyeballs rattled in their sockets. She shut her eyes, willing it all to stop.

  The quiet shuffle of approaching feet had her forcing her lids open. The space around it had grown painfully silent. Ava tried to adjust her brain, tried to get it to function, but it kept dipping in and out of focus, until the tall, regal man emerged onto the stage. Handsome with a head full of wavy dark hair and eyes covered by designer glasses. He strode forward, a commanding force in gunmetal gray and a cap of dark power. But it was the glint of light sparking off the gold grip of his cane that transfixed her. Each flare exploded in the darkness that surrounded him. The steady thump of it on wood coaxed her heart to follow its beat.