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

by Airicka Phoenix

  Dimitri shrugged. “Yes.”

  He stumbled across the room like a drunk and locked himself up inside the tiny room at the back. A second later, they heard retching, loud, violent heaves, followed by deep sobs.

  “Gut him like a fish?” Ava muttered quietly. “Really?”

  “What?” He shot her a feigned look of utter innocence she would have been an idiot to believe. “That’s what happens to rats.”

  “And he would be dead before his guts fell out,” she continued sharply.

  He huh’d contemplatively. “Maybe if he read more books, he would know that.”

  Ava only shook her head.

  Stephen emerged with an invisible cloud of sickness and shit. It plumed through the room before he shut the door behind him. He was green beneath the gray of his complexion. His eyes were bloodshot, the matching red of his swollen nose. His dirty, blonde hair hung limp and matted to his sweaty brow and there was a distinct puke stain down the front of his shirt. He was a mess.

  He staggered his way to the suitcase and mutely began to rearrange his things back in their usual places. It took about fifteen minutes before his computer was whirring to life once more.

  “Find Elena,” Dimitri told him. “I want records of all her financial holdings, her properties, any place she might go to hide.”

  “That’ll take a while,” Stephen said hoarsely. “I need time.”

  “You have five hours.”

  Dimitri turned and stalked to Ava. He scooped her up into his arms and started for the door.

  “Five hours isn’t enough,” Stephen called after them.

  “Make it enough,” Dimitri called back.

  “And clean your apartment!” Ava said. “This is disgusting.”

  The sight of John Paul’s estate coming into view nearly had Ava in tears. The familiar rush of freshly mowed grass, the sweet honeysuckles, the familiar way the sun pierced through the canopy of trees, it all poured over her with an intensity that had her biting her lip to keep from laughing hysterically or weeping.

  Dimitri had barely pulled to a stop when the front doors burst open. Ava threw herself out of the car and was swept up into familiar arms even before she’d taken two steps.

  “Ava.” John Paul held her tight enough to break ribs. “Ma fifille, je vous ai manqué.” He squeezed tighter. “I missed you so much.”

  The tears she’d been fighting burst free in a hot rush. It climbed out of her in waves, each one making her chest heave between sobs. She clung to him with a desperation that refused to be ignored.

  “I’m sorry,” she cried in between pants. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Shh,” he whispered, stroking her hair the way he used to when she’d been a little girl. “There is nothing to be sorry for.”

  But she couldn’t stop. The words kept punching out of her chest in jagged shards. She wasn’t even sure what she was sorry about, but it was all she could say as she held him and soaked in his warm, comforting scent.

  “Come inside,” he murmured. “I want to see you.”

  She almost couldn’t let him go. It was a wonder her arms obeyed and relaxed their death grip around his throat.

  “I have ordered all your favorites,” he went on softly. “Do you want to shower first?”

  Ava nodded. The bath at Hector’s had felt wonderful, but it hadn’t been her shower. It hadn’t been her lotions or shampoos, or her clothes.

  John Paul smoothed back her hair and cupped her face with both hands. He peered into her eyes, searching, assessing, trying to determine the depth of her damage, of all the things she wouldn’t tell him.

  “I will find them,” he promised quietly. “Do you understand? And I will end them in the slowest manner possible.” He pressed a kiss to her brow. “Go. Get yourself together. When you are ready, I will be downstairs with those salmon sandwiches you like.”

  Despite the weight on her chest, Ava laughed. It was wet and shaky, but it felt good. “I do like the salmon sandwiches.”

  He grinned. “Well, hurry or I’ll eat them myself.”

  With a gentle stroke of her head, he sent her off up the steps to the front doors. She paused at the top and glanced back.

  John Paul was staring at the rental and the somber man standing next to it. Neither spoke, but the wall of hate between them was a solid force so hot and angry, she cringed at its ferocity.

  “We had an agreement,” John Paul said quietly. “Do not test to see what will happen if you go back on it.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Dimitri replied. “But we need to talk.”

  “Not today,” John Paul cut in savagely. “My daughter has only just arrived home.”

  “You were right about Elena. She was the one after Ava the whole time and the one who had her taken.”

  Marble could have been carved on John Paul’s shoulders. The reverberating tension radiated along his rigid spine and coiled around his clenched fists.

  “Come to my office.”

  Ava turned quickly and ducked out of sight before she was seen.

  She jogged up the steps and followed its familiarity down the corridor to her room, the room she’d had since she was nine. The room she’d spent countless nights curled up in Dimitri’s arms. The room she did her homework in, sang horribly to music her mother hated, cried, laughed, and grew in. It was her space. Even with her own apartment, this had always been hers.

  Yet, it had never looked so foreign. She barely recognized any of its usual clutter and charm. Everything there felt like it belonged to some other person, a close friend maybe, someone she’d lost. A fist closed in her throat and she felt a second welling of tears burning her eyes. A part of her had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do now. Touching anything felt like a violation, which was ridiculous. But John Paul was waiting for her. If she took too long, he’d grow concerned and she needed to be strong for him. She needed him to see she was okay. She didn’t want him to ever look at her as though she were some kind of damaged figurine.

  It was only then she realized her mother was absent. She hadn’t exactly expected a tearful and hysterical Charlotte, but she had partially assumed the woman would be there. She made a mental note to ask John Paul later.

  For now, she edged to the dresser and tentatively gathered fresh, clean underwear and a white wraparound dress with fat purple flowers scattered across it. She ducked into the bathroom and had the longest shower of her life.

  Dimitri was gone when she padded into the kitchen. John Paul was at the sink, absently drying a butcher knife with a paper napkin.

  “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

  John Paul looked up, brown eyes wide with surprise. “Pardon me?”

  She stepped deeper into the kitchen and took a stool at the island. “Dimitri.” She motioned with her chin at the knife in his hands. “Should I be worried?”

  It seemed to take him a minute longer than normal to figure out what she was saying. When he did, he rolled his eyes.

  “No … but I was tempted.”

  It was so much like something Dimitri had said earlier that she only shook her head.

  “Are you hungry?” he prompted. “Everything is set up on the patio. I thought we could enjoy the afternoon while we—”

  “Where’s Mom?” she interrupted.

  His hesitance said it even before he averted his eyes. “She’s very relieved to have you home, Ava. We’ve all been extremely worried.”

  “Where is she?”

  John Paul exhaled. “France, but she’ll be home in a day or two. She’s—”

  “Does she know I was taken? That the last two weeks of my life have been a living hell?”

  “Ava…” He peered at her imploringly.

  “What’s in France that she can’t leave for her own daughter?”

  It was insane to get so worked up over something so inconsequential, especially considering she knew how Charlotte was, but she had never felt so utterly betrayed. Of all the horrible, two faced, de
ceitful things her mother had ever done, somehow this … her not being there when Ava returned was such an unforgivable act.

  “Your mother—”

  “Is a cold hearted, self-centered, egomaniac who would die happy in a room full of mirrors.”

  “Ava!”

  She ignored John Paul’s sharp reprimand. “I won’t forgive her for this. I will never forget how little she really cares about me. How little she’s always cared.” She pushed to her feet, her appetite gone, her throat tight. “She’s just like you.”

  It came out of her without a shred of consent from her. It hung in the air, an almost physical blade dripping with her venom, made worse by the look of absolute horror and agony twisting on his face. It sliced through her worse than anything her mother could have ever done.

  “I’m sorry … oh, God, Dad, I am so sorry!” She hurried around the counter to his side. “I didn’t mean that. I swear, I didn’t.”

  He started to turn away from her, one hand lifted to his mouth. He rubbed, not meeting her gaze.

  “I love you,” she rushed on. “I love you so much. You’re the only person I have ever … the only person I would willingly die for. I didn’t mean … it’s not—”

  “It’s because of the way I treat Dimitri, isn’t it?” He had taken the words straight out of the secret place she kept them, deep, deep inside herself. He looked at her, eyes dark with the lingering remains of his pain. “It’s because I don’t love him and I should.”

  She could only swallow.

  “Maybe I am like your mother.”

  “No!” She lunged for his arm even though he hadn’t moved. “You are nothing like her. I’m an idiot for even saying something so stupid. You’re the best father anyone could ever ask for.”

  “To you.” His shoulders lifted with his deep inhale. “I’ve only been that way to you, because I have never loved anyone the way I love you, Ava. I have never wanted to protect someone so fiercely I could have been protecting my own life. You,” he took her face between his hands, “have been my entire world for sixteen years and I would do things, terrible, unspeakable things without question to keep you safe. You’re my daughter.” Tears spilled down her face and caught on his fingers. He smoothed them away gently. “You mean everything to me.”

  “But Dimitri’s your—”

  “Flesh and blood?” he finished with a wry grin. His palms slipped from her cheeks. “I will never accept him as mine. I can’t.”

  “Why?” She followed him to the other side of the island and stood as he lowered himself onto a stool. “What has he done that was so wrong?”

  John Paul shook his head. “It isn’t the time for this talk. You only just returned. We should—”

  “Please,” she pleaded quietly. “Please, I have to know.”

  “Even if the answer will make you see me as a monster?” he said with a lopsided grin that never carried to the crinkles he normally gets around his eyes.

  “There is nothing you could have ever done or do that would make me see you differently,” she said, meaning it. “You will always be my dad and I will always love you.”

  He took her hand and held it in the soft cradle of his. He examined the fingers, the knuckles, and finally the palm.

  “I hope that remains true, because I…” He broke off with a shake of his head. “I haven’t told this to anyone.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Erik looked up from the gleaming surface of his mahogany desk when Dimitri stalked into his office. The tiny brunette Erik kept like a guard dog outside his downtown office scurried after him, frantic and crimson faced.

  “Mr. Tasarov, forgive me, I told him—”

  “It’s all right, Meghan.” Erik set his gold pen down on the documents open before him and rose. “This is my nephew.”

  That only served to make Meghan even more anxious. She fretted with her hands, waving them and twisting them together at her midsection.

  “Oh! Oh, okay, I’m sorry. I’m new.”

  Dimitri waved her apology aside. “It’s all right. I understand. You can’t allow just anyone to waltz in here. I am armed, after all and could be up to anything.”

  Her green eyes nearly bulged from her head. Her small, pink mouth parted. She glanced from Erik to Dimitri, making weird choking sounds.

  “He’s joking, Meghan,” Erik soothed her. “Please shut the door behind you.”

  Visibly relieved to have escaped, Meghan scuttled from the room and shut the frosted doors behind her.

  Erik half groaned, half sighed. “Must you torment my employees every time you visit?”

  Dimitri smirked. “But I am armed.”

  Erik shook his head slowly, but the longer he did it, the harder it was to maintain his grin until he laughed and circled the desk. Dimitri met him halfway and accepted the hard embrace, and the harder thump on his back.

  “What brings you?” Erik pulled back to peer into his face. “Everything okay?”

  Dimitri paused, still not wholly firm on his decision. He’d been mulling it over during the entire drive, but the closer he got to his destination, the more he began to question the idea.

  Erik was the only person he semi trusted. The man had been more of a father than his own father and there was a loyalty in that. But at the end of the day, Erik was his mother’s brother. He was part of the Bratva. His loyalties may have extended to Dimitri, but it would always remain strong with the brotherhood.

  “It was Elena,” he started. “She’s trying to kill Ava.”

  He watched Erik’s face carefully, waiting for even a flicker to determine which side the man stood on.

  “Ava?” Dark brows twisted in genuine confusion. “Who … John Paul’s girl?”

  He motioned Dimitri to the small, leather and steel sitting area tucked against one wall. It faced a solid sheet of glass overlooking the entire west side of the city.

  Dimitri never understood the appeal of monster skyscrapers towering over all the little people below. He never considered himself above those struggling to make a living of the lives they were given by chance. But he understood the necessity to show power. It was the only way keep that power.

  “She hired men who chased us all the way to Puerto Rico,” Dimitri said, lowering himself gingerly onto one of the cool seats.

  Erik took the seat adjacent. “Puerto Rico?”

  It was a delicate processes weaving both truth and fiction together in a knot that sounded possible. He didn’t tell Erik about their years together, or that they’d ever met before this, except in passing. In this version, Ava was a virtual stranger who happened to have something Dimitri wanted—John Paul’s vote.

  “You kidnapped her?” Erik’s exclamation of disbelief erased any lingering shadows of doubt Dimitri might have had about the man’s involvement. “Are you insane? You should have talked to me. We could have found another way.”

  It was the moment of truth.

  “I wanted to hurt him.” He stared at the wide space between his feet, through the triangle of his arms where his hands were clasped and braced on his knees. “I wanted him to see how it felt to lose something he loved.”

  Even to his own ears, the confession came from his throat, but in a voice that hadn’t been his since he was six and sitting in bed with Erik, trying to figure out why his father didn’t want him.

  “It’s not you,” Erik would say while pulling the blankets around him. “You’ll see that one day.”

  “It was dangerous and reckless!” Erik snapped now. “He could have killed you.”

  Dimitri nodded. “I know.”

  Erik sighed heavily. “This is a disaster.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “If we don’t fix this quickly, we will have a mutiny on our hands. The city will be in flames by nightfall, and the other territories will swoop in and steal the rest.”

  “No.” He waited until he had the other man’s full attention. “That’s not going to happen. You’re not going to let that happen.”

  Eri
k frowned. “Me? What can I do?”

  Dimitri rose and offered the other man his hand. “Trust me?”

  In all his life, Dimitri had never seen more apprehension on anyone’s face than the one permanently warping his uncle’s. He sat stiff and unyielding in the passenger’s seat of Dimitri’s rental and stared at their passing surroundings with the aversions of a dog on his way to get neutered and being fully aware of it.

  The idea was entertaining, if Erik didn’t carry at least four guns at any given time.

  He rolled to a gentle stop right outside the glass doors of Arrow Holding Corporation and killed the engine. The keys jingled as he pocketed them and faced the man.

  “All right?”

  Erik’s brows deepened in their scowl, if that were possible. “This is a bad idea.”

  “Or a very good idea,” Dimitri countered. “Come on.”

  He rolled out before the man could try and talk him out of it. He closed the door and circled the hood to the curb. He waited.

  “This is a no parking zone,” Erik muttered, eyeing the sign inches from the car’s trunk.

  Dimitri shrugged. “It’ll save me from having to return it.”

  Erik shook his head sadly, but said nothing.

  Dimitri led him up the onyx steps to the doors and into the foyer. Gleaming rods of steel and sheets of dark glass created an atmosphere that was both cold and impersonal while being atrociously wealthy. He still had absolutely no idea what it was the company did exactly, but men and women in thousand dollar suits loaded and unloaded from the elevator with stock expressions and brisk steps.

  A stone faced blonde sat perfectly rigid behind a glass desk. She looked up when they entered. Her cool gaze rolled over Erik’s crisp, neatly tailored suit with a flicker of approval. Then she peered at Dimitri’s cargo pants, duster and faded t-shirt, and the disapproval could have been eaten with a spoon.

  “Can I help you?” she chirped.

  “¡Amigos!” Marcus stalked into the foyer, phone in one hand, the other waving for their attention. “Traffic…” He shook his head, exasperated. “Would have been here sooner.” He spotted Erik and a spark of interest had him tilting his head. “Erik, long time no see.”