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

by Airicka Phoenix

  “Don’t…” was all she sobbed before she crumpled against his chest.

  He didn’t know what it meant. Don’t die. Don’t leave Robby. Don’t go.

  It didn’t matter. He needed to go. He needed to try. He’d never forgive himself if he let Robby die and did nothing. Neither would she.

  “You’re not deciding,” he whispered into her ear. “I am. This is my choice, whatever happens.”

  She cried harder. Her tears soaked into his shirt and burned his skin. Heat radiated off her in plumes so hot, he could feel himself beginning to sweat. Under his palms, her back heaved as though her very heart was literally breaking into a million pieces.

  “I can’t lose you,” she choked between wheezes. “I can’t. Not again.”

  “Ah, myshka, you’ve never lost me and you never will.”

  She didn’t seem to hear him.

  “Don’t die, please just don’t…” Her knuckles bleached white around the clumps of his shirt she clutched. “Don’t leave me.”

  That was a promise he couldn’t make her. He wasn’t an optimist. There wasn’t a bone in his body that believed he would be returning and he wasn’t about to break his final promise to her.

  “I love you,” was all he could tell her. “I will always love you.”

  Leaving the hotel was the hardest thing Dimitri had ever had to do. Closing the door on Ava’s wails had nearly killed him, but he’d set his shoulders and marched to the elevators, a man on death row.

  John Paul walked beside him, oddly ironic considering. Whenever he’d envisioned his own demise, he was not the man Dimitri saw at his side. But it was strangely comforting not being alone. He knew it would only be part of the way, but it was better than nothing.

  They took the elevator down in a silence that was void of its usual tension. It was the kind of silence usually reserved for people on their deathbed. It was no comfort either way.

  Saeed was already waiting below. Penny must have told him, because he looked at Dimitri and his jaw tensed.

  He said nothing though when he opened the door.

  They had twenty minutes to make a ten-minute drive.

  Might as well get it over with, was his way of thinking. The sooner it was over, the, well, the sooner it was over.

  Saeed drove painfully slow, which might have been mostly in Dimitri’s imagination. But he was definitely following the laws of traffic. Stopping at every light. Taking every signal. He even paused to let another car pass them.

  Dimitri said nothing.

  Next to him, John Paul was equally mute.

  “Take care of her.” The words left him before he even knew he was thinking them.

  “I will.”

  Why was there nothing else? How could there be nothing between a father and son? How, even in that moment when they would never get that chance again, could there be nothing? It seemed so unfair, so cruel.

  But they didn’t live in a world of fairness. He’d learned that long ago.

  He thought of Millie, and Robby, and even Penny with her brilliant son. He thought of Saeed and his parakeet, Melvin. He thought of Erik, who didn’t even know what was happening, and Marcus.

  He pulled out his phone and put each one of those people, with the exception of Millie, in a group text and wrote two words, thank you. He scheduled it to be sent after.

  It wasn’t enough. There weren’t enough words in the world to properly convey how much he appreciated them. He didn’t have time. The warehouse was almost in view.

  He put his phone away.

  “Boss?”

  Saeed met his gaze in the mirror.

  “Here’s fine. Thank you.”

  The SUV rolled to a stop. Dimitri unfastened his belt and reached for the handle. He hesitated, waiting. That one, final second, hoping.

  Nothing.

  He accepted it and climbed out.

  Stones and grit crunched beneath his feet as he stepped up alongside Saeed’s window. The boy was staring stubbornly ahead, but he rolled down his window with a soft whir.

  “Penny told you.” It wasn’t a question.

  Saeed gave a tight bob of his head.

  “Get as far from here as you can possibly go, understand?”

  Another nod. Still not looking at him.

  “Be safe, yeah?”

  The muscle coiled tight in the boy’s jaw. His nostrils flared once. The rubber grip around the wheel squeaked under the fierce fist twisted around it.

  “Yeah, boss.”

  There was a tremor, faint, but Dimitri had to turn away.

  He moved away from the vehicle. The clip of his own feet the only sound for miles. That whole sector had become a ghost town. Not even a stray cat.

  He studied the red bricked buildings as he passed them. Most of them were tagged, gang symbols, expressions of art, and he couldn’t help but wonder where those kids were now. If they were safe. Were all the buildings empty? Did the authorities clear everyone away? Was thirty blocks enough?

  He thought about Millie and realized he didn’t think about her nearly enough considering all she’d given him. She’d breezed into his life and breezed out as quickly as a summer storm.

  He’d never told anyone about her and he couldn’t help but think that made him a bad person. But who would he have told?

  Ava, maybe. But they hadn’t had a chance to have any sort of conversation. He hadn’t told her a lot of things, he realized.

  He contemplated writing her a text, but she had no phone. He could send it to John Paul or even Erik. Maybe Penny. But the things he needed to tell her were things he couldn’t tell anyone else, not even now, because they weren’t all about him. Some were secrets he was guarding for others and he only trusted Ava.

  He would tell her about Millie.

  Ava would have loved her. She would have seen past the filth and grime, the sour stench of unwashed body and urine, because Millie’s personality was bigger than all that. She’d been a world of her own.

  He would tell her about that stormy night when he’d been lying in that alleyway after being jumped by eight guys, clutching his side where the cold rain was bleeding with the hot gush of his own life seeping between his fingers.

  He’d tell her how he’d looked up at the heavens and thought of her, of her smile and how all he wanted before he died was to see it again one last time.

  He’d tell her how Millie had hobbled along out of nowhere, pushing her cart of drenched things and found him, how she’d left her things behind to hoist him into the buggy instead and take him to get patched up. He’d tell her how that woman who had nothing had taken him in without question.

  She’d shown him a side of the city he—like everyone else—had ignored. She showed him the mothers clutching their children in damp, moldy boxes behind pizza shops. She’d shown him the young boys huddled and shivering in dark corners, doing things no one should be forced to. She showed him a darkness he was ashamed he’d allowed to happen. It was because of her the Devil existed.

  Yes, Ava would have loved her.

  Ava.

  His Ava.

  He was leaving her again. He was breaking his promise after all.

  Fuck.

  A scuffle behind him had him reaching inside his coat for the 9mm tucked against his ribs. He spun, weapon in hand, and froze.

  John Paul stared back at him, unflinching.

  “What…?” Dimitri shoved his gun back into its holster. “What are you doing here?”

  John Paul continued towards him, slow, like they were taking a leisurely stroll through the park.

  “Someone needs to get Robby out.”

  Dimitri just stared, dumbfounded. Then he snapped.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” he roared. “There is no walking away from this.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  John Paul started forward.

  Dimitri slammed an open palm into the man’s chest.

  “Go fucking back.” Each word was chewed up a
nd spat out. “You are not coming. Ava needs you. She can’t lose both of us.”

  His hand was smacked aside.

  “She won’t.”

  He was walking and Dimitri had no choice but to scramble after him.

  The warehouse was a concrete pillar of narrow windows and gray stone. There was a plaque over the high, cargo doors, but Dimitri didn’t wait to read it.

  He glanced at the man next to him.

  “There’s still time.”

  John Paul nodded, his face set as he stared with single minded focus at the wood panels. “Then, let’s not waste it.”

  Dimitri forced open the doors.

  He expected an immediate explosion, a trip wire designed to go off the second they were disturbed. But the hinges squealed and doors parted to a cloud of dust and a flat, spacious chamber supported by fat, wooden beams and a single swaying lamp dangling over a slumped, bloody figure knotted to a chair.

  “Robby!”

  Dimitri started forward.

  John Paul caught his arm. “Wait.”

  It was only then he heard the slow, barely perceptible ticking. Two tickings. Three.

  He scanned the puddles of black dripping from corners and pooling across the ground. There was no telling what they concealed or how much of it; the sounds were coming from everywhere.

  “I count six,” John Paul said.

  Dimitri counted more, but six was bad enough.

  “Robby!” Dimitri said louder.

  Robby flinched and jerked awake. His head snapped up. A garble of sound escaped the bit of rag twisted between his teeth.

  His right eye was swollen shut. His cheek was bleeding from a shallow cut. More cuts, deeper cuts, littered his naked torso. The middle finger on his left hand was bent at an odd angle, but he’d live.

  He caught sight of Dimitri and John Paul and his one good eye widened. He cried something and rocked his head wildly from side to side. He thrashed against the bindings, filling the stillness with the squeak of wood.

  Dimitri started to tell him to keep quiet, but there was a groan of weight heaving off something with springs.

  “You are going to stand there?” Ivan’s voice boomed through the room. “Come in. Sit.”

  There was nowhere to sit, but they took several steps closer.

  Ivan laughed, a deep, rumbling laugh that rolled like thunder in the darkness. “You bring your daddy, Dimitri? You need courage?”

  “He’s only here to take Robby.” Dimitri scanned the shadows, searching for his brother. “You don’t need him. I’m the one you want, so come out and we’ll talk.”

  Robby shrieked behind his gag, twisting and rocking violently enough to nearly send himself toppling backwards.

  Dimitri ignored him and stepped deeper into the room. “Or are you the one who needs courage, Ivan? Because I’m right here and you’re in the shadows.” He edged a fraction back and lowered his voice so only John Paul could hear him. “Get Robby.”

  John Paul didn’t move right away. He stood where he was, surveying their surroundings.

  Dimitri left him to the task. He focused on his brother.

  “What happened to Elena, Ivan? They found her body.”

  He moved away from Robby, hoping to keep Ivan’s attention on him while John Paul got Robby freed.

  “She changed her mind.” The voice was quieter and somewhere on Dimitri’s right. “Everything we did, all our planning … nothing.”

  “What was the plan?”

  It was a challenge keeping a calm, neutral tone when the smell of sulfur heightened the closer he drew to the edges of the light.

  “Why am I here?” Anger bristled through him. “You said you wanted to talk.”

  It was stupid goading a lunatic, but he was running out of options and he needed Ivan talking. He needed to give John Paul enough time to get as far as possible

  Dirt scoffed beneath approaching heels. Dimitri braced himself as the shadows dissolved off Ivan’s giant frame. His wild mane of shiny, black hair seemed to glisten in the light, framing a face scarred badly from years of chemical splatters. It matched the rest of him, a tattered landscape of burnt flesh. Most of it a shiny pink against his natural tan. His hands were the worst, they looked like he’d been digging fries out of a bubbling deep fryer. Yet despite their damaged appearance, they could assemble and dismantle a bomb in under five seconds.

  Ivan was a big man. Always had been. Even as children, Ivan had seemed massive. It wasn’t just height, but the sheer build of him, the straining muscles and bulging shoulders. He could have been a wrestler.

  He towered over Dimitri, a good two heads in height with the cloud of power that radiated around him.

  “You are forgetting who I am, mladshiy brat,” he snarled, one corner of his mouth twisted downward. “You forget what I can do to you.”

  Dimitri snorted. “I’m not five anymore, bol’shoy brat,” he spat the word for big brother out like a curse. “I will not be so easy to catch now.”

  Ivan laughed like his terror was some fond memory. “Remember how would you scream when we play poke the baby? I don’t even touch you with cigarette and you squeal … like piggy.”

  Dimitri hummed, ignoring all the places on his body that tingled at the memory, the old scars still perfect round burns against his flesh.

  “Good times.”

  Ivan took a lumbering step closer, his smirk foul and cruel. “Or when we fit you in suitcase and push you down stairs.” He chortled. “Do you fit in suitcase now? We should see, yes?”

  Dimitri stood his ground. He’d learned long ago that it wasn’t the act of violence that turned his brother on. It was the fear on his victim’s face. Dimitri had spent a great number of years with that look on his face.

  “Is that all you wanted me here for? To remind me of what you can do?” He scoffed. “We could have done that over the phone.”

  Ivan stopped, leaving an exact ten feet between them. He studied Dimitri with those cold, vicious eyes like he couldn’t quite put his finger on something.

  “No,” he mused at last. “You’re not afraid like before. You are king now, yes? Kings don’t show fear.”

  “What happened to Elena?” he asked again. “Why did you kill her?”

  At the mention of their mother’s name, Ivan’s mouth warped into a hideous sneer. Yellow teeth bared.

  “She become weak.” He spat weak like it was something foul in his mouth. “She wants to run, like coward. Wants to hide, like coward. Why? For what? For you? I don’t fear you. I will kill your whore and your father. I will kill everybody until there is nobody, but you. Then I will kill you.”

  “Was that Elena’s plan?” he coaxed. “Why was she after Ava?”

  “Ava.” Ivan growled her name like the mere mention of it fueled his rage. “Fucking whore.”

  Dimitri steeled himself against the urge to ram his fist into the man’s throat.

  “She started this.” Ivan’s nostrils flared. “Elena says we kill her. We kill him.” He jabbed a finger to where John Paul was still standing. “We take mainland. We take west. We take north. In end, we take city. My city. Then she not let me kill girl.

  “Take her,” she tells me. “Take her where no one find her.”

  I say, we kill her. Now. Put her body in pieces on his door. No. She won’t.

  I take her and put her on boat and I’m done. She’s gone. We kill John Paul Morel and I take my kingdom. Yes?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “No. You bring stupid whore back. Elena panics. Says we run. We leave my city. We lose everything, because I don’t kill Ava like I wanted!” He was barely holding on. The rage was a palpable force that vibrated in the strands of his hair. His fists were mutilated hunks of ham balled at his sides. “She lose me my city!”

  Dimitri wasn’t sure if he meant Ava or Elena, but he was talking and Dimitri wasn’t going to interrupt with questions.

  “I kill her,” Ivan says simply. “Then I think I finish job. I kill whore and whore’s fr
iend and whore’s father—”

  Dimitri slugged him.

  He hadn’t even felt his fingers curling or the urge singing up his arm, but it flew in a high arc and cracked into Ivan’s jaw. The snap of his teeth sang through the room. His head snapped back with a force that flung his entire weight back two full steps. Blood spattered in a beautiful arch against the dingy light.

  “Ava’s not a whore,” Dimitri bit out, resisting the urge to rub his throbbing hand.

  Ivan staggered, but he righted himself. He swiped the back of his fist across his bloody chin. He glanced down at the crimson stain … and laughed.

  “Did I make you angry, Dimitri?” He lifted his eyes to Dimitri. “Did I insult your whore?” He cackled, his teeth bloodstained. “Did you think only you had taste of that pussy? Shaved, isn’t it? Bald and smooth like a baby.” He licked his lips. “I almost tasted for myself, almost put a real man’s cock in that tight cunt. Would have if I’d had more time.”

  He was goading him. Dimitri knew it. Knew he was playing straight into Ivan’s hands, but the image, the raw, blistering thought of him anywhere near Ava plowed into him with a ferocity that had blood pounding in his ears. He couldn’t even control his breathing. Each one slammed out of him with a ravenous hunger that refused to be ignored.

  He surged forward, fists clenched. He closed four full steps when Ivan jerked back. His cackle sparked across Dimitri’s nerves, but it was the hand he shot up between them that pulled Dimitri to a stop short of his goal.

  He stared at the palm sized remote. Simple. Black with a single switch embedded against the ridged front. It seemed so tiny in Ivan’s giant grasp and yet it held the weight of everything on its square frame.

  “Careful,” Ivan taunted. “Your whore’s friend is still here.”

  Only an idiot would take his eyes off the man who could kill him with a single punch, but Dimitri shot a glance back over his shoulder, praying against all odds that John Paul was already gone and Robby’s chair would be empty.

  Robby was still bound.

  John Paul was still where he’d always been, unmoving.