Ava needed that. Normal and peaceful.
But she hadn’t called Francine. It wasn’t pride. She just wasn’t ready. Plus, what was she supposed to tell her that wouldn’t get her locked away or heavily medicated? There was no report of her kidnapping. Nothing to suggest anything she said was remotely true. In all odds, she’d get labeled a pathological liar with attention issues, or some such rubbish.
She told no one, except Robby and Dimitri. They were her sounding board when she wanted to rant, her shoulder when she broke down, her strength and her endurance. They’d been through it all with her and neither of them judged her when she admitted with downcast eyes that a part of her was happy she’d escaped. That she’d survived. They didn’t call her horrible or selfish for not being able to save the others. They didn’t think less of her for not being able to protect Ilsa. They just held her and everything was okay.
That was the best sort of therapy, in her opinion.
At the thought of the little girl, Ava turned in Dimitri’s hold. She pressed her palms to his chest, over the strong patter of his heart and peered into his eyes.
“Have you heard anything from that lawyer in Germany?”
Dimitri shook his head. “They still won’t accept it.”
Her heart sank all over again. Her shoulders stooped.
It hadn’t been as hard as one would think to find the parents of a missing thirteen-year-old girl. With modern technology and money, it had only taken Ava a week to locate the Schulze family in Frankfurt, Germany, who had lost their daughter, Ilsa. The only problem was their lack of communication after her initial attempt.
She’d started with a phone call, thinking it might help ease them into a possible visit in the near future. The woman who had answered had sounded weary, slightly drugged maybe. Her words kept slurring, fading in and out as Ava tried to keep her focused.
“I’m Ava Emerson,” she tried to tell the woman. “I’m calling from Canada … about your daughter. Ilsa.”
The woman had said nothing for a long stretch of time.
“Ilsa isn’t here.”
“No, I know, but I knew her…”
She’d stopped there, because what could she really tell them? Their daughter is dead? Her tiny body brutalized and lost somewhere at sea? That Ava had survived, but their daughter hadn’t?
She’d written a speech, a wordy run on about how sorry she was and what an amazing girl Ilsa had been and how Ava had done her best to bring her home. But looking at it then, she realized how incredibly ridiculous it was. This woman didn’t want to hear that. She didn’t care how remarkable her daughter was. She already knew that. She wanted her daughter back and that was the one thing Ava couldn’t do. And she couldn’t say a word about having been on the boat with Ilsa. That was the thing Dimitri and Robby had both agreed on when she’d initially read them what she’d planned on saying.
“You tell them you were there and they’ll want you to meet the police and give them names,” Robby had pointed out. “It’s just too risky.”
Everything was too risky, but coming from her best friend, even she had to agree it would bring up questions she had no way of answering.
Ultimately, she’d just told the woman she had met Ilsa once and how the girl had changed her life. Then, as an afterthought, because it really was the only thing she could do, she’d offered them money.
The woman had broken into tears and told her the only thing she wanted was her daughter back. Then, she’d hung up and Ava was left staring at the receiver, feeling like she’d failed Ilsa yet again.
“Hey.” He brushed the side of her cheek before tucking his fingers beneath her chin and lifting her face to his. “You did all you can.”
It didn’t feel that way.
“Can he try again? Please? Just tell him to slip it into their mailbox or tell them they’d won a contest or something.”
The corner of Dimitri’s mouth twisted downwards, not in impatience, but pain for her. He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.
“I’ll call him tomorrow.”
She kissed him lightly. “Thank you.”
He gave her a gentle squeeze before stepping back and taking her hand.
Together, they left the estate. Saeed waited for them by the SUV with Phil and Jefferson. She wasn’t sure if those were their first names or their last, but she liked them.
They’d been recommended by Frank after he’d resigned. Ava tried to get him to stay, but the man insisted he was too old for the job and wished her well.
She’d been sad to see him go. They hadn’t said much in the short time they’d been together, but they’d been through things and that formed a strange kind of bond. At least, she thought.
Nevertheless, Phil was a wonderful bodyguard. He wasn’t like the others. Not like Jefferson, who always looked like he could scare the paint off the walls if he glowered at it hard enough. But Dimitri liked him, so Ava had graciously allowed him to keep Jefferson and took Phil for herself.
He was handsome with his lean swimmer’s body and kind face. He could have passed for someone’s father with his dark hair salted gray and laugh lines crinkling around his eyes. They appeared a lot more on his face than any of the others Dimitri had hired.
The whole bodyguard idea still made her uncomfortable. Being followed around, protected, it was daunting, but Dimitri insisted she needed it and she partially agreed after everything.
Phil got into the SUV first and went right in the back.
“Ma’am.” Saeed inclined his head as he held the backdoor open.
She thanked him and accepted his hand as she climbed in. Dimitri followed and the door was shut behind them.
Jefferson took the passenger’s side seat.
The meeting place they’d agreed on was on the very corner where the bottom sliver of the north kissed the mainland. Shops, boutiques, cafés, and the occasional theater goer made up the majority of the traffic. The cobblestone streets and string of lights connecting the row of buildings reminded Ava of Paris. It reminded her of afternoons she’d spend people watching from the patio of some fancy bistro, sipping on a latte and thinking of where to go next.
She missed Paris, but not enough to live there again.
The restaurant Penny had chosen for the occasion—God bless that girl—was an elegant blend of middle east and French. The combination was spicy, but refined. Ava had gone there a couple of times with Dimitri and loved their curry duck and the posh way the waiters maneuvered the floor with their noses up and yet managed not to walk into each other.
It occurred to her that they could have had Julian meet them at the estate. It would have been simpler, but she recognized Dimitri’s insistence to make the meeting somewhere public, somewhere away from their home. Julian may have saved Ava’s life, but he was in the business of crime. And she had a vague recollection of the auctioneer recognizing him, despite her drug induced hue. They had known him. He was a regular in those places that sold young girls. Whatever he may have done for her, he was not innocent.
As dark and gorgeous as she remembered him, Julian Armando was already seated at their table when the maitre d led them through the main area. He rose, graceful and beautiful in his pinstripe suit, his dark hair combed back, his face cleanly shaven. His cane hung from the armrest of his chair, the ornate, gold grip glinting in the soft light.
He offered his hand to Dimitri. “Thank you for coming.” He extended the same hand to Ava. “I won’t take up very much of your time.”
Dimitri helped Ava into her chair before taking his own. Phil and Jefferson took a table nearby and began flipping idly through the menu.
“I hope everything is all right, Mr. Armando?”
“Julian, please, and I hope to make it all right … with your help.” Dark eyebrows lifted in question. “Would you like to order first? I haven’t eaten and the conversation can be had over a meal. Seeing as we’re already here.”
“I could eat,” Ava lied, offering him the smallest
of smiles.
The sweet aroma of blended sauces, the tangy spices made Ava’s stomach whimper. She ordered her usual, ignoring the protest of her insides and waited for the man to get to the point.
“I want to thank you for coming,” Julian started once the menus had been cleared away and their orders placed. “I understand you’re both very busy.”
Dimitri shook his head. “We’re in your debt. It’s the least we can do.”
“No, you are not. I do not expect or want anything for what I did, but I would like your help. Your experience makes you a unique, powerful individual, Ava. I wish for you to utilize that.”
“Utilize how?” Dimitri interjected.
Ava set her hand over his on the table, her gaze staying trained on the man across from them. “What can I do for you, Julian?”
His answer was momentarily stalled by the arrival of their drinks. She’d ordered a Pinot Noir, but she didn’t touch it, wanting a clear head during their conversation.
Julian picked up his scotch. The ice rattled against the glass, but it was only moved from one side of the table to the other, untouched. He stared at it a long time before he spoke.
“Millions of men, women, and children are sold every year.” His dark eyes lifted and fixed on Ava, bright with a fire that edged his words, despite his attempts to keep them even. “Millions. Some never get seen again. Most are killed. Some during transportation. Some after they’re sold. Some get sold into prostitution, but others are put into factories and other forced labors. Children as young as five years old are sent into fields without water or shade for ten hour days to farm. People think it’s all about sex, but that only makes up twenty-eight percent of trafficking.”
Ava’s stomach curdled at his words, at the blunt slap of it. Suddenly a drink didn’t seem so bad.
“What can I do?” she asked, voice oddly hoarse.
Julian lowered his gaze again. “I don’t pretend to be a good man. I have done terrible things. I have hurt innocent people. I have taken things that do not belong to me. I have become very wealthy on the blood of others.” His eyes lifted through his lashes and met hers again. “I regret nothing. At least, I didn’t, until recently.”
She started to ask what happened when he paused to take a sip of his drink, but Dimitri squeezed her fingers, willing her to wait. She didn’t understand why until she saw the tremor in Julian’s hand when he set his glass down.
“Someone I loved dearly was taken from me the same way you were.” He shifted in his seat and rubbed the tips of four fingers over his mouth. “I have searched … everywhere … for two years…” He shook his head slowly, his eyes focused on something away from their table, something only he could see. But there was pain in them, deep, crippling sorrow that cut into her. “I have visited every auction house, every currier, every … for two years I have done everything. Even I have to accept…”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered when he broke off.
He blinked like he’d almost forgotten they were there. He straightened, tugging on the lapel of his blazer and reaching for his drink again.
“It is the way of things,” he said softly. “No one is ever really safe.”
“Do you think this person is in the city?” Dimitri asked once Julian had thrown back his drink.
Julian shook his head. “No, I don’t believe they’re even alive anymore, but I keep searching, hoping. It’s how I heard about you, Ava. I have been paying the curriers very well to inform me first of every new arrival, but news of a redhead associated with, not one, but two of the most powerful men in the world … I couldn’t allow you to go to auction.”
Ava frowned. Her mind snapped back to the room with the bright lights and the voices. She could have sworn…
“I wasn’t on auction?”
Julian shook his head again. “I had you put aside. Thankfully, you were the only redhead in the shipment.”
“That’s why I couldn’t find her,” Dimitri muttered, glowering at the man.
“I apologize,” Julian said, sounding like he meant it. “But you must understand that I was not the only one who was aware of Ava or her importance to you. I was, however, the only one who would return her without making you jump through hoops first.”
Dimitri didn’t seem any less annoyed by the fact, but he said nothing else about it.
“You still haven’t told us what it is I can do for you,” Ava prompted.
Their food arrived.
The steaming dishes were placed before their rightful owners. Their glasses were refilled, but only in Julian’s case. Then they were alone again.
No one touched their plates.
“I am putting together an organization to help those taken return home. It’s fully funded by me. I’ve successfully started offices in India, Singapore, England, Tokyo, and now here. Our goal is to stop the shipments before they leave, but also stop auctions from taking place and saving as many of these people as possible.”
Ava thought his words over carefully before responding. “That’s a wonderful idea. What can we do?”
“I want you to head the one I plan on building in your city.”
“No,” Dimitri said at once before Ava could even think the idea over. “I respect what you’re doing. It’s a noble and generous idea, but what you are asking will tear this entire city apart. It will get Ava killed. You are asking her to become the face of one of the biggest trades in the world, going up against men neither one of us can even imagine. She will be hunted. I won’t allow that.”
“What would you have done if you never found her? If she was still missing right now?”
A knot formed in Dimitri’s cheek, but he didn’t answer.
“That is how millions of families feel at this very moment. They will never see their loved ones again. I am trying to help them.”
“Then help them, but Ava won’t be a part of it, not the way you’re asking.”
As much as she wanted to get upset by Dimitri’s logic, she couldn’t. And it wasn’t the fear for herself that stopped her. It was the fear for her people. She was the leader of an entire territory, the third largest in the city. Lives depended on her and she couldn’t have a war with three of the other territories. Her people would get mascaraed.
“Dimitri’s right,” she said softly. “I’m afraid I can’t help the way you’re asking. But,” she added quickly when Julian opened his mouth, “I may have a way to help, because I will help.” She looked pointedly at Dimitri. “I will do everything in my power to stop this.”
“You can’t stop this,” Dimitri told her gently. “Buying and selling people has been going on for eons. It will never go away.”
She nodded slowly in agreement. “I know, but I can make it fucking hard to happen in my city.”
Dimitri sighed. She expected him to be angry, but he chuckled softly and brought the back of the hand he still held to his lips.
“You have my support.” His expression sobered. “But you will not do what he’s asking. I will not allow that.”
She squeezed his fingers. “I will be careful.”
He didn’t look convinced. He did look angry now when he turned his attention back to Julian.
“Anything happens to her, I don’t give a fuck who you are, I will burn your fucking life to the ground.”
That night, as they lay in bed, Ava turned to the man propped against the headboard, book in hand. She watched him in the soft glow of the lamp, the way his hair had become wild beneath his frustrated hands and the way he kept worrying at his thumb nails between his teeth, and smiled.
“Stop that.” She captured the hand, rescuing it.
He blinked away from the page he’d been reading and glanced at her. “Woman, shit is getting real. I need my thumb.”
Ava laughed, but didn’t give his hand back. She brought it to her lips.
“Come to bed.”
The book snapped closed without another prompting and was set aside on the nightstand. He burrowed
under the sheets with her, his sinewy limbs gliding around her, pinning her naked frame to his.
She snuggled into him, into his heat and strength, and allowed the soft tempo of his heart to lull the ocean in her head.
“Talk to me,” he murmured into the top of her head.
“Just trying to sort out what I want to do.” Unable to lie still, she hoisted herself up and swung a leg over his hips. She straddled him, her palms braced against his chest. “I can’t not do something, Dimitri. I won’t. I need to … for Ilsa.” She bit her lip, her thoughts a mess. “You don’t understand what it was like in that boat. I know I’ve told you, but it was so much worse.”
Warm palms smoothed up and down her bent thighs. They worked up to her hips and settled.
“You can’t be the face of his organization, myshka. I will support whatever decision you make. I will back you. My territory will back you. I will protect you and your people. But even I won’t be able stop some of the people who will come after you when you put a stop to their money.”
He was right. She knew he was. Logically, it was dangerous, but doing nothing somehow seemed worse.
“What if I don’t show my face? What if I take a page from the Devil’s handbook?” She bit her lip and cocked her head to the side. Her fingers ghosted the hard expanse of his chest, following the lines and curves of his tattoos. “I can’t get in trouble if an anonymous source directed authorities to a possible shipment, right?”
Between her thighs, his cock hardened, but his gaze remained steady.
“That’s a dangerous game, myshka.”
“Only if I’m reckless and I won’t be reckless.” She circled the words inking the skin above his heart, words meant for her. “I can’t save the world. I know that, but I can protect the people in our city. I can keep them safe, can’t I? I need to try.”
He pushed up and she slid onto the mattress between his thighs. Her legs twisted around his waist. Her arms went around his neck as he flattened his palms against her back and pulled her close.
“If you ask really nicely, I’ll share my secrets,” he murmured inches from her lips.
The Devil's Beauty (Crime Lord Interconnected Standalone Book 2) Page 51