“You start tomorrow night. Be here at one p.m. to sign paperwork.”
I can’t stop the grin breaking across my face. “That’s perfect. I’ll just go in the back and change.” I catch Niko’s eye one more time and he nods, moving into position to guard the hallway as I slip behind the curtain.
Necessity breeds speed, so I change faster than any woman on the face of the earth. Keeping my head down, I listen to the unfortunate sound of my forgotten stripper heels clicking against the wood as I make my way through the deserted hallway. Thankfully, it’s the middle of the day and the adult entertainment industry operates on the sleep schedule of a newborn baby. Other than the unlucky dancers who pulled the lunchtime shift short straw, it’s a given fact that if the sun’s up, they’re not.
And today, I counted on it.
Stopping outside the closed door, I blow out a harsh breath and place a hand over my stomach to calm the hurricane of nerves brewing inside. Forcing a blank expression, I push the door open.
“We need to talk,” I say, long red hair spilling down my back as I pull the brown wig off and step inside.
Niko
Ava shoots me a death glare while performing one hell of an impressive tap dance around the manager’s question. “I can’t take my bra off yet. I… Uh, had a boob job and the wounds are still healing.” She lifts them up, still covered by the yellow rhinestone bra. “Have to keep them supported until the stitches dissolve.”
My smug smile is hidden by the shadows.
Nice save, pchelka.
If I have anything to say about it, she’ll never return to the pole. It doesn’t matter though. She can show those tits to the world, and they’ll still bear my name.
Because they’re mine.
She’s mine.
As soon as the asshole offers her a job, Ava’s practically vibrating. She looks ready and eager, whereas I’m just ready for her to get in and get the hell out. I don’t like her being enclosed in a room where there’s a chance I can’t get to her before someone else does.
The thought plagues me, filling my mind with images of Ava screaming in pain, fighting for her life while another man tries to take it.
Just like you planned to, a little voice whispers in my head.
While true, it doesn’t lessen my anger. If anything, it fuels it. I know what thoughts ran through my mind. What plans I had for making her suffer right up until the very end. I’m not ashamed of who I am, and I don’t regret it. If I hadn’t been hell-bent on making Ava pay for her sins, I wouldn’t have realized my own.
I never opened my eyes and saw past my own vengeance.
But things are different now. Ava’s no angel; the woman has as much of the devil coursing through her veins as I do. I don’t have to protect her, but I can help her. I know how a killer thinks, so I know how to get in one’s head and anticipate his next move.
I just need to find out his first one, and I can’t do that waiting around in a hallway.
I take a quick stock of everything going on around me. The day manager is leaning over the bar, talking to some slutty blonde bartender with his back to me. The bouncer at the door is engrossed in his phone, and other than a bored cocktail waitress, nothing is going on. No one is paying attention to shit.
Perfect.
Keeping my eyes on them, I back through the hallway toward the office. I stay close to the wall, and thanks to the low lighting, dark shadows hide most of my movements. I’m almost there, a few more steps…
Then I slam into a six-foot-three brick wall.
Pulling my gun out of its holster, I spin around and aim it between the asshole’s eyes. The huge man in front of me doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t even try to disarm me. He simply crosses his arms and glares at me.
“Put that shit away, Nikolai.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
Blade nods his head. “Fair enough.” Shifting his torso, he stares blankly at the empty stage. “She looked good out there, huh?”
I have no idea what the hell he’s doing. I have a loaded Glock aimed at the man’s temple, and he’s acting like it’s a squirt gun. Usually, I’d respect the hell out of him for it, but I’m too on edge to appreciate anything but the time he’s wasting. “I guess. Not much into brunettes.”
The corner of his mouth quirks. “Good thing she’s a redhead, then.”
It takes half a second for his meaning to hit.
He knows that was Ava.
Fuck, I kind of liked the guy.
I press the barrel of the gun flush against his skull.
Blade closes his eyes on a carefully controlled inhale and lets it out slowly. “Nikolai, I ain’t gonna say again to put that shit away. I’m just tryin’ to talk but you’re really startin’ to piss me off.”
“Name your price.”
He cuts his eyes to me. “I ain’t for sale, asshole.”
“Then leave her out of this.”
“’Fraid I can’t do that. Been workin’ for her dad a long time. Ever since that girl was barely knee high.” He lowers his palm beside his knee, a sad smile on his face. “Quiet little thing. Always scurryin’ around like a church mouse.”
“I remember.” The image of a small, freckle-faced Ava fills my head, and I lower the gun.
“So quiet sometimes nobody even knew she was there.”
I could stop him, but I don’t. I let him talk because I know that girl. My heart hurt for her. She was only eleven when I started working for Sergei. So innocent and scared. Barely spoke to anyone, spending most of her time hiding up in that damn attic while staring out the window at a world passing her by. That’s why I started leaving orange blossoms for her. Someone needed to cheer her up.
“Now her mama and her step-mama…those two, not so quiet. Shame the accidents they had,” Blade says, his eyes darkening. “Especially after all those young girls started disappearin’ from Seven.”
My stomach drops. Ava’s mother downed a fifth of vodka and drowned in a bathtub when she was twelve. I held her hand as they lowered her into the ground. Yuri’s mother died in a car accident not long after he was killed. “What are you saying, Blade?”
“You ever think Ava didn’t talk for a reason, Nikolai? Maybe that little girl was smarter than both those women put together.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
He shakes his head. “Her daddy, Dmitry, me, you, hell anyone in this business, we all got blood on our hands. None of us are innocent. We knew damn well what we were gettin’ ourselves into and we did it knowin’ it was a one-way trip to hell. But that girl back there?” He points a thick finger at the curtain where Ava disappeared. “She doesn’t belong here. Never did. She had a good heart, that one. Then he tainted her and stole that child’s innocence.”
Oh shit. This will kill Ava.
“You know about what he did,” I say quietly.
Blade’s face doesn’t hold the shock I expect. Instead, his eyes seem hollow. “Yeah. The question is, do you?”
“Yuri? Unfortunately.”
There’s a pause before Blade spears me with a look filled with so much hate, I take a step back. “Not him, Nikolai. Sergei.”
“What are you saying?”
“After you weren’t a threat to it anymore, who do you think put that girl’s virginity up on the auction block?”
* * *
We’re driving north on I-95 in silence when Ava finally turns to me. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine. You look like you’re about to rip that steering wheel off and beat somebody with it.”
Only if that person is her father.
Mik was right. She’s hiding something, but it’s not what I thought it was. When I read those texts on her phone from this Ethan guy about Yuri’s murder, I thought she tipped him off after seeing me that first night at Seven. I had myself convinced she was trying to get me arrested and fucked over twice.
But her secret is so much
worse. It’s a betrayal deeper than anything I ever thought she’d done to me. A secret so depraved, she remained a slave to it eight years later.
“I said I’m fine. I’m just ready to get this shit over with. I need to get back to New Orleans.”
“Oh, right. Of course.” She shrugs and looks out her window.
“You’re coming with me.”
Ava’s eyes snap back to mine. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You heard me.”
She’s quiet for a moment, then squints as if trying to uncover some diabolical motive. “Do you even live in New Orleans?”
“I live everywhere, Ava. Staying in one place for too long is detrimental to my life span.”
“And you think that’s the kind of life I want?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Because living in a shithouse and fucking random men for money is the American dream?”
She swallows hard, but her eyes never leave my face. “That was a low blow.”
She’s right, but there are too many conflicting emotions battling inside me to dwell on it. “So, we went through all this to get you into Seven and you found nothing?”
Ava glances out the window, tucking her hands in between her knees. “No. Everything was locked up tight, and I didn’t want to risk hanging around.”
I don’t ask any more questions. It’s all I can do to keep my eyes on the road and away from her wrists as they twist, her knuckles turning stark white.
We ride in silence for the next thirty minutes. By the time we reach Hollywood, I can’t take it anymore. “Are you hungry?”
“No. I seem to have lost my appetite along with my conscience.”
“Fine,” I growl, crossing two lanes of traffic to take the nearest exit. “When you find them, let me know, I’ll be inside feeding the first one and not giving two shits about the other.”
Niko
Ava’s mouth twitches, her fork shaking in her hand. I turn around and follow her gaze outside the diner, where a middle-aged man with graying hair is dragging a little girl by her upper arm across the parking lot. She’s small and petite, with long red hair and huge eyes that are full of terror.
I can’t speak. It’s like looking into the past.
She’s mouthing something to the man holding her, but he doesn’t respond, continuing to drag her between a row of cars toward a dark sedan. I hold my breath as she digs her black dress shoes into the pavement beneath the open car door, a hand rising above it before dropping down with unnecessary force.
Then comes the scream.
“Did that asshole just…” I turn back around to find Ava out of the booth and running toward the door. “Ava! Shit, Ava, wait!” I throw some bills on the table and take off after her. When I finally catch up with her, she’s standing in the parking lot, her hands fisted by her side, silently mouthing something to herself.
“What the hell was that—”
“W79-QU5,” she hisses.
“What?”
“That’s the license plate number. Call whoever you have to call and have them run it. Now.” Without another word, she stomps toward the Audi and stands stiffly next to the passenger door until I unlock it.
After starting the car, I text the information to Mik, along with a request even I’d consider over the line, and mark both urgent. While I wait for his reply, I tighten my fists around the steering wheel and stare at her. She’s glaring ahead, grinding her teeth so hard, I wouldn’t be surprised if her jaw snapped.
“You want to tell me why I just spent forty dollars on a plate of cheese fries and two Cokes?”
“He hit her.”
“I saw. I don’t care what that little girl did, she didn’t deserve—”
Ava tilts her chin, casting an accusatory glance at me out of the corner of her eye. “Her dress was torn.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“I did.”
The seething hate in her voice is unmistakable, and she clenches her hands together in her lap. I can smell Ava’s energy shift from unstable to deadly. My dark goddess has emerged, and she’s out for blood.
Before I can say anything else, my phone beeps, and I glance down to see a name and an address from Mik followed by a row of middle finger emojis and a second location.
“What’s this about, pchelka?”
Clicking her seatbelt into place, Ava turns her attention toward the road. “Drive.”
* * *
Senator George Dresden’s house isn’t quite a mansion, but it’s well beyond what any normal citizen could afford. Thankfully, the Audi blends in with the neighborhood, so when I park it at an empty lot it doesn’t raise any flags. Ava’s out of the car before I can turn off the ignition. By the time I catch up with her, I’m out of breath.
“Will you slow down? You don’t even know where the hell you’re going.”
“4832—the big White House looking one on the corner, right?” She throws an arm out, pointing to a house about fifty yards ahead of us that, I’ll be damned, does look kind of like the president’s Pennsylvania Avenue digs.
“How did you know that?”
“Some things you just don’t forget,” she says, reaching a hand out behind her. “Give me the gun in your ankle holster.”
If she would’ve been anyone else, I would’ve called her bluff with a stone face. However, the situation has already thrown me off my game, and I stop in the middle of the street gaping at her. “How the hell did you know I have a—”
Ava sighs, shaking her outstretched hand impatiently. “Niko, we were best friends for five years. You never go out without at least two pieces of backup, your ankle holster being one of them. Trust me, I remember more things about you than you’ll ever know.”
She’s right, and I don’t know if I hate it or love it. “How do I know you won’t use it against me?”
She stomps her foot. “Because if I wanted to shoot you, I would’ve grabbed it as I was untying your shoe this morning when it was two fucking inches away from my face!”
I’m a man of logic. Argue with me out of emotion, and I’ll shut down every time. However, present hard cold facts that can’t be disputed, and I have no comeback.
I hand her the gun and hope I didn’t just fuck up.
When Ava gets to the back of the house, she pushes the gate open, stopping when she sees the same little girl from before. She’s lying curled up on the lanai under a patio table. I follow behind Ava, who hides her gun behind her back and approaches her slowly as if the little girl’s a frightened deer in the woods.
“Hi,” Ava says, sitting down beside her. “I’m Ava. What’s your name?”
“Paige,” the little girl whispers. The closer I get, the more I see what Ava saw back at the diner. The little girl’s dress is torn, and there’s a bruise on her cheek. However, it’s the way she’s holding herself, pain etched across her face in a permanent scar that turn my stomach. I want to shoot my way through every wall and window until I see blood, but Ava seems calmer than ever.
“It’s nice to meet you, Paige. I’ll tell you what. I’m going to go inside and talk to your dad for a minute. Can you do me a huge favor and stay here no matter what you hear?” Paige nods, and Ava smiles. “Take your fingers like this and put them in your ears for me.” She demonstrates by plugging her ears and Paige mimics her. “Perfect! Now stay like that for me, okay?”
“Ava?” I ask, but she doesn’t hear me. She’s already up and through the back door, gun drawn. Yet again, I run after her, but when I catch up with her, I lose every breath in my chest.
My girl is standing in an enormous black-and-white stainless steel kitchen pointing my gun at who I assume to be Senator Dresden. There’s not an ounce of fear in her. She’s beautiful—my perfect wicked queen.
I fucking love her.
“Hey,” the man says, his lip curling up. “I know you.”
My euphoria plummets.
What the hell?
“I didn’t think you’d recognize me.” Ava aims the
gun between his eyes. “You know, since I’m not naked and dripping in blood.”
I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but the words I’m hearing are being drowned out by the sounds of roaring and clawing inside my chest.
The man makes a deep sound in his throat. “Some things you never forget.”
The same words Ava said outside.
No, a voice in my head roars. No, no, no, no, no.
“Why her?” Ava’s voice cracks as her calm façade starts to break. “Why Paige? She’s an innocent little girl!”
The senator smiles, his eyes trailing down Ava’s body. “So were you.”
Ava doesn’t just pull the trigger; she unloads the gun. The first one’s a clean shot to the head that takes Dresden down, but she keeps going until all she’s doing is clicking a trigger that doesn’t fire.
“Pchelka,” I say softly, lowering the gun. “He’s gone.”
Ava blinks, her eyebrows drawing together. “Paige,” she whispers. Spinning around, she runs back to the lanai where Paige still lies curled under the table with her fingers in her ears. As she opens her mouth, the sound of a garage door opening stops her. She looks up at me, and I’m about to grab both of them and run when a blood curdling scream echoes from inside.
Ava turns back to Paige. “Does your Mommy make you cry like Daddy does?”
The little girl shakes her head.
“Does she know?”
Again, the girl shakes her head.
Satisfied, Ava puts her finger to her lips and points toward the tattered dress. “Our special secret.” Lifting her index finger and her thumb to her mouth she pretends to twist a key. The girl stares at her for a few seconds before smiling and returning the gesture.
“Don’t tell anyone we helped you. Pinkie promise?”
The girl smiles even bigger and curls her little pinkie around Ava’s.
I can’t breathe. Memories pummel me from years ago, and I stumble backward.
“Ava, give me the knife, and I’ll make sure nobody ever hurts you again.”
Hesitantly, she releases the knife, her eyes brimming with tears. I quickly wipe off all traces of her prints on my shirt as she lifts her pinkie finger. “Promise?”
Darkest Deeds: Cavalieri Della Morte Page 14