The Devil's Beauty (Crime Lord Interconnected Standalone Book 2) (31 page)

“No?” the boy squeaked. “Just … cleaning.”

Dimitri hummed quietly and looked over the rest of the place that could have doubled as a landfill. “About time, I would say.”

Stephen’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I wasn’t—”

Dimitri put up a hand, stopping him. “You betrayed me.”

Stephen’s blue eyes all but bulged from their sockets. “No! I swear, I never meant—”

“I trusted you,” Dimitri went on slowly.

“Yes, but it’s not what it looks like,” Stephen blurted, hands up as if to ward the Devil to stay back. “I didn’t know about her.” He pointed at Ava without taking his eyes off Dimitri. “I mean, I did because of you, but I didn’t know Elena was after her.”

“Tell me everything.” The command reverberated from deep within Dimitri’s chest.

Stephen gulped again. “Okay, uh … a while back, like a year ago, Elena asked me to tap all her men’s phones. She said she wanted to make sure she knew where they were so she could protect them if something happened. I showed her how on her laptop and she left. I didn’t see her again until like three weeks ago. She said you were doing some kind of top secret mission or something and she needed me to keep an eye on you for her, let her know where you were, how often you went there. Things like that. I was just trying to help you, man,” he finished weakly. “I swear.”

Dimitri glanced back at Ava, one eyebrow lifted as if asking her permission.

“What?” she said. “You can’t kill him.”

“Kill?” Stephen croaked.

“He betrayed me,” Dimitri rationalized. “He’s essentially useless if I can’t trust him.”

“You can!” Stephen half wept. “I swear, you can. I will never, ever tell anyone anything ever—”

Ava sighed. “It was an honest mistake. He was trying to do the right thing.”

“Yes!” Stephen jumped on the wagon quickly. “I was. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Dimitri sighed. “I don’t know. How can I believe he won’t do it again if someone offers him more money or women?”

It was a struggle maintaining her neutral expression on the last part. “I’m sure he won’t,” she mumbled.

“I won’t,” Stephen agreed. “Not for all the money or women … no, not even for women,” he concluded after a second of deliberation. “Bros before hos, right?”

Ava caught the quick twitch of Dimitri’s lips before his face returned to its calm fury. He turned back to the kid.

“I want to gut you alive like a fish and hook you up to those rafters as an example of what happens to rats.” What little color remained on Stephen’s face vanished. The boy actually swayed a little. Ava felt horrible for him. “You would be alive through the whole thing, feeling the knife cutting you from neck to navel in a slow slice, feeling the hot rise of your blood through the incision as it runs down your chest, and then your insides spilling out.” Dimitri sighed heavily. “Unfortunately, she…” Dimitri jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Ava, “won’t let me and a gentleman doesn’t spill blood in front of a lady. But next time, I won’t bring her, understand?”

Stephen may have been nodding, or trying not to faint. It was impossible to tell when his eyes kept rolling back into his skull.

“Good.” Dimitri raised his chin. “Now, put your things together. I need you to look something up.”

“Can … can I use the bathroom first, please?” Stephen slurred.

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, deceitful things her mother had ever done, somehow this … her not being there when Ava returned was such an unforgivable act.