The Devil's Beauty (Crime Lord Interconnected Standalone Book 2) (53 page)

He shook his head, unable to meet her gaze.

She went to him. Her arms circled his shoulders and he let her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered into the soft patter of his pulse.

“I always knew.”

She pulled back to peer into his face. “You knew?”

“Not …
that
, but that he would never see me as more than a monster.”

“But you’re not a monster,” she protested vehemently. “Why won’t you believe me? When have I ever lied to you?”

His palm rested on the cheek still warm from John Paul’s touch. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe you’re the only one who seems to think so?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t believe that.”

Gentle fingers slipped beneath her chin and forced her face up further, craning her neck. “Why do you have such blind faith in me,
myshka
? Haven’t I hurt you enough to prove I’m no good?”

“Because to love someone, really love someone, you need to have faith in them, even when they do stupid things.”

His entire body seemed to deflate a notch as he bowed his head until his brow touched hers. “I can’t give you the better man you deserve.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want a better man. I want you, all of you, the monster, the devil, the man, the lover, the friend. I want all the ugly, broken, scarred pieces of you, Dimitri, because they fit with all of mine.”

“Fuck, Ava!” His snarl was followed by the violent and bruising clamp of his mouth over hers.

He kissed her with the madness of a man possessed. His hands closed in her hair, tearing out roots as he gripped her to him. Her insides dipped in sweet pleasure as he devoured her.

“I love you,” he growled in between consumptions. “I fucking love you, Ava.”

She broke the kiss, her lungs burning for air.

“I … no.” She rummaged through the foggy mess of her mind until she found the right words.
“Ya tebya lyub-lyu.”

She hoped she’d said it right. It had been years since she’d told anyone she loved them in Russian.

But it must have been right, because his face broke into a slow, wide grin that made her stomach flip. His lips captured hers again, gentler.

This time, he drew back, still grinning.

“Come,” he said, taking her hand. “Let’s get you fed.”

She followed him back into the hotel. Only John Paul and Penny were there, but they seemed content talking about the rise of taxes coming from the east.

“They already own half the casinos in the city.” Penny was muttering. She spotted Dimitri and quickly straightened. “Food has been ordered, sir. It should be up in twenty minutes. I’ve also booked Saeed a room in the hotel, one that allows pets, and I have instructed the clerk’s desk at the courthouse to fax those papers over to you at the office to avoid accidental information leakage.” She checked her watch. “If there’s nothing else, sir, Daniel needs me to take him to get a few scrap parts from the dump.”

Dimitri motioned her to go ahead.

Ava walked her to the door.

“Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”

Penny smiled at her. “It’s my pleasure. Let me know if you need anything else.”

She eyed the woman. “Any idea where Ivan is hiding?”

Penny laughed. “I wish.” She poked her glasses higher on the bridge of her nose. “But I have all my informants on the job.”

Ava nodded. “Thank you again.”

With a wave, Penny slipped out. One of the three men stationed outside broke away from the group and followed her.

Ava shut the door and turned to face the two across the room, standing in awkward silence that was almost painful to bear.

John Paul broke free first. He snatched up his blazer off the back of a nearby chair and swung it on.

“I have an early meeting in the morning,” he said. “But I’ll swing by afterwards, around ten, if that works?”

“Dad…”

He walked over to her and took her face between his hands. He kissed her cheek.

“Tomorrow.”

Reluctant, she nodded and stepped aside to let him pass.

A loud buzzing filled the room. They both looked back in time to watch Dimitri unearth his phone from his pants pocket and frown at the screen. The confusion never lifted, not even when he brought the device to his ear.

“Yeah?”

Seconds passed. The confusion dissolved into surprise. Then horror.

His gaze snapped up and across the distance straight at Ava.

Her heart sank. “What?”

Wordlessly, Dimitri lowered his arm and hit something on the screen.

A male voice plumed into the air, a cloud of toxic words that stole all the light and left a chill in the room. Even without a face, Ava recognized it.

“We will meet in four hours and we will end everything, yes?”

Ivan.

Memories of him arguing with the men on the cliff rushed over her. She must have staggered back, because John Paul had her by the arm and she couldn’t recall why.

“Where are you?” Dimitri demanded. “It’s over. Turn yourself in.”

A low, cackling sound erupted from the bit of plastic.
“I come in, he dies. Do you want me to send pieces to your whore?”

Nothing he was saying made any sense or maybe the buzzing in her ears was too loud and she was missing things. She couldn’t be sure.

“Who?” Dimitri didn’t seem to know either.

There was a gurgling sound, a sickening crunch of something snapping, then an inhuman wail that sliced through Ava like a knife.

“Say your name,”
Ivan taunted in an almost sing-song tone.

Someone was sobbing, a man.
“Fuck you!”

Ava bolted forward even though there was nothing she could do.

“Robby!”

“Four hours,”
the voice said.

Then the line went dead.

“Sir, you can’t go,” Penny argued, looking nothing like herself in jeans and a t-shirt with a pair of hot kiss lips. But she’d rushed straight back from the dump and smelled of it. Not that anyone seemed to notice. “It’s a trap.”

It was a trap. Dimitri wasn’t stupid enough not to have recognized that. But what was he supposed to do? He couldn’t not go. He couldn’t let Ivan send pieces of Robby back to Ava.

Ava.

He glanced over at her. She hadn’t said anything since the phone had been disconnected. She stood, arms hugging her middle, a heart wrenching silhouette against the setting sun.

She hadn’t moved. She hadn’t asked him to save her friend. She hadn’t even looked at him.

“Penny’s right,” John Paul said. “Robby’s, in all likelihood, dead already.”

“This isn’t a surrender plea, sir,” Penny jumped in. “He’s not going to willingly come back with you. He knows there is no escape for him. The entire country is looking for him. You’ve cut off all means of escape. This is his final stand and whatever he has planned, you’re going to go down with him.”

These were all things he already knew. Ivan was cornered. He was a rat being slowly roasted in a steel box. He was either going to try and burrow his way out or kill himself.

“Sir, if I may.” Frank folded his long fingers together on the table and leaned forward. “We could have a tactical unit set up a perimeter around the structure. They can surveillance—”

Dimitri shook his head. “We don’t have time for that, and I know my brother. There is only one way Ivan’s going to end this and I won’t put innocent men in the crosshairs. It’s me or no one.”

“It’s suicide!” Penny cried. “We don’t even know if Robby is still alive. You could be walking in there—”

Dimitri turned to Ava. The only voice he hadn’t heard. The only answer he would listen to.

He went to her. He was careful when he reached to gently take her arms.

“Myshka.”
He grazed the back of her head with his lips. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

Her spine shuddered along the length of his chest. Her shoulders stiffened.

“What can I say?” Her voice broke. “Ask you to stay and risk losing my best friend, or ask you to go and risk losing both of you? I can’t lose you. I can’t even think…” She crushed a small fist into the place between her breasts as though the pain was physical. “But if Robby’s alive…”

He kissed the side of her head when she broke off.

“Okay,” he murmured. “Okay.” He said again, mind solidified on his decision. He faced the others. “I’m going. If,” he said over the immediate roar of protests, “Robby is alive, I need to get him. I’ll worry about everything else after.”

“But, sir—”

“If you have a better idea, I’m all ears, but as it stands, Robby is in this mess, because of me.” He turned away from Penny’s pinched expression and focused on John Paul. “Have you heard from Ki?”

The other man shook his head. “I’ve tried his phone, but no answer.”

Dimitri nodded. “Keep trying.” His gaze went back to Penny. “Get a hold of every contact you have in the police. Tell them to evacuate all surrounding buildings. I don’t care what they tell people, but they need to set a wide perimeter and they have…” he checked his watch. “Three hours to do it.”

Some of the color washed from her cheeks. “How wide?”

Dimitri thought of his brother and the mark he would insist on leaving with his departure.

“At least thirty blocks.”

“Jesus.” Penny moistened her lips, catching herself. “They’ll want to send a bomb unit or a SWAT team—”

“No, no one is allowed anywhere near that area. Tell them that is a direct order. They are to keep their men as far out of the blast zone as possible.”

Penny fiddled with her phone, her expression torn between trying to remain professional and breaking down. She blinked rapidly behind her glasses.

“Sir, with that kind of radius, even if you manage to get Robby and you manage to leave…”

He didn’t let her finish. Her chin was beginning to quiver and she was trying so hard not to cry.

“Make the call.”

She turned away quickly and moved to the other end of the room.

He turned to Frank. “I will ask about Killian.”

Frank only nodded.

The only person left was the man at the other end of the table, the one Dimitri knew he should have at least some kind of thought towards … and he had nothing. He didn’t know how to apologize for something he had no part of. He didn’t know how to explain that the only thing he’d ever wanted was for at least one of his parents to acknowledge that he belonged somewhere. He didn’t know how to do anything, except meet his father’s eyes and say nothing, because it was too late, because they were strangers, because the blood they shared meant nothing.

They were both just two bad men who loved the same woman in different ways. That was their only saving grace. Even now when Dimitri might not come back, John Paul couldn’t muster a single word of anything. Not one word.

Dimitri turned away.

He walked back to Ava and turned her away from the growing dusk. She peered up at him, her face ravaged by tears. Her eyes were swollen and bloodshot. Her cheeks were pale under the crimson botches. Her shoulders trembled under his palms.

“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.