The Devil's Beauty (Crime Lord Interconnected Standalone Book 2) (50 page)

Pink flooded Ava’s cheeks. “How are you?”

Any other time, Dimitri would have laughed at her adorable attempts to add a sprinkling of normal to an awkward situation. But John Paul wasn’t in the laughing mood. He was scarcely containing the urge to lunge across and throttle Dimitri where he stood. It was all over his face and in the way his hands kept bunching and releasing.

“Dad.” Ava edged slowly around the table, one hand out stretched. “Are you hungry? The coffee’s still fresh. I could make you a cup.”

John Paul shook his head.
“We,”
he spat the word out like it was something foul, “have a meeting we need to get to. There’s been a development.”

Dimitri stiffened. “You found her?”

The other man hesitated, picking his words carefully. “In a sense.”

Saeed drove. It was just Dimitri and John Paul, but the cabin felt too small and airtight. He couldn’t think of a single good way to break the awkwardness without reminding the man that Ava was a grown woman. He even thought about mentioning that he intended to marry her, but something told him that would only get him shot. So, he allowed the silence to grow and fester. It was only a relief that Saeed seemed to be sensing it as well. The boy kept glancing into the mirror and occasionally shifting, like he couldn’t trust the pair not to start a knife fight in the backseat if he wasn’t watchful.

Dimitri couldn’t fathom why the man had insisted on taking his car, especially when John Paul’s own SUV was tailing just behind them like a great, black shark. But he’d waved Jarvis off when the man had opened the door for him and climbed into Dimitri’s vehicle.

At first, Dimitri thought he was going to warn him to stay away again or tell him how easy it would be to kill and dispose of him. But with every block they passed, John Paul seemed to grow pensive. Like his earlier anger at seeing Dimitri and Ava together had abated and was replaced with a new question. Whatever it was, he seemed to be mulling on it pretty hard.

Dimitri left him to it, not sure he really wanted to know. He focused on the passing scenery and the gnawing ache in his stomach that he was slowly beginning to recognize as guarded excitement. He kept telling himself Elena was caught. She was finally caught. Ava was safe. It was over. But John Paul’s lack of enthusiasm made him wary.

“You haven’t told her.”

Dimitri blinked, startled out of his thoughts by the other man’s non-question. He turned his head and glanced across the leather seat at the man responsible for his birth.

“What?”

John Paul never looked away from the window. His eyes were narrowed, his lips pursed. He seemed frustrated.

“You never told Ava about that night.” It was another non-question.

Dimitri didn’t need to ask which night he was referring to. “No.”

“Why?” John Paul turned his head to him then.

Dimitri thought about it a second. “Because she loves you,” he said at last. “And, because it’s not for me to tell her.”

John Paul said nothing. He went back to studying the glass and Dimitri met Saeed’s gaze in the mirror.

The boy said nothing and just as quickly lowered his attention back to the road, but not before Dimitri saw the question there.

They arrived at Arrow Holding Corporation and took the elevator together in the same penetrating silence. Marcus, Erik, and Theresa were already there, gathered around the onyx table. Only Marcus and Erik glanced up when they climbed out of the metal box. Theresa seemed too busy going over something on her phone.

“Where is she?” Dimitri asked, moving around to his chair.

Theresa set her phone down, folded her long, pale fingers in front of her and peered at him through narrowed eyes. “Who? Your mom or my assistant?”

Christ. They didn’t have time for this.

“Not now, Theresa—”

“I worked really hard to train her!” Her eyes sparked like blue flames. “You are an asshole! I want her back.”

“No,” Dimitri said simply. “She’s mine now. You’re not getting her. Now, move on.”

“What’s happening right now?” Marcus mumbled, glancing from one to the other.

Neither paid attention to him.

Theresa’s red lips peeled back over her clenched teeth. “I will get you for this, Tasarov.”

“You’re welcome to try,” Dimitri shot back. “But ask yourself if one assistant is worth my retaliation if you do.”

She seemed not to have anything to say to that. Her lips twitched, but remained firmly pressed tight. She sat back, gaze never leaving Dimitri’s.

He looked away, focus instead on his uncle. “Where is she?”

Erik hadn’t looked up from the bit of black glass in front of him. He seemed drawn, exhausted, like he hadn’t slept in days. He raised a hand and rubbed it absently over his face.

“She’s dead.”

The croak in the other man’s voice made Dimitri wonder if maybe he’d heard wrong. But there was no mistaking the grief in his uncle’s eyes, not even when he shut them and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“What do you mean dead?” Dimitri pressed. “Who killed her?”

Marcus was the one who answered. “They found her body in the remains of Ava’s apartment, but she’d been dead for more than a week.”

“In the apartment?” Dimitri clarified. “As in, she was there when it blew up?”

Marcus nodded. “She, uh…” He glanced sideways at Erik who had gone a sickly shade of gray and green. “She was strapped to the explosives.”

“Jesus.” Dimitri dropped back in his chair. “Ivan did this.” Then again, “Ivan did this?” He shook his head. “No, Ivan … he loved her. She was the only thing he did love. He wouldn’t—”

“When you train a dog to be nothing but vicious, you need to expect that one day, that dog will turn and bite your balls off,” John Paul murmured. “It was only a matter of time.”

It still made no sense to Dimitri. No matter how he turned it in his head, Ivan killing Elena and setting her body to get blown up was beyond the realm of his comprehension. But there were other questions, more pressing ones demanding an explanation.

“You said she’d been dead a week before the explosion?”

Marcus nodded. “More than. That’s what my guy heard from the coroner examining the remains.”

Erik pushed his chair back and moved away from the table. No one spoke as he wandered over to the window and stared out, his back a razor blade.

For that split second, Dimitri actually felt a spear of guilt go through him. Guilt that he felt nothing. Guilt that he could be so blasé about the situation when his uncle could barely keep himself together. She had been his mother. He should have felt something, a trace of sadness, but he felt relief, and not just a little. He could have fallen to his knees and wept sort of relief. The kind of relief cancer patients get when they’re told they’re clear of the disease. And he couldn’t fake being broken about it to spare his uncle’s feelings.

“Any idea how she was killed?” he asked, focusing on the situation at hand.

Marcus shook his head. “It was hard to tell.”

Meaning the body was torn to pieces, beyond recognition. Dimitri understood it. But he still couldn’t get his head around Ivan killing her. It made no plausible sense. He’d talked to Elena the afternoon he’d landed in Puerto Rico. That was the last time. They’d all assumed she’d gone into hiding after Ava told Dimitri what had happened.

“At least the rest makes sense,” he said to no one in particular. “The shooting at the restaurant, the apartment. I knew none of those things felt like Elena.”

“Ivan’s been working alone,” John Paul added. “But why?”

“Why Ava?” Dimitri piped in.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Theresa broke in, having had enough of not being noticed sulking. “He’s trying to get even with one of you. I have my money on you, Tasarov.”

There was no arguing with that. Ivan had a thousand reasons to hate Dimitri, a thousand reasons to want to hurt him. He wasn’t exactly his brother’s favorite person. The problem was that Dimitri had no way of knowing what to expect next until Ivan made his next move.

“I could get used to this.” Robby kicked off his sneakers and reclined on the cream colored sofa. He stuffed a throw pillow under his head and shut his eyes. “Now, I just need a serving wench to feed me grapes and I can cross this whole experience off my bucket list.”

Curled up in the arm chair, Ava shook her head in amusement. “I don’t even know where you’d get serving wenches.”

“
Hooters
.”

Ava laughed. “You’re so wrong.”

She eyed her friend a long moment, taking in his creased clothes, his unshaven jaw, the dark bags under his eyes, and wondered if he wasn’t sleeping. He didn’t even really sound like himself. From the moment she’d called him to come over, she’d sensed something was off. Something in his tone wasn’t Robby, but she just couldn’t put her finger on it.

“So…” She snatched up a pillow and curled it up against her chest. “How you been?”

Eyes still closed, Robby shrugged. “Good. Nothing new.”

She glanced over at where Ki sat with Frank at the dining room table, phone in hand. Every so often, his thumb would flick over the screen.

“How are things with Ki?” she asked softly.

“Still follows me into the bathroom.” Robby sighed. “Offered to let him hold it, but apparently he wasn’t interested. Such a fucking tease.”

“Anything else—?”

“Jesus, Ava, just fucking ask,” he mumbled, more exhausted than angry.

Ava relented. “You look like you’re not sleeping.”

“Probably because I’m not. Asshole over there won’t even let me take a fucking sleeping pill.”

Ki must have been immune to Robby’s outbursts, because he never glanced up.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” she hedged carefully.

“Why?” His mouth twisted into a vicious smile that made her think of a cartoon wolf before he swallowed the chicken. “Why do you think, Ava?” His eyes opened and he turned his head to her. “Maybe it has something to do with the fact that my fucking home was broken into and my fucking space was fucking violated and my best friend was fucking taken. Maybe,” he shoved upright, his eyes wild. “Maybe because I have a fucking stranger watching my every fucking move. Or maybe it’s because I need a fucking aspirin or something to take off the goddamn edge and I can’t even get that.”

He wasn’t shouting, but each word seemed to vibrate through the suite like thunder. His anger rolled off him, poisonous fumes filling the air, twisting around her like a noose.

“How many more fucking reasons do you need?”

“I’m sorry—”

“Fuck!” He lunged to his feet and stalked away from her. He stopped when there was a good distance before spinning to face her. “I don’t want your damn apologies, Ava. I don’t want your sympathies. I don’t want your fucking pity. I want you and your stepfather out of my fucking business—”

“Okay, just calm down and we’ll—”

“I don’t want to calm down!” Now he was shouting, screaming actually. “I don’t want you sitting there with your big eyes, staring at me like I’m some broken doll you can fucking fix. You can’t fix me. You can’t fix the shit you brought into my life, Ava. You did this! You ruined everything.”

Ava couldn’t speak. She sat numb and mute in her chair, watching as the color blistered beneath his skin and his eyes shone between madness and tears. He was panting, a wheezing sound that broke her heart, but she dared not move.

“You did this,” he said again, softer. “You brought those … monsters, into my house and they…” He broke off, his voice as broken as his expression as it crumbled before her eyes. “You did this.”

He sank to the floor, knees curling up to his face as he sobbed.

Ava didn’t move, even as every part of her wanted to run to him. She didn’t think he wanted her anywhere near him.

Tears spilled in hot trickles from her chin. She didn’t even have to blink to set them free. They just poured with no end in sight as her best friend cried into his hands.

She couldn’t be angry with him. It was her fault. She had brought him into her mess the moment she’d asked him to stitch up Dimitri the night of her birthday. It seemed like years ago when, in reality, it had only been a few weeks. But she had made him a part of her world without a single thought to what might happen.

Not that she’d known. How could she? She’d been pitched into madness just like him. It was unclear who’d had it worse.

“They took my residency.”

The words were said so quietly, she wasn’t sure he’d even spoken.

“What?”

He smeared tears and snot across the back of his hand. “The hospital put my overdose on file. It’s on my record. I’m out.”

“What?” Louder now, disbelief painting the word. “No, they can’t do that.”

He drew in a shaky breath. “Yeah, they can. The hospital can’t have an addict treating patients.”

“That’s bullshit!” Ava leaped to her feet. “This is a special circumstance.”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.” He dropped back on his butt. “I’m a liability.”

“No, I’ll talk to them.” She stalked forward and dropped down in front of him. “I’ll make them understand. I promise.”

“It’s over, Ava. Let it go.”

“But—”

“Let it go!” He shot to his feet. “I’ll find something else.”

The hotel doors opened then and Dimitri walked in, followed by Penny, and John Paul.

Dimitri took one look at Ava sitting on the floor and the tears on her face and charged at Robby. His hands closed in Robby’s t-shirt and he practically lifted him off the ground.

“What did you do?”

“Dimitri!” Ava scrambled to her feet. “He didn’t do anything. Put him down!”

“Me?” Robby shoved Dimitri off, ripping the collar of his own shirt in the process. “More like what did you do?” He didn’t wait for Dimitri’s response. “I keep thinking it over in my head and you are the reason all of this is happening. You’re the reason Ava was shot. You’re the reason those assholes shot me up full of that crap. You’re the reason I just lost everything I’ve been working my ass off for since I was thirteen.” He broke off, panting and red faced. “You did this. The second you walked into that party, Ava and me, you fucked us both over. This … all of this is on you!”

“Robby!”

But Robby had already shouldered his way through the group and out the doors.

Ava whirled around to where Ki was pushing to his feet. “Don’t lose him! Please, hurry.”

For a man of his size, Ki moved like a bullet. He was out the door before Ava could even see him move. She prayed he reached Robby before he did something stupid. She wasn’t sure what that could be, but people did desperate things when they felt trapped and she didn’t know what she’d do if she lost him.

A gentle hand settled on her arm, startling Ava out of her thoughts. She blinked and glanced over at Penny, who offered her a kind smile.

“Why don’t we get you out of that robe, hmm?”

Ava didn’t even ask into what. She let the woman guide her upstairs to the bedroom she’d shared with Dimitri the night before, uncaring that the bed was a mess, the sheets roped, the pillows skewed. It was a bed that had seen a long, violent night of hot, passionate sex. Ava told herself it didn’t matter. Even without the bed in disarray, the air was heavy with it.

Penny dutifully turned a blind eye to all of it. She padded into the bathroom and a moment later, water was rushing into the tub. Ava watched her from the threshold, oddly numb and weary as she patted around, setting towels out and pouring perfect measures of this and that into the water. She seemed very skilled at bath making. Ava couldn’t help wondering what else she was good at, and immediately felt like the worst sort of human being.

Penny turned to her, task complete, and offered her another of those warm smiles. “Why don’t you get in and I’ll find you something to wear.”

Ava didn’t even bother to ask from where. She stepped into the room, hand on the knot in her sash, but that was as far as she got before the tears came. They just gushed out of her in a torrent of grief and self-loathing.

Penny was there, gathering her up, holding her tight, murmuring words Ava couldn’t hear over the blood roaring between her ears. Her hands stroked through Ava’s hair, light, soothing caresses that felt so much like something a mother would do. Not her mother. Ava couldn’t even remember a time Charlotte had embraced her.

“It’s all right,” Penny was saying. “Everything is all right.”

“He’s right,” Ava croaked into her shoulder. “This is all my fault. I did this to him. I brought him into this stupid mess.”

“Shhh.” Penny led her to the tub ledge and set her gently down. “We can fix this.” She grabbed a wad of Kleenex out of a box on the marble counter and gently wiped at Ava’s face. “Just tell me what the problem is and I’ll make it go away, okay?”

Just like that, Ava thought, a little awed.

“I don’t think you can—”

Penny rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Believe me. You’d be amazed at some of the things I’ve managed to … fix. I’m very good at fixing things.” She smiled wide. “Go on. Tell me.”

She did. She told the tiny blonde with the soothing blue eyes and gentle smile everything. Penny said nothing the entire time. She occasionally nodded or made a soft humming sound, but she never interrupted.

When Ava finished, Penny pursed her lips. One corner of her mouth lifted in a contemplative manner and Ava was sure she’d say something like,
hmm, that is a tough one.
But she squared her thin shoulders and gave a curt bob of her head.

“Okay.”

Ava blinked. “What?”

Small hands bunched and fisted on Penny’s hips. “I’ll fix it. Just leave it to me.”

“Fix … how are you going to fix this? He’s lost his residency. You can’t bribe or blackmail the head of the hospital—”

Penny physically grimaced. “Oh, I don’t … I don’t bribe or blackmail.” She dug into her pocket for her phone. “I negotiate and reason.” She gave Ava a wink even as she dialed a series of numbers without looking at the screen. “I got this. Just go on and soak for a bit. You’ll feel better.”

Not waiting for an answer, she pressed the phone to her ear and left the bathroom. The door was shut quietly behind her.

The water was perfect. Just the right amount of hot and cold, with the perfect balance of lilacs and bubbles.

Ava sank into the froth all the way to her chin and listened to the hollow echo of sloshing water rebounding off the walls. Penny was right; soaking did feel nice. It was calming, like letting all her worries leak out of her pores and drown in the water. She would have happily curled against the ledge and slept if she wasn’t afraid of accidentally drowning herself.

She wasn’t sure how long she was in there, but when Penny returned, a small, black duffle in hand, the bubbles were gone. The water was cooling and her fingers were wrinkled little raisins.

Penny smiled. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Ava admitted, reaching for a towel.

Penny turned away as Ava rose. She busied herself setting the duffle on the counter and pulling articles of clothing out, clothing Ava recognized.

“Those are mine.”

Penny nodded. “Mr. Morel asked me to gather a few things from your bedroom at his place.” She glanced over. “I hope that’s all right?”

Ava stepped out of the water. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

Satisfied, she went back to setting out different outfits. “I wasn’t sure what you would like, so I grabbed a few different things, and underwear, of course.”

She selected a pair of jeans and a loosely knitted top that hung off one shoulder over a white camisole. She dragged them on.

“I also found this in your bathroom when I was gathering a few of your toiletries.” Penny unearthed Ava’s makeup kit.

“Oh!” She snatched the thing and hugged it to her chest. “I never thought I’d be so happy for lipstick.”

Penny laughed. “A girl needs her lipstick.”

They shared a grin before Penny stepped back.

“I’m going to wait outside while you finish up,” she said and shut the bathroom door behind her.

Alone in the bathroom, Ava found her toiletry bag and did a proper cleansing of her face, brushed her teeth with her own toothbrush, and applied a light stroke of makeup to chase away the puffy state of her eyes and the blotches of her face. She combed out her hair and left it down to air dry.

Once she was as put together as she was ever going to get, she stepped out to find Penny studying the bed, one hand balled loosely at her mouth as if she’d never seen one before.

She jumped when Ava cleared her throat.

“Sorry!” Penny blurted. “I was trying to figure out what sort of wood that is.” She gestured at the headboard. “Cherry, I think.”

Ava hadn’t paid much attention to it, but she nodded. “Seems like it.”

“Shall we?” Penny prompted when an awkward little silence twisted through the air.

Robby wasn’t back. Ava hadn’t thought he would be, but part of her had hoped. Dimitri and John Paul were at the dining room table, mugs of coffee between their hands. Frank was there as well and the trio seemed deep in conversation.