The Devil's Beauty (Crime Lord Interconnected Standalone Book 2) (55 page)

“What is Robby sitting on?”

Direct seemed to be the best way to go when time was running thin.

“Detonator. He move … pow!”

He was lying.

Dimitri had a clear memory of Robby thrashing when he’d first arrived. The chair legs had been cracking wildly against the concrete. It was enough motion to have blown the entire place sky-high if it were in fact a detonator.

“Weight sensitive?” he asked casually. “Motion? Heat sensor?”

“Yes.”

Lie.

Dimitri nodded slowly and pivoted on the heel of his boot. He walked slowly to the chair, Robby’s enormous green eye watching him. He bent slightly and peered under the seat.

It was useless, of course. He knew absolutely nothing about bombs, never mind dismantling one. The plastic contraption bolted into the bottom almost looked like a thermostat with a cord running out of it. A keypad glowed a faint green against the front.

No countdown clock, Dimitri noted.

He straightened and met Robby’s eye. “It’ll be fine,” he told him quietly. “I’ll get you out of here.”

Robby said something behind the gag.

Dimitri leaned in. “What?”

“heth gung kith ou.”

He had to run it through his head a few times before it came together.

“He’s going to kill me?”

Robby nodded.

That wasn’t news. He didn’t tell the man he’d come prepared to die. He just nodded and faced his brother again.

“Let me take his place.”

Robby sputtered a protest that went ignored by everyone.

“You would take his place?” Ivan looked skeptical. “Why?”

Dimitri couldn’t tell him the truth. If he knew just how much Robby meant to Ava, Ivan might not let him go. His brother had no moral compass so playing the,
he’s innocent,
card wouldn’t work either.

“Because this is family business,” he decided, going for the phrase Elena liked using best. “This is between you and me and we deal with it ourselves.”

Ivan’s chin rose up a notch. His icy blue eyes narrowed. He peered past Dimitri to Robby, then back.

“You take his place?”

Dimitri nodded. “Let him and John Paul go and I’ll sit in the chair.”

He ran a tongue, tainted with blood over his bottom lip. He fingered the remote, nimbly twirling the plastic over his knuckles. Each flip had Dimitri’s stomach doing the same.

“Okay,” he decided at last with careless shrug of his broad shoulder. “You take his place. I give them five minutes to leave.”

Dimitri stepped aside to allow Ivan room to amble up to Robby. He glanced sideways at John Paul and found the man watching him, his expression a blank slate. He hadn’t expected any sort of epiphany from his father, no sudden and crushing realization that maybe he’d been wrong about Dimitri, but a part of him couldn’t help the pang of annoyance at the lack of anything at all.

He turned away to watch Ivan deactivate the detonator. It was amazing how those thick fingers could easily select the tiny numbers on the pad, but Dimitri heard the hiss as it was released.

Ivan pushed to his feet, thumb hovering over the remote button. He straightened and stepped back to allow Dimitri to untie Robby.

He did quickly, chucking aside the yards of rope and tucking the man’s arm around his shoulders. He hoisted Robby from the seat and led him towards John Paul.

“You have five minutes,” he said as they ambled forward. “Make them count. I’ll stall for as long as I can.”

“Don’t do this,” Robby rasped. “Ava—”

“I’m doing this for Ava.”

“This’ll kill her.”

“Then I need you to be there for her. Help her move forward.”

“Fuck me,” Robby moaned.

John Paul stepped forward, hand extended.

Dimitri began to release his grip to the other man when John Paul inexplicably embraced him. It happened so quickly, so unexpectedly that he had no time to react before it was over and John Paul was pulling away.

“Take care of her,” were the last words Dimitri heard his father say to him before shouting, “Now!” into his phone and tearing across the warehouse.

Dimitri spun around, the best he could with Robby’s dead weight on him. He watched in horror as John Paul launched himself at Ivan. He might have screamed, but the sound was snatched up by the shriek of tires.

A sleek, black SUV shot in through the open doorway and spun in a wide U. It stopped right in front of him, a thick cloud of dust rising around it.

“Boss!” Saeed’s ashen and determined face peered at him through the window. “Get in!”

Dimitri dragged Robby over and threw him into the backseat, uncaring of his injuries. He whirled around, prepared to run to John Paul and Ivan where wrestling for the remote.

“Go!” John Paul roared.

“Boss!”

Dimitri stood frozen, torn with one foot towards freedom, the other towards his father.

John Paul glanced at him, face tight with fury and purpose. “Ava needs you!”

Ava.

No. He couldn’t leave. He couldn’t just…

Hands grabbed him. He was given no chance to fight, to resist when he was pitched to the floor of the SUV. The world went dark as the door slammed closed, narrowly catching his feet.

“No!”

He scrambled, desperate and frantic, tangled in his clothes, in his coat, in the fucking strip of space, in Robby’s feet.

“No!”

Not Robby’s feet. His fucking hands. He was holding Dimitri, stronger than he looked, pinning him to the fucking ground.

“Get off me!”

The squeal of rubber cut the world in two. It drowned Dimitri’s screams as he thrashed for release. He was thrown forward. His head slammed with a dull thud into the door as the wheel was wrenched violently left.

“No!” Dimitri broke free and threw himself at the door. “No … stop … stop!”

Saeed ignored him.

Something clicked and Dimitri knew, even before he yanked on the door handles, Saeed had locked him in.

“Stop the car!”

“I’m sorry,” was all the kid said.

“My dad is back there! My dad is back there! Stop the fucking car!”

Even to his ears, his pleas sounded like the wails of a child who was about to watch his only parent die before his eyes and being powerless to do shit but watch it happen.

He slammed a fist into the glass. Skin burst open, pain reverberated up his arm, anguish blinded him to the pain as blood spattered across the tinted sheet.

Powerless, he watched as the world bloomed in a brilliant blossom of orange and red, the exact burst of sunrise that expanded into the dark heavens.

“Dad!”.

They didn’t see the explosion. The suite faced the wrong direction. But the force of it rattled the chandelier. It knocked glasses off the shelves in the kitchen. It vibrated across the ground in a tremor so violent, cars blared below.

Ava didn’t move.

She sat perfectly still on the sofa, hands on her knees, feet firmly planted on the ground. She stared at the unlit fireplace, resisting the urge to give into the splotches of black creeping across her vision.

He’s not dead. He’s not dead.

He wasn’t. She would know. She would feel it. He wasn’t dead. She would know.

The mantra was the only thing holding her together. The only comfort against the wall of insanity pressing against her. She couldn’t even close her eyes. Part of her was sure she never would again.

He’s not dead. He’s not dead.

“Ava?”

Penny’s face appeared in front of her, eyes bloodshot behind her glasses, cheeks wet with tears.

“He’s not dead,” she choked out, tears brimming hot and blinding behind her eyes. “He’s not.”

Penny swallowed and nodded. “I know.”

A cold glass of water was pressed into her hands. But she no longer had any understanding of simple motor skills and it slipped. It hit bottom first on the carpet. Water burst free in an arc. It soaked into Ava’s jeans, soaked Penny’s shoes.

“I’m sorry…”

Penny shook her head. “I’ll get a towel.”

Ava stared at her hands, small, useless hands. She couldn’t even feel her fingers.

Penny returned with a fist full of paper napkins. She knelt and dabbed at the mess. Ava watched the top of her head where the silky strands were combed back into a ponytail, not really seeing it.

The spill was mopped up and a fresh glass was brought over. Penny held it this time, not exactly steady, but more functioning than Ava. She got most of the liquid down Ava’s throat.

She straightened. “Is there anything—”

Her cellphone chimed. Every head in the room turned at the sound of it. Ava straightened, chest hurting with the blooming hope.

“Who is it?” she demanded even before the other woman had a chance to pull it out of her pocket. “Is it him? Is it Dimitri? Is he coming back?”

Penny peered down at the screen and the cup in her grasp slipped. The empty hand shot up to her mouth as the glass shattered on impact.

No one noticed.

“What?”

The fledgling prickle of hope shriveled up and died with the tears in Penny’s eyes, the pain, the …despair.

“No…”

Somehow, Ava found the strength to push to her feet. Her knees wobbled with the weight of her torso, but she scrambled back, away from the lie. Glass crunched beneath her bare heels. Slivers broke skin and left a wake of crimson. But she felt nothing.

“No … no…”

Penny turned to her and all Ava saw was the pity.

“I’m sorry—”

“No!”

The protest was the first scream in a series of louder, hysterical ones as the world collapsed on top of her. She couldn’t even hear them. Each one sounded like they were coming from someone else, someone far away, someone as shattered as she was.

Someone had her. Arms, thick and strong, folded her to a hard chest. She fought against the bind, against the soothing voice telling her it was okay.

But nothing would ever be okay again. How could the voice not realize it was over? How could it not know that there was nothing left?

She couldn’t breathe and it had nothing to do with the forearm compressing her lungs. She gasped for air and only inhaled ashes and thorns. Her blood drummed in her head, a vicious and wild pounding that sent the room spinning.

How could he be dead? She’d only just gotten him back. He promised her. He promised he’d never leave again. How could this be happening?

Every trace of energy abandoned her with an abruptness that felt like plummeting off the face of the earth. All the rage, grief, sorrow fizzled to nothing. Numbness swallowed her in an icy blanket and she sagged against the chest, teeth chattering. The world had gone a murky white, like being lost in a fog. Voices echoed in the far distance, a series of endless droning she couldn’t give a fuck about.

Penny’s face floated through the mist. Blue eyes wide above her brightly smiling lips. The sight of it made Ava want to punch her.

“Ava!”

Hands were shaking her, disturbing her blissful stream of nothing.

“Stop it…” the words slurred.

“Ava, look!”

She didn’t give a shit about whatever it was the other woman was so happy about, but she felt her head roll on her neck.

No.

She blinked. And blinked again.

No. It wasn’t right. But no matter how many times she focused her vision, how many times she shook her head, the image remained.

“Dimitri…?”

He shifted in the doorway, his silhouette a familiar blur. His golden eyes met hers and her heart rocketed in her chest, a violent clap that she felt all the way through her, snapping her out of her paralysis.

She was dreaming. It had to be. Or she was insane. She’d lost her mind.

“Myshka.”
His voice was a warm flood washing over her, thawing her.

She sprang at him, the sofa her diving board as she launched her entire weight over it and on him. He caught her. He crushed her with a ferocity that couldn’t be conjured simply by the power of human grief. His smell, his heat, spilled on her, seeped into her.

“I love you.” The words ripped out of her, a broken record she couldn’t find the off switch for. It looped over and over again, the only thing she knew how to say.

“Myshka,”
he said again, quieter, with an edge that took her several long seconds to recognize.

She forced herself to pull back, just enough to peer into his face. One side was smudged with drying blood. It crusted the hairs at his temple and contrasted with the pallor of his complexion. But it was his eyes that wrenched through her. It was the guilt, the pleading for her to understand that made her heart sink all over again.

“Robby…?”

He shook his head and turned slightly so she could see the secondary figure just behind him, the one badly beaten, bloody, and in dire need of medical care. But he was alive. He was upright. He was banged up, but he was there.

He wouldn’t look at her.

Robby refused to meet her gaze.

She faced Dimitri again. “What?”

“Ava…”

“What?”

She pulled out of his grasp to see him better, to see Robby better. Both seemed fine. All limbs and heads and torsos accounted for.

“John Paul…”

“What?”

It seemed to be the only thing she was capable of saying in various tones of question and disbelief.

She looked past Robby, into the corridor, past the two men on the other side, guarding the door. She waited for him to walk in.

She waited.

And waited.

“Where … where is he?” Tears were beginning to collect in her throat. “Is he at the hospital? Was he hurt?”

“Ava…”

She smacked Dimitri’s hands away when they reached for her. “Stop saying my name like that. Where is he?”

Dimitri opened his mouth. He shut it. And he said everything in that silence.

This time, when the darkness tore the ground out from under her, Ava let it take her down with it.

No one asked why the casket was empty. They filed in, ants to a picnic with their black clothes and somber faces. They took her hands and told her how truly sorry they were for her loss.

Ava wanted to scream at them. They had no idea what they were talking about. They had no idea what the world had lost. They would return home, chuck off their clothes and fake sympathies and they would go on with their miserable lives. Memories of John Paul would fade. He would become a story, someone they once knew, someone tragically taken too soon. But none of them would feel his absence. They wouldn’t walk into the kitchen and expect him to be there with his morning paper and mug of coffee. They wouldn’t pick up the phone, expecting to call him and realizing he would never pick up.

She was the only person who felt like a part of her had died with him. She was the only one who wanted to crawl into his empty casket just to feel like he was still there.

Gentle hands settled on her waist. They jarred her gaze away from the mound of dirt and the smooth, gray granite marking the final resting place of the only father she’d ever known.

The cemetery was empty, except for her and Dimitri. The afternoon sun was beginning its descent into dusk, the only sign that she’d been there for hours. Her heels had sunk into the grass.

Dimitri didn’t push her to leave. He’d stayed next to her, a silent wall of strength that occasionally reached for her, to remind her he was there. She wasn’t alone.

“He’s gone.”

He said nothing.

“What am I supposed to do now?”

He still said nothing.

She was glad for it. There was no right answer.

“I’m officially an orphan.” Tears she didn’t think she had anymore thickened her brittle laugh. “We both are.”

He didn’t mention she still had a mother. She really didn’t. She didn’t want one.

Charlotte had arrived the day before the funeral, a week after John Paul’s death had been announced, sobbing and blubbering hysterically.

Ava hadn’t believed it for a moment.

The very sight of the woman had fueled her with a fury that no child should ever feel towards their parent. Seeing her, tan and beautiful, fashionably chic in a
Ralph Lauren
two piece, hair perfectly curled … it had been Dimitri holding Ava back from tearing her face off.

She’d sent Charlotte away, away from the estate, off the property, warning her that if she came back, Ava would personally bury her in the flowerbeds. It probably helped that Dimitri had been behind her, a giant, dark force of warning.

But it wasn’t in Charlotte’s nature to retreat without getting as much out of the situation as possible. Ava wasn’t surprised when she finally left John Paul’s grave to find the woman leaning against her rental, cigarette in hand, shades poised perfectly on her face.

She flicked the butt into the street and quickly straightened when she spotted Ava.

“Ava, darling,” she began, hobbling her way forward without sinking her Jimmy Choo’s into the soil. “Darling, we need to talk.”

“No, we don’t.”

Dimitri set a gentle hand on her shoulder, stopping her from stalking off. “Hear her. Get it over with.”

Ava didn’t want to get it over with. She’d just buried her father. She’d been kidnapped, shipped across the fucking ocean, sold, shot at, threatened, hospitalized, emotionally, mentally, and physically battered to the point of madness.

She wanted to go home.

She wanted to climb into bed and sleep for a week.

“Please, just hear me out,” Charlotte pleaded.

Ava stopped, not for her, but because John Paul would have wanted her to.

“What?”

“I know things have always been so complicated between us,” Charlotte chirped. “I haven’t been the best mother, I know, but you have to admit you were a horrible daughter. Wait. Wait!” She reached for Ava when she began turning away. She quickly dropped her hand when Ava shot her a warning glower. “But I’m still your mother, right? You wouldn’t be where you are right now if it weren’t for me.”

“I’m here because of John Paul.”

Charlotte nodded. “Yes, but I married him and it wasn’t an easy marriage, Ava. He was emotionally detached. He never cared about me the way a woman should be cared for by her husband. It was a very difficult thing staying with him, but I did. For you.”

Her head pounded from hours … days of crying. The throbbing increased the longer she stood there.

“What do you want?” She rubbed the tips of her fingers against her brow, hoping to ease some of the pressure. “Just … tell me what it will take to get you out of my life for good.”