The Devil's Beauty (Crime Lord Interconnected Standalone Book 2) (9 page)

“This isn’t a game, Ava.” His eyes were steely, cold and merciless. “Get dressed. Now.”

He’d never used that tone with her. Something in it was chilling, a dark force that seemed to come off him in black tendrils. It made her want to take a step back, but her feet had fastened themselves to the carpet.

She was afraid. She’d never been afraid of him before.

It must have shown on her face, maybe in the draw of her body pulling away from him, but something on his face shifted. There was a flicker of something, a realization that could have been mistaken for regret if she’d stayed long enough to decipher it. Grabbing her things, she hurried into the bathroom. The door snapped shut behind her. The clothes were tossed down on the counter and she followed them, bracing her sweaty palms on the marble and leaning as far forward as she dared without smacking her head into the mirror.

This can’t be happening,
she willed herself to believe. It had to be a joke or alien body snatchers, because Dimitri would never hurt her. That was a fact she knew with the same unwavering certainty as she knew she was breathing, albeit unsteadily, but she was breathing. It brought to mind other possibilities of a death, or a surprise, something he couldn’t tell her about right away.

In no way mollified, Ava dressed. Her hands were trembling so badly it nearly took her a full five minutes to button her jeans. But she got herself together and opened the door.

Dimitri stood on the other side, her shoes in one hand, her phone in the other.

She reached for the phone. He pulled it away and put her shoes in the path of her reaching fingers.

“I want my phone,” she told him with the same sternness a teacher would show a disobedient student.

“No.”

The shoes were pushed at her.

She took them, mostly to keep from getting hit in the gut.

The left one slipped from her numb fingers and struck the carpet between them, landing pathetically on its side.

Neither of them moved for several long seconds. They stood studying the inanimate object like it had somehow betrayed both of them. Dimitri came out of the stupor first. He knelt down and gathered it up in his enormous hands.

The absurdity of the situation almost made her laugh. It was like some twisted play on Cinderella. Only, in that version, the prince wasn’t there to kidnap her.

Ava glanced down at the shoe still in her hand, worn and reliable. Then, without allowing herself too much time to think about it, she brought it up and smacked Dimitri on the top of the head. The satisfying thwack momentarily startled both of them. Her because she’d actually done it. Him because, well, he’d just been smacked by a shoe.

His face jerked up, a violent snap of the neck that most likely caused whiplash. His eyes, narrowed with annoyance bore up at her in a very,
what the fuck, Ava,
glower. Ava had nothing. No excuse. She just stood there, on the threshold of the bathroom, shoe aloft, looking down at him with slack jawed surprise at her own bravery.

“I…”

A distinct chime cut her off, the sound of the door being unlocked just feet from the bathroom. Ava looked at Dimitri, but he was already on his feet, a blur of movement she almost missed. The hum of danger seemed to penetrate the stillness her assault had brought on. It rolled off him in thick, cautious waves.

“Dimitri?”

His hand lifted, stopping her even as she began to take a step forward. From somewhere, lord knew where, he unearthed a gun. With his other hand, he motioned for her to get back into the bathroom, but the front door had already burst open with a deafening crash. The force cracked a cobweb into the closet doors, fracturing the mirror. Shards twinkled to the ground and were stomped into the carpet by the two masked figures who charged into the narrow hallway.

Dimitri fired. The crack was louder than anything she’d ever heard before. It reverberated through the cramped space, a vicious force that drowned every other sound. The barrel of his gun lit up in the darkness. Smoke bellowed, impregnating the air with the stench of gunpowder and metal.

Ava screamed.

The man on the right jerked back, his body seemingly disjointed from his action. She didn’t know where he’d been hit, but he landed in a crumpled heap on the other side of the threshold, sprawled across the hallway with its paisley carpet.

“Oh my God…!”

She never heard the second shot. The frame mere inches from her face splintered. Bits of wood prickled her skin when it sprayed with the impact. The closeness of it sent her mind reeling, her limbs paralyzing. She was frozen in horror.

“Ava!”

Dimitri lunged. She never saw it coming until the full weight of his body slammed into hers, knocking the air from her lungs and stealing the floor out from under her feet. For a full moment, they were suspended in the air, a weightless embrace that was almost serene. Then they were plummeting. The ground cushioned their collision. The unforgiving crash of limbs on linoleum sang through her. In the distance, there was another pop. Something shattered.

“Stay down!” Dimitri yelled into her ear.

In no position to argue, Ava nodded wildly and cried out when a stray bullet punctured a hole in the bathroom door.

Dimitri twisted over, massive body still shielding hers, but he fired over his shoulder, leaving a long trail of bullet holes along the bathroom wall in the direction of the front door. Ava started to tell him he was wasting his bullets, when they heard a sharp cry, then a thump.

In a flash, Dimitri was on his feet. For a man his size, Ava was quite impressed by his agility. She wasn’t even half his size and still she couldn’t move like that, never mind just spring up like they weren’t being shot at. But Dimitri crept to the edge of the opening, crouched at the knees, and peered around the frame. It must have been safe, because he stepped out, gun at the ready. He moved out of sight.

Ava hurried to her feet, but no sooner had she reached the doorway when Dimitri reappeared, scaring the crap out of her.

“Get your shoes on.”

He tore the battery from her phone and tossed both pieces out the car window, into oncoming traffic. He watched the bits of plastic shatter under the eighteen wheels of a semi going hundred-five on the highway. The crunch was swallowed by the roar of traffic and the quiet sigh from the backseat.

Dimitri glanced at her, at the pale, slumbering woman curled up on the leather seat. He’d done his best to make her comfortable with his coat as her pillow and an old blanket he kept in the trunk to cover the rest of her.

She’d fallen asleep almost the moment they left Williamsburg. He’d been expecting questions, hysterics even. But she’d climbed into the car without a fuss, belted herself in and said nothing. For the first mile, he kept glancing back through his rearview mirror to make sure she wasn’t about to lunge forward and try and strangle him with his own seatbelt, but she stayed where she was, solemn and pensive. A few times, he debated starting the conversation, but there had been nothing to say to justify what he was about to do.

It had been ages since he’d traveled that stretch of road. He was going the wrong way, but ultimately, it would bring him around to where he needed to be. The drive would help him clear his head and decide what to do next.

Behind him, Ava stirred. The leather squeaked beneath her as she shifted to an upright position. Green eyes squinted at the flat landscape rolling past their windows.

“Where are we?” Her hoarse voice was small under the rush of wind.

“Half a mile from Charleston,” he told her.

Her frown deepened. “Jesus, have you been driving all night?” She cleared her throat of sleep. “What’s in Charleston?”

“Nothing,” and he meant it.

The sleepy town didn’t even have a stoplight. Where they were headed was nowhere near Charleston.

“Can we stop? I need the bathroom.”

He glanced at the time, then at his fuel gauge. “We’ll pull over at the next gas stop.”

She said nothing for a long stretch of time. When she was about to, she sucked up half the air in the car first.

“Where’s my phone?”

“Gone.”

Her eyes narrowed. He didn’t have to see it to feel its prodding abilities against the back of his skull.

“Gone where? I just got that thing.”

He claimed the rest of the air with a deep inhale. “It wasn’t safe to keep.”

Her mouth fell open. “You … you threw out my phone?”

Any other time, any other woman, her absolute horror would have been amusing. This woman, seated directly behind him, had him lighting up on the gas, just in case she decided to steer them off the road.

“It wasn’t safe,” he repeated. “Someone knows about you, Ava. I don’t know who or how, but they do and I need to protect you.”

“Protect me?” She scrambled out of the backseat and into the passenger’s side one. “You’re the one who broke into my hotel and kidnapped me. Those men were probably after you.”

“They weren’t.”

The folded piece of paper he’d found on the men who’d attacked them the night before attested to his claim. It burned like a heavy clump of hot coal in his pocket. The weight of it seemed to pulse with its own heartbeat.

“How do you know that?”

He said nothing. There was honestly no way to explain the situation when he needed half a mind on the road. Every time he thought about the picture of Ava beneath a kill order, his blood roared between his ears. He could literally feel it boiling in his veins. Ignoring it, even temporarily, was the only way he’d gotten them as far as he had.

“Who knows about me?” he asked instead, veering to a mildly less dangerous topic. “Have you told anyone?”

“Of course not. I’m not stupid.”

“Anyone?” he stressed. “Your boyfriend? Your friends? That doctor guy?”

“Robby,” she corrected. “Doctor guy has a name, and no. I haven’t told anyone anything.”

His fingers tightened around the wheel. “Someone knows.”

“Maybe your girlfriend,” she countered shortly.

Dimitri shook his head. “No.”

He seldom had time for women, never mind the patience for a relationship. Most of the women he came across wanted something he was incapable of giving. The rest couldn’t give him what he needed. There had only ever been one woman capable of soothing his demons and she sat in the car with him.

They stopped at a rundown gas station in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by miles of flat, dry dirt. It was the kind of place horror movies started, right down to the filthy, toothless man slumped behind the counter. He peered from Ava to Dimitri with one good eye. The other was clouded over in a milky blur that gave even Dimitri the shivers.

“Stay close,” he told Ava, even as he physically maneuvered her away from the counter towards the sign marked bathrooms.

“Don’t worry. I will,” she mumbled, eyeing a matted deer head nailed to the wall above their heads.

He checked the room before motioning her to go ahead. It was small and disgusting with weird, slimy stains on the walls and clumps of furry mold collecting in the corners, but she was the one who had wanted to go.

“I don’t think I have all my shots for this place,” she groaned through clenched teeth.

“I’ll be outside … the door,” he added when her head jerked up and her wide, horrified eyes locked with his. “This door. I’ll be right here.”

Satisfied he wasn’t abandoning her, she inched inside and gingerly pushed the door closed with the tip of her one nail.

Dimitri waited a couple of seconds before letting his gaze wander to the shelves. There were the usual bags of chips, the odd boxes of cereal, drinks, and magazines. He was wandering over to eye a jar of what looked like pickles when the scream had him whipping out the gun from his waistband and kicking in the bathroom door. It crashed into the wall, leaving a knob sized hole in the plaster. But he was focused on the woman standing on the toilet seat, arms braced against the walls on either side of her.

“That’s not how you use it,” he mumbled, stowing the gun away when there was no threat to shoot.

“Kill it!” she shrieked, jabbing a finger at the corner of the room. “Shoot it!”

It took some eye straining to see the mouse, the tiny, gray bundle of fur he’d mistaken for mold.

“It’s already dead,” he told her.

“Kill it again,” she practically sobbed.

Biting the inside of his cheek, because he was a smart man, he walked over to her. “Come on.”

Rather than accept the hand he offered like a grown woman, she threw her arms around his neck, hooked her legs around his waist and clung to him like a baby koala.

“Seriously?”

“Walk!” she snapped.

Mentally shaking his head, he carried her out of the bathroom and into the shop. Only then did she untangle herself from him and step gingerly on the floor. Even then, her eyes surveyed the ground around them, possibly searching for other dead rodents.

“Where have you brought me?” she hissed up at him, like it was his fault the place was disgusting.

Without waiting, she stalked at an almost run down the aisle and bolted out the door.

The toothless man behind the counter snickered. “Women,” he rasped.

Dimitri said nothing as he followed Ava back into the early morning sunlight.

She was gone. The whole entire area of the gas station was void of her.

His heart plummeted. “Ava!”

His voice carried in the wind, echoed through the emptiness.

Jesus, had someone grabbed her?

“Ava!” The panic was real even to his own ears as her name burst out of him again, louder.

Heart thumping, lungs burning, he sprinted around the back of the building, calling her again and again. The cold metal of the gun burned into his palm, surprising him that he’d reached for it. His finger hovered over the trigger, prepared to blast the fucking brains of anyone near her.

Then, he saw her, a tiny, moving figure racing across the fields, her red hair a flaming cape swinging behind her.

“What the fuck…?”

For a moment, he only stood there, dumbfounded, his adrenaline fueled brain not understanding the scene unfolding before his eyes.

Coming out of his shock, he stowed away the gun and chased after her. Even with her head start, he caught her in minutes. His arms hooked around her middle and he swung her up off the ground and into his arms.

His shoulder screamed. It had been throbbing for most of the night as a result of picking her up at the bar. Now it was just a full on roar of pain that almost made him lose his grip on her.

“Stop fucking struggling!” His snarl was met with a vicious kick from her that met air, but the momentum sent him back a step. “Ava!”

“Put me down!” she screamed.

He did, but only because hot liquid was beginning to seep through the gauze and soak into his shirt.

“Fuck!” he growled at her. “What the hell are you doing?”

Panting, she rounded on him, wildly swiping away strands of hair off her face.

“Escaping!” she shot back like it was the most logical thing in the world.

“Why?” Torn between grabbing her and grabbing his throbbing arm, he compromised by clenching his fists. “There is nothing out here.”

“You don’t know that,” she said. “I want to go home. John Paul is probably frantic. I was supposed to call him, and Robby, this morning, but some asshole threw out my brand new phone.”

“You’re not going home right now,” he told her as evenly as he could manage between bursts of hot pain.

“Then you’re clearly crazy and I’m not staying with a crazy person!” she partially screamed at him.

He didn’t have time for this. Aside from being in the middle of nowhere, they had bigger problems, like the person after them.

“You need to get back in the car.”

“No!”

She’d always been stubborn. It was one of the qualities he honestly loved about her, except for in that moment. In that moment, he wanted to strangle her.

“Get in the fucking car, Ava!”

“No! I fucking will not, Dimitri!”

This was getting them nowhere.

Ignoring the blinding spears of excruciating agony, Dimitri bent at the knees, grabbed her, and pitched her like a sack of potatoes over his good shoulder.

Her screams were deafening. They broke the sound barrier in a long, endless wail that trailed after them the entire way back to the car. It was the first time in his life he was ever grateful to be in the middle of nowhere with only a weirdo gas station keeper as witness when he tossed the flailing woman into the backseat of his car.

“Stop it or I swear to God, I will put you in the trunk.”

“Bite me!”

She nearly kicked in his nose. It was only his quick reflexes that saved his face from getting rearranged.

He slammed the door on her and rounded the trunk to the driver’s side. He climbed in.

“Okay, look—”

Thin arms locked around his throat from behind, dragging his head back and cutting off his airway. Shaking her off would have been easy if she didn’t have leverage on her side. There was no way to get her off without hurting her, so, he did the only thing he could think of; he reached for the lever and give it just a nudge. Her arms sprung open in surprise when the seat jerked back into recline mode. Dimitri grabbed the arm on his right before she could fall into the backseat and yanked her forward. It was tricky, but he kept tugging until she was through gap between the two front seats, over the console and in his lap, wedged between him and the wheel, all the while kicking and screaming.

“Ava!” He narrowly missed an elbow in the jaw. “Christ, stop!”

He clamped his arms around her, pinning hers down as he did so. With her legs draped over the console and into the passenger’s side chair, he had her properly contained.

“Let go of me!”

“Stop,” he said more softly. “Ava.” He closed one hand in the downy weight of her silky locks, just enough to turn her face to his. “I will take you home,” he promised quietly. “But I need you to come with me first.”

She was too close. Those big, green eyes bore into his, bright with anger. He remembered a time when they held a different kind of fire, the kind that turned kings into slaves. He remembered how that look was always followed by the silky whisper of his name, the quiet parting of her lips in silent invitation. He had been so lost in her, so utterly helpless to her every wish and desire. Hell, he still was. Her spell on him hadn’t weakened in the years he’d left between them. He still loved her with a blinding madness that kept him up at night.

“You won’t hurt me?”

The very idea kicked him in the chest with a steel toed boot.

“I would never hurt you,
myshka
.” The strands of her hair glided through his fingers in soft tendrils of silk. He was rewarded by the little catch in her breath, the slight darkening in her eyes … her lips parted. “I’d kill anyone who did.”