The Devil's Beauty (Crime Lord Interconnected Standalone Book 2) (20 page)

Dimitri didn’t hate hospitals. It was just another building. But he hated the smell of them. He hated the weird sounds of machines and the dull light that never flattered anyone. He would have left. He even started to several times, making it all the way to the front doors, before finding his heels turning and walking back.

He told himself it was because the man on the bed, strapped to a million wires and tubes, had saved his life and leaving him alone was unforgivable. But the truth of it was that Ava wouldn’t have wanted her best friend to be left alone in that place. She would have wanted someone to stay with Robby while he recovered and made sure the doctors were doing all they could to make him better.

John Paul stayed the night as well. Dimitri wasn’t sure if it was for the same reason or if the other man was just keeping an eye on him, but it was comforting not being alone when the doctor explained the prognoses.

“Overdose,” he said flatly. “He’ll be fine in a couple of days.” He hesitated, adjusted his thick glasses and shifted his podgy weight from one foot to the other. Dimitri couldn’t tell if he was just apprehensive or tired of standing. “Your friend has a problem,” he said slowly, delivering the news gently. “You should consider getting him help.”

Dimitri frowned. “What problem? He hasn’t used in two days.”

The doctor looked puzzled by that. “Overdose doesn’t take two days to happen. Judging from the track marks on his arm, it’s been about two days’ worth.”

“We will take care of it. Thank you, Doctor,” John Paul intervened when Dimitri started to ask him how that was possible.

The doctor inclined his head and shuffled away, leaving Dimitri to turn to his father.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “He was injected two days ago. Why would he have other track marks?”

John Paul was quiet as a trio of nurses slipped past them and hurried in the opposite direction. He waited until they were out of sight before fixing his gaze on Dimitri.

“His best friend was kidnapped from his home, under his watch, what would you do to make that pain stop? Getting drugged the first time was probably just an opening for another taste.”

Drugs were something Dimitri had never allowed himself, no matter how he’d been tempted or how readily available the numbing escape had been. But he had seen what it could do to a man. He had watched as it had destroyed everything around them until they were but a shell of their former glory. No one truly understood the appeal until they found themselves twisted into a corner, lost and alone, with only self-destruction as company. Dimitri had always had Ava … or Millie. Now he had neither and he understood the need for the powdery haze more than ever.

“What do we do?” he asked, ignoring the pull of his own inner demons.

John Paul turned his head in the direction of Robby’s room. “I will take care of it.”

Dimitri wasn’t sure what that meant, but he left the details to the other man.

“Did you find what you were looking for when we went to Robby’s apartment?”

John Paul shook his head. “I had hoped something might have been missed, a note, maybe.”

“I checked for those,” Dimitri said, willing the edge out of his voice. “I turned that place upside down.”

John Paul merely hummed in response, his attention focused on something at the end of the corridor.

Dimitri followed the path of his interest down a long, white hall lined with a series of doors and a set of doors at the end. Seeing nothing, he turned back.

“Where’s Ava’s mom?”

That seemed to pull John Paul from his pondering and he frowned. “Charlotte has taken a trip to France for a little while. The press and questions were too much and she needed space.”

Dimitri knew all about Charlotte, if not from Elena than from Ava. He’d never personally met the woman, but he never liked her. She’d always struck him as a psychopath with narcissistic tendencies. Her behavior towards her own daughter had always appalled him to the point of battling back the raw rage that always swelled up. It was a never ending question of who he loathed more, his own mother, or hers. Hers always won, because no matter what sort of conniving, backstabbing, bloodthirsty shrew Elena was, she never pretended to be anything else. He would have wondered if Charlotte was even slightly worried about Ava’s disappearance, about her involvement in a spree of murders, but he knew, since it had nothing to do with Charlotte personally, it would make little matter in the scheme of things. The only time she would make any sort of reappearance on the scene would be if Ava was returned dead. Then she could bask in the sympathies and attentions of others. Either way, it would wind up being about her and what she could garner from it. The woman was sickening, not that John Paul would listen. He had an odd sort of fascination for her. Dimitri didn’t understand it, but that wasn’t his place.

“Does Robby have any family?” he asked instead, deciding it was easier to simply change the topic.

John Paul nodded. “A mom and sister, but he doesn’t talk to them.”

“Should we call them?”

John Paul shook his head. “They won’t come and he will not thank us if we call them, believe me.”

“There has to be someone who can stay with him,” Dimitri argued. “We can’t leave him alone.”

The man’s shoulders lifted with his deep inhale. It was more impressive when his hands were behind his back and he seemed to expand on the spot.

“He won’t be. I will make sure of it.” He continued to stare down the aisle, mind only half on their conversation.

“Why…?” The man wasn’t listening. It didn’t matter how straightforward or logical his responses were, he was transfixed by something over Dimitri’s shoulder. He looked back. “What are you looking at?”

A line appeared between John Paul’s brows. His eyes narrowed in concentration before he mumbled absently, “Transportation.”

Dimitri raised an eyebrow. “What?”

John Paul moved away from him and stopped when he got to a cork board littered with pamphlets on addiction counseling, babysitting offers, different hotlines, and a glossy poster for a weeklong cruise around the Mediterranean. John Paul rapped at it with his bent knuckle.

“They would need to use something to get her out of the country.”

It took only a second for Dimitri’s head to get into the game. His gaze went from the man to the poster, then back. His hand was already digging in his pockets.

“I’ll call Marcus.”

John Paul placed a hand over the one holding the phone. “No.” He took his hand away and exhaled. “I want to see his face.”

If the city were broken into sections, it would be a pie, a big, fat, messy pie with a round hole in the center. The rest would be sliced into four, large quarters. The center would be the mainland, John Paul’s territory, with the rest circling it.

The east sat on the harbor, toes deep in the ocean and the vast majority of all international transports by water. They were also the ones neck deep in prostitution and human smuggling. If Ava was taken out of the country, or even out of the city, the east would be the ones to make that happen.

Marcus greeted them at the front of his Mediterranean mansion, already dressed and alert despite the early hour. He jogged down the steps until he stood before them on the curved driveway circling a stone fountain. He took each of their hands in turn, his expression politely curious.

“Did we have a meeting?”

“We need a minute of your time,” John Paul said.

Marcus shrugged. He nodded and motioned them into the estate.

The main doors opened into a gleaming foyer and stopped several feet in with a sitting area. The room continued to sprawl out with open doorways on either side and another sitting area further in near a series of windows ten feet high. Through one of the doorways, Dimitri noticed there were two more sitting areas placed strategically on opposite ends of the room, and wondered how many a house needed.

They were led clear across the entire lot to a dining area placed before an open section overlooking the backyard and a thriving garden. The cool morning breeze swept around them, ruffling the paper that was folded neatly next to a cooling mug of coffee and a buttered biscuit.

“We interrupted your breakfast,” John Paul remarked regretfully.

Marcus waved away the non-spoken apology and motioned them with his free hand to sit.

“I eat better with friends anyway.” Marcus said.

He turned to a quiet woman standing a short distance away, half hidden behind an enormous clay vase overflowing with some plant with giant leaves. Dimitri hadn’t noticed her until she quickly stepped forward and bowed slightly at the waist. Marcus said something in Spanish Dimitri didn’t understand.

“No, no!” John Paul said quickly. “Really. We are fine with just coffee.”

Marcus silenced him with a look. “My father would never forgive me if I did not properly welcome his oldest friend into my home.”

John Paul chuckled, but didn’t interrupt again.

Orders given, the woman bowed again and hurried from the patio, disappearing down a winding path along the side of the house.

Marcus turned back to them. “Sonya, my cook, makes the best
tortilla Española
I have ever eaten.”

“Spanish potato omelet,” John Paul translated for Dimitri.

Marcus chuckled. “We must teach you Spanish, my friend. The ladies love it.”

A server poured Dimitri and John Paul cups of coffee. They offered sugar and milk, but both were waved aside. Dimitri tried not to notice that he took his coffee the exact same as John Paul.

“Now, while we are waiting,” Marcus folded his hands on the table and fixed them with even stares. “What brings you?”

“We’re looking for a girl,” John Paul told him.

Marcus blinked. He sat back. “A girl?” He paused a full second before bursting into a belly rumbling laugh. “My friend, I have lots of girls. What kind do you want?”

“No,” Dimitri cut in. “It’s a specific girl. A redhead. She was taken about three days ago.”

Marcus’ eyes widened. “By my men?”

John Paul shook his head. “We don’t know.” He dug out his phone and flipped through it until he found a picture of Ava. “Her.”

Marcus took the phone and studied the image closely. Finally, he shook his head and returned the device.

“I don’t know her.” He pursed his lips. “But I can ask. A shipment left here about three days ago. If she was on it, my men will know.”

Dimitri’s stomach dropped. It sank so low between his knees that he felt it hit the ground. The very idea of Ava on that boat, headed to God knew where, surrounded by men who…

“Where is the boat going?” he blurted, his sickness and desperation making the question coming out in a snarl.

The corners of Marcus’ mouth twisted downward. “Mexico? Cuba…? Maybe China?” He shook his head sadly. “The girls are separated during transport. I don’t know.”

A hand settled on Dimitri’s arm. He hadn’t realized he’d been pushing to his feet until the contact jolted him back to the present and nightmare unfolding before them.

“How soon can you find out?” John Paul sounded collected, but his complexion had gone a sickly white. “This is urgent. She’s my daughter.”

A flicker of surprise flittered across Marcus’s face. But just as quickly, it was gone, masked in a steely determination.

“I will do it now.”

Marcus rose immediately and stalked out of the room, phone already in hand.

“The Syndicate doesn’t know about Ava?” Dimitri asked, needing something to preoccupy his mind.

John Paul never so much as glanced at him, but stared unseeingly across the manicured lawns. “It is my business.”

They dropped into an uneasy, and almost queasy silence broken only by the taunting whisper of the wind and the soft tinkle of wind chimes somewhere in the distance.

The woman returned with a tray of steaming eggs baked into a pie shape. Triangles were cut and set into plates, but neither touched them. Neither had the appetite when thoughts of Ava on that boat clouded everything else. Dimitri couldn’t even breathe. All the air had become a rusted, jagged lump of dread clogging his chest. He tried to swallow it down, tried to expand his lungs around it, but it remained firmly lodged in place until he couldn’t stand it anymore.