The Devil's Beauty (Crime Lord Interconnected Standalone Book 2) (43 page)

“I’d like to discuss your decision, sir. If … if you have time.”

Dimitri considered telling the kid to go back and enjoy the spread. There certainly wasn’t any rush for a decision, especially since Dimitri had no decision to make. But he was so determined, so fixed in his resolve that Dimitri relented.

He motioned Rusty to follow him out into the hall. He didn’t miss how he hesitated before following. They moved away from the door and stopped once they couldn’t be overheard.

“How old are you, Rusty?”

The boy shifted. He tugged on the loops of his dark jeans, smoothed the hem of his t-shirt over the waistband, elevated his weight from one foot to the other. Dimitri had never seen anyone so antsy.

“Eighteen, sir.”

Christ. Sir. He would never get used to that.

“And you have your own crew?”

He folded his arms, thought better of it, let his arms drop down to his sides. “Yes sir, since I was fifteen.”

Dimitri had never cared for gangs and their pack mentality. He’d always preferred to be alone. But, occasionally, they came in handy.

“Rusty, I’d like to employ you as my eyes and ears, if you’re up for the job.”

Rusty immediately ceased his fidgeting. He blinked dark eyes and stared a moment.

“Sir?”

Dimitri was as surprised as the kid by his own decision, but the more he thought about it, the better it sounded.

“You’re a smart kid,” he said. “I can use that.”

Something like hope sparked before it darkened into suspicion.

“I ain’t no rat,” Rusty said.

Dimitri shook his head. “No, nothing like that. I need someone to help me watch the streets, keep an eye out on those who can’t protect themselves, help me keep things … safe. I need someone to inform me if something is going on that shouldn’t be. In return, we’ll overlook what happened.”

He offered Rusty his hand.

Rusty eyed it a second, still wary. “I don’t have to do any special favors?”

Dimitri lowered his hand. “Special favors?”

Color rose in the boy’s cheeks. “Yeah, anything weird.”

“Uh…”

“My cousin Victor got caught stealing from this drug cartel and instead of chopping his hands off, Victor had to … do things for him. You know?”

Dimitri didn’t.

“Things,” Rusty stressed, eyes big. “Like be his bitch.”

“Oh!” Dimitri actually jerked back like the very idea physically struck him. “No! God!”

Rusty exhaled. “‘k, ‘cause I don’t do like that.”

“Me neither,” Dimitri muttered. “Just a watch out, that’s it.”

Rusty nodded. “‘aight.” He thrust out a hand. “You got a deal.”

Dimitri had just clapped his palm to the boy’s when his phone buzzed. He fished into his pocket and tugged it free.

“We keep this between us, yeah?” he told the boy.

Rusty scratched the back of his head and shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

Dimitri motioned him to head back before putting the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”

“Mr. Tasarov? It’s Frank.”

A frown stole over Dimitri’s features. “Ava okay?”

There was a long enough pause for Dimitri to hear the low whistle of traffic, the buzz of voices.

“Sir, there was an incident—”

“Where are you?”

He was already stalking to the elevator as Frank rattled off the address to Ava’s apartment. He ended the call and tried for a second to remember which direction the elevators were located. The damn floor was a maze of doors and empty rooms. It took some real deliberating to retrace his steps. He found them and stabbed the down button.

“Sir?” Penny appeared around the corner, cheeks flushed like she’d ran after him.

“Meeting’s over,” he told her, poking at the arrow button repeatedly like it might make the metal box arrive faster. “Call Saeed and tell him to meet me downstairs. Stay with Phil and the others until everyone’s gone and then find me at Ava’s apartment.”

She didn’t ask him where Ava’s apartment was. Either she already knew or she had her way of finding out. He was beginning to figure out that she was a whole lot more resourceful than Theresa had given her credit for. She had ways of finding things out and making things happen that was deeply impressive, and a bit frightening; if she ever wanted to take over, she probably could.

Saeed was waiting downstairs for him, standing in a no parking zone next to a giant, black SUV. He scrambled to yank open the backdoor as Dimitri sprinted down the stone steps of his new building. He climbed in and had the door shut behind him, trapping him in with the scent of new, clean leather. Saeed got in behind the wheel and started driving without being told where he was going. Dimitri guessed Penny had told him.

“I need to be there now, Saeed.”

The kid gave a jerk of his head. “You got it, boss.”

In the fifteen minutes it took to cross from one territory into the next, a trip that would have normally taken forty-five minutes, Dimitri came to realize the kid could drive anything. He had wondered if the size of the car would matter in maneuvering the city streets, but apparently not.

They only made it part of the way. The moment they got close enough, Dimitri saw it: smoke. Columns of it rose into the blue heavens, a black blossom staining the rooftops. Horns and sirens whistled from all directions. Traffic stood bumper to bumper for miles, trapping him almost eight blocks from where he needed to be.

“Fuck…” Saeed stressed, peering over and around, trying to find an opening. “Hold on, boss.”

Dimitri was given no time to brace himself when Saeed stomped on the gas, twisted the wheel and propelled the SUV off the road and onto the sidewalk. He barely had time to curse, before they swerved around a bus shelter and rocketed down a flight of stairs to a platform that leveled out and turned into an underground garage. His foot never lifted off the gas as he punched forward, turning and twisting the wheel to avoid concrete pillars, other cars, and people.

At the barricade, a man started climbing out of the booth, prepared to stamp their tickets, but Saeed crashed through the wooden beam, sending splinters in all directions and the man leaping back into the booth. He veered left and kept going.

“Jesus!” Dimitri exclaimed.

“Sorry, boss!” was all the response he got as their car zigzagged through oncoming traffic.

Other cars shrieked as they tried to get out of the way. Saeed never slowed, never so much as batted an eye at the dangerous game of chicken they seemed to be having.

At the intersection, he cut an entire fleet of cars off, jumped two wheels on the curb, twisted around the car in front of them and shot forward.

They arrived at Ava’s apartment with a squeal of tires and a punch of rubber that polluted the air. Dimitri jerked forward with the impact. He barely caught himself on the seat in front of him.

“I don’t know whether to give you a raise or kick your ass,” he mumbled.

Saeed grinned at him through the rearview mirror. “If you’re offering, a raise would be nice.”

Dimitri only shook his head as he climbed out.

The streets were overrun with parked firetrucks, police cars, and news vans. The air stank of gasoline, burnt flesh, plastic, and something he couldn’t put his finger on. Sulfur maybe. It permeated the late afternoon with an angry vengeance that seemed perfectly in place amongst the chaos.

The building and the three matching ones standing like a trio of sentinel had been evacuated and the once manicured front garden was crowded by frantic onlookers being forced back by police and yellow tape. No one seemed to notice him as Dimitri plowed his way through, gaze sweeping over faces for Ava’s. He marched over smoldering pieces of furniture and warped metal. His shoes crunched on shards of glass that was barely audible over the rising sobs. He called her name and his voice was snatched up by the gush of water and the shouts of the rescue crew barking orders.

In his ears, his heart thumped in tempo to the pound of water beating against what was left of Ava’s apartment. Now it was a jagged, black hole against a sheen of glass. His insides lurched, a sickening sensation of plummeting off a cliff without a harness into tremulous waters. He could almost feel himself striking the serrated teeth of the waves below.

He began to reach for his pocket, for his phone, not exactly sure Frank would be able to hear it over the chaos, but needing to try. Dimitri’s clammy fingers circled plastic. A frantic man slammed into him as he was pulling the phone out. The phone slipped from Dimitri’s grasp and disappeared back into his pocket. He muttered a curse and glanced back, but the man was already disappearing into the crowd, shouting for Irena. Whoever that was. He started turning in the direction he was headed when he spotted it, the row of ambulances parked along the road. Some were closing their doors, preparing to leave. Others were stationary, white and blue boxes with flashing red and blue lights.

He didn’t find Ava.

He found Frank.

The man was a full two feet taller than everyone else and stood in the open mouth of the second to last vehicle. His back was to Dimitri, but there was no mistaking him.

Dimitri ran. He didn’t even realize it until his feet were pounding on the concrete. He elbowed his way past cops and firemen alike and down the ring of steps to the street. He leaped over thick hoses and discarded manhole covers. His side burned as though someone was pressing a white, hot poker into his flesh. But the agony of it was the furthest thing from his mind.

“Ava!”

Somehow, over the sirens, the cries, shouts, and turmoil, she heard him. Her head poked out from around Frank’s massive bulk, her face a smudged streak of soot and tears. Her hair hung in a wild, filthy mess, but she was sitting up, a blanket draped around her shoulders and an oxygen mask in her hand. It dropped when she spotted him. The blanket was thrown off. She scrambled to her feet and he caught her when she catapulted herself into his arms.

“Ava.” His hand closed in her hair. The other clasped the back of her top. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, her face still buried in his shoulder. “Someone wired my apartment. It went off when I opened the door.”

Her words were in perfect English, English he understood clearly, but his brain was having an impossible time trying to decipher what she was telling him to what he needed desperately to hear.

He pulled back to take her face between his palms. He swiped at the grit clinging to her cheeks, smoothing a clean path with his fingers. His eyes searched hers, assessing for himself her wellbeing.

“You’re okay?”

She nodded. “I’m fine, but my apartment—”

He jerked her back to him, not giving a flying fuck about her apartment, not in that moment. In that moment, nothing mattered, except the physical presence of her, the warmth of her cheeks against his palms, her scent beneath the stink of smoke, her voice ringing clear and focused through all the other sounds.

He exhaled, just once, just to expel what was left lodged in his chest. Then, he kissed her, a man possessed with a need that trumped all other needs. She tasted like a fireplace and smelled like a campfire, but it didn’t matter.

He broke it a second later and rested his brow against hers. “You’re going to be the death of me,
myshka
.”

She actually smiled, an amused little quirk of her lips that sucker punched him in the stomach. “I’m sorry.” She tilted her chin up a notch and kissed him lightly. “I told Frank not to call you.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Your apartment getting blown up is a good reason to call, no?”

She said nothing.

He took that moment to brush back her matted hair, searching for injuries he might have missed. “But you’re okay?”

She nodded. Her smile faded.

“I’m okay.” She rubbed the tips of her fingers across her brow in frustration, leaving streaks of dirt with the assault. “Frank saved my life. He took the worst of it. I have a few bruises and my ribs won’t thank me in the morning, but they gave me aspirin and told me to ice them when I got home.” She barked a laugh that sounded mostly like a shaky sob. She waved a hand at the buildings behind him. “Kind of can’t though.” She sniffled. “Everything I owned, my entire life was in that apartment and it’s all gone.”

He glanced at the mess for the first time, really focusing outside his tunnel vision at the larger picture. He took in the chunks of granite lying strewn across the streets. A few had crushed cars with people still in them. Others had left craters in the asphalt. The heat from the explosion had blown out windows from the surrounding units and the shards lay in a glittering carpet that reflected the dance of fire and water. Law enforcement and rescue teams were hauling black garbage bags off to one side and lying them in rows while a cluster of reports stood a short distance talking rapidly into their cameras.

No, he realized with a jolt. Body bags. Rows upon rows of unmoving lumps being pulled from the rubble. Ava’s apartment was still a pillar of gleaming glass from base to stem before a black smudge identified hers. None of the other suites had been affected from what he could tell. But the explosion had caused mass panic below, forcing cars to swerve into shops and people to be impaled by debris. There were red smudges on pavement he hadn’t noticed before and people were walking around aimlessly while others sat openly weeping on the sidewalks. He hadn’t seen that kind of carnage in his entire life, which said something.