The Devil's Beauty (Crime Lord Interconnected Standalone Book 2) (6 page)

“It’s not true what they say, you know,”
he’d told her.
“You’re not really supposed to cry because it’s your party.”

Her head had come up and he was struck by a pair of enormous green eyes, the kind of green that reminded him of damp moss, clear and vivid, if not wet and slightly red around the edges.

She’d stared at him, bemused, and then did the oddest thing, she looked over her shoulder. There was no one else there. It was just them, hidden in the shadows of a game booth.

“Are you talking to me?”

The question had been so ridiculous, Dimitri had almost laughed.
“Are you supposed to be invisible?”

She’d sniffled and scrubbed at her face with the back of her hand.
“Do you know who I am?”

He did know. His mother had spoken of nothing else for months, not since the news that John Paul was getting married to some redheaded bitch. That hadn’t concerned Dimitri all that much. But it was the girl he’d been most interested in.

“Ava, isn’t it?”

Her lips had parted in surprise.
“You know?”

“Of course I know. It’s your party, isn’t it?”

That hadn’t been the right thing to say, because she had burst into tears, and it wasn’t delicate, girly sobs. She’d fallen apart like someone had run over her cat. Dimitri had almost abandoned ship and made a run for it. Almost. He’d begun to edge backwards when she raised her face from her hands and looked at him.

“I didn’t think anyone knew.”

He’d had no idea what he was supposed to say to that.

“What are you doing back here?”
  he’d asked instead.
“Shouldn’t you be out there, shaking all those presents?”

“I don’t know anyone out there,”
she’d whispered.
“They all think I’m weird and pathetic.”

“Because of the dress?”

It seemed like the correct answer. The monstrosity of fur and lacy was a disturbing shade of yellow that made him think of cat vomit. Plus, who wore fur in that kind of heat? A crazy person, clearly.

“What?”
She peered down at herself. Then back at him.
“My mother chose this dress. It’s a designer.”

A designer monstrosity, Dimitri thought, but kept it to himself.

“Why do they think you’re weird and pathetic?”

She lowered her gaze.
“Because I haven’t got any friends. Everyone here are the children of my stepfather’s friends. He invited them. I’ve never even met them before this.”

“I never would have guessed that,”
he’d told her honestly.
“My guess would be that you’re wearing that when it’s five hundred degrees without the humidity. Who wears a dress, with stockings, to a carnival?”

That had changed her face. She’d gone from miserable, to surprised, to furious in the blink of an eye. She’d lunged up to her feet and stood before him, fierce and mildly adorable.

“It’s a very important dress by a very important designer, and just who are you supposed to be? Why are you here?”

He’d begun to tell her when John Paul found them. He’d taken one look at Dimitri and gone rigid. His nostrils had flared. He’d grabbed Dimitri by the front of his shirt and demanded he leave at once and never return.

He had. He’d walked out of there without looking back.

Fifteen years later, he still wasn’t allowed near her. As children, it had been an almost sort of challenge to discover new and creative ways to disobey. As adults, he understood why it was important to keep away.

“Dimitri?”
Erik’s voice broke into his thoughts, reminding him he was still on the phone.

“It was fine,” he lied.

“Did you ask him?”

He’d considered it during his walk with John Paul to his office the night before. He’d studied the other man’s back the entire way and deliberated the best way to broach the subject. It just didn’t seem like the right time when he’d essentially broken into the man’s house, bled all over his floors, startled his guests, and disturbed an important celebration.

“No.” He tapped his fingers against the wheel. “Never got the chance to bring it up.”

Erik sighed, though Dimitri couldn’t be sure if it was out of relief, or disappointment.
“It really doesn’t matter, you know. I told you, you don’t need him. You have the Russians. You just secured the Colombians. You already have two of the biggest Syndicates in the city behind you, and once you get the south, John Paul’s vote won’t matter at all.”

He’d already done the calculations. The five chairs didn’t necessarily require all five votes to initiate a new member. With the north without a leader, that left only four seats in charge of his fate. He had negotiated his mother’s vote. As chair holder of the west, only she could vote him in. Finding Yolanda Huerta had earned him favor with the Colombians. It was left to win the south, or the mainland, and his father hated him too much to back him. That left Theresa Maynard and she was a power hungry shrew who would kill her own grandmother for money.

“Theresa won’t back me,” he mumbled to the empty car. “Neither will John Paul. I’m sitting at a tie.”

“Have you talked to her?”

“Would it make a difference?

“Do you know why your mother sends you to do the negotiating? Because if anyone can talk that woman into giving her vote, it’s you.”

That wasn’t it. Not getting the vote had never been the issue. He knew he could convince Theresa. But the challenge was getting John Paul. Dimitri may not have needed the French vote, but he wanted it. All his life, he’d turned the other cheek. He’d allowed himself to be pushed into the shadows without a fight and lived there, in the darkness, from the time he realized his own worthlessness. John Paul had done that. He had stripped Dimitri of his self-worth. He had abandoned him, shunned him, denied him. He had made Dimitri question himself, his life, his own existence.

“I’ll see you at home.”

He hung up before Erik could say anything further. He put the car into drive and pulled out of the parking spot.

It was a ten-minute drive from the inners of the city to the scorched remains of what had once been the glory of the former king. Even as a kid, Dimitri would bike up to the gates and sit there, wondering what it had to feel like to be the man everyone loved and feared. It had to be amazing.

Back then, it had been Killian’s father on the throne. Callum McClary had paved the road for his son to one day take the reins. He’d had the unwavering loyalty and respect of his people, and a kingdom that had been handed to him by his father before him. Maybe that made the entire line lazy, but each McClary had ruled with an efficiency and strength that would forever go down in history. It was all Dimitri had ever wanted. Not so much the power and wealth. But the acceptance. The being a part of something he could be proud of.

As eldest, Ivan had laid claim to their mother’s empire from infancy. For the rest of his life, Dimitri would be under the ownership of another person. He would be a nobody until the day he died. Taking that chair was his ticket to becoming the man he needed to be to help others. It was his chance to earn his place in the world, because wanting that seat had nothing to do with merely proving himself. It wasn’t about John Paul or his mother, or going down in history. He
needed
that seat for Yolanda, for all the children before her. He needed it for the men and women who worked themselves to the bone every day to feed their children only to have thugs rush their homes and take what little they had. It was for the empty stomachs of the children who dug in the trash for a scrap of something to eat only to be shooed away. John Paul lived in his ivory castle with his perfect family, his mother cared only when it served her. There was no one looking out for the lost souls swallowed up by the city.

But he would.

At the entrance, he fished out his phone from the drink holder and scrolled until he found the number he was searching for. He studied the series of numbers and the name etched just on top. He contemplated his next course of action. He dug into his consciousness, past the hurt, pain, and doubt, and focused on his training, on what he was good at—negotiating. Everyone had a price. Everyone could be bought. And it was his job to find out how much.

He hit dial.

The car buzzed as the line connected. Each ring echoed loudly in the fraught silence. He gripped the wheel tight, ignoring their clamminess around the leather.

“Hello?”

Part of him hadn’t expected an answer. The other part had prayed for it. When the voice broke through, he was momentarily rendered dumb.

“It’s me,” he blurted after John Paul had said hello for the second time.

There was silence on the other end and he wondered if the man was not sure who it was or if he was trying to decide if he should hang up.

“Is it your shoulder?”

The thing had been throbbing all morning, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t ignore. He’d had worse.

“No, it’s fine.”

“Good.”
John Paul cleared his throat.
“What do you need, Dimitri?”

There it was, the thread of annoyance woven tight around a wedge of disappointment. He had done his fatherly duty by inquiring about Dimitri’s shoulder. Now, he was ready to get off the line and go back to pretending he had no son.

“I wish for an audience.” Dimitri reminded himself he was a thirty-one-year-old man and this was just another negotiation. “There is something we need to discuss.”

“I don’t think there is,”
John Paul said almost immediately.
“I already told you—”

“You will see me.” He squinted hard at the blackened heap of concrete that had once been someone’s home. “You will want to hear what I have to say. I will be by your house in an hour.”

“No!”
There was no missing the anger that cracked through the warning.
“You will not come here.”
He paused, then added with great resignation,
“The pier in an hour.”

The line went dead.

Dimitri ended the call on his end, then sat there, staring at the ruins, while his mind decided what exactly he was going to tell the other man.

An hour later, he still had nothing. He pulled into an underground parking garage a block from the pier and listened to the odd hum of traffic vibrating along the concrete box. His heart was an uneasy creature skittering in his chest. His stomach was in knots. But when he stepped out, his expression was cool, confident. His strides were long and even. He had done this a million times and this was no different, he told himself the whole way.

John Paul was already there, a severe silhouette darkening the space around him. Rain had begun to fall in fat drops, leaving broken circles in the concrete. A few splattered over Dimitri’s face and ran down the collar of his coat, but they went unnoticed as he drew closer.

Murderous was the look on John Paul’s face when Dimitri joined him. Light, brown eyes were dark pits of rage, narrowed on a face that could have cut stone. He was practically vibrating with his anger.

“There had better be a very good reason for this,” he warned, stiff lips barely moving to spit out each word. “I do not like being summoned or commanded like some dog.”

“It wasn’t a command,” Dimitri said, voice carefully even. “It was a request, and I offered to come to you.”

“To my home.” Livid fury blazed across his eyes, illuminating them. “I allowed it last night because I couldn’t afford a scene, but you will not ever allow yourself entry there again. Is that clear?”

Battling back his own rising anger, Dimitri bunched his fists deep in the bowels of his pockets, allowing his blunt nails to cut into the heels of hands, redirecting his desire to punch the other man in the mouth.

“I will remember,” he bit out. “I have yet to forget your other … requests.”

A hint of color bled into John Paul’s face, but his gaze remained unwavering. “What do you want, Dimitri?”

“Your support,” he stated, deciding to simply put it out there. “I want the fifth chair.”

He could have announced he became a unicorn at night for the slack jawed expression his father gave him.