The Devil’s Beauty

©2016 by Airicka Phoenix

All rights reserved.

www.AirickaPhoenix.com

This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission of the copyright owner and/or the publisher of this book, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Cover Designer: Airicka’s Mystical Creations

Interior Design: Airicka Phoenix

Editor & Formatter: Katherine Eccleston

ISBN-13: 978-1492367321

ISBN-10: 149236732X

Published by Airicka Phoenix

Also available in eBook and paperback publication.

Also by Airicka Phoenix

TOUCH SAGA

Touching Smoke

Touching Fire

Touching Eternity

THE LOST GIRL SERIES

Finding Kia

Revealing Kia

REGENERATION SERIES

When Night Falls

THE BABY SAGA

Forever His Baby

Bye-Bye Baby

Be My Baby

Always Yours, Baby

SONS OF JUDGMENT SAGA

Octavian’s Undoing

Gideon’s Promise

CRIME LORD INTERCONNECTED SERIES

Transcending Darkness

STANDALONE

Games of Fire

Betraying Innocence

The Voyeur Next Door

My Soul For You

Kissing Trouble

ANTHOLOGY

Whispered Beginnings: A Clever Fiction Anthology

Midnight Surrender Anthology

Dedication

To all the girls who have ever loved a devil.

.

Chapter One

“There is still time to run, Ava.” The silk sash hissed as the precise knot was formed at the base of Ava’s spine. “Seriously, I’ll even get the getaway car. Just say the words.”

The offer was sweet and nothing less than what she would have expected from her eccentric and dramatic best friend.

“I’m fine.” She turned to the six-foot man watching her with the look most people got when going to the funeral of a loved one. “Really, you can stop worrying.”

Robert Rachiele pursed his lips. The muscles in his rugged jaw flexed with his uncertainty. His eyes, the soft color of damp grass, searched hers, flicking back and forth in morbid dejection. Any moment, she expected him to take her hand, pat it apologetically, and tell her he was sorry for her loss.

“I just feel like you’re doing this for the wrong reasons.”

“How is that possible?” She ducked around him quickly and moved to the velvet settee holding the rest of her outfit. “It’s not like I’m getting married to the guy. It’s only dinner.”

“A birthday dinner … with your parents,” he added with a disgusted twist of his lips. “That’s kind of a big deal, Avs.”

“How?”

“It’s dinner with your parents,” he repeated with great emphasis on each word. “And not just your parents. Everyone you know is downstairs. Lord knows what they’ll think of all this. They’re going to get the wrong idea.”

She flicked back a coil of auburn off her pale shoulder and twisted her chin over to glance back at him. “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. We’ve been together six whole months. I care about him.”

“And that’s the problem. You care about him.”

Snatching up her Jimmy Choos pumps in an elegant black, Ava turned back with them in hand. She balanced against the sofa with her hip and worked them onto her manicured feet.

“That makes no sense.”

“Yeah, it does. You care for him. I care for toilet paper, but I wouldn’t invite it to dinner.”

Ava shot him a disgusted glower. “That is a horrible analogy.”

“Maybe, but…” He knelt in front of her and helped with the straps. A wisp of pale gold flopped over his brow. “You’re not supposed to care about the guy you’re introducing to your parents. You’re supposed to love and adore him. You’re supposed to want him with a passion that leaves you breathless and a desire that makes you feel crazy if you don’t make him yours forever.” Task complete, he rose. His gray suit rustled. “I know you don’t feel that way about Patrick the Dick.”

“Of course I do!” She swatted at him. “And don’t call him that. Besides, I’m not really introducing him to my parents. John Paul is the one who introduced us.”

She twisted towards the mirror and busied her sweaty, trembling hands down the soft front of her sleeveless cocktail dress. The slinky material hugged the dips and hills of her curves in an elegant sweep. Lace panels lined the sides and the back, leaving the wearer no choice but to forgo undergarments. The mini hem clasped around her bare thighs, leaving her long, limber limbs exposed all the way to where the straps on her shoes began. Robby had done her hair. He’d scooped the heavy, auburn strands into a chic knot at the back of her neck. In all, she looked ready to attend a dinner party commemorating the start of what she hoped was her new life.

“I’m not trying to tell you this is a bad idea, but…” Robby set a tender hand on her shoulder. “Baby girl, this is a very bad idea.”

“It is not.” Drawing in a breath, Ava faced him. “I need to do this, Robby. Patrick isn’t … he’s not…” she broke off, realizing there was no way to fully explain the exact reason why Patrick was imperfectly perfect for her. “He’s good for me. He’s dependable and safe, and he has a good, strong future ahead of him.”

Robby’s eyes narrowed. His eyebrow lifted even as she stopped talking.

“Are you getting a man or a golden retriever? This is insane, Ava!”

“It’s not insane,” she protested, feeling the anxiety she’d been wielding back beginning to make a steady climb back up her chest in a molten flood of regret. “It’s only dinner, for Christ sakes. I’m not eloping with the guy. He’s been to John Paul’s parties before. Only now he’s going with me.” She paused to catch her breath and calm down. “Please, Robby. I am begging you to please just … do this with me. I really need you to have my back.”

He exhaled. His arms crossed over a magnificent chest, straining the sleeves of his green top around his bulging biceps. His nostrils gave an indignant twitch she recognized as a win for her before he let his arms drop back down at his sides and shook his head.

“Fine, but it’s under severe protest.”

She threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you.”

His shoulders rose and dropped. Hot breath that smelled of chocolate and mint bathed the side of her neck.

“I’ll never stop having your back, Avs,” he murmured. “But I really just … I wish you’d reconsider this.”

She pulled away from him and stalked to the high windows overlooking the gardens. The night was dismal. An angry knot of clouds had settled over the estate, occasionally spitting at the glass as though agreeing with Robby about her bad decisions. But what did it know? What did any of them know? How could they ever understand just how important tonight was?

“Everything is going to change with this party,” she told her weary reflection.

It stared back at her, doubtful, forlorn, slightly exhausted, a hollow little girl locked behind a sheet of damp glass. But there was determination in the tension of her shoulders, in the set line of her mouth. She would go into the fight and she would win, or die trying.

“All right.” Robby’s reflection joined hers in the dark pane. “Let’s go make bad choices.”

Ava faced him, moved by the strength of his friendship. It was the one thing she knew with an absolute certainty that rivaled all else. No matter what turn her life took, Robby had always been a constant. For that, she would move heaven and earth for him in return. She would kill for him without hesitation. There was no doubt in her mind of that.

She set her hand on his forearm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I love you,” she told him.

An eyebrow lifted. “Just how much bail money am I going to have to come up with for tonight?”

Ava wrinkled her nose. “That’s not what I meant.”

“You’re right.” He puffed out a dramatic breath. “I’m just going to be in there with you anyway. We might need to bring John Paul into this. He’s the one with deep pockets.”

She rolled her eyes and started to turn away.

He caught her hand, stopping her. “I love you, too, turd.”

Her laugh tangled with his. “How could I ever doubt it? Come on.” She squeezed his fingers. “Let’s get this over with.”

Mood slightly lifted, Ava tugged him through the doors of her childhood bedroom. His wide strides had to be shortened to accommodate her dainty, restricted ones, but they made their way down to the lavish main floor of her mother’s extravagant estate. The low hum of chatter and music drifted up the grand staircase in a steady stream. Ava had spent the majority of her youth descending those very steps to that very sound. It was as familiar to her as her own heartbeat. The only difference was her own lack of enthusiasm. It wasn’t very often she brought a man home. The only one that ever had that honor was Robby. Ava wasn’t in the habit of jumping the gun and being proven wrong. Patrick would never have seen the inside of the Morel foyer if it weren’t important.

“You ready for this?”

Ava glanced at her best friend, at the beautiful lines that made his perfect features, and exhaled. “As I’ll ever be.”

He extended her his elbow and she accepted it with a clammy hand. Together, they descended into the crowd.

Built in the nineteenth century, the structure was a glorious splendor of Tudor and Goth architecture that had been upgraded as the era had changed. As a little girl, Ava had felt like a princess walking through the maze of ivory, marble, and gleaming wood. Every bend, nook, and cranny had been an adventure and she had gone wild with her imagination. There wasn’t a cupboard she hadn’t explored, no curtain that hadn’t been utilized as a cape. She had loved that house with a passion most ten year olds would have shown a new doll. She still did. It was her sacred haven. The place nothing bad could ever touch her. Not because of its ten-foot-high privacy walls, or iron gates. It was because of the man who owned it. The only other person besides Robby who had ever loved her simply because.

He stood with her mother amongst a sea of faces, a dashing sight in his form fitting tux, bow tie, and gold cufflinks. His once dark hair had begun to streak with gray at the temples and there were deep creases fanning out at the corners of his golden eyes, but John Paul was as handsome now as he had been all those years ago when she’d first met him in the open doorway of that very house. He’d been wearing slacks then and a heavy, wool sweater in gunmetal gray. He had stood there, snow drifting down around them, eyes contemplative as he studied her, this wary little thing in a red coat. She remembered thinking he was about to tell her what all her mother’s … friends, had told her, why don’t you go along and explore. Even as a nine-year-old, she had known what that meant; she wasn’t wanted around. But John Paul had narrowed his eyes, then, to her surprise, he’d knelt down so they were eyelevel.

“You must be Ava.” He’d extended her one slender hand, palm open, long fingers stretched to her. “I’ve been expecting you.”

He’d taken her inside, helped her out of her coat, and spent that entire afternoon talking to her. No one had ever done that. She had never been the center of anyone’s attention. But he had made her feel like maybe she really mattered.

She’d loved him ever since.

Next to him was her mother, a dainty thing in a poppy red Armani. Her auburn curls were pulled back from her pixie features to show off the cluster of diamonds circling her delicate throat and dripping from her ears. She hung on John Paul’s arm while they chatted to the couple Ava didn’t recognize. Whatever the conversation was about, her mother looked thrilled. John Paul mildly amused.

“I’m going to find Patrick,” she told Robby. “He should have arrived—”

“Ava!”

The man in question broke out of the crowd, the picture perfect imitation of success in his designer tux and artistically styled hair. He peered at Ava with a smile that could have doubled as spotlights. Each tooth glinted with its own light and drew the eye to the dimples indenting either side of his cleanly shaven face and the hard cut of his slanted jaw.

There was very little not perfect about him. At a glance, he was a specimen of a man, fit, gorgeous, rich, and influential. His father owned one of the largest boxed desserts companies in the north, or neatly packaged diabetes, as Charlotte liked to call it, and Patrick was set to take over the moment his father stepped down. Ambition and unwavering drive were the backbones of Patrick’s entire existence.

“There you are. I was beginning to think you’d forgotten me.” Blue eyes the perfect shade of a summer sky darted to Robby. “Rachiele.”

Robby said nothing, but the look on his face stated very clearly that he wished Patrick had been run over by a car, or a herd of elephants.

“Sorry,” Ava said. “I was just getting ready.” She looked him over. “You look very nice.”

Patrick tugged on the lapel of his coat. “Bought this new for the occasion.” He gave her a grin that suggested they shared some intimate secret. “Wanted to look my best.”

“It’s very lovely.”

Pleased, Patrick glanced at Robby once more. He looked the other man over, taking in the dark jeans, the boots that had seen better days, and the faded, green t-shirt with surprised interest.

“Robby doesn’t do tuxes,” Ava explained.

That only seemed to make Patrick uncomfortable. He shifted on the spot and quickly glanced away.

“It’s a really good turn out,” he decided. “I thought I saw the mayor earlier.”

“Probably.” Ava chuckled. “He and John Paul play golf on the weekends sometimes.”

Patrick cleared his throat. He tugged at his lapel again, but with less finesse.

“So, do you know all these people?”

She glanced at the familiar faces around them and nodded. “Most of them.”

That only seemed to amplify his nervousness. His fidgeting increased. The restless shuffling from foot to foot was beginning to make her sweat.

“Is something wrong?”

His palms made a sweaty, squeaky sound when he rubbed them together. “No, I’ve just never been this close to so many important people.” He flashed her a pained smile that only intensified her unease. “It’s a bit nerve wracking.”

For Ava, she’d been around influential people all her life. It wasn’t uncommon for the mayor to stop in for supper or some foreign diplomate to spend the night. The novelty of it had never affected her. But she could see how it could make someone as ambitious as Patrick sweat.

“It’ll be all right,” she assured him. “You’ll see.”

“Haven’t you been to a hundred of these things?” Robby cut in.

Patrick flushed. “Yes, but not … not like this.” His blue eyes shifted to Ava and back. “Feels different.”

Releasing Robby, Ava slid up next to Patrick and touched his arm. It was meant to reassure, but he jumped like she’d waved a live snake in his face. The unexpected jolt had her snatching her hand back.

“Sorry! Christ. I’m so sorry! I don’t … I don’t know why I did that.”

Not willing to risk another slap down, Ava didn’t reach for him again. But she offered him a comforting smile.

“Why don’t we get some drinks? Calm our nerves?”

“Not me,” Robby muttered. “I’m going to find the food.” He turned his gaze to Ava. “You’ll be all right?”

Assuring him she’d be fine, Ava waved him off, waited until he was out of sight before facing Patrick.

“We don’t have to do this,” she told him. “It really isn’t anyone’s business anyway.”

He looked so miserable that she couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. He reminded her of a beaten dog and all she wanted to do was pet his head and tell him he was such a good boy. That was probably not the type of reaction a girlfriend was supposed to have when their man was in the dumps, but she really was no better at all this than he was.

“No, I’m all right.” He straightened his shoulders and peered around the room. “Did you want to make the rounds, or…?”

Ava was trying to make up her mind when her mother caught sight of them in the doorway and her expression blossomed into one of pure delight.

“There she is!” Her mother’s girlish squeal cut into the hum of chatter like a butcher’s blade. It made everyone give a jolt of surprise.

She broke away from John Paul and drifted over to them with a grace that always gave the impression she was floating inches off the floor. Her pale arms shot out and closed around Ava’s neck in a suffocating embrace of woman and floral perfume.

“You look beautiful, darling!” Charlotte breathed, pulling back to inspect the dress she herself had picked out for the evening. “I just knew that dress was for you.”

“Thank you, Ch … Mom.”

It was never clear how Charlotte would react to the M word. For the first half of her life, Ava was introduced to people as Charlotte’s niece, or a friend’s daughter. Ava had been given strict directions never to use the dreaded M word in public.

“I’m not old enough for that,” Charlotte would say.

John Paul had put a stop to that as soon as their relationship had gone public, just a week after the ink had dried on the divorce papers to husband number four. Ava had already been nine by that point, too old for such a drastic change, but she had done it—grudgingly—for his sake. Her mother had embraced the new reality of being a public mother as she did her beauty regiment—with grace, a martini, and two valiums. But it had turned out in her favor, because everyone applauded her for having a twenty-five-year-old daughter and still managing to look so young. Life was rainbows and sunshine once more.

John Paul joined them. His hand automatically went to the small of her mother’s back.

“You look lovely, Ava,” he said in the fluid lilt of a French diplomate.

She offered him a smile in thanks.

He glanced past her to Patrick, who looked seconds away from vomiting on his own shoes. “Carmichael?”

“Yes sir?” His voice only squeaked a little, but the green tinge had begun to climb up his throat to taint his cheeks.

“Everything all right?”

His throat muscles worked rapidly, like he was trying to swallow a large chunk of rubber. “Yes sir.” He squared his shoulders like that might help with the sweat that had begun to gather across his brow. “Congratulations … no! Wait … uh…” He squeezed his eyes shut tight, gave his head a little shake as though to clear it. “To you.” He gestured at Ava. “Congratulations … I mean, happy birthday.”

She started to reach for him again, but quickly caught herself. She offered him a sympathetic smile instead.

“Why don’t you get us drinks, hm?”

His shoulders lifted and dropped, possibly in relief, but he inclined his head in an almost bow before turning and practically bowling his way out of sight.

“He’s very nervous,” Ava said once he was gone. “I don’t think he understood the implications when I suggested we … go public.”

“It’s adorable,” Charlotte decided. “Being nervous just shows he cares.”

John Paul nodded slowly. “I was extremely nervous when I met your mother.”

“You were not!” Charlotte scolded him playfully. “I have never met a more confident man. You were shameless.”

“Only on the outside, love,” he assured her smoothly.

Ava cut in quickly before the pair could start kissing. “Would you mind talking to him? Maybe introduce him to some people and get him comfortable?”

John Paul turned his attention back to her. His gaze lifted over her head to where Patrick had disappeared.

“I suppose, but—”

“Thank you! I just—”

“Ava!” Myrtle Pearson bustled over, a short, round, pasty thing in a puffy princess dress and tiara. Her arms swung around Ava’s middle, nearly taking them both to the ground. “Happy birthday, darling!”

Stubbornly keeping her expression fixed in one of delight, Ava beamed and patted her lightly on the back in return, trying not to notice how clammy she was.

“Hello Mrs. Pearson! How are you?”

“Dreadful.” The woman immediately pulled back. “Have you heard the news? It’s dreadful.”

“The news…?”

“Perhaps we should save that for later—?”

John Paul’s suggestion went completely ignored, now that the woman was on a roll and had a captive audience.

“The Attaway’s were robbed last weekend,” Mrs. Pearson rushed on in a loud, conspiratorial whisper. “During their anniversary dinner. I wasn’t there, of course. Princess, that’s my Yorkie, was a bit under the weather, poor thing. The thief broke right into Bill Attaway’s office safe and made off with everything. Then left behind his signature red rose and the card with the D on it. Can you imagine? The Devil has struck again!”

“That’s terrible…” But even as the words escaped her out of habit, Ava’s gaze darted to John Paul’s. They were both thinking the same thing, but neither of them could say a word. “Are the Attaway’s all right?”

“Well, they won’t be throwing another party any time soon, if that’s what you mean, but they’ll recover. Mostly what was taken, from what I hear, were bundles of money, some jewels, and a few other useless things. Nothing that can’t be replaced.”

“Good,” she whispered. “That’s good. I’ll be sure to call Mrs. Attaway and see if she needs anything.”

Mrs. Pearson beamed, showing a smudge of bright, red lipstick on her two front teeth. “You’re a darling girl, Ava love. But this is exactly the type of thing that happened last month at the Livingston’s gala, and the Goldberg’s the month before that…” she trailed off, some type of realization beginning to dawn across her doughy face. “It’s a bit of a routine, isn’t it? Do you suppose the police know about this?”

“I’m sure they do,” John Paul assured her. “They are the police after all. It’s their job.”

Mrs. Pearson nodded slowly, her expression determined. “I’d better let them know, just in case.”

She was already digging into her purse when she turned away.

Ava shot John Paul a panicked glance, urging him silently to do something without alerting her mother.

“Mrs. Pearson?” He lightly took her arm. “Would you like to dance?”

The other woman blinked. “Oh, but I should—”

“It can wait.” He gave her most charming smile. “It’s a party after all and I would very much love a dance with you.”

“Oh!” Cheeks pinkening, Mrs. Pearson glanced hurriedly at Charlotte. “Would you mind?”

Her mother, having already spotted a group of her frenemies, had to work extra hard to focus on the question. “Hm? Oh, no, not at all.” She smiled widely. “I’ve just seen someone I must catch up with. I’ll see you in a bit, love,” she told John Paul.

Then she was gone. John Paul was hauled off to the next room where the band had been instructed to play all of Ava’s favorite melodies, all of which had been converted from hard rock to classical. She hadn’t thought it was possible and yet … but the important thing was that Mrs. Pearson had been properly diverted off mentions of The Devil. While the police had probably figured out something so simple, Ava wasn’t about to give them further assistance on the matter than necessary.

“These bits of cheese taste like rubber.” Robby appeared at her elbow, cheeks stuffed. “But they’re like mini squares of crack.” He popped two more bits of canapé into his already bloated mouth from the small heap on the plate he held.

“Are you really going to eat all that?”

Robby blinked. He garbled something that had wet bits of cracker spraying out.

“Ew!” Ava laughed. “Chew your food.”

He glowered at her, but said nothing else.

It was around that time she realized Patrick hadn’t returned. Normally, such a thing wouldn’t cause concern, but given his behavior earlier, she figured she ought to at least attempt to find him.

“Can you help me find Patrick?”

Mouth mostly empty, Robby looked up from the snack he was inspecting and raised an eyebrow. “Have you lost him already?”

“I haven’t lost him,” she argued. “I’m just worried he’s…”

“What? Hidden himself in a closet?”

Ava frowned at him. “Will you just help me find him, please?”

“Fine, but if he is in a closet, I am totally posting that on Facebook.”

Rolling her eyes, Ava turned and headed in the direction Patrick had taken, pausing every few steps to thank someone for coming or accept a birthday greeting. A few stopped to ask if she’d heard the news about the Attaway’s, or about the string of other burglaries that had been taking place almost frequently since … the incident.

“I’m telling you,” Abigail Sinclair hissed at her husband. “It’s all been going rampant since what happened.”

As short as his wife was tall, Howard Sinclair pursed his fat lips in defiance. “That’s ridiculous. Crime has always been a thing of concern, even before his death.”

It was apparently an argument they’d had before, but now they realized they had a new, third party to assault with their bickering.

“What do you think, Ava?” Abigail demanded, peering at Ava with that long, narrow face of hers.

“I think…” She cleared her throat. “I really don’t have much of an opinion on the matter, honestly.”

“Of course you don’t,” Howard broke in. “It’s nasty business that was. The man was a criminal. He got what was coming to him.”

“An alleged criminal,” Abigail squawked. “He was a hero.”

“The man massacred twenty people.”

“Christ, Howard, it’s bad luck to talk about death at a birthday party!” Abigail cried, gray eyes enormous in her horror.

“You brought it up, Abigail!” Howard shot back. “The man’s been dead two bloody months. I don’t think it even counts as a real death anymore.”

“Of course it counts,” Abigail argued. “The man is dead. It’s a horrible tragedy.”

“He was rather an important person,” Ava piped in. “People respected him.”

“Yeah, for a criminal.” Howard snorted. “Ever met him?”

It had been years ago and only for a few seconds as he was leaving John Paul’s office, but Killian McClary had been the type of man women remembered vividly. Both gorgeous and terrifying, he’d done no more than incline his head in polite acknowledgement, but it had simultaneously made Ava want to giggle and run for cover. The conflicting emotions had been severely daunting for a seventeen-year-old.

“Once,” she admitted. “He seemed nice.”

Howard huffed as though she’d just insulted everything he stood for. “Nice,” he grumbled. “He was a murderer was what he was.”

Ava swallowed back her laugh. “He was never convicted of any crimes. Besides, I don’t know if I disagree with the things he allegedly did.”

Abigail beamed. She shot her husband a haughty smirk that was met with his face growing splotchy with color.

“You mean brutally slaughtering twenty people?”

“Allegedly!” Ava stressed. “He was never even questioned.”

Howard snorted into the rim of brandy glass. “Doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. I mean, we all know he did.”

Ava opted to let it drop. Conversations like that always led to her asking, so what if he did? So what if a bunch of even worse criminals are dead. I think he was a hero. Not everyone agreed with her philosophy. They didn’t understand that sometimes evil was required to fight evil, because, in her society, the people in it enjoyed their blissful ignorance. They relished in the knowledge that the really bad things only happened to people just on the other side of Harrison River. People like her, good people with fat portfolios and Jimmy Choo shoes would never associate with the riffraff that called the underbelly home. All any of them knew was that there were unpleasant ripples in the water and they were all children, playing much too close to a sink hole. No one knew what to do, nor were they clever enough to pull away.

There weren’t many who would agree with her. Most would argue the law and who had the power to take another man’s life, but Ava wasn’t so sure the law was as black and white as that. Powerful men dodged justice every day. Bad men. The cancers of the world. So what if someone made them pay for their crimes when the courts turned a blind eye? Sometimes, it was necessary.

But maybe a lot of that mindset came from the fact that the man Ava loved more than anything was a member of that shadowy world. Not many knew, not even her mother, but Ava wasn’t so lost in her own needs not to recognize her stepfather for what he truly was. So, by condemning the city’s organized crime, it always felt like she was condemning him and that was inconceivable.

“I should actually go.” She began to dodge around the pair still bickering about the rights and wrongs of the world. “But it was lovely to see you both.”

She made her escape before either of them had a chance to react. She hurried through the room and back out into the hallway, gaze scanning every face for some signs of Patrick.

She was just beginning to think maybe he’d gone home when she spotted him. He stood in the midst of a group of men well into their fifties, chatting on as though they’d been friends for ages. Ava recognized most of them as judges and a couple of lawyers. She knew them by face, but their names completely escaped her. She opted to leave him there.

“Ava.” Her mother appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Ava felt the woman’s claws sink into her arm before she was there, propelling Ava from the room. “What are you doing?”

Dislodging her limb from the death grip, Ava faced Charlotte. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re just standing there, lost to the world … slouching!” Charlotte sucked in a quick, calming breath. “That is an original Valentino gown, Ava. You do not slouch in an original Valentino gown! What are you thinking?”

“I wasn’t slouching.” She totally was. She knew she was. But she’d never mastered the ability to shove a stick that far up her own ass to keep it from happening. “I’ll stop.”

“Do!” Charlotte’s nostrils flared. “And mingle, for Christ sakes. This is your party.”

Ava’s posture was the bane of her mother’s existence, along with a lengthy list of other imperfections, but her inability to remain straight-backed all night was the current topic of mortification for Charlotte Morel.

It never made sense to Ava why John Paul married the woman. There really wasn’t a more selfish person on the face of the planet, yet he’d put up with her for an astonishing fifteen years and he’d done it without losing his mind. That alone earned him Ava’s respect. He was clearly far stronger than she ever was. Her goal the first eighteen years of her life had been to get as far away from her mother as possible. She had saved every penny she came across, building a large enough nest to take her somewhere her mother wouldn’t be. It had all been meticulously planned until it wasn’t.

On her eighteenth birthday, she had lapsed into a false sense of unrealistic expectations that had cost her more than her plans. She had foolishly allowed herself a reason to stay, had embraced it for all it was worth, had cherished it and urged it to grow as high as any girl could allow those feelings to grow. But it failed her as those things usually did. She had, in those moments, actually believed she was worthy of another person’s affections and wound up waking up to an empty bed and no explanation. But it was that push that sent her packing that very day and leaving for Paris for a year. Then Australia, and finally returning two and a half years later a different person. Ava regretted nothing, except that she’d allowed her plans to be detoured in the first place.

She never would have returned. The occasional holiday visit was enough for her. Plus, John Paul flew out every month for a week or a weekend. It had all been fine, until the accident.

The memory still sent a cold chill through her. It was the singular most traumatic moment of her life. She would never forget picking up her mother’s call and hearing the hysterical woman tell her John Paul had been in an accident and was in the hospital. Ava couldn’t even recall the rest of the conversation. She might have dropped the phone or hung up. It was all a blur as she had left work without notice and caught the first flight back home, not even bothering to stop at her apartment for clothes.

It had taken twenty-five hours to get to him. Twenty-five hours of fretting and praying and crying. She had been as hysterical as her mother by the time she’d crashed through the hospital doors. But it was those hours that convinced her she was too far. Those were hours that she could have lost him. It didn’t even matter that her mother had over exaggerated the diagnoses, that the car had barely tapped the back of John Paul’s. It was the fact that he could have died while she was waiting for the stupid plane to fly faster.

She’d packed up her apartment in Sydney a month later and moved back. She got a job at Chaud, a fashion and health magazine as an editor, an apartment a block from John Paul’s estate, and started her life in the city she’d grown up in. She didn’t regret that either.

“So, I didn’t find your boy toy.” Robby was back, a fresh plate of canapé’s in hand. “But they have these new crab things that I swear melt—”

Ava gawked, astounded. “Did you seriously go to get more food?”

Robby paused in the midst of stuffing another hors d’œuvre into his mouth. “This isn’t food. This is like … okay, don’t judge. I’m starving.” He shoved the cracker into his mouth and chewed. “So, what are we doing?”

Ava shrugged. “Just standing here, trying not to slouch.”

“Huh.” He swallowed. “Your mom was by, eh?” He offered her his plate. “I have crabs.”

Ava burst out laughing. It was a loud, horrible sound that rang over the chatter, the music, and the low snickers from Robby. Heads turned. Conversations stopped. Ava only laughed harder. It was mortifying, because unlike normal girls with their adorable giggles, Ava had a laugh too big for her size. It drew attention no matter where she was and she fought like hell to contain it, but Robby always thought it was hilarious and did his best to poke one out of her every chance he got.

“I hate you!” she wheezed, struggling to contain herself.

Robby merely smirked and shoved another canapé into his mouth.

John Paul appeared at Robby’s elbow, slightly more rumpled than normal. He glanced sideways at Robby’s chipmunk cheeks, raised an eyebrow, then must have decided it wasn’t worth asking, because he turned straight back to Ava.

“She’s very handsy for someone so short.” He rolled his shoulders as though to shake off the phantom touches of Mrs. Pearson’s hands. “Kept insisting it was because she couldn’t reach higher.”

“I’m sorry.” Ava struggled to contain her giggles. “But it was for a good cause.”

John Paul sniffed, the closest he’d ever gotten to a snort. “Debatable.”

“What’s happened?” Robby glanced from one to the other. “What did I miss?”

She was about to tell him. Her mouth opened and words collected when the entire room inexplicably went silent. The air thickened in an odd sort of hum that resonated through the crowd of onlookers. A faint rustle collected as bodies turned, heads swiveled, and attentions were pivoted away from conversations to The Devil in the doorway.

Chapter Two

He bathed in shadows. Every strip of it seemed to wind around his powerful frame, bending to him like a lover’s embrace. They parted like drapes on a stage to expose the beauty of the man they concealed with deft precision. His allure was both dark and devastating. His aura a steady pulse of unwavering power and strength.

He had his father’s eyes. They were the eyes of a jungle predator, a deep gold that cut across the room of curious onlookers and found Ava’s with a single minded determination only he seemed to possess, as though nothing in the entire room mattered, except finding her. In them, they held the power to bring time, sound, and space to a crashing standstill. The very world around them vanished with that single merger of gazes and Ava tumbled. Her mind was scrubbed clean of all wants and needs, except the ones he evoked. His seemingly limitless hold on her had not swayed in the years they’d been apart, and nothing had terrified her more.

He was the embodiment of his name.

“Dimitri.” His name breathed from her lips.

The Devil stepped over the threshold, fifteen feet from Ava, but still so close she could smell the decedent lace of sandalwood and amber of his favorite cologne. It was a scent she knew better than her own. She used to wake with it clinging to her skin and sheets, along with the primal aftermath of a night spent in a tangle of hot, writhing limbs and greedy desperation. Just the fragrance alone was enough to bring back a flood of memories she wasn’t equipped to handle in a room full of watchful eyes. She fumbled for composure and could feel her resolve breaking, her nerves jittering. Christ, she was falling apart.

Her knuckles bleached white at her sides. Her heart drummed with a ferocity that reverberated throughout her entire being. It was beyond her how he could still wield that level of power over her, but he did.

“Dimitri?” John Paul took a step forward.

Dimitri released Ava from his scrutinizing stare and focused on the older man. “I was in the neighborhood.”

The words rolled through the room in a beautiful rumble of rolling r’s and a masculine growl. His faint accent only made it harder to ignore the fact that he was every bit as gruff and wild. His voice had deepened since they were kids. It had thickened so it seemed to vibrate from deep within his chest cavity. Ava hadn’t heard it in years, but the memory of his husky demands in her ear at night, the vibration of his chest against hers, the warm whisper of his breath against her skin were all vivid in her mind. Too vivid.

He shifted his weight, a subtle movement that, to anyone else, would have been nothing more than an adjustment of his shoulders, but Ava saw it. Her heart slammed into her stomach.

“He’s hurt.” She said it low, just loud enough for John Paul to hear her.

He shot a glance at her, a brief flick of his gaze before he was facing the man across the room once more. “Let’s head into my office.”

Dimitri didn’t protest the request. He waited with the same stoic expression as John Paul crossed the room and joined him in the corridor. Together, they disappeared from sight.

Robby broke the silence that followed. “What just happened?”

The buzz had regained through the room. Curiosity punctuated with questions and glances at Ava that she ignored.

“I need to go,” she whispered to no one in particular.

But she grabbed Robby’s hand and dragged him along with her through the maze of rooms, down the seemingly endless corridors. Her heels clacked in sync with the tempo of her pounding heart. It was his turn to run to keep up.

“Ava, what—?”

“Don’t ask questions,” she warned him. “Promise me.”

Robby frowned. “But what—?”

She skidded to a halt and faced him, her chest rising and falling rapidly against the front of her dress. “I’m about to trust you with the most important thing in my life, the biggest secret I have ever kept, and I am trusting you because you are my best friend and I need your help.”

The crease between his brows deepened. More lines appeared at the corners of his mouth. His gaze shot past her to the hallway leading to John Paul’s office, then back down to her.

“Tell me who that was first.”

His hand slipped from her grasp. She took a step back and his eyes narrowed.

“I can’t. I can’t tell you anything.”

“But you want me to trust you.” It wasn’t a question.

Ava nodded. “Yes.”

Robby searched her face, longer and more scrutinizing than ever before. Finally, he gave a nod, a silent confirmation. Ava exhaled the breath she’d been holding. She took his hand once more and led him the rest of the way.

She’d been right. The stench of copper greeted them the moment the office doors were opened. It was thick and powerful, and tinged with a potency that made her stomach churn. Her fingers slipped from Robby’s a second time and she ran to the man slumped on the sofa, eyes closed, naked chest a smear of crimson dripping from the hole in his shoulder.

“Dimitri.”

Heavy lashes lifted and she was caught in the gold pools resting against a face set in a grim determination. His features had changed in their time apart. They’d filled to become the face of a man, the face that had seen things no one should ever see. There were scars that hadn’t been there before, thin, white slivers over his left brow, nicking the top right corner of his mouth, digging deep into the hollow of his right cheek. But he had never been more beautiful. His imperfections gave the Devil an almost angelic beauty that made her chest hurt.

“Leave.”

The single command gouged into her gut with talons tipped in serrated metal and tore out her insides. But she steeled herself, berated herself.

She ignored him and turned to John Paul. “Let Robby look at him.”

John Paul, a bottle of vodka in one hand, a first aid kit in the other, paused to eye the man hovering by the open door.

Robby stood motionless, away from the group. His expression a tense line mirroring his shoulders. He switched his attention from Ava to John Paul, and settled on Dimitri with a dour suspicion.

“I’m not doing anything until someone explains what’s going on.”

Ava stiffened. “You promised.”

There was none of Robby’s usual gentleness now. This was a side of him Ava had never seen before.

“That was before I was being asked to patch up a bullet hole, which is illegal to do without reporting it to the police. So, before I jeopardize my residency for a complete stranger, I want to know who he is and why he has a hole in his shoulder.”

Ava looked to John Paul for answers. This situation lay beyond her area of expertise. She had never had to explain Dimitri before. He had been her and John Paul’s secret for the last fifteen years. In all truths, he wasn’t even really her secret. Not anymore.

“Dimitri’s my son.”

Three little words and it was out there. There was now a forth in their lie. Granted, of the bigger picture, Dimitri’s origins were probably the least troublesome.

“Son?” Disbelief dripped from the single question. It was followed by a raised eyebrow. “Since when do you have a son? I’ve known Ava for five years.”

“It’s complicated to explain,” John Paul elucidated.

Robby looked to Ava. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted to,” she insisted, guilt knotting her insides. “I really did, but I—”

“Could we not let the man on the sofa bleed to death?” Dimitri growled through clenched teeth.

Ava turned back to Robby. “Please, Robby. I will explain the best I can, but…”

Robby peered down at Dimitri, expression wary, but annoyed. “I want the whole truth, understand?”

Ava hesitated.

“Yes,” said John Paul. “You have my word.”

Robby bobbed a nod. He reached for the first aid kit and the bottle of alcohol. He passed the latter to Dimitri.

“You’re going to need this.”

They never showed on TV just how gruesome, how exhausting tending a bullet wound really was. They didn’t show how messy and, even though it was only his shoulder, how terrifying. Ava, who had never done more than slap on a Band-Aid, found herself elected as Robby’s nurse. It became her job to hold the towel over the hole and not squirm when hot blood soaked through. It was her job to thread the curved, fish hook needle and not throw up when it was pierced through Dimitri’s flesh.

But she didn’t barf. Instead she was blinking back the dull fingers of darkness threatening to take her under.

“Scissors … Ava!”

It took her several woozy moments to think past the fog and focus on Robby’s voice. Apparently, he’d made the same request six times before shouting at her.

“Sorry.”

She found the small, hooked tool and stuffed them into Robby’s palm.

The bloody bit of threads was snipped. The end still poking out of Dimitri was twisted into a loose knot. The area was cleaned with a wet nap. A gauze was slapped down over the neat row of stitching and it was over.

Ava exhaled, sweaty and shaky. “God, how do you do that every day?”

Robby rose from his crouch next to the sofa, stretched, and turned to her. “Don’t get comfortable. We need to do the other side.”

The bullet had gone through—a clean exit, Robby had called it. It hadn’t occurred to Ava that meant two wounds. That knowledge filled her with the urge to burst into tears.

Nevertheless, she bit the tears back and set to work handing and dabbing and threading. It wasn’t as hard as the first time. Once she let her mind go to another place, it was fairly easy.

What amazed her afterwards was how still and silent Dimitri had been through the whole ordeal. Maybe he’d been meditating or maybe he’d fallen asleep, but he blinked his eyes open when it was over as if nothing had happened.

John Paul took that moment to return from entertaining the party guests. It was the only way to ensure Charlotte wouldn’t come searching if they were all missing. He glanced from Robby to Dimitri, who looked only mildly ashen.

“Finished?” he asked Robby, who was in the process of snapping off the bloody, rubber gloves.

“Yup.”

Dimitri rose. He peered down at the square bit of cotton contrasting harshly with the smooth, taut skin of his tanned torso. Then twisted his chin to squint at the one on the back of his shoulder.

Ava took that moment to study him as well, to take in the work of art he kept hidden beneath dark t-shirts and loose cargo bottoms. His body hadn’t changed much from what she remembered of it. It was fuller, maybe. The width of his shoulders seemed broader, the muscles on his arms thicker. There were more tattoos cut into him than before. The three he’d had eight years ago had become a dizzying aura of colors, shapes, patterns, words, and images. They all ran together in a story she had a feeling could fill a book about the man standing before her. Part of her wondered if she was on there somewhere. If she’d made it onto his skin. If their year together had meant enough to him to want to remember it forever. It was foolish and she immediately scolded herself for going there. It had taken her years to move past what he’d done. This moment, him being there, it meant nothing. She couldn’t allow it to.

Satisfied by the job, Dimitri reached into his back pocket and unearthed a wad of fifties. He stuffed them into Robby’s hand.

“For your troubles,” he said, reaching for his ruined top.

The material was dragged down over his head with an efficiency that was horrifying considering what they’d just finished patching him up. The waistband of his pants were darker, still slightly damp from the blood he’d lost. But that didn’t seem to bother him as he tugged the hem of his top over it.

“Where are you going?” Ava demanded, tossing her own bloody gloves into the trash can. “You can’t leave.”

“It’s not safe for me to stay.” He looked to John Paul. “I appreciate it.”

He slung his coat on. The soft leather gave a faint rustle as it settled around him. He kept his head lowered. Aside from that moment when she’d first arrived in the room, he hadn’t given her a single glance. She told herself it didn’t matter, but it did. His refusal to even acknowledge something that small, hurt. He hadn’t even thanked her. She wasn’t expecting money or eternal gratitude, but a simple thank you couldn’t kill him.

“That’s it?” Robby looked as appalled as Ava felt. “Thanks for the patch job see you in a few years?”

John Paul said nothing. Neither did Dimitri. Ava didn’t know what to say so she kept quiet as well.

Robby sighed. “And here I thought my family reunions were awkward.”

Dimitri flipped the collar of his floor duster. “I will show myself out.”

No one stopped him crossing the distance to the door. Every step he took tightened the noose closed tight around Ava’s chest. The depravation of air broke her.

“Dimitri, wait.” She hurried after him, but stopped short of touching him. “Please don’t leave. You’ve lost too much blood and you’re injured. Just … stay the night. Just the one night. Please.” She glanced back at John Paul pleading silently.

John Paul looked on the verge of barely contained rage. His jaw was set in a hard line of refusal. Tawny eyes stayed rooted to his son, burning into Dimitri’s shoulder blades with a disappointment that could cut skin.

“He can’t.”

Ava started. “What…?”

The door was wrenched open. He started out into the corridor. His scoffed boots twisted on one heel, but he stopped. His head turned over his shoulder and his gaze captured Ava’s. Her heart stuttered.

“Sz dnum rohzdeenyeh,” he said, murmuring the words to happy birthday in Russian.

He was gone before Ava could think to open her mouth. His coat flapped around his wide strides out of the room.

“Why?” She rounded on John Paul. “Why did you do that? Why would you—?”

“Please give us moment, Robert,” John Paul cut in, in a tone that left no room for disobedience, but his gaze stayed locked on Ava, even when Robby left, shutting the door behind him. “He couldn’t stay,” he told her firmly. “I cannot allow what was after him to come for you or your mother. I did what I could, but he needed to go.”

“But he was hurt,” Ava whispered.

“Yes, and he never should have come here. He could have put you in danger.”

“He’s your son.”

“You’re my daughter,” he corrected. “It’s my job to keep you safe from him.”

She knew he would say that. It was the reason she’d never told him about the days she’d spent with Dimitri, the places they’d gone, the things he’d shown her, the nights they’d shared in each other’s arms. They were her secrets, her single act of disobedience. Dimitri had been all the things she was afraid to be, wild, free, dangerous. He had taught her to let go and sample a taste of her rebellion, and it had been a feast that had always left her wanting more.

Then he’d broken her and she had been left alone with the pieces of what was left of her and a tainted heap of memories.

“I know you don’t understand, Ava…”

She shook her head. “I do understand. Lord knows I wish I didn’t, but I do.”

The party was already over by the time they returned to it. The last of the guests was Robby, who promised to call in the morning for that explanation. Then the door was shut by Charlotte, who continued to hold the brass knob a moment and breathe deeply.

“You are a selfish brat.” The words were said so quietly, Ava almost didn’t hear them. Then her mother said them again, louder as she twisted around to face her. “A spoiled, selfish brat! Do you have any idea what it cost to put all this together? The time and the … sacrifice?”

Ava knew by cost Charlotte didn’t mean money. She meant the more important things she could have been doing instead of attending her own daughter’s birthday party. It was no doubt something John Paul had insisted she do. Bribery may have been involved.

“What did I do?” Ava asked, careful to keep the resignation from her tone.

“All night, you did nothing but mope around here like some horribly disfigured hunchback, then you just up and leave, disappearing from your own party with that … abomination. What are people going to think?”

“What abomination?” Ava ignored the rest.

“That filth you call a friend. What an embarrassment bringing him here, to my home!”

Anger flickered to life in the pit of Ava’s stomach, a slow blaze that she knew she needed to control or it would control her.

“What’s wrong with Robby?”

“Other than the fact that he spends his nights with other men?”

Ava blinked. “Robby’s not gay, and even if he was, his sexual preference is hardly any of your business.”

“Is that what he’s telling you?” Charlotte snickered as though Ava’s stupidity were somehow amusing. “Well, he’s lying to you. I knew what he was the moment he walked in here, despite his clear lack of pride in his appearance. Disgraceful. Absolutely appalling. Having him here, in front of all our friends, dressed the way he was…”

Ava shook her head, disgusted. “Why would you ever think Robby’s life choices would ever change the way I feel about him?”

“Because to continue this … friendship, will only give people the wrong idea.”

“Like what? That I like girls? That I respect other people for the way they are? What exactly should I be afraid of?”

Charlotte opened her mouth, the words perched on her plump, nude lips when John Paul entered the foyer. His strides were slow, even, with both hands in his pockets. He’d removed his tie and the top two buttons on his dress shirt were undone. His face gave nothing away, but his eyes were fixed on his wife.

“Why don’t you turn in, Ava?” He stopped when he was three feet from them. “It’s been a long night.”

Ava didn’t argue. She couldn’t leave fast enough. A rebellious part of her wanted to kick her shoes off into a corner, just to infuriate her mother, but common sense kept her grounded.

She made it to the security of her bedroom. It was only after she’d stripped, showered, and climbed into bed that she remembered Patrick. By then, she opted to leave it for the morning. There was no point waking him up now to say … what? I’m sorry? He’d ask for an explanation and she was too exhausted to make something up. So, morning it was.

Sleep evaded her that night. It toyed with her, giving her glimpses of rest only to snatch it away with images of blood, of Dimitri’s ashen complexion, of the tension in his shoulders when his own father had turned him away. His pain had been a physical pang she could feel. It always had been. Even as children, he had been so careful not to let John Paul’s rejections break him. He’d been so set, so resolute that she had hurt for him. She had ached for him, because she knew what it was like not to have anyone. Her father hadn’t wanted her. Her mother had kept her out of obligation. She had no friends, no grandparents, no family she could turn to. But she’d had John Paul and it had been enough. He had no one. She wondered if that was still true, or if he’d married, if he had children.

That thought was what kept her awake the rest of the night in the expanse of her canopied bed, watching the slow sway of the gossamer drapes playing with the cool breeze coming in through the open window. The night was a patch of silver across the hardwood. It had begun to rain and the moist air felt wonderful across her skin. But it wasn’t enough to still her mind.

Abandoning all hopes of waking up semi rested, she rolled out of bed. Her gaze flicked to the alarm and she groaned as the digital numbers snapped to a little after three. The world outside the bay windows hummed with the early morning. The manor echoed with its usual silence. Ava padded out of her room and started down to the kitchen. Sleep wouldn’t be returning and there was nothing to do, but get a late night snack. Part of her hoped the caterers had left a few of those tiny salmon sandwiches she’d seen during the party. Every year, she’d pack away half a tray before her mother would order them off the floor.

“Do you want people to think you’re starving?” she’d hissed.

But she had been starving. Despite being to die for, the sandwiches were tiny, barely big enough to fit the palm of her hand. She’d have needed twenty just to make a full sandwich. Nevertheless, every year, she would restrain herself from sneaking into the kitchen and loading up a massive plate. Now that her mother was sleeping for the night, there was no one to stop Ava.

It took all of two seconds to realize she wasn’t the only one with the idea to raid the fridge. The glow from the appliance illuminated a square patch across the polished floor and the silhouetted figure stooped half inside. Judging from the silk, navy blue pajama bottoms, it wasn’t a burglar.

Ava snapped the lights on and watched in twisted amusement as the figure jolted violently.

“Aren’t you on a diet?” she teased as John Paul scrambled to shut the fridge door and face her.

His terrified expression dissolved into one of relief at the sight of her. He huffed indignantly and smoothed down the front of his matching robe.

“Only when your mother’s awake.”

Ava chuckled. She crossed the distance to where he stood and pulled open the fridge door. The cool air whispered over her flushed skin. She peered inside at the rows of neatly labeled containers.

“Have you seen the salmon sandwiches?”

John Paul leaned past her and pulled a blue lidded container out and pressed it into her hands. He pulled out three more containers for himself before kicking the door shut with his slippered foot.

“Hungry?” she said, eyeing the boxes he set down on the island.

“Starving,” he grumbled. “Your mother thinks that, just because she eats like a bird, the rest of us do so as well.”

Pulling herself up onto a stool, Ava pried open the lid and retrieved one of the neat triangles of heaven from inside.

“Well, you do have to watch your girly figure.”

Grabbing a fork from a drawer, John Paul snorted. “That ship has sailed.”

He shoveled a wad of pasta into his mouth and chewed.

Ava took a bite and moaned. “God, these are good.”

John Paul reached over and stole one of the sandwiches. “I don’t think I’ve tried these.”

Ava clutched the container closer to her chest. “That’s the only one you’re getting.”

He ignored her as he stuffed the whole thing into his mouth. “These are good.”

“Hey!” Her protest came too late as another sandwich was liberated from her container. “Don’t you have enough food there?”

He jabbed his fork in her direction. “You are a mean child.”

“And you’re a food thief.”

He shot her a feigned glower and turned away. He pulled down two glasses and set them on the counter.

“Juice, milk, or water?”

It didn’t seem to matter how old she got, he always offered her those same three choices.

Ava grinned around her sandwich. “Juice.”

He opened the fridge. “You should drink more milk. It’s good for you.”

“I think my bones have stopped growing.”

Jug in hand, he walked back to the island. “It’s not only about growing bones. It’s about keeping them strong.” He filled both glasses. “You need strong bones, especially when you get to be my age.”

“Thirty?”

He paused and looked up at her. “This is why I love you.”

Ava laughed.

He grinned and slid her glass over to her. “Tell me what you’ve been doing. How’s work? Everyone treating you good there? Do you need anything?”

“Fine, yes, and no.” She set the sandwiches down. “I have to drive out to Williamsburg for a journalist convention tomorrow, which I had hoped my boss would forget about, but she texted me this morning to remind me.”

“You don’t want to go?”

Ava frowned. “I’m an editor, not a journalist. But Melanie thinks it’ll be a good learning experience and, while I agree, it’s such a long drive.”

“Let Jarvis take you in the town car.”

She shook her head. “You need Jarvis here. Besides, it’s not even really the drive. I’m just lazy. I’d hoped to spend the weekend in my pajamas, eating cereal out of a box.”

John Paul’s nose crinkled. “You still do that?”

Ava grinned at him. “Why do you think I moved out? So I can do all the things that make your nose do that twitchy thing it’s doing right now.”

“It’s cereal. It belongs in a bowl.”

“So does ice cream, but that doesn’t stop me from eating it out of the container.”

John Paul shuddered. “You’re a disgusting girl.”

Snickering, Ava took another bite of her sandwich. “How are you?”

He sighed dramatically. “I came to the conclusion the other night that I am getting old and you live too far.”

“It’s twenty minutes away,” she argued, using the same excuse she had when she’d found the apartment. “You can walk there.”

“What if I break my hip getting out of bed?”

“How high is your bed?”

“Not the point.” He claimed the other stool. “You should move back. There is so much space here. We could redo the east wing and it could be all yours.”

“Dad…” She took his hand. “You know I can’t. I’ll wind up killing Mom and I’d feel so guilty when you get blamed for it.”

John Paul frowned. “Why would I get blamed?”

“Because the husband always gets blamed.” She squeezed his fingers. “My point is, Mom and I can only coexist in one place for so long before the world ceases spinning.”

He exhaled. “It’s just my luck my two girls can’t get along.”

“We do get along, just in small doses.”

He relented. “Fine, but I’m not giving up.”

She released him with a chuckle. “Didn’t think you would.”

A piece of pasta was speared on the prongs of his fork. “So, how are things with Patrick?” He popped the pasta into his mouth, chewed. “I saw him earlier tonight and he seemed to have calmed down.”

“Things are … all right. Patrick is nice.” She wrinkled her nose and gave a one shoulder shrug. “He’s dependable.”

John Paul ceased his noodle twisting and peered at her quizzically. “Is that a new age term of some kind?”

Ava laughed. “No, I just don’t know what else to call him.”

He set his fork down inside the container and set the container down on the island. He dusted his hands together once before folding them on the marble surface.

“Can I ask why you’re with him if you’re clearly not interested?”

Appetite gone, Ava abandoned her sandwiches next to his spaghetti. “It’s not that I’m not interested. Patrick’s very sweet and he makes me laugh, but I just…” She shook her head. “I don’t know how to explain it. He makes me feel safe, but not the good kind of safe.”

“He bores you,” John Paul supplied.

She considered this a moment.

She sighed. “Yes. I thought that was what I wanted. Not to be bored, exactly, but to feel safe. Instead, I have to motivate myself to stay awake when he starts talking.”

John Paul nodded slowly. “Seems to me like now is a good time to let go of the relationship before you talk yourself down the aisle with a man that puts you to sleep.”

The sad fact was that she’d already knew that. By no means was she the sort to simply accept a bad situation, but she was human and it would be so easy to simply allow herself to get comfortable with it. She didn’t want to be stuck in a rut. She didn’t want to be one of those women who stayed with a man because it was easy.

“You’re right.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “Maybe I do need to break things off. Then I think I’ll just take some time to myself. Maybe go on a vacation. Somewhere warm and sunny.”

“Your mother’s been wanting to go to Brazil for a few weeks.”

Ava wrinkled her nose. “I said vacation. I’m not going anywhere with Mom.”

She’d said it lightly, but John Paul’s eyes lowered. He scratched at his cheek, making the stubble rustle.

“I…” He cleared his throat. “I talked to her this evening about the things she said to you about your friend.”

Ava stiffened. “You heard?”

He shot her an almost apologetic grin. “She’s not exactly subtle when she’s angry.”

“Guess not.”

His warm palm settled lightly on her knee. “She had no right to say those things about him, true or not. He’s a good friend and he cares about you. Nothing else beyond that matters.”

“I know.” She gave his fingers a squeeze. “I was raised to know better.”

Leaning forward, he pressed a kiss to her brow. He drew back and peered into her face.

“I know you were, but I wanted to make sure you knew.”

Neither of them said anything for a few minutes. The comfortable silence that spread around them hummed with the normal sounds of the fridge buzzing, the wind churning, the clock ticking. Ava sealed the containers and returned them to the icebox. She set their empty glasses in the sink and ran a quick cloth over the island, liberating it of leftover crumbs. When it was all done, John Paul walked her to her room, bid her goodnight and sent her off to bed.

It was only when she was wrestling with the sheets for a comfortable position that it occurred to her that she would never know if Dimitri made it home safely or if he’d passed out in a ditch somewhere. She had no contact number for him, no friends in common, no idea where he lived or what route he would have taken to get there. It could be years before she saw him again, unless he was dead, which she would never know.

Chapter Three

There were very few things in the world that could go ignored, few things Dimitri could overlook, but unnecessary bravery was not one of them. It was a fatal flaw that was more deadly than a loaded gun in the hands of a child. Unnecessary bravery was always met with stupid stubbornness and false determination that always ended one way … with the idiot dead.

Ronald Lovell was about to become that statistic. Yet, despite his fierce expression, his chin was wobbling, his shoulders trembled visibly, and sweat had flattened his greasy locks to his broad brow. He was a man only seconds from breaking, which was fortunate for him, because Dimitri had reached the end of his tether.

“You lied to me, Ronald, and that lie got me shot. It wrecked my favorite jacket and put me in a very uncomfortable position.” He paused to allow his words to sink in. “What do you think I should do to you?” he pressed when Ronald continued to sit in his brooding defiance.

A fat, purple vein pulsed at his sweaty temple, emphasizing the glisten of terror in his wide, dark eyes; the pupils were endless pits of torment sucking Dimitri into them. His pudgy hands clenched and unclenched in the arms of his chair, making the flimsy piece of wood squeak in the musty silence. It echoed through the abandoned warehouse, rebounding off broken beams and shredded sheets of plastic. The property was one of the many owned by his family. It was seldom used and only by the odd, wandering junkie looking for a place to shoot up. The place was strewn with discarded needles, bottles, and other waste paraphernalia’s that made the structure primarily useless. But it suited their needs for the moment.

Dimitri straightened off the stack of empty cargo containers he’d been leaning against and tugged at the lapel of his coat. The soft leather barely made a sound as it fitted more closely around his shoulders. He rolled one, biting back a wince at the tug of stitches keeping the bullet wound closed. Dirt crunched beneath his pivoting heel as he faced Ronald fully.

“All right.” He flicked a glance towards Rocco. The other man had stood stoic and silent the entire time, face cut carefully from a slab of granite. He met Dimitri’s gaze unblinking. “The right one.”

“But I’m right handed!” Ronald cried, breaking his silence in a rush of quivering words. “I use it for everything.”

“Then it will teach you not to lie, Ronald.” He studied Ronald’s face carefully, waiting for that telling sign to confirm what he already knew. It came in an extra flutter of the man’s pale lashes. It was rapid and gone before it could be noticed, but Dimitri had noticed. “How many have there been?”

“I didn’t! I swear!” There were tears in his eyes that did nothing to soften Dimitri.

“You took them.” Grit crunched beneath Dimitri’s pacing feet as he circled Ronald. “It was you. You are the only link in all this.”

Jaw muscles hardened with the stubborn clenching of Ronald’s teeth. Glassy eyes averted even as he quaked hard enough to make the chair rattle.

Dimitri ceased in his pacing, careful to remain behind Ronald when he did so. “Where is Yolanda Huerta? Is she alive? Return her to her family and we won’t take turns liberating you of your pieces.”

He met Rocco’s gaze over Ronald’s head when Ronald only mashed his lips together, and gave a nod, a brief, barely perceptible nod.

Marcus’ second in command moved to Ronald’s right, to the hand tied securely to the armrest. The structure rattled noisily as the bound man struggled to shrink himself, to pull himself free. His sobs became weak, pitiful whimpers.

Dimitri moved to the grimy window overlooking the equally drab landscape of gray on the other side. The polluted surface of the Harrison pitched against the rising storm lashing over the city. It emphasized the bleak circumstances unfurling behind him. He tried not to think how appropriate the weather was for what needed to be done. He tried not to listen as Ronald’s breathing increased to shallow pants. In the vast emptiness of the building, it reverberated off the walls in waves of fear and panic. But there was no way he was going to ask Rocco to stop. Ronald had already been given the chance to save himself. He’d had sent Dimitri into an ambush that had gotten him shot. For that alone Ronald would die. But not until he gave them the location of the six-year-old girl he’d kidnapped. Dimitri had already linked the bastard to eight other children, all within a fifty-mile radius of the pervert’s house. He’d been doing it for years, but Yolanda Huerta hadn’t been just another girl at the park. She was the niece of Marcus Lozano, the Colombian crime lord of the east, and a close friend of Dimitri’s.

Ronald’s scream jerked him back to the present. It tore through the fraught silence like a knife through thin paper. The shrilling sound scuttled up Dimitri’s spine with razor sharp talons. It was nearly too much to bear when it was followed by the sickening crunch of shattering bones. But he steeled himself against it, mentally building a concert wall between himself and the scene unfolding behind him.

There wasn’t much that disturbed him. He’d caused his own share of pain, but it didn’t mean he liked it. Only a psychopath enjoyed hurting people. Unfortunately, sometimes, some people, just deserved it.

Ronald’s screaming slowed to weak sobs. Dimitri waited until they had before turning. Rocco was wiping his hands on a white piece of fabric, staining it with crimson streaks. Ronald was still tied to his chair. His head lulled forward, chin brushing his chest. The hand in his right side was a mangled mess of torn skin and crushed bones. Blood dripped from bent fingers onto the cinder blocks Rocco had used to crush the hand to a pulp. Smudged bits of skin and blood clung to the gray stone as evidence to Rocco’s creativity.

“Would you like to change your answer, Ronald?” Dimitri made his way towards the group once more. “Tell me where she is and this can end.”

Tears and sweat mingled together on Ronald’s colorless face. His Adam’s apple bobbed rapidly.

“Please … please, I don’t have her.”

Dimitri exchanged a quick glance with Rocco. “Then who does?”

Ronald shook his head. “I have a family…”

“No, you don’t. You have no one, Ronald. No one that will notice if you go missing, you know why?” He crouched so he could peer up into the other man’s bloodless face. “Because you are filth. You prey on the innocent because they can’t fight you. But I can. I can do many, many terrible things to you and enjoy each one.” He waited a heartbeat. “Where is she?”

The man dissolved into tears. His wide shoulders shook with the heavy sobs. Dimitri fought not to lose his patience, but the longer he stood there in suspense, the more he found himself wanting to just end the other man’s misery.

But his patience paid off when Ronald inhaled a wet, sniveling breath and raised watery eyes.

“There’s a trap door in my closet.”

“We got the girl.” Dimitri balanced the phone between his shoulder and ear as he used his freed hand to dig out a crumpled bill from his back pocket. He slapped it down on the counter. “Rocco’s taking her home now.”

On the other end, there was a short moment of silence followed by the sound of Erik Tasarov’s voice.

“I knew you would find her.” Another pause. “Was she hurt?”

One pack of gum, a bottle of Coke, and a Mars bar was dumped into a plastic bag. His money was snatched up and pitched into the register by the bored kid behind the counter. Dimitri took his items and stalked out, letting the bell bolted above the door jingle wildly.

“Not from what I could see. A few scratches, but mostly scared.”

“Good.” His uncle paused before asking, “And Lovell?”

Dimitri fished out the chocolate bar. He tore off the wrapper and took a chunk out of most of it.

“Dead.”

Erik clicked his tongue. “Too bad. We could have used him.”

“Mom doesn’t want to get into the origin business.” He stuffed the rest of the bar into his mouth and chewed. “Too gross, she says.”

“I know, but it’s good money.” There was a clink of something glass being set aside. “Anyway, where are you headed now? Want to grab lunch?”

Dimitri crumpled up the wrapper and pitched it into the passing trash bin. He dug out the Coke and unscrewed the cap.

“No, I just ate.” He tossed back a mouthful, let it burn his tongue before swallowing it down. “Maybe tomorrow.”

His uncle sighed. “A chocolate bar and a bottle of pop isn’t lunch. That’s an unhealthy snack.”

“I’m fine. I’m too busy.”

“Busy doing what?” Erik challenged. “Heading up to that damn cliff again?”

Dimitri replaced the cap and dropped the bottle back into the bag. He reached his car and fished out his keys.

“I need to clear my head.”

The bag was tossed into the passenger’s side seat before he closed himself up behind the wheel.

“You went to see him.” It wasn’t a question.

Maybe it was a tell on his part, a sort of nervous twitch gamblers got during an extreme poker game. The hill had become a place of peace for him. He couldn’t fathom what it was about the lump of rock, but the moment he was up there, surrounded by a carpet of glittering lights and endless air, everything just clicked. It was as though the altitude had the ability to unclog his lungs of everything constricting them and his mind was finally enough at peace to simply be. Maybe that was why McClary had built his home there. Maybe that was why he hadn’t left. Dimitri had only met the man on the rare occasion, but he’d always had a calm about him Dimitri had envied. The moment he’d gone up on that cliff, he’d felt it.

He couldn’t exactly remember why he’d gone up there originally. After the accident, maybe it was just his way of showing respect. In the days that followed, he just kept going. He’d even considered buying the property. It was on the market. He’d checked. But if he did, he wouldn’t live there. He’d get the ruined remains of the charred house out of the way, then he’d simply keep it as an escape, a place he could empty his thoughts and be nobody, something he’d been doing a lot lately with John Paul in mind.

He started the car, a stall tactic to prolong having to answer. The car picked up the call and his uncle’s breathing filled the cabin.

“Not by choice.” He rubbed a hand over the rough grain of his stubble. “His house was closest.”

Erik exhaled a Russian curse that came out sounding like a groan. “I’m guessing it didn’t go well.”

Dimitri said nothing, too old to be tangled up in hurt feelings. John Paul may have donated the sperm to make Dimitri, but there had never been any misunderstandings between them. Dimitri had known from the time he was old enough to understand that his father only saw failure when he looked upon him. Dimitri had accepted that. He had agreed it was better to simply stay away. He had kept that promise for the first sixteen years of his life.

Then she had come into the picture.

Ava.

His female replacement. The girl his father had accepted, welcomed into his life without judgment. She had slipped into the life that should have been Dimitri’s and had taken everything from him.

He’d hated her.

He would have killed her. Had gone to kill her. Had made it right up behind her, his sweaty fingers clenched tight around the smooth handle of his flip blade. He’d never killed anyone before that, but he’d wanted to end her. He’d thought about it for days before finding the courage to follow through.

The thing he remembered most about that afternoon was the unforgiving heat. Only the very stupid could afford to withstand the hell upon the earth. Every house on every block had their air conditioners blowing. Those who couldn’t afford it had cleverly rigged fans and buckets of ice to keep cool.

Dimitri had considered it a sign when he’d found her and she was completely alone, huddled behind a game booth in the ugliest dress he’d ever seen. But it was the tears on her face that had stopped him. In all the months that he’d envisioned himself sinking his knife into her chest, he had never really believed she was a person, a girl. In his mind, she’d been a monster, a hideous creature with red eyes and a forked tongue that could spit up acid. In reality, she’d been small and so broken. Something about that had stopped him. He’d stood there, watching her, wondering how she could be crying when she had everything. Even in that moment, John Paul had rented an entire carnival for her birthday. There were children everywhere. The tinkle of music and laughter rose into the oppressing heat. There were mounds of brightly wrapped presents cascading over three picnic tables. But there she was, huddled in the dirt, face bunched up against her knees, weeping.

“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.

“You want the north?” he said at last, in a tone that suggested Dimitri was out of his mind.

“I want the north,” he confirmed. “The absence of power has left a vacuum in the city and the longer it goes without being filled, the harder it will be to hold back the crime spree—”

“Says the man who has been robbing people blind the last eight months!”

Dimitri paused. His initial reaction was to ask how the hell he knew that. No one did. He’d been careful to leave no tracks. But if he’d missed something, no matter how small, and his mother ever found out, or the other criminal organizations in the city, he’d be a dead man before nightfall.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

John Paul’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t lie to me. I know you’re the Devil.”

Dimitri shook his head, careful to keep his features neutral. “That would make no sense. Why would I—?”

A hand was lifted, silencing him. “I don’t care. The fact is that if you’re here to ask for my support, you don’t have it. I will not allow the organization I helped build to be used as a pawn game for your mother’s bullshit.”

Dimitri willed himself to remain calm, to keep his voice even. “Elena has nothing to do with this.”

“I’m assuming she’s backing you.” It wasn’t a question, nor did he give Dimitri the chance to answer. “She’s using you to get her hands on more territory to peddle her garbage. The person who takes that seat, needs to recognize the importance of balance. He needs to only concern himself with the wellbeing of those in his territory. The north is the most powerful seat in the Syndicate. It is the pillar, the crown of the entire city and I will not allow you to sit there.”

That should have been enough. He should have accepted the man’s decision. But the moment Dimitri returned to his car, he knew he couldn’t. John Paul was wrong. Elena had nothing to do with Dimitri’s decision to take the seat, nor would he allow his mother to take what he’d fought for. That was what John Paul didn’t understand. This wasn’t about helping his mother. It was about stopping people like her.

He contemplated going to Theresa. She was a stone cold bitch, but he knew he could sway her. Then he’d have three votes and John Paul would lose even if he disagreed. But that wasn’t enough. It was no longer enough to prove him wrong. He had insulted Dimitri for the last time.

Head hot with his brewing rage, he picked up his phone and dialed.

“Yeah?” Stephen’s drowsy slur indicated he’d been sleeping, despite it being nearly three in the afternoon.

“I need a location.”

He heard bedsprings jingling, sheets rustling, a female’s complaints, then a grunt and the squeak of a computer chair.

“‘k, hit me.”

Dimitri hesitated. The little voice in his head took that split second to warn him what a bad idea this was, but the name was already pouring off his tongue into the phone before he could stop it.

“Ava Emerson.”

Chapter Four

“Just keep them coming,” Ava mumbled, motioning for the bartender to pour her another mixture of Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, and Johnny Walker.

“Rough day?” the chiseled jaw supermodel teased with a flash of his irresistible dimples.

Ava exhaled. “The roughest. Now I just need to drown myself in alcohol to wash it all away.”

The bartender—Chad, she noted, eyeing his blurry nametag—chuckled. He prepared her drink and slid it over to her.

“Want to talk about it?”

“Christ, no!” She threw back most of her drink, hissed through the pain and set her glass down. “I am not subjecting you to my suffering. Go be pretty to someone not moping into her Three Wise Men.”

Chad’s laughter deepened. “I don’t know. I kind of like your mopey face.”

Ava looked up, fighting hard to focus and read his expression. Half drunk, it was nearly impossible to tell if he was just flirting for a bigger tip or if he was flirting to get into her pants, which—judging from the size of those arms straining the sleeves of his body fitting top—she might just allow.

“Tell me, Chad.” She paused, wrinkled her nose. “What kind of name is Chad? I didn’t even know they still existed.”

“We’re underground, bidding our time,” he replied seamlessly.

Cute and funny. Definitely a worthy candidate.

“All right, Chad, tell me something—”

“I thought I just did.”

Ava narrowed her eyes. “Don’t be cute. You’re already winning.”

One dark eyebrow lifted. “I didn’t realize we were playing anything.”

Ava tossed back the rest of her drink, shook the now empty glass at him before responding. “Are you this charming with all the ladies or am I just lucky because I’m intoxicated?”

“It’s my job to be charming, but it doesn’t hurt that you’re…”

“What?” she prompted when he trailed off.

“Really hot,” he finished with a shrug.

Ava laughed and nearly tipped out of her chair. “You think I’m hot?” She picked up her refreshed drink and took a sip. “I’m running on zero sleep, eighty percent alcohol, and a handful of really gross chips. Hot is not what I would call it.”

“Tell me.”

Why not? She thought, cradling her drink.

“I broke up with my boyfriend this morning during a four-hour drive here, which probably makes me horrible for doing it over the phone, but he hung up on me so I figure we’re even. Then I get a call from my best friend who tells me I owe him an explanation for last night, which was supposed to be a secret.” She reached to scratch her nose and stabbed herself in the eye. Blinking through the pain and stinging, she squinted at Chad. “Do you know what a secret is, Chad?”

He was clearly masking a grin she did not appreciate. “I’ve heard about it.”

“You don’t tell people secrets, especially dangerous secrets. I’m not even sure I’m allowed to talk to you about it.”

He shook his head. “I heard nothing.”

“Good.” She made to grab at her glass and wound up backhanding it instead. The contents spilled across the table as the tiny bit of glass cluttered onto its side and rolled away. Chad caught it. He righted it, but didn’t refill it, much to her annoyance. “Hey! I’m not paying you to stand there.”

“You haven’t paid me at all.” But he refilled her glass.

Ignoring his comment, she took her shot and tried to toss it back all suave like. Most of it spilled down her top. She didn’t notice.

“Then,” she went on as though she hadn’t been interrupted, “I just spent the last eight hours of my life making connections. Three hours of that was spent on my butt, listening to grown women drone on about … fuck if I know what. Then my one-hour break, I spent it searching for food, real food, which, by the way, I never found so I went back to the convention and tried to force down these gross little tortilla things that tasted like feet. Why invite hundreds of women to a meet and greet and not serve actual food? Do they think women don’t eat?” Her eyes widened as realization seeped through her alcohol fuzzy brain. “Do you think they think we’re fat?”

Chad had the decency not to laugh, but it was shining in his blue eyes when she squinted up at him. “No one would think you were fat.”

“They were, weren’t they?” she shouted, slapping the counter. “That’s why there was no food. Those fuckers!”

Chad did laugh this time.

“Don’t laugh!” she warned him. “I’m going to be writing a letter about this, just as soon as I figure out who to send it to. Where’s my purse?”

“You didn’t have one,” Chad said.

Ava frowned. “Of course I had one. It’s where I keep my money and my phone, and my … feminine things.”

“Look, why don’t I pour you some coffee?”

“You are clearly not hearing me,” Ava muttered. “I lost my purse and it has my money. I can’t afford your twelve-dollar cup of coffee right now.” She dropped her face into her palm and groaned. “Christ, my head hurts already.”

“Why don’t I help you up to your room? Maybe you left it there,” Chad suggested, already untying his apron from around a tapered waist.

Ava shook her head. “I don’t trust you.”

Chad snorted. “Lady, you have about eighty dollars in booze in your stomach and you’re telling me you can’t pay. I think it’s more like I shouldn’t trust you.”

“Hey!” Whatever argument she was about to make to that was immediately derailed. “I can’t go to my room. I don’t have my room key.” She made a sound between a whine and a whimper. “My purse has my room key. I’m locked out.”

“All right, come on.” Chad circled around the counter. He reached her stool and nimbly helped ease her to her feet, keeping one arm securely around her middle. “Let’s go to the front desk and maybe they can help you. What’s your name?”

“Ava!”

That wasn’t her voice, unless something in the shots had altered her DNA so she was now a man. But she couldn’t be sure her brain wasn’t failing either until she saw the hulking shadow stomping towards them, moving with an authority that had others scurrying to get out of his path. Tawny eyes bore into hers, a sharp, focused glow amongst the smudged edges of his silhouette.

“Dimitri?”

She would have recognized his build anywhere. If that wasn’t enough, his scent had pooled through the room like an infectious fume, soaking up everything but his potent musk. His wide strides carried him the twenty steps from the door in less time than it took for her breath to regulate properly. His furious glower came into focus a split second before the rest of him did. His dark eyes jumped from her to Chad and then settled on the hold Chad had on her, and his scowl deepened. His shoulders straightened. There was a hard knot in his jaw that could have cut steel.

“What are you doing?”

Chad appeared momentarily baffled by the question. He glanced at Dimitri looming over him like some dark, avenging angel, then peeked down at Ava, relying on him for support. It would have been comical if Ava wasn’t suddenly terrified he’d drop her just to save his pretty face from the meaty fists Dimitri had clenched at his sides.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Chad began.

“We are getting a room key then Chad is taking me upstairs,” Ava supplied, slurring so horribly that she couldn’t help wonder if her tongue had taken off with her purse, and her numb hands and feet. “I am a grown up,” she declared for absolutely no reason. “And he thinks I’m hot.”

“No!” Chad blurted quickly when Dimitri’s nostrils actually flared and his eyes narrowed into thin slits that promised a slow and painful death. “She lost her purse with her room key. I was taking her to the front desk. I’m just the bartender. I’m not even allowed to think the customers are hot. Not that she’s not. She’s very beautiful. You’re a lucky man.”

Ava started giggling. It was definitely not the time for it, but once it started, she couldn’t stop and soon, Chad was sweating from the efforts of keeping her upright.

“That’s it. I swear,” Chad insisted, voice tinged with panic.

Dimitri looked no less pacified by the frantic explanation. Instead, he turned his anger on Ava.

“What are you doing leaving with a stranger when you can barely walk?”

Ava frowned at him, sobering. “This is Chad. He’s not strange. That’s racist.”

“He could have killed you,” Dimitri argued.

Ava snorted. “Have you ever heard of a killer named Chad? He’s like a turtle, a naked turtle without a shell.”

“I kind of resent that … But totally cool,” he corrected quickly when Dimitri shot him a warning glower.  “I can be a naked turtle.”

“Come here.”

He reached for Ava and Chad immediately relinquished his hold. She swayed into the hard width of her ex-lover’s chest and stayed there, lulled by his familiar warmth and the steady patter of his heart beneath her cheek. Her eyes closed and she let him hold her.

“I’m not drunk,” she slurred into the soft material of his top. “I just can’t find my purse or my feet. I think they ran off together.”

“We’ll find them.” There was something taut in his voice she couldn’t bring herself to pinpoint. It vibrated in his chest, tickling her cheek. “Bring coffee.”

“No.” Her arms tightened around his waist when he began to move like he was going to pull away. “Don’t let go.” She squeezed her eyes shut tight. “I’ve missed you.”

There was a hard kick beneath her cheekbone and a sharp inhale that ruffled the hairs at the top of her head. His arms tightened, too tight. Several of her ribs cracked. He said something in Russian that was either terms of endearment or a vicious cussing spree. Any other day, sober, she might have understood some of it. Just then, she was barely able to stay awake.

“Don’t do this,” she thought she heard him growl into her crown.

“I left Patrick,” she whispered. “I had to. He wasn’t you. No one is you.” Her voice caught as her emotions took a nosedive from high to crippling low. “I’m going to die alone.”

“Ava…”

Her wails would have mortified her any other time. But eight years of pain and questions catapulted out of her. Their years together growing up, their first kiss, the first time he’d touched her, the first time he’d looked into her eyes and it dawned on her she loved him, all swirled in an array of smudged colors across her mind’s eye. Each one punctured a vital organ until she began to fear she’d just bleed out right there in his arms. Every memory ripped from her chest in undignified sobs of someone who just witnessed the death of the person they loved and there seemed to be no end to it. She just clutched his shirt and soaked the material through with her misery … and tears, snot, and drool.

Dimitri seemed unaffected by the damage she was causing to his clothes. He began to gather her up as though she were a child, but she stopped him.

“I can’t leave,” she hiccupped. “I owe Chad money. This stool is now my home. This is where I will die.”

“You’re not going to die,” Dimitri muttered, as he rifled around in his pockets with one hand, the other stayed firmly locked around her waist, holding her up, holding her close. He slapped down three crumpled bills on the counter that added to about twice as much as she owed.

“That’s too much.”

He ignored her as he bent down and scooped her up into his arms bridal style.

“But the money…”

“Don’t wiggle,” was all he said, already walking away from the bar and Chad.

Ava let him, too comfy with her face in the curve of his neck to care what happened next. She must have dozed because they were boarding an elevator when she pried her eyes open.

“Where are we?”

“Going to your room,” he said, gently setting her down, freeing his hand to push the twenty-eight.

“I don’t have my key.”

He held up a plastic tag. “Already covered.”

Ava blinked. “How did you…”

The doors began to slide shut, only to pop open as a group of tourists rushed in. Ava and Dimitri were forced into one mirrored corner. His arms went around her once more, pulling her close as the cramped space filled up.

Others packed in or left as the doors opened and closed on practically every level. Neither noticed. He was too fixated on her and she was too enthralled by the feel of his gaze washing along the contours of her face. It was so much like before that, for a moment, she had a hard time deciphering what was real and what was a dream.

But the pain was there, a steady reminder not to be an idiot. Again.

“Why are you here, Dimitri?”

She heard the question from a distance, like it was coming from someone else in a different time. Part of her wasn’t even sure she’d actually asked, especially when he took ages to answered.

“To see you.” His gruff murmur caressed the curves of her upturned cheeks, smelling of chocolate mint. It made her want to trace his tongue with hers and taste him.

Her gaze lowered to his full, generous mouth and the thick stubble that surrounded it. It wasn’t simply a five o’clock shadow, but a good two days’ worth of facial hair that had her skin prickling in memory of how they tickled traveling down her body. Her stomach muscles flipped. Her nipples tightened. She wondered if he could feel them through the thin material of her blouse.

Later, when she wasn’t floating on a sea of memories, lost in her own ocean of lust and hunger, she would kick herself for not being smarter, for allowing him to simply waltz back into her life after the pain he’d caused as though nothing had happened. What was worse, she knew, even then through the haze of alcohol, that if he kissed her, she’d let him. Hell, she’d let him do more than simply kiss her. And she hated herself for it, hated her body for being so weak. She wasn’t the sort of woman who allowed herself to be played by a man. She’d walked away from plenty of relationships without any emotional connections at all and hadn’t thought back on them at all. But his … that single year of being lost in his arms, captivated by his kisses, lulled by the sweet whispers of his promises, had broken her. She couldn’t butter toast without thinking of their mornings together. She couldn’t tie her shoes without remembering the nights he’d help her crawl out her window to watch the sun come up. She couldn’t brush her hair without feeling her scalp prickle as though his hands were still there, wrapped in the strands, tugging back her face. She should hate him.

“Myshka.”

The familiar whisper of his pet name punched her in the throat, but it was nothing compared to the brush of his fingers swiping away the tears she hadn’t known she’d been shedding.

“You can’t call me that anymore.” Her voice choked on the words. “You gave up that right.”

There was pain twisting the corners of his mouth, flickering in his eyes, but he kept her unfocused gaze.

“You’ll always be…” he broke off, maybe realizing what he was about to say.

The elevator doors opened and a group of women scampered out. The door shut and the ascension continued.

“Why are you here?” she asked again, briefly wondering if the rollercoaster of emotions would ever stop.

For a long moment, he said nothing. He glanced at the climbing numbers above the door, possibly bidding his time. It didn’t even clue in how he knew what room she was in or how he’d been able to talk the front desk into giving him a key, or why he had a key to begin with. These were things she should have asked, probably would have, if she hadn’t been struggling to stay awake.

“We need to talk,” she heard him say faintly.

She started to tell him there was no point, that odds were she wouldn’t remember any of it and anything she said in her state of intoxication couldn’t be taken seriously, but her empty stomach had begun to show signs of her bad choices. The elevator didn’t help. The perpetual rise and jerking stop was beginning to remind her why she didn’t normally drink to access.

“I need to sit,” she blurted, already starting to sink to the floor of the lift, hoping the distance between her and the ground meant she wouldn’t get her shoes when it all finally came up.

She couldn’t have been down there very long before Dimitri’s fingers were pulling her up. She tried to warn him jostling her was a bad idea, but he’d already hoisted her up into his arms and was marching with her out of the torture box. The restricted bundle of recycled air tinged with sweat, body odor, perfume, and cleaner faded into a new impression of scents her insides were not finding comforting. She squeezed her eyes closed and willed herself not to give in.

It was a wonder when she found herself in a bathroom, being forced down on her knees in front of a toilet. She had a split second to be amazed before it was game over.

Her hair was scooped up and back from her face as the handful of chips she’d forced down hours earlier made a reappearance. The rest was purely alcohol and stomach lining.

Spit, tears, and sweat were mopped from her face with a damp cloth. She was pulled up to her feet when it was all over and guided into the next room.

“I’m never drinking again,” she vowed to herself as she was pushed down onto the edge of the stiff mattress.

He said nothing, but he helped her strip and change into a clean t-shirt that didn’t smell of vomit and booze. The whole time, his expression remained firmly set, as though he weren’t even there mentally taking off her clothes, seeing her naked. She would have been hurt if she hadn’t been exhausted.

She was tucked beneath the sheets and left there. She had no idea where he went. He might have stayed. But the world faded to black the moment her head touched the pillow.

It was closing on one when she made a groggy roll out of bed. The sheets tangled around her ankles, tipping her sideways into the nightstand. She barely caught herself as the lamp rattled. Something clinked and cold liquid trickled down her naked thigh.

“What…?”

The lampshade took the back of her hand before she fumbled under for the switch. Despite being prepared, the explosion of light punched her in the eyes with a violence that nearly sent her backwards. Her tearing eyes immediately slammed shut as she made a series of whimpering sounds.

There was a glass of water on the table when she mustered the courage to face the light again, sitting in a small puddle she’d caused. Next to it sat two aspirins and her blinking cellphone. On the floor, inches from her foot, was a trash bin. All things she had no memory of setting there.

Ava straightened, mind grappling with the fragmented pieces she could remember from the night before. There was the convention, the growls of her stomach as she waited for each panel to end so she could eat. Then finding her way into the hotel bar. The rest was a series of burns as the alcohol had ripped up her empty insides going down.

“Christ.”

One hand braced against her brow, a pitiful attempt to keep her brain from rattling against the inside of her skull, she shuffled in the general direction of the bathroom. Her big toe snagged on the carpet and she yelped a curse, but somehow, she made it into the cramped bit of space that smelled of her shampoo and sickness.

Disgusted with herself, she left the lights off as she did her business. No amount of preparation could prepare her for the stabbing pain of lights. If she fell into the toilet … it was a risk she was willing to take.

Pleased when she made it out unscathed, Ava retraced her steps back into the other room. She’d made it all the way to the bed before she realized she wasn’t alone.

The figure sat just in the corner of the room, on the other side of the desk, bathed in a thick puddle of darkness where the lamp’s light didn’t extend. She only realized it was there because it moved, a subtle shift that scared the ever loving fuck straight out of her.

Ava screamed.

The figure jolted.

She screamed louder, spun on her heels and bolted back into the bathroom. The door slammed behind her and she snapped the lock into place.

Then she was standing in absolute darkness, in a silence that kept getting punctured by her panting, by the thundering of her heart, and her low gasps of, what the fuck, what the fuck. Had she gone into someone else’s hotel room the night before? Where the fuck was she? Oh God, she was naked in someone’s shirt.

Mind in a frantic tailspin, she lunged for the light switch. Her brain melted in her skull, but she snapped it on and peered down at herself.

Her shirt. Thank you, God, it was her shirt.

Exhaling, she slumped against the counter.

But the relief was short lived as she remembered why she was locked up in the bathroom. She wondered who she’d brought back with her from the bar. The bartender? She had a vague recollection of thinking he was hot.

In no way pacified by her newfound logic, Ava hurried to the door and smacked it several times, making her palm sting.

“Hey! You!” she shouted through the crack. “Get out.”

She pressed her ear to the cool surface and waited for a response.

It came in the form of shuffling, the distinct amble of a man. It stopped just on the other side.

“It’s me,” came the response.

Ava squinted. “Me who? I’m warning you, I’ve got razors in here.”

She glanced at the counter with a confidence that shattered when she realized her things weren’t there. All her products were missing.

“Where are my things?”

There was a short silence, then, “In my car.”

Ava blinked. It surprised her that she was surprised by his honesty. Then she was just pissed.

“Are you kidding me? What on earth are you planning to do with deep pore cleaning solution and tampons? Doesn’t matter. I can take you down with a plunger.”

There was no plunger. What kind of hotel didn’t have a fucking plunger? Unless that too was in his car.

“Ava, it’s me,” the voice said again, louder.

“I don’t care,” she shot back. “Bring back my things, you lunatic!”

Her companion sighed heavily. “Dimitri.”

Of all the crazy people she expected—and it stunned her just how long that list was—he was the last person she ever expected to steal her tampons, or wind up in her hotel room.

She was wrenching open the door even before the little voice could warn her not to. The light from the bathroom spilled down his front in a warm, yellow glow. It illuminated his eyes, the thickness of his hair pulled back in a small ponytail at the base of his skull, the fact that he was topless. The latter distracted her a split second longer than was appropriate.

“What are you doing?” she demanded. Then she noticed the stain seeping through the bandage plastered to his shoulder. “Your stitches!”

He waved her concern aside. “They’re fine.”

“It’s bleeding,” she argued, reaching.

“I already checked. It’s fine.”

Taking his word for it, she speared her hips with her bunched fists. “What are you doing here, in my hotel room, stealing my things?”

“I figured you would need them.”

Ava nodded slowly. “Yes, I do need them. That’s why I brought them.”

He said nothing. Instead, he took a step back and was immediately swallowed by the shadows. His seamless merging with the darkness sent a shiver along her spine.

“Get dressed.”

Not expecting that at all, it took a full minute for her brain to notice the bundle of neatly folded clothes he held out to her.

“What…?”

He set the items in her hands, pivoted on his heels and stalked into the next room.

She followed him, her jeans and a t-shirt gripped to her chest. She snapped on the overhead lights to see him better.

“What is this?”

“Clothes,” he supplied helpfully, reaching for his t-shirt that lay draped over the back of a chair by the round table in the corner.

“Yes, I have the brain power to deduce that. Thanks. But why are you giving them to me?” She peeked around the room. “Where’s my suitcase?”

“In the car.”

“Why are my things in your bloody car, Dimitri?” Her voice rose with her building panic.

Shirt tugged properly over the waistband of his black jeans, he turned to her. “Because I’m taking you hostage.”

There were many responses she had expected, everything from bed bugs to a fire, but being taken hostage was not one of them. The fact that it was said with a deadpan expression and an unwavering stare only made it harder to laugh like she wanted to.

“Are you serious?” Then a more plausible reasoning came to her and she frowned. “Is this your way of apologizing for what you did? To swoop in here and carry me off to some exotic island for a romantic one on one getaway, because this is horribly prepared. I’m not ready for an island. I haven’t packed anything I would need, and I’m not even sure I want to forgive you, never mind go anywhere with you.”

He prolonged his response by taking up his coat next. He shook the material out and shrugged it on.

“Get dressed.”

“No!” She dumped the bundle down on the tussled bed and folded her arms. “Not until you tell me—”

“Either get dressed or I will take you out of here like that.”

Her jaw unhinged. Her eyes widened in disbelief. He was serious.

“Then I’ll scream and wake the whole damn hotel,” she countered hotly.

He tugged down the collar of his coat with a sharpness that made the leather snap. Annoyance flickered in his golden eyes, but she didn’t care. How had he expected this to go? That she would just go along with him?

He drew in a breath. It was slow and even, like he was trying to calm himself. She thought maybe he would finally see sense.

“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.”

Chapter Five

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.”

The rigid lines of her body softened in his arms. She stared at him with the same mixture of longing, hurt, need, sadness, twisting through him. They collected in the crease between the delicate arches of her eyebrows, pooled around the lines tugging at the corners of her beautiful mouth. But it was the swaying shadows dancing in those clear eyes that caught him in the gut. It was the loneliness and questions.

I promised, he wanted to tell her. For you, I had to.

“We should go,” she whispered. “The attendant has probably called the cops by now.”

He glanced to where the toothless man stood watching them through the grimy shop windows and sighed.  It was unlikely. With the number of health code violations, there was no way he’d call attention to himself with the authorities, but it was a risk Dimitri couldn’t take.

He helped Ava into the next seat, waited until she’d snapped her belt into place, then pulled out.

The cabin was a two story structure crafted entirely of stone and glass. It sat nestled beneath the protective canopy of trees hundreds of feet tall and a forest so thick, it would require a chainsaw to get through. But there was no better hiding place.

Dimitri hated camping. He hated the wilderness and the absence of electricity and toilets. There was nothing worse than nature when it was crawling into bed with you. But he could manage it if it was done in the seclusion and privacy of a cabin with functioning taps and radiators.

Ava ducked out of the car the moment he’d killed the ignition. She stepped into the warm, May breeze and squinted up at the place, her expression puzzled.

“You hate nature,” she said at last. “Why do you have a cabin … in the woods?”

“Privacy.”

He stalked to the back of the car and unlatched the trunk. From within, he grabbed her bags and resealed the lid.

“There are locks on both sides of the door,” she observed, standing with him on the porch as he unlocked each one. “Do you kill people up here?”

He shot her a teasing sidelong glance. “Haven’t … yet.”

She rolled her eyes. “Funny.”

Inside was sparsely furnished with two sofas facing a stone fireplace, a coffee table for his beer, and a lamp. Across the room was a set of wooden stairs leading up to the bedrooms. On the other side of the fireplace wall, was the kitchen, laundry area, and a small bathroom. There were no paintings on the walls, no decorative rugs by the hearth, no scented candles, or clutter. It was not a place to live, just a place to lie low. Truth be told, she was the only other person to ever be inside.

“Charming,” Ava mumbled, pert nose wrinkled. “What’s that smell?”

He hadn’t noticed it until she pointed it out, but the sour, decaying scent was everywhere.

“Probably a raccoon died in the chimney.”

“Oh! Ew!”

He smirked to himself as he stalked to the sofa and dumped her bags. “Bedrooms are upstairs. You can pick the one you want. They’re both the same.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked when he made towards the kitchen.

“Find a broom and shake the raccoon’s rotting corpse loose,” he threw over his shoulder, and burst out laughing when she grabbed her bags and practically tore a hole in the floor to the stairs.

He didn’t find a broom. He wasn’t even sure he had one. But he did have a first aid kit, which he pulled down from the cupboard and opened. He stripped out of his t-shirt and examined the damage to his shoulder.

Fucking Ronald, he thought, picking at the blood soaked gauze. Two faced little, lying rat. If Dimitri hadn’t already killed him, he would have done so just for getting him shot. The bastard had insisted the person holding Yolanda was hiding in some dump just on the outskirts of the city. The only thing that asshole was hiding was a meth lab and had mistaken Dimitri for a cop. He was dead now, which was no real loss to the world, but Dimitri had a damn hole in his arm for the effort.

“Oh my God!” Ava stood in the kitchen doorway, both hands mashed against her mouth. “What happened?”

He shot her a wry glower. “Absolutely no idea.”

She ignored his sarcasm and hurried forward. She smacked the hand trying to get the gauze off.

“Don’t touch it!” she snapped at him. “Your hands are filthy.”

He started to tell her he was a man and such things meant nothing to him, but she was already running from the room. A moment later, she’d returned, a toiletry bag in hand. She dumped it on the counter and ripped it open.

“Do you have any rags?” she asked, head half buried amongst the bottles and tubes.

Dimitri glanced around, caught sight of his discarded t-shirt, and held it out to her.

Ava stilled. Her unimpressed expression said it all before she flicked a glance from the wade to him.

“A clean rag,” she emphasized.

When he couldn’t respond, she began ripping open the drawers around the cramped bit of space. Most were empty. Occasionally a lone fork, or a loose screw would rattle.

“This is the worst safe house on the planet!” she exclaimed, slamming the last cupboard.

She was gone again, in a blur of red hair and a determined expression. He counted to fifteen before she huffed back into the kitchen, a neatly folded face cloth in hand.

“I always bring one,” she told him, stalking to the sink. “I don’t like the ones at the hotel.”

Waiting for no response from him, she snapped on the faucet and waited until the water had gone from brown to white before scrubbing her hands with the soap from her bag and dampening the cloth. Then she set to work taking off the gauze, cleaning the wound, spraying it down with enough antiseptic spray to kill a baby elephant, and then reapplying fresh wrap. She did the same with the back, though the damage wasn’t nearly as bad there.

“You need to be more careful,” she chided him. “If those rip open, I am not sewing it back up.”

He stared at her, genuinely outraged by her sense. “You did this when you took off,” he told her.

Unfazed by the accusation, she merely sniffed haughtily and tossed the used gauze into the trash. Then she dusted her hands and faced him squarely.

“What’s for breakfast?”

“Where are you?” Erik’s voice crackled through the crappy reception at the diner, some shit hole nearly two hours from the cabin, in a town not even listed on a bloody map.

“I don’t know,” he muttered, glowering at the smiling face of a plastic leprechaun taped to the wall outside the men’s bathroom. “Hell, maybe.”

“When are you coming back?” Erik said.

A bell chimed in the main area. Dimitri turned on impulse and sought out Ava sitting in the corner booth with her plate of pancakes. The rest of the dining room occupied a cluster of truckers, a family a few tables from Ava, and two elderly men playing chess at the back. Ava had her head bent over her plate. Occasionally, she’d glance out the window at the parking lot and the post office across the street, but she was oblivious to the glances she was getting from a few of the men at the counter. Dimitri wasn’t.

“Might not be for a few days,” he said to his uncle. “Had some trouble last night.”

“What kind of trouble?” Erik demanded at once.

His gaze went to Ava. The worst kind, he thought miserably.

“I’ll handle it,” he said instead.

“Do it quickly. The first chair meeting is in a couple of days. You need to be here.”

“I’ll be there.” He hung up and dialed Stephen.

The kid picked up on the third ring. “Talk to me,” he said in the way of greeting.

There was the distinct pew, pew, pew of lasers being shot in the background, the rapid clicking of fingers on a keypad.

“Can you hack into a hotel camera feed?”

There was a quickening of breath, a groan, then an exhalation of defeat. “Fuck.” Something cracked. Another sigh. “Sometimes,” he muttered. “Most hotels keep their records in some backroom, but a lot of them have upgraded and download straight to a cloud. Which hotel are we talking about?”

Dimitri gave the name and address, along with the times he needed Stephen to delete.

“I also need you to delete a name off their database.”

“That I can do,” Stephen said with some enthusiasm. “But no can do on the videos. Someone needs to go in and handle that in person. It’s all old school.”

Dimitri cursed inwardly. “Okay, do what you can with the name and text me.”

“Cool. What name?”

“Ava Emerson.”

There was a pause on the other end, then, “That’s the chick you wanted me to find yesterday.” Another pause. “Dude, did you whack her?”

Dimitri frowned. “Mind your business … and no one says whack.” He shook his head. “Just delete all record of her off the computer.”

“Uh…”

“What?”

Stephen cleared his throat. “Might be a bit too late for that, brah. Your chick’s already made the papers.”

“What?”

Dimitri spun in Ava’s direction. She was still eating. But the men at the counter were all looking at her now, murmuring quietly to each other and pointing at a newspaper one of them held.

“What does it say, Stephen?”

“Uh…” There was a series of rapping sounds on the other end. “That the police are looking to question her regarding a shooting at the hotel that left two dead. She was last seen leaving the building with an unidentified man. Police are not sure if she’s being held hostage or—”

Dimitri hung up. He started towards Ava just as one of the truckers rose as well, paper in hand.

Fuck!

Ducking back towards the bathroom, Dimitri reached into his pocket. He exchanged his phone for the balaclava, but stopped; if he went out there as the Devil, his secret would be out if the people after them ever found out. It would ruin his chances at the chair, never mind cost him his life, and Ava’s. But if he went as himself, they would have his face.

The trucker was at Ava’s table now. She looked up when he set the paper in front of her with a smack Dimitri could hear from across the room.

Ava jerked back. She stared down at where the man was pointing with a stubby finger. Dimitri reached for his gun. He started forward.

“Is this a joke?” Ava’s voice rose over the low whir of the fan, the sultry croon of Elvis and stilled the chatter in the room. She shot to her feet, paper rolled up in her hand and, to everyone’s astonishment, whacked the trucker on the nose.

The trucker reared back. “What the fuck…?”

“If you are going to behave like a dog,” she was saying when Dimitri got past his shock. She smacked the trucker again, this time on the head. “I will treat you like a dog.”

The truckers at the counter howled. The one getting beaten by a newspaper didn’t.

He wrenched the paper from Ava’s grasp when it came down for a third strike, his face blotchy from the abuse and embarrassment. “You stupid bitch!”

Dimitri got there just as the hand with the paper came down towards Ava. He caught it by the wrist, and in a single, fluid motion, wrenched it behind the trucker’s back and slammed him face first into the table.

The dishes rattled. Someone gasped. The little boy with the family leaped up on his chair and exclaimed, “Cool!”

Dimitri focused on the douche. “It’s a very small man who raises a hand to a woman,” he said quietly enough for the trucker to hear him. “It’s a dead man who raises his hand to my woman.” He added just the right amount of pressure to make the man squeal like a pig. He lowered his voice even further. “Apologize.”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” the man cried even before Dimitri finished speaking.

Dimitri released him.

The trucker scrambled off the table, clutching at his arm, his face the reddish purple of a beet. He avoided Ava’s gaze entirely as he hurried back to his friends.

Dimitri snatched the paper from his hand in passing and looked to Ava. “Let’s go.”

She was staring at him, her green eyes enormous with shock.

“What?”

She started to say something, but seemed to think better of it and just shook her head.

After paying for her meal—and leaving a generous tip—they left the diner. They got back into the car and drove in the opposite direction from the cabin.

“This isn’t the way back,” Ava said.

“We need to change cars,” he said.

“Why?

Rather than answer, he pushed the bunched wad of paper into her lap. “What were they showing you?”

Ava smoothed the paper out the best she could before flipping to the spot. “This month’s bikini girl.” She found the page and showed him the scantily clad woman in a bright, orange bikini. “They wanted to know if my breasts were as firm as hers and if I’d let them compare. Quite rude if you ask me. I mean, who does that in a diner?”

They were, he thought absently. Ava’s breasts couldn’t be matched by any woman. But that was a discussion for another day.

“Is there anything else in there?”

Seconds passed as she went from article to article, head rocking slowly from side to side. “I don’t see … oh, wait!” She stopped on something and began reading. “Authorities are on the lookout for the persons involved in the shooting late last night that left two unidentified men dead at the East End Hotel. Cameras at the hotel show a woman being dragged off by who the authorities are considering as the suspect to the … oh my God! That’s me! Dimitri, it’s my picture!”

Carefully, he pulled onto the shoulder of the road and took the paper from her trembling grasp. He scanned the article carefully and the found the only mention of him as an unknown dark man. Ava, on the other hand, had been mentioned by name and even wielded a picture of her, bright and smiling into the camera. It gave her description, along with her job at Chaud Magazine. What they didn’t mention was John Paul or her mother, which momentarily hit him as odd, but not enough to dwell on.

“I didn’t kill those men,” Ava gasped, looking dangerously pale under the green tinge of her skin.

Dimitri shook his head. “You’re not their suspect. They only want to talk to you.”

What he didn’t tell her was that this also put her face on the Most Wanted hit list for the person whose men Dimitri had shot the night before.

“I need to call John Paul,” she said firmly, but with an undertone of terror. “And Robby. They will have seen this. They will…” she broke off with a sound between a gasp and a sob.

Wordlessly, Dimitri took out his phone and passed it to her. The flicker of surprise on her face told him she hadn’t expected that, but she took the phone quickly and dialed.

“Don’t tell them where we are,” he warned her. “We don’t know who is listening. Ava.” He put a restraining hand on her arm, stopping her from hitting talk. “I mean it.”

She nodded. “I won’t.”

Resorted to believing her, he let go and sat back in his seat. The paper was tossed into the backseat and he pulled back onto the deserted road.

“Dad? It’s me.”

Dimitri couldn’t hear the exact words coming from the other end, but the volume of John Paul’s exclamation echoed into the air in an intelligible garble.

“No, I’m okay,” Ava assured him, sounding horribly false even to Dimitri’s ears. “I’m with Dimitri. He saved me last night from those men.”

The response was lower, calmer, but firm. He was no doubt telling Ava to tell him where she was.

His theory proved correct when Ava said, “I honestly don’t know where we are, but I’m safe. I promise I am. I just needed to call you and…” she broke off abruptly, then, “No, I understand that. I do, but Dimitri … yes, but…”

There was a stretch of silence on her end.

“All right.” She whispered at last, pulling the phone from her ear. She glanced sideways at Dimitri. “He wants to talk to you.”

He’d expected as much, and didn’t bother concealing his deep exhalation as he put the call through the car speakers.

“Yeah?” he said in the way of greeting.

“What the hell have you done?” was John Paul’s immediate response.

Dimitri shook his head when Ava opened her mouth. Didn’t matter. John Paul wasn’t done.

“If anything happens to her, Tasarov, I will personally put you so far into the ground, the earth’s core will melt your bones.”

“Dad!” Ava cried, horrified.

John Paul either didn’t hear her, or chose to ignore it. “I have spent the last sixteen years keeping her away from your bullshit, away from that world, and now, she is at the very center of a nationwide manhunt. Every dirty bag in the country is looking for her, because of you.”

“Dimitri had nothing to do with any of this!” Ava protested.

Dimitri put his hand up to stop her.

“He knows what he’s done,” John Paul hissed, livid fury a white hot iron in his voice. “Bring her back. Now.”

It was now or never, Dimitri thought, gripping the wheel more securely between his hands.

“What’s in it for me?”

Chapter Six

The silence rolled through the car with the same intensity as an approaching storm. It rose in dark, electric currents that had all the hairs on Ava’s arms lifting. A chill rippled along her spine with serrated fingers. She shivered.

“What?” Calm, so much eerie calm in a single word, it terrified her.

“You want her back, but I also want something,” Dimitri replied with a curtness that suggested they were discussing a matter that meant very little to him. “I think I have the bigger bargaining chip, don’t you?”

Ava sat in horror as the conversation unfolded. The flippant disregard cut deep, leaving jagged claw marks on her soul, but it was the implication of what he was saying, the emphasis on her life that had her staring at the man next to her, horrified.

“You won’t hurt her,” John Paul countered after a heartbeat.

Dimitri laughed, the sound actually amused. “Based on what? Some ridiculous few months a hundred years ago? I’ve worked very hard to be where I am and to get what I want. Ava barely means a thing to me anymore.”

John Paul was silent long enough to make her heart skip over. The absence of his immediate resolution had her stomach jittering. All her life, he’d been her knight, the one with all the answers to all her problems. To hear nothing when her life was in danger made her want to cry.

But was she? She glanced back at Dimitri, at his cool, confident profile, and really wondered if he would hurt her. It had been eight years, but he wouldn’t. She had to believe he wouldn’t. No. Absolutely not. Whatever he was playing at, it was to rile John Paul, because even while he was discussing her life as though it meant less to him than the flicking of an ant off a picnic blanket, she had never felt more safe. Maybe that made her a lunatic, but she stood by it.

Then another thought occurred to her—John Paul knew. He knew about her and Dimitri. How? She had no idea, but he seemed unconfused by Dimitri’s backhand response.

“What do you want?”

If the question pleased him at all, Dimitri’s expression never altered. His eyes remained focused on the road, slightly narrowed as he came to a rolling stop at a four way, glanced in all four directions and then turned the wheel right down a long stretch of dirt. He never even peeked at her.

“You know what I want,” he said at last.

Then, to her absolute shock, he disconnected the conversation.

“What are you doing?” she demanded. “You can’t just tell someone you’re going to kill their daughter and then hang up.”

“That’s how negotiation works,” he told her quietly. “If he wants to see you again, he’ll have to think about what I want and call me back.”

Ava was silent for a long moment, possibly too long, because he shot her a quick, sidelong glance before focusing on the road again.

“Would you really?” she asked, so quietly even she had trouble hearing it.

“What?”

She raised her voice a notch. “Would you kill me if he says no?”

She had to give him credit when he said nothing for a long stretch of time. It made her think he was considering it, debating how to explain to her that he meant none of it.

“Yes.”

Ava blinked, momentarily too distracted by her own swirling confidence that it took a full second to understand his response.

“What?”

He peeked at her, a quick twist of his head before looking away. “I would if he doesn’t do what I say.”

Ava stilled. “You’re lying.”

His shoulders lifted with his deep inhalation. When the air came out, it was with a heavy sense of exasperation.

“It’s been eight years, Ava. I’m not the man you once knew.”

“So, what then?” she snapped. “What kind of man are you now, eh? The sort that beats women? Kills them? Do you get off on the torture of children? Do you think I’m stupid?”

“Doesn’t matter what you believe.”

She refused to let it slide that easily. “I heard what you said back there, at the restaurant to that man. I heard what you called me.”

He turned left down yet another length of road into even more endless nothing.

“Christ, I was caught up in the moment,” he grumbled. “Didn’t mean a damn thing.”

“You’re a liar!” she shot at him. “You said yourself you’d never hurt me. Did you get caught up in the moment then, too?”

“Yes.”

Ava folded her arms. “All right then, Mr. Big, Bad Killer, go on then. Hurt me. Let’s see it.”

“Ava…”

“No, really. I’m calling you out.”

“Stop it.”

“Can’t do it, can you?”

The car came to a violent, shrieking stop in the middle of the road. Clouds of dust plumed up behind them. Ava pitched forward and only just caught herself on the dash.

Dimitri practically turned all the way in his seat, his eyes molten pools of dark, coiling rage. “Knock it off!” he growled. “Everything I said was to get you to shut up and do what I say until I can get rid of you. That’s what all this is about. You’re a means to an end, Ava. Things will never go back to the way they were between us. Those days are over, or was I not clear when I left? So, whatever stupid idea you have in your head about me loving you, get it out now, because I don’t care. Not about you. Not about what happens to you. Not about how I send you back to John Paul. Understand?”

Not a muscle worked by the time he finished. Every nerve, bone, fiber of her body had crystalized. She’d become a sculpture of ice, frozen to her seat as he sat back, his expression never altering.

Her heart hurt. It was odd because she’d expected the useless thing to be clutched in his bloody hand where he’d torn it from her chest. But it twisted and bled like he’d actually stabbed her. She honestly never thought anything could hurt more than the time he’d left, yet this was worse. The pain was so much more vivid. Maybe she’d lathered herself in a balm of ignorance the last time, the foolish ignorance that maybe it wasn’t what it seemed. There was no salve now, just a cold slap of reality.

“I … understand,” she whispered, finding her voice from the bottom of some distant well.

He hesitated. It was no more than a split second, but then he was slamming down on the gas and nothing more was said.

John Paul never called back. It made her wonder if maybe he didn’t have Dimitri’s number, or if the thing Dimitri wanted would take a long time to obtain. Whatever it was, she wished he’d hurry. Every hour that passed was a new form of torture. It didn’t matter that she’d locked herself up in her room and left him to stomp about below. His very existence in the same air space was suffocating her. She tried to sleep. She crawled beneath the itchy blankets and wedged herself against the lumpy mattress, desperate for sleep to come, to take away the endless hours until she could go home, but each bout of slumber seemed only seconds long and left her edgy and miserable.

That was when the tears came. They flooded down her cheeks in a maddening rush of emotions she was powerless to stop. Each flow burned a hot path, making the skin feel tight and itchy. She tried to wipe them, tried to stifle them with the pillow she crushed to her face, but they just kept coming until she was certain she’d fill the entire room.

She wasn’t entirely sure why she was crying. Despite everything, she wasn’t scared. She didn’t believe Dimitri would hurt her, or that John Paul wouldn’t do everything in his power to see her safely home. In all reality, the entire situation was more bothersome than frightening. Yet, she couldn’t stop the stupid tears. It was irritating.

Maybe it was seeing him again. That had certainly been a mind fuck. She’d just begun to get used to the idea of not being with him ever again. Maybe it was anger and a mixture of hurt. It was hard to tell when everything was all tangled together inside her. Seeing him again had definitely brought on things she’d fought to repress, things like that morning, of waking up and finding him gone. The countless voicemails that went unanswered, the hours spent at their favorite meet up spot waiting for him, the nights curled up in bed wondering what she’d done wrong. Then the weeks that passed, the months, the years, and finally the conclusion that he wasn’t coming back. Maybe it was the absence of closure, the unanswered questions, the unhealed wounds. He’d left a crater in her and that was bound to have screwed with her emotions.

A soft click had her head coming up. It was incredibly loud in the crackle of nothing only nature could conjure. Ava had always hated that weird, eerie whisper the absence of civilization held. John Paul had tried to take her camping once, but he was no better at it than she was and they never did it again, which had been a relief for both of them. But the snap of locks tumbling into latch had her bolting upright. Her head snapped in the direction of the door, still shut, but holding a sinister edge to it now.

“Dimitri?”

Tossing back the blanket, she sprinted to the door. Her hand closed around the knob. She twisted and yanked. Nothing happened.

“Dimitri!” She smacked the wood with the palm of her hand. “Unlock the door!”

In the distance, from somewhere below, a door shut. An engine started. Twigs and leaves crunched as a car rolled back.

“Don’t leave me here!” she shrieked.

Nothing answered back, not even the wind. The house sat in a morbid stillness that made her think of every horror movie she’d ever seen that started with a group of idiots going to a cabin in the middle of nowhere and unleashing something terrible. It didn’t help that she had absolutely no idea if he was even coming back. For all she knew, the exchange had been made and she would be left there until John Paul came to get her. She wasn’t entirely certain she could survive until morning in a haunted cabin with a weird smell.

Chest thumping with dread, she took a step back. Then another. She kept going until her knees caught the edge of the mattress. She sat heavily, making the mattress springs jingle.

It was impossible to tell how long she waited. It felt like hours. Like the rest of the house, the room was a square, colorless box with a metal bed, a dresser, and a nightstand. There was an empty closet in one corner that was something straight out of a horror movie and a window that was painted shut despite her many efforts to try and get it open. The rest of the place was decorated in fine strings of cobweb and dust. It was evident that no one had spent any length of time there since it was built. It wasn’t cared for properly. The air was stale and thick with the sour stench of decay. The smell of whatever had died in that place was beginning to make the climb from downstairs. It hadn’t been as bad when they’d arrived, but it was all she could focus on. It was a physical force seeping from the walls and creeping out from beneath the door.

Maybe it was a body, a human body, she mused. Or maybe it was the normal stink of nature. She wasn’t sure, nor was it something vastly important in the scheme of things. Her bigger concern was the full bladder she’d been studiously trying to ignore for the better part of forever. Without her phone, she had no real idea how long it’d been. She was so dependent on technology that she didn’t even own a bloody watch. But the way she was beginning to squirm, it had been longer than an hour.

“Fuck!” she moaned quietly to herself, and wondered if she would need to start doing her business in the closet. But did she trust the closet not to eat her alive? That was the real question.

She hopped to her feet and began to pace, busying her mind with the cracks in the ceiling and the number of times it took her to get from one wall to the other.

It was during the fortieth pace when the lock on the door clicked and the knob rattled. Ava expected John Paul, or even Jarvis, but Dimitri stood in the darkened doorway, looking particularly sinister with his broad shoulders caped in shadows.

“You locked me in!” she exclaimed, savage in her outrage. “I nearly died!”

Not waiting for a response from him, she shouldered past and bolted for the bathroom. The door slamming echoed through the hallway, ringing of her desperation.

“Asshole!” She kept yelling all the while doing her business. “Next time, I’m shitting on your bed!”

There was silence, but she knew he was there, no doubt still standing by her open door, waiting for her.

“What if there was a fire?” She washed her hands and emerged. “What if I was possessed by the lost souls trapped in this place?” She’d been right. He was exactly where she’d left him. “Have you any idea how hard it is to exorcise a demon?”

Her concerns were met with a deadpan stare, then the careless lift of his shoulders. “Do you?”

Ava stilled. She considered his question.

“No,” she admitted. “But the movies make it look really hard.”

He hummed quietly, a pondering sound. “Are you hungry?” he said instead, clearly unconcerned about her concerns.

“Of course I am.” She folded her arms. “Last time you fed me, it was the wee hours of the morning. I’m not a bloody robot.”

He chose to ignore her sarcasm as he turned and started down the long, dark hall to the stairs. She followed him, nearly dying as the smell grew stronger at the bottom.

“Seriously.” She mashed a hand over her nose. “What is that? Do you not smell it?”

Maybe it was just her, like how people smelled burnt toast before a stroke. Christ, was she having a stroke? Maybe it was a heart attack.

“What are you doing?”

She kept both palms flat on her breasts, silently counting each heartbeat. It felt regular. But she wasn’t a doctor.

“How do you know if you’re having a heart attack?”

They stepped into the kitchen and her concerns were set aside as she took in the plastic bags piled high on the counter. There were enough items there for a week, which in no way built her confidence that she would be leaving any time soon.

“You haven’t heard from John Paul yet?” she guessed.

He walked to the bags and started taking items out. Most of it was food, but there was the odd dish soap, shampoo, men’s razors, and a box of dishes.

“He texted,” he said at last.

“So, when can I go home?”

“Not yet.” He shook out a stalk of celery.

“But when?” she pressed. “I can’t stay here forever. I need to call Robby. He’s probably worried sick, and work. I’m going to lose my job. Dimitri!” she shouted when he went on emptying the grocery bags and ignoring her rant.

“You can’t.”

Furious, she crossed her arms. “And why not?”

He pulled out his phone and held it out to her. “There’s no reception up this far out, that’s why. I had to drive nearly an hour to get even a bar.”

Ava snatched the device from him and checked for herself.

Nothing.

But she did notice the text exchange between him and John Paul. It didn’t tell her overly much. It was four lines.

John Paul: “You have my word.”

Dimitri: “You’ll get her after.”

John Paul: “I want to talk to her.”

Dimitri: “Tomorrow.”

“Okay, then take me there,” she said.

Dimitri shook his head. “Not tonight.” He turned to the fridge, arms laden with supplies. He yanked open the fridge door. “You can come with me tomorrow.”

Because he’d promised John Paul he could talk to her. He wasn’t doing her any kind of favor. It was right there in their texts.

“What about Robby? I want to call him.”

He took the phone from her and stuffed it into his back pocket. “Fine.”

“And my work,” she pressed on.

“Fine,” he said again.

With no choice but to believe him, Ava went to help him deposit a carton of eggs, a pitcher of milk, and a bag of green apples—her favorite —into the icebox.

“I’m trusting you,” she told him as he shut the door. “If you lie to me…”

He met her gaze in the dim glow of the room, but he said nothing.

It was growing bright outside the windows when the palm clamped over Ava’s face, jolting her awake mid sleep. Her eyes flew open, wide and terrified as they searched into the semi darkness.

“Get up!” hissed the voice.

“Dimitri?” His name was a muffled, garbled gasps.

The hand moved to her arm. She was dragged out of bed and onto her feet.

“What—?”

She was silenced by a sharp, “Quiet!”

He hauled her from the room, not even pausing to let her pull her pants or shoes on.

At the bottom of the steps, he motioned her back against the wall just next to the front door and scooted up next to her to peek sideways out the corner of the window overlooking the front porch.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“A car pulled up,” he said. “I heard at least three doors slamming.”

Ava frowned. “John Paul?”

Dimitri shook his head. “I never told him where we were. No one knows.”

“Someone does,” she whispered when they heard the faint crunch of footsteps moving up the path to the front door.

“Did you tell someone?” he hissed, gun already drawn and ready between his hands.

Ava’s frown deepened. “Who?” she cried. “How?”

“If you did, you better tell me now, because I’m about to blow their heads off.”

“How would I tell anyone?” she snapped. “Smoke signals?”

He didn’t ask her again. Instead, he peeked out the grimy window.

“Eight,” he muttered to himself. “Heavily armed.” He cocked back the hammer on the Glock. “Definitely not friendly.”

“Is it the same guys from the hotel?”

“No.” He spared her a sidelong glance. “They’re dead.”

Ava rolled her eyes. “I mean one of them.”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t understand how they found us.”

“But they did, so what’s the plan?”

Dimitri seemed focused on their guests and didn’t answer. When he did, it was to take her hand in his, in the one not gripping the gun.

“Come on.”

They abandoned their place and ran into the kitchen. The wobbly table was shoved aside to reveal a square box cut into the linoleum. Dimitri took the steel ring and yanked open the hatch.

Eerie darkness greeted them from the bottom. Ava had seen enough horror movies to recognize a bad idea, but Dimitri shoved her down the slanted steps and followed her.

The smell was astronomical. It plowed into them with a ferocity that had Ava retching. Every inhale burned in her chest. Tears blinded her. She was sure this was how it would all end when Dimitri dragged the table back into place and shut the hatch on top of them, sealing them in with the dead thing in the dark.

Unaffected by the animal rotting in his cellar, he took her hand and led her through the passageway with the agility and night vision of a cat. His precision would have amazed her if she wasn’t more preoccupied with her supper making a reappearance. Her stomach roiled and brewed up in her chest. Throwing up was an inevitable fate, but she found herself scrambling after Dimitri, struggling to keep up with her bare feet.

They must have walked for at least twenty minutes before coming to a stop. His hand slipped from hers and she heard him rifling around a few feet away. The air was thin and oddly moist. It smelled of earth and rotting leaves. It was unclear how far underground they were, but it was apparent that they were beneath the wilderness in some unknown direction.

Rusty hinges squealed. There was a groan and a glowing half-moon appeared against the black. It widened the harder Dimitri pushed against it. Fresh, clean air rushed through the opening, bathing her damp skin and making her shiver.

“Where are we?”

Rather than answer, he helped her up and through the hole that opened into the side of a trench. The ground beneath her feet sank a little, moist from the early morning dew. Above their heads, leaves rustled wildly with the crisp breeze. Somewhere beyond that, she heard the faint hum of traffic.

Dimitri climbed out behind her and unfurled to his full height. He closed the iron hatch, twisted the lever that locked it into place and then took her hand. He led her up the incline to the other side. The breeze swept up beneath the hem of her t-shirt and toyed with the thin bit of cotton covering her crotch. She tried not to yelp at the invasion.

“You could have let me get pants,” she mumbled, holding tight to the bottom of her top and keeping it firmly over her backside.

“Didn’t have time,” was his answer.

Maybe, but she was certain they could have found two seconds. Nevertheless, it was too late to think about it now anyway. Instead, she focused on the climb and the view once they reached the top.

They were surrounded by trees, but not as densely populated as the cabin had been. Each one was spaced further apart and the ground was more pine needles than grass, a sure sign they were closer to the road.

Dimitri marched to a clump of bushes and reached inside. Ava watched in amazement as he tore the shrubbery up in a clump and tossed them aside. But the awe died when she realized it was a green tarp with bits of hedging glued around it. Underneath it was an old model Jeep, topless and the same green as the tarp. Dimitri climbed in and reached for something beneath the visor. It dropped into his lap and she caught a glimpse of a remote.

“Get in,” he called to her.

Not needing to be told twice, Ava darted around the hood and crawled into the passenger’s side seat. She watched as Dimitri put the keys into the ignition and turned. The engine sprung to life almost immediately. Its low rumble vibrated beneath her bare thighs. She expected him to put it into drive and make a speedy getaway, but he turned in his seat and aimed the garage door opener over his shoulder. She heard a click. Then nothing. For a full second, the world was quiet. Even the winds had calmed. She studied the direction he was aiming, searching for signs of change and finding only the subtle sway of treetops.

“I don’t think it—”

The explosion tore up from the ground in a deafening boom that ripped up whole trees from their roots. Flames plumed into the air, an angry, red fist punching into a flawlessly blue sky. Smoke bellowed, suffocating the fresh scent of pine with the stink of sulfur.

Ava cried out. Her hands flew to her mouth, but her eyes remained fixed on the destruction. The rumble washed clear across the distance in a hot, repressive heat that stung her cheeks. The Jeep rattled, but remained firmly situated.

“Oh my God!”

“Hold on!” he ordered, eyes focused on the narrow path ahead rather than inferno of the cabin as it was demolished.

Dimitri’s grip tightened on the wheel. He pushed harder on the gas and shot them the half mile to the highway, away from the blaze. The mushroom cloud of smoke and flames danced in the rearview mirror as they drove in the opposite direction.

Chapter Seven

“Where are we going?” Ava asked after an hour of driving in no clear direction.

Dimitri hadn’t thought that far ahead. His only clear objective was to get as far away from the wreckage as possible, regroup, and then find the bastards and kill them. But he knew he needed to stop. He needed to find a safe place to put a better plan in motion.

The highway was barren, an endless stretch of winding asphalt that lead nowhere but deeper into a tunnel of looming trees. He kept hoping they’d come across something, a restaurant, a gas station, maybe even another person, but all there was for miles was nothing.

He looked away from the phone he’d been trying and failing to pick a signal up with and peeked at the road before adjusting his arm further away from his body.

“How is there no reception?” he muttered to himself.

“Because some genius brought us out to the middle of nowhere,” Ava answered. “There are too many trees for the signal to pass through.”

With a grunt, he tossed the phone into the cup holder and focused on driving. He considered turning around, but couldn’t risk running into any survivors they might have left behind. Plus, he was nearly confident they would hit some form of civilization sooner or later.

That didn’t happen for almost two hours. Not until the trees had dissolved into wide stretches of farmland and the scent of pine was conquered by wet animals and heaps of manure. He found a motel out in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere, surrounded by miles of endless nothing and despair. It could have been abandoned for the way it was falling apart were it not for the sign blinking lazily about its vacancy.

“This is where hopes and dreams come to die,” Ava muttered, eyeing the boarded up windows on several of the rooms, the door missing on another, and the strange smell that seemed to be doming the entire lot.

She was right. It was one wrong step from some infectious disease, but they only needed it for a couple of hours.

“Stay in the car,” he told her as he reached across her lap and yanked open the glove compartment. He pressed a Glock 36 into her palm. “Do you know how to use one of these?”

“Yes, but—”

“Use it,” he told her firmly. “Anyone comes near the car, shoot them in the head.”

Her jaw slackened. “Are you serious?”

He met her gaze. “We’ve nearly been killed twice in two days, myshka. Don’t miss.”

Terror turned her wide eyes glassy, but she curled her fingers around the weapon and sucked in a deep breath.

Dimitri started to push out of the car, he paused and glanced back at her. “Not me. Don’t shoot me.”

His joke got the effect he’d been going for and she laughed. It was strained and unsteady, but it loosened some of the lines around her mouth.

“It is tempting,” she said.

Snorting, he rolled out of his seat and slammed the door behind him. His gaze swept over the deserted highway, the absence of any other life, and he wondered if it wasn’t safer just to find a rattlesnake pit to hide in.

Senses on high alert, he stalked around to the trunk and popped it open. From beneath the felt hatch where the spare was kept, he pulled out a second Glock and a KP-90. Both were tucked into the waistband of his pants. His coat was tugged down over top. He locked and alarmed the vehicle before setting off in the direction of the office. He paused once to glance back at the car and Ava’s drawn, pale face watching him. Their gazes locked. He read the concern and fear in hers and tried to reflect his confidence back, his assurance that he would get them out of this. She said nothing and he ducked inside.

Low, sultry jazz crooned from the ancient record player wheezing in the corner behind a low desk. The bit of space stank of grilled cheese, sweat, stale tobacco, and moldy cat fur. Flies buzzed around a cluster of plates stacked off to one side. A still burning cigarette in a glass ashtray sent twisted spirals of smoke into the air. Next to it, that morning’s paper sat open alongside a cold mug of coffee. Ava’s face peered back at him from the front page with the captions to call the police if seen.

Dimitri grabbed the paper and rolled it up. He tucked it into the inside pocket of his coat. He glanced through the open doorway leading into a living area across the desk.

“Hello?” he called.

There was no answer.

He was beginning to think they should continue on and find a different place when the door behind him opened and a large, squat woman wobbled in holding a bucket of dirty ice.

“That your Jeep out there?” she asked in way of greeting.

Dimitri went to peer through the grimy window, mostly to check on Ava; she was still there, looking anxious as the door closed behind the woman.

“Yes.” He turned back. “We need one room for a few hours.”

“‘course you do.” She tossed back the flap making up part of the desk and stepped through to the other side. “That’s a pretty girl you’ve got waiting.” She set the bucket down next to the dishes. “It’s fifty an hour. Extra twenty for the TV.”

Dimitri pulled out two hundred and tossed it on the counter. “Don’t need the TV.”

The woman gave him a toothless grin. “‘course you don’t. Room eight.”

Ignoring that, he snatched up the keys she tossed him and stalked out without giving any information. Places like that seldom ever asked for ID.

Gravel, bits of broken glass, metal, and what looked suspiciously like needles, crunched beneath his boots as he made his way back to the Jeep. He unlocked the doors and yanked Ava’s open.

She snapped the safety on the Glock before letting her hands drop down into her lap with the gun still cradled between her fingers. She started to climb out. Dimitri stopped her. He gave her the room key then leaned in and slipped one arm under her knees. The other went across her back. He hoisted her out of her seat gingerly.

She was warm and soft in a way that was disturbingly familiar. The subtle scent of her skin rushed over him the moment her slender arms encircled his shoulders. He tried not to notice how right it felt, having her there, cradled against him. He tried to focus on the mission, on the importance of getting her back out of his life as quickly as possible.

“You shouldn’t pick me up,” she whispered, face hovering too close to his. “Your shoulder…”

“It’s fine.” He wasn’t about to make her walk. Shoulder or not. Even if the ground wasn’t a carpet of torture.

“Thank you.”

Her breath kissed the side of his face. Its sweet coolness made him want to turn his head and nuzzle into the soft skin of her throat. It would have been too easy to get lost in her, to let himself drown in all the ways he knew how to make her come apart. It had been years, but he knew every trigger spot on her body. Her being in a t-shirt and white cotton panties didn’t help matters.

He said nothing as he took them to their room. The door was a garish color of dried blood, faded and chipped against the wood. The brass knob seemed out of place jutting from its side. Splinters rose where lock met frame, a sign that someone had attempted to get in at some point. He had to remind himself they wouldn’t be there very long.

He bent at the knees, bringing Ava level with the bolt. She used the key and let them in.

He eyed the bed with its stiff, paisley covers and slightly stained sheets, and just as quickly discarded the idea of placing her there with whatever was currently calling it home. He took her to the chair by the window, a simple bit of wood that creaked when he set her into it.

“We will find somewhere else in a few hours,” he told her, making his way back to the door and shutting it. He snapped the lock as an afterthought.

“Hopefully before we’re tortured and skinned alive,” she muttered, drawing her knees to her chest, a bad move, in Dimitri’s opinion.

The gesture left a visible gap between her ankles where he had a clear view of her lips perfectly shaped against the fabric of her panties. He had a clear image of them splayed beneath his fingers, held open to his darting tongue flicking between the swollen crown of her sex and the tight ring of her opening. His scalp gave a phantom prickle as though remembering the feel of her fingers fisted in his hair, urging him on, her back bowing, her hips lifting. The sweet, musky taste of her was an addictive mixture of woman and sex that he had yet to savor on anyone else. He could have lived on her for days. And had. Just a limitless melding of their bodies in a tireless marathon to see who begged for mercy first. Days had been spent being buried inside her, broken occasionally for the odd meal break or shower, but even then, if he could be inside her while doing it, he was. Her body had been his escape, his place of refuge, and he had spent every waking hour worshiping it.

“Dimitri.”

He jolted violently, his memories shattering like colored glass tinkling to the ground to reveal the dark reality he stood in. The foul odor of the room punched through the rest. He shook his head, but no amount of shaking relieved him of the rock hard erection cutting into his zipper or the clawing desire working up through him. He struggled not to glance at her again, knowing he’d never be able to contain himself a second time, but the weakness was too great. Her pull was too powerful.

His gaze slanted back to her, back to the patch of white taunting him from between her calves. It greeted him with a dark stain just in the center and the sight of it nailed him in the sternum.

It hadn’t been there before. It was now, and the longer he studied it, the darker it became, the wider it grew. The rich potency of her arousal filled the space, masking all other smells. It swirled around him, a beckoning call his cock refused to disobey. In his mind, he already knew how it would start. He knew he would take her by the ankles and pull them over his shoulders. He would draw her to the edge of the seat. Then he would feast on her until she was coating his tongue with her release.

That was the plan. That was what he needed to do. He even started forward, a single step that made all the difference, because that was all the space that had been separating them.

Her head tipped back, her eyes swirling with a dark hunger that mirrored his own. She made no sound. There was no other movement, except the rapid rise and fall of her breasts. He couldn’t see them behind her knees, but he knew the nipples would be hard and straining for his attention. He knew he would take them between his teeth while he fucked her, adding just enough pressure to guide her into her first orgasm. That was how she liked it, just the hint of pain leading up to the plunge.

But that would wait. He needed to taste her, needed to gather the rich cream being wasted. He needed to stretch her around his tongue while she pulsed and moaned his name.

“Fuck!”

He had no recollection of speaking. The word hung suspended in the thickening tension solidifying through the room. It should have been enough to propel him back to his senses. It should have been enough to remind him this wasn’t the time.

It started to. He felt the tug of reality working through the red fog, calling him back.

Her arms slipped away as though no longer wielding the strength to keep their grip. The gun and key dropped to the floor in a forgotten clatter. Her knees parted. Her pussy was in perfect display. There was nothing subtle about it.

He dropped to his knees, right there on the filthy carpet, right between her alabaster thighs. Control was a thing of the past, an inconvenience he no longer cared to exercise. His cock was a raging, throbbing force demanding immediate gratification of the one thing that had always felt like home. It didn’t care to recognize anything else.

His head bent, following her musk to the source. His mouth was watering even before he took a greedy swipe of his tongue through the fabric.

Above him, Ava gasped, a weak sound he ignored, because it wasn’t about her. Devouring her, making her come, it was for his pleasure. It was for his sanity. It was for the years of dying of starvation and finally finding relief.

He forced aside the bit of sopping fabric from the beauty he’d missed in the dark of night. Every dip, hollow, and valley of it was exactly how he remembered it in his dreams, but somehow wetter. She was a mess, a beautiful, delicious mess of pink, hairless skin and soothing promises. Her juices ran along the valley from one hole to the other, lubricating them both in a generous flood that reminded him all too well of how it felt to be balls deep in each. A sort of smug satisfaction came of knowing he’d claimed every inch of her, that he’d pumped her full with his come in every orifice and watched as it leaked out of her. He had dominated her in every vile and twisted way possible and left her in a sticky, sated mess across the sheets each morning. And it had never been enough.

“It’s not going to eat itself,” she breathed, voice trembling as hard as she was.

Dimitri allowed his gaze to lift, to move away from the object of his obsession and fixate on her face. He took in her parted lips, the dark flush of arousal on her cheeks, the plea in her eyes and inwardly grinned.

He lowered his face, extended his tongue and took a long, relishing taste of her from center to crown, all the while watching her expression as it twisted into a soundless gasp. Her pussy flexed against his mouth. He repeated the trail, cleaning her until there was nothing but his tongue filling her, stopping the flow.

“God … fuck…”

Her head dropped back. Her hands went beneath her bent knees and she held them apart wide for him.

He didn’t care. He was in heaven. Nothing was pulling him away.

His phone buzzed to life in his pocket. The high pitched shrill made them both jump. Dimitri didn’t need to check the caller ID to know who it was. He pulled it free of his pants, tongue buried in Ava’s pulsating cunt, and passed it straight over to her.

Confusion flickered over her dazed expression, but she accepted the device. She glanced at the screen and her eyes widened, confirming his theory.

“It’s John Paul,” she panted.

He extracted and moved to her clit. “Answer it.”

Her expression was one of pure horror, then dark passion when he suckled on the swollen muscle. She moaned deeply as the phone continued to buzz in her grasp.

“Answer the phone, Ava,” he ordered, raking the sensitive bundle between his teeth.

She answered. Her eyes stayed fixed with his as she brought the phone to her ear, pleading.

“Hello?”

Dimitri couldn’t hear what was being said. He didn’t give a fuck. His only mission was to make Ava come, to make her scream his name and beg him not to stop. If John Paul happened to be on the phone when that happened … well, that was just too bad.

“No, I’m okay,” Ava was saying, visibly struggling to maintain a regular speech pattern while he tongued the tight ring of her opening.

He smirked when she squeezed her eyes shut tight and silently mouthed a series of fucks, a clear indication she was about to come.

“Dimitri?” Her eyes opened and she looked down her body to where he was lazily teasing her clit with the tip of his tongue. “He’s busy. He’s…” Her breath caught. Her body gave a jerk. “He’s … Dimitri…”

He took the phone from her, mashed it to his ear and barked, “She’ll call you back.”

The thing hit the floor somewhere over his shoulder and was forgotten as his entire focus became the woman begging him not to stop. It dawned on him that her sounds of pleasure were for him only and sharing them with anyone, even as a taunt could never happen. He’d always been a greedy, possessive lover, more so when it came to Ava.

“Come for me, myshka,” he prompted, stretching her on two fingers. Then a third. “I need to hear you.”

He worked them deep inside her as she practically bowed off the chair in her reckless abandonment. Her thighs quivered. Her toes curled. She gave a strangled sob. Then she was coming. Her body broke and she liquefied around his thrusting digits. The heat of her ran down his wrists and dripped to the carpet. Her pussy sucked in violent throbs that made her clit twitch erratically. He teased the defenseless little bundle until the last tremor had left her and her death grip on his hair had slipped free.

He cleaned her with his tongue, lapping it all up, every last drop, ignoring her weak whimpers of protest. Once satisfied there was nothing left, he raised his head.

She lay in a slumped, discarded heap in the chair. Her knees were sprawled open wide, her top bunched around her naked hips, her panties shoved to one side, revealing her glistening and swollen mound. There was a flush in her cheeks that spoke of a satisfied woman and a smile on her lips that made his cock twitch. Her dusky lashes parted and he was caught in her gaze.

“I missed that,” she whispered. “I’ve missed the feel of you inside me more, though.”

He wanted her from behind with her body bent over the chair, her hair twisted in his hand as he slammed into her like a mad man. That was how he planned to take her. He was already starting to tell her as much, when his phone sprang to life a second time, insistent and demanding.

“Ignore it,” she whispered, her voice low and sultry; the same voice she’d used in the past to give that exact same command.

But it was the sick reminder he needed to draw away. Too much damage had already been caused by his weakness. Reality had worked itself past the urgency of his own needs and had smacked him upside the head.

He jerked back and shot to his feet. He spun away from her. His hand trembled as he lifted it to wipe the dampness from his chin.

What the fuck had he done? What had he been thinking? How could he allow himself to toy with her, knowing what he needed to do? When had he becoming such a sick and twisted bastard?

“Dimitri?”

He heard the chair squeak with the shift of her weight and it speared through him. Loathing and disgust wound around his throat and squeezed.

“Don’t.”

He didn’t face her. He couldn’t. Not after what he’d done. Not after what he would do. As if he hadn’t already made her suffer enough. As if she needed another excuse to hate him.

“That shouldn’t have happened,” he told her, barely in control of his voice. “It can’t happen again.”

The phone had stopped ringing. It lay still and useless on the urine colored carpet. The absence of its sound seemed even louder.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered. “You—”

“I know!” he cut her off, not needing her to remind him that he was the one responsible. “It won’t happen again.”

He couldn’t see her face, but he could feel her pain. It swelled through the room like a tangible force. It curdled inside him like sour milk. It filled him with a wrenching pain that nearly sent him doubling over.

She didn’t say anything. He honestly wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, a chair upside the head, maybe. But there was only silence, and he almost longed for the chair, because at least then she wasn’t just sitting there in that fucking thing, watching him like he’d torn her heart out. Again.

Christ, how many times was he going to have to break her? It seemed like every time he got anywhere near her, it ended with him being the cause of her pain. But wasn’t that what monsters did? Wasn’t that what his mother had always told him he was good at? Causing pain and suffering to those around him. It was his own fault he hadn’t listened. His fault he’d allowed himself to believe he was ever capable of more. The evidence of his nature, the extent of his cruelty sat in that very room with him, saying nothing yet condemning him for his weakness.

“What happened?” she whispered at last. “Did I—”

“It shouldn’t have happened, Ava.” He turned to her, no longer able to avoid her eyes. “In a few days, you’re going to go back to your life and our paths will never cross again. They can’t cross again.”

She sat ramrod straight, her feet neatly side by side on the ground, her knees touching. She sat as though she were prepared to have tea with the queen.

“Why?”

That question was the reason why he’d left the first time without a word. He hadn’t had an answer for her then and he still had no answer for her now, except the truth and that was the thing he’d sworn he’d keep from her.

By no means was he a coward. Someone in his situation couldn’t afford to be. But leaving her like he had was an act that had haunted him every day since. Some days, the urge to confess it all had nearly driven him mad. He’d lie in bed, hands twisted in the sheets, fighting against himself to keep from lunging out and finding her. But it always came down to answering that question.

Why? Why had he left? Why had he never come back? Why had he hurt her?

He wanted to tell her to go ask John Paul. He’d been the one waiting for Dimitri in the wee hours of the morning, just beneath Ava’s bedroom window. He’d been the one to remind Dimitri of what he was and the destruction he would cause if he didn’t let Ava go. He’d been the one to put all the pictures together and help Dimitri realize there was no future for him, and if he kept Ava, no future for her either.

There weren’t many things he agreed with John Paul about. The man had abandoned him before Dimitri was even born, had turned his back on him more times than Dimitri could count. They were both from the same world, yet John Paul had always seen Dimitri as a wild beast running savage through the streets. As a child, Dimitri had wanted to ask what he’d done, but never did. As an adult, he told himself he didn’t care. Whatever the problems the man had, were his burdens to bear.

But Ava was the thing that brought them to same field of understanding. She was the thing that they both could agree needed protecting above all else. For them, she was that flicker of light at the end of a very long tunnel. That glimmer of hope when all else felt lost. She was their strength, the purpose behind every battle. Their love for her may have been different, but ultimately, it was painfully similar. That was the only reason Dimitri had even considered listening when John Paul told him he needed to stay away.

“Are you really prepared to pull her into your world? Can you really do that to her?”

Dimitri had only been twenty-five, but he’d already had blood on his hands. He’d already stood witness as a man’s life had faded from his eyes because of him. He had already done things he couldn’t change, had destroyed lives he couldn’t fix. And every night, he had left behind the things he’d done and crawled into the warmth Ava offered without question. Every night, he’d change out of blood soaked clothes and let her chase away the day with her endless stories. The beast in him had always calmed the second he’d slipped from his world into hers.

“I’ll protect her,” he’d told John Paul with all the confidence of a boy unwilling to relinquish a prized toy. “I can do that.”

John Paul had studied him from the other puddle of darkness the light from her window didn’t reach. His eyes had gleamed the way all eyes in their world seemed to do, with a calculating, watchful scrutiny that left nothing uncovered.

“She doesn’t belong there,” he’d said. “She doesn’t belong with you. You will destroy her. You will take away everything that makes her what she is. You will smother her light and there will be nothing left of her, but the same emptiness that fills everyone who comes near you.”

“I would never hurt her,” Dimitri had insisted.

“You already have, because that is what you do, Dimitri. That is all you are capable of. Your existence is a curse that kills everything it touches. It will kill Ava. It will break her and it will be your fault.”

He smelled of her. The floral scent of her clung to his skin, the taste of her lingered on his tongue. He’d been surrounded by her even then and all he could see when he looked at his hands was blood of the people he’d killed, of the lives he’d shortened. He heard their screams, their pleas for mercy ringing through the gardens. He thought of Ava, sweet, beautiful, pure Ava with her untainted smiles, her unwavering light.

“Let her go,” John Paul had willed. “Do it now and never see her again. You must swear to this. You must swear you will protect her from your mother and the monster inside you.”

Dimitri had frowned. “What about Elena?”

John Paul’s chin had lifted a notch. “How long before she finds out about Ava? How long before she uses Ava to make you fall in line? How long before she kills Ava to send you a message?”

It was a prodding fear he’d ignored for too long, but standing there, being reminded of his evils, there was no escaping it—Elena. His mother would see Ava as a weakness, a weakness she could exploit whenever it suited her. There would be no hesitation. There would be no guilt or mercy. Ava being John Paul’s daughter would only amplify her cruelty. Watching … making Ava suffer would be joy.

“I…”

What could he say? It was true. All of it. He couldn’t protect Ava. He was powerless against his mother, powerless against himself. What sort of man deluded himself into believing otherwise when the truth was staring at him in the face? He was a monster. Going home and washing it off before climbing into Ava’s bed didn’t absolve him of his sins. It didn’t change the fact that he would leave her arms and do it again.

There was no other choice.

That was the last time he ever returned to the estate. The last time he ever saw Ava. The last time his humanity saw freedom. He turned to the night, to the vast strain of his own destruction and submitted. There was nothing else for him. There was no escape from the life he’d been birthed into, the title forced on him. He was nothing, but a savage, wild beast that would one day be put down.

“Dimitri.”

Cool, tender fingers grazed his cheeks and ripped him from the memory with a brutal force that tore the air from his lungs. He sucked in air and nearly doubled over when it wrenched out of him in a near sob. It would have amazed him how something that happened so long ago could still break him open had he not been folded in Ava’s arms. Her heat engulfed him, tinged just slightly by her earlier arousal. He hadn’t heard her move, but there she was, aligned with him from head to toe as though created specifically to be there, nestled against him.

“What are you doing?” The words choked out of him.

“Making it go away.”

Something in him shattered. The deafening sound of it roared between his ears. It pounded in his chest. It raged around him with a ferocity that left him breathless.

At his sides, his fists twitched. The muscles on his arms flexed. His nerves tingled, an insistent, familiar urge that had him catching his breath in restraint.

No. No. Fuck!

His arms lifted of their own volition. They closed around her tiny frame even as his mind screamed at him to stop. His hands opened. Blood rushed into stiff fingers before they closed in her hair and in her top.

“Ava.”

He turned his face into her neck, into the welcoming grip of her embrace.

The voices stopped. The maddening shrieks dissolved to a blissful peace he hadn’t felt in years. The world calmed as it only did when she held him. And he let it. God help him, but he sank into all the things he didn’t deserve. He shut his eyes and, in those few stolen seconds, he let her make him human.

The phone rang from its discarded place on the floor. It broke into the moment with the viciousness of a cracked whip and brought back all the reasons they were in that shithole.

He drew in a breath and pulled back. His hands slipped from her ruined clothes and settled on her waist, not prepared to fully let go. Her head tilted off his shoulder and she peered up at him.

“Better?”

It was. He could never admit it, but he felt almost light, the way one felt when getting off a Farris wheel, like gravity held no sway over them and they could just float away.

“You shouldn’t be walking on this carpet,” he said instead. “You’ll catch something and need your feet amputated.”

He gathered her up and put her back in the chair. Then he scooped up the phone off the ground and stuffed it to his ear.

“What?”

“There you are,” Erik said sharply. “I’ve been calling you. Everything okay?”

No. everything was definitely not okay. He’d just royally fucked up in a manner that was irreparable. He’d broken his vow, and he’d hurt Ava all over again, which was the worst part.

“What’s going on?” he asked instead.

Erik didn’t respond immediately. Maybe he was trying to psychoanalyze Dimitri’s evasion of his question.

“I have some news, but I was hoping to give it to you in person,” Erik said at long last. “It has to do with Ava.”

Dimitri frowned. His own misery lifted in lieu of this new bit of information.

“What about Ava?” he demanded.

Erik paused again, out of hesitation this time. “Maybe you should come home and—”

“What about Ava?” he snarled.

Erik sighed. “She’s gone missing. It’s all over the news. There was an attack on the hotel she was staying at and…” He exhaled again out of frustration. “Someone’s put a bounty on her head, Dimitri. I don’t know who, but someone wants her dead.”

The folded piece of paper in Dimitri’s pocket gave a hot pulse. “Does anyone know where she is?”

“No, she’s gone completely underground. No doubt John Paul’s handiwork. But these people are serious. They won’t stop until they complete the mission.”

“Fuck!”

“I thought you’d want to know,” Erik finished, sounding resigned. “John Paul will be looking for blood and, after everything that’s happened between you two, I didn’t want him thinking you had anything to do with this. Nevertheless, watch your back, yeah?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Dimitri mumbled, and hung up.

“What?” Ava’s voice broke in before the phone was even properly stowed away in his pocket.

Dimitri shook his head. “Nothing we don’t already know.”

“Was that John Paul?”

“No, but you should probably call him back.”

He dug the phone from his pocket and held it out to her.

“Can I call Robby afterwards?” she asked. “And work? You said.”

Dimitri nodded and moved away to give her privacy. He wandered over to the window overlooking the deserted parking lot, the stretch of barren highway, and the dead fields beyond it. Where the fuck were they?

“Hey, it’s me.” She cleared her throat nervously. “We were just leaving the car and had things in our hands.” Her lie almost made him smirk. Almost. “No, I’m fine. I promise. The … what?”

Dimitri glanced back to find her sitting straight up, fingers white around the phone as she stared at the carpet unseeingly.

“Yes, a couple of times, but we never saw their faces.” Her frown deepened. “Yes, he’s here. Okay? But … no, I do understand, but … okay…” She lifted her head and met Dimitri’s gaze. “He’d like to talk to you.”

Returning to her, he took the phone.

“Yeah?”

“Is it your mother?”

No matter in what context it was said, John Paul always managed to make your mother sound like an insult.

“Is what my mother?”

“The one after Ava.”

It was a thought that had crossed his mind, but every time it did, he couldn’t help wondering, “Why would she?”

“Because she’s evil.” like you. Although not said, the implication was there.

“Elena knows nothing of Ava,” he said. “She has no need to hurt her.”

“Someone wants her,” John Paul mumbled darkly. “Someone is paying a lot of money for my Ava’s head and I want to know who.”

“I already have her and you know what I want, so it’s not me.”

John Paul said nothing for a long time. Dimitri was beginning to think he’d hung up when he spoke.

“Keep her safe, Tasarov. Bring her back to me in one piece.”

“Hold your end of things and we shouldn’t have any problems.”

He hung up.

“You need to stop doing that,” Ava muttered when he’d returned the phone to her. “Hanging up on him like that.”

“It’s how we show love.”

He expected her to roll her eyes and go back to making her call, but the hand with the phone dropped into her lap and she stared at him.

“John Paul knows about us.”

It took him a minute to figure out how she knew that. But he and John Paul hadn’t been subtle about it and Ava had always been frighteningly perceptive. It had always unnerved him how quickly she seemed to figure things out just from observing a situation.

“Yes,” was the best he could manage.

“Did you tell him?” she went on. “Was it part of the plan?”

He shook his head. “He’s known for a while.”

She licked her lips, distracting him from her next question. “How long?”

That was tricky. He may not have any love for John Paul, but if he told Ava the truth, she would be hurt, and the man may not have been any kind of father to Dimitri, but he meant the world to her. He couldn’t take that from her.

“Make your call,” he told her instead. “We need to leave soon.”

He knew she wouldn’t let it go. She would bring it up again. It was only a matter of when. But for now, she dropped it.

She called her friend.

Dimitri had only met the man that once, during the night of Ava’s party. He hadn’t taken away overly much appearance wise, except that the man was too pretty, but Ava seemed to care for him. Dimitri had wondered briefly during those few minutes while his flesh was being sewn back together if the two weren’t a couple. They’d certainly been in tune the way lovers were and Robby had shown up without question when Ava had asked him for help; it took a very good friend to do what Robby had done for her. He’d risked his job and future for her without question. While that convinced Dimitri of the other man’s affections for Ava, it wasn’t sexual. There were no lingering touches or longing glances. He’d been there for her because he genuinely cared for her and that was the sort of person Dimitri wanted for her. Not to be with, because there was no man right for that job, but for support and friendship. Robby seemed to be a good choice.

“It’s me.” Ava’s quiet murmur brought him back. “No, I’m all right.” She laughed. “Robby, calm down. I’m okay! I promise. I know. I’m sorry. I tried to call … you did what? Robby! Is he all right? Well, that was just … what were you thinking?”

Dimitri tuned out the rest of the conversation. Whatever it was about, she seemed intent on tearing her friend a new hole and he opted to leave them to it.

He focused on the parking lot and the litter collecting along the curbs. A plastic bag unclasped from a mound of trash and swept five feet into the air before slapping into a metal post. It hung there, flapping casually in the breeze. Its faint rustle sounded desperate, like the wings of a trapped bird. A part of him had to battle the urge to go out there and free it, knowing it was ridiculous because it was a fucking bag. But the urge remained, accompanied by the prickle of a faint memory he hadn’t allowed himself to dwell on in years—Millie.

Christ, Millie.

How he missed her, especially on nights when it rained.

“No, that’s not what I said,” Ava’s outburst pulled him back. “Of course I expect you to apologize to him. No, not because you didn’t hit him harder. Christ, Robby, you’re lucky he didn’t press charges. Patrick’s not a wanker. Stop that.” Her voice softened. “I don’t know. A couple of days. I can’t explain things right now. I know I said I would. I’m sorry. You’ll be the first person I call when I get back, I promise. Yes, I promise. The biggest steak on the menu. Are you being serious right now? I am not buying your dog a steak, too. Because you don’t have a dog.” She laughed. “I will. Love you.”

Dimitri looked away before she hung up. Her words circled the room, echoing in taunting jabs each time they reached him. He wasn’t sure he liked her telling another guy she loved him, even as a friend. John Paul was one thing, but Robby wasn’t gay. He was a straight, reasonably handsome man who had all of Ava’s attention. Not that it was any of his concern, he told himself. But it did make him regret not hitting the guy.

“Friend all right?”

Ava’s head came up. There was a smile on her face that reflected in her eyes. He remembered a time she used to smile like that at him because of something he’d done.

“Yeah, he was worried, but he’s okay now.” She turned the phone over and over in her palm. “I owe him a steak dinner when I get back.” Her smile slipped. “And an explanation. I honestly have no idea what to tell him. I don’t want to lie.”

“Then tell him the truth.”

Her gaze shot up to his. “Even about you?”

Secrets and lies were the very foundation on which his life was built. Each one was a finely woven thread connected together by another lie, another secret. Each one was more fragile than the last and he stood in the center, balancing precariously and willing it all to remain sturdy. For him, lying was an act of survival, keeping secrets was the way of life. He really didn’t know how to be honest, which always frightened him. He knew he was capable of it. He’d always been honest with Ava. It was just something that had come naturally. But there were things about him that she knew that he couldn’t afford for other people to know.

“Maybe some of it?” he offered, having no real experience with the whole friendship business.

“Like what?” she countered. “That you were my best friend? My lover? My first everything and then you left?”

A muscle tightened in his chest and flexed in his jaw. “Ava…”

“I can’t tell him about you. It’s not safe for him.” She shook her head. “I’ll figure something out.”

Dimitri could think of nothing to say. He had no words for comfort, no beads of wisdom. He just stood there and watched as she lowered her head over the phone again, and paused. She stared at the blank screen for a long moment, thumb hovering over the keys. She licked her lips. Her hand gave the slightest tremor. Then she was dialing. Dimitri watched her, studying the tension in her shoulders, the nervous tick in her jaw.

He wasn’t stupid.

In three strides, he had the phone from her grasp. Her gasp told him even before he looked at the screen.

Something in him sank. A cold, wet feeling of betrayal pooled in his belly. He stared at the three numbers blinking, black against sharp white.

“I can’t stay here!” she blurted. “I need to go home.”

There were no words as he deleted the emergency numbers and stuffed the phone into his pocket. He pocketed the Glock he’d given her earlier as well, in case she got any other bright ideas, and turned away, back to the window. He peered out, though nothing had changed, except the bag had broken free of the post and was lost somewhere he couldn’t see.

“You can’t blame me,” Ava said, her voice desperate.

“I don’t,” he murmured, meaning it. “But pull something like that again and you’ll never get the phone.”

She said nothing.

It was nearly noon and the day was beginning to dwindle into nothing. Ava was starting to shift uncomfortably in her chair and he could hear her stomach grumbling from across the room. But he had no plan. There was no concrete way to get Ava somewhere safely when he had no idea where that was. He couldn’t take her to John Paul, not until after the first chair hearing. He didn’t trust the man not to go back on his word as soon as he had Ava. He couldn’t take her to the compound, not with Elena and his brother there—especially not Ivan. He would never leave Ava alone with him. Plus, it was just the kind of leverage his mother had been waiting for her entire life. It was the perfect way to hit John Paul where it hurt. If Dimitri had figured that out, Elena would for sure. He couldn’t trust Ava alone either, nor could he take her with him when he went to get voted in.

“Dimitri?”

Temples thrumming, he glanced over his shoulder at the small, pale figure watching him from the shadows of the room. “Yeah?”

She shifted in discomfort, making the chair squeak under her. “Why did you take me?” The question came out grated through her clenched teeth. “Why am I here?”

He didn’t owe her an explanation. He knew he could tell her as much. But a part of him needed her to understand his reasoning, needed her to walk away from this in the next few days not completely hating him, because despite everything, he really was trying to do the right thing.

“I’m taking McClary’s place.”

Ava blinked. “The northern chair?”

He nodded. “I need John Paul to back me.”

“So, you’re blackmailing him into it?” The dismay in her outrage was almost entertaining.

“I asked nicely. He said no.” Dimitri shrugged. “I had to convince him.”

“By taking me.” She pursed her lips. “That’s cheating.”

“That’s business,” he corrected. “Politics, even in my world, are bloody and only the most cutthroat win.”

She sighed the way a mother would when her child was being particularly difficult. “How many votes do you have?”

“Three, including John Paul.”

She nodded slowly. “There are five territories … four,” she corrected. “Currently, but you’d only need three to win. You’re already ahead.”

Her knowledge of his world didn’t surprise him. Between him and John Paul, she was probably the most informed person in the city.

“What are you going to do with it?” She searched his face. “The north is a place of honor, of power and influence. Are you going to keep it clean like it was before McClary’s death or are you going to let the other four houses peddle their garbage through it?”

It was so much like what John Paul had said to him that he couldn’t help but wonder if John Paul hadn’t told her. Nevertheless, it was a question he needed to expect. It was one he’d be asked often during the process.

But there was no right answer. It was a fine line between what he wanted and what was realistic. The lines of his world weren’t as clean and clear cut as the ones above ground. It was all smudges of gray. And Dimitri was a businessman. He knew the importance of trade, of giving and taking, and exchange. Guns, drugs, and prostitution may have been foul, but even he would not be able to stop all of it in its tracks. McClary certainly couldn’t. It was about compromising.

“Not in the city,” he told her. “Not near the children. Business will commence along the outer perimeters and be done with discretion.”

Her chin went up a notch, narrowing her eyes warily. “You’re not going to try and stop it entirely?”

Dimitri frowned. “You can’t stop the underground movement. Anyone who thinks they can, is an idiot. But you can try and organize it.”

“Are you ready for that kind of power?”

“I was—”

His phone buzzed. He dug it from his pocket and answered it without glancing at the screen.

“Hey, where are you?” Stephen’s voice cut through the speaker, tight and apprehensive.

“What’s going on?” Dimitri turned his back.

“Is that John Paul?”

He ignored Ava in the background.

“What happened?”

“Let me talk to him!” Ava yelled.

“That chick you’re with,” Stephen spoke up over the rapid clicking of a keyboard. “Someone called the police with information on her whereabouts. It came over the police scanner about five minutes ago, some motel out on highway 1. The owner claims she just rented a room to her and a guy matching your description … and the one the cops are looking for.”

Dimitri cursed. He threw back the curtains and peered more closely at the empty roads. There were no cops … yet, but another few minutes and that place would be lit up like a Christmas tree.

He turned to Ava. “We need to go.”

“Is that—”

“No.”

He hung up on Stephen and stalked to where she was kneeling on the chair. He scooped her up into his arms and marched to the Jeep. Ava was placed into her seat. Dimitri started around the hood when the office door flew open with a bang and the woman charged out, waving her arms.

He ignored her as he hopped behind the wheel and sped out of there as though the backend were on fire.

“What happened?” Ava demanded.

“The cops know where you are.” He pressed a little harder on the gas. “The motel owner recognized your picture from the news. She called it in.”

“Okay, but why am I running from the police? I can just talk to them—”

“Because we can’t trust anyone.” And after your stunt with the phone, I don’t trust you either, he wanted to add, but didn’t. “A lot of these cops are bought and until I know who’s after you, you’re not leaving my sights.”

“This is getting ridiculous!” she shouted. “This isn’t going to end in a couple of days, is it? Even after you get the chair and take over the north, I’ll still have a bloody bounty on my head.”

“No, you won’t.” He tossed a glance into the rearview mirror. “Because I’ll have the power to stop them.” He paused, then added quieter, “I’ll protect you.”

She shot him a dry glower. “Like how you kidnapped me, held me hostage, threatened to kill me … need I go on?”

He rolled his eyes. “I never hurt you.”

“No…” she agreed grudgingly. “But if you’d told me that you needed my help convincing John Paul to support you, I would have. Then, maybe, I wouldn’t be nearly as angry with you as I am. You could have handled things differently.”

He chose to ignore the last comment. “You would have talked to him?”

Ava nodded. “Of course. I think you’re perfect as one of the heads of the Syndicate.”

It stunned him how casual she said it, like they were talking about him running for mayor or opening up his own shop. It was all so surreal.

“How do you know?”

She shot him that droll stare. “Because I know you. You might not think I do, but I do. Of all the criminals in the city, you’re the only one who has never hurt anyone … who didn’t deserve it,” she added quickly when he shot her a frown. “I mean, you’re practically Robin Hood the way you steal from other criminals and give back to the people who need it.”

The Jeep swerved wildly, spitting up dirt and bits of rock into the air and filling the road with a plume of dust.

“How the fuck…?” He would have stopped driving if he wasn’t worried about getting caught arguing on the side of the road. “How do you know any of that? How do you know about me?”

“Because I’m not stupid!” she snapped. “You seem to think I’m an idiot, but I pay attention. I notice things.”

“Ava!”

Her temper flared right alongside his. “What?”

He did stop then. He jerked the wheel hard right and skidded to a halt along the shoulder of a dirt road. He turned in his seat to properly glower at her.

“How?”

There was a hot glow in her cheeks from her anger. “Your body!” she shouted. “Okay? I notice your body in the surveillance videos the police show on the news.” Her voice softened. “I know it. I know you. I know your build and your shape. I know how you walk and hold yourself when you’re standing still.” She averted her eyes, took a shaky breath. “I know your voice and your eyes, even with a mask on. I know you better than I know myself.”

He said nothing. He couldn’t. There were no words to explain the wave of emotions crashing into him. It took all he had not to drag her into his lap, not to kiss her until he’d consumed her whole.

“How?” He had no recollection of speaking, but the question poured out of him.

It took longer for her to speak, and when she did, it was while she studied the deck on the Jeep. “I love you.”

Love. Not loved. He didn’t miss the difference. His gut, his heart, his brain didn’t miss the difference.

“After everything?”

Her eyes rolled and he caught the glint of moisture a split second before a tear slipped down her cheek. She snorted a laugh and quickly brushed it away, still not looking at him.

“Maybe I am stupid.”

In the movies, that would be the moment the boy reaches across the console, grabs the girl by the back of her head, pulls her close and kisses her. In a perfect world where the girl’s life wasn’t in danger and the boy wasn’t about to delve deeper into the bowels of hell, that would have sealed everything, the perfect conclusion to a perfect love story.

But his world wasn’t perfect. He definitely wasn’t. And Ava didn’t belong with him.

“You can’t tell anyone,” he bit out, putting as much frustration, rage, and dismissal as he could into those three words.

It hurt. The pain in her eyes when they flicked up at him, the disappointment, the way she quickly looked away, was like having his gut ripped open. But he steeled himself against it, reminding himself the agony was better than attending her funeral.

He put the Jeep into drive and continued on in no clear direction.

He drove them to another motel, this one cleaner with actual people parked outside. But more importantly, by the time they arrived, it was dark enough to park the Jeep out of sight and sneak Ava into the suite when no one was looking.

She immediately went to the first bed and flopped down on it, groaning her pleasure as all her muscles unfurled from the long drive. She hadn’t said anything since her earlier confession and he’d been grateful for it. Things had already become too complicated. He wasn’t even sure how he was going to let her go when the time came.

He closed the blinds and turned the locks in the door before facing her. “Are you hungry?”

She had to be. They hadn’t had a thing to eat since the night before.

“I am not leaving this bed,” she moaned, eyes closed. “Ever.”

He moved to check the bathroom and closet before returning to the beds.

“I’ll see if the restaurant delivers.”

They didn’t. The weary woman apologized and hung up.

Dimitri sighed, checked his pockets for his wallet. “I’ll be back. Stay here, yeah?”

She gave him a pathetic one armed wave before her arm flopped back down onto the mattress.

“I’m serious, Ava.”

She grumbled something into the pillow.

Taking that as compliance, he ducked out of the room and locked the door behind him.

The restaurant attached to the motel was an old style steakhouse catering mostly to truckers and families on vacation. It swam with smells and sounds that made his temples pound, but he placed his order and counted every second before it was brought out to him. He hurried back to the room and found Ava already asleep, face down, naked from the waist down where her top had rolled up over the supple curve of her ass.

Dimitri shook his head as he closed the door. He’d never seen so much off-limit pussy in his life, all in the span of a single day. It only made him wonder who he’d pissed off in a past life.

Relatching the door, he set the untouched food on the table, double checked the parking lot, then took his food and sat down for a long night of TV watching.

It was nearly four in the morning when he heard it, the subtle scuffle of approaching feet, the faint click of guns being cocked. In the silence of the other slumbering guests, each interruption punctured the night, alerting his senses even before the boots hit the pavement outside the door.

Dimitri didn’t wait. He grabbed Ava and dragged her off the bed and onto the floor a split second before the bang of the door being kicked in crashed through the room and the crack of gunfire rained over them.

Ava screamed into his collarbone where he held her to him, shielding her from the rapid spray. Her fingers gripped him, clutching him close as her entire body trembled beneath him.

He wanted to tell her it was all right, but comfort would have to wait as he bid each horrific second until the click of clips being emptied silenced the reign of terror.

Releasing Ava, he lunged to his feet. Both Glocks were torn from the waistband of his pants, aimed and fired in rapid succession. All without pause. Each bullet struck a chest, an arm, a head. Bodies dropped to the threshold with sickening thumps until there was no one left but an empty doorway open to the murky night.

“Come on!”

He grabbed Ava’s elbow and hauled her up. He shoved one of the guns into her hand, but kept a firm grip on the other as he dragged her around the ruined mattress to the door. He kept her tucked half behind him, keeping her shielded by his body as they made it out into the open.

The parking lot was dark save for the bursts of light shining from the lamps stationed in a semicircle along the curbs. Several more lights had flicked on inside the rooms. The windows were painted a faint gold and shadows shifted beyond the curtains. That was their cue to leave.

But it was the sea of shiny cars blocking their path from door to Jeep that concerned him. The absence of movement didn’t exactly mean an absence of threat. There were four men at his feet, but what if there were more waiting for them to come out?

“Stay close,” he told Ava, never taking his eyes off the swaying shadows.

She said nothing, but he could feel the fear rolling off her, could practically hear the chatter of her teeth. Her skin vibrated beneath his grip, hard enough to make him quake. It was moments like this he was reminded that this wasn’t a common day for her. The last few days was all the reasons he had stayed away from her. If anything happened to her, it would be on him.

He relinquished his grip on her elbow and let his fingers slip down to take hers. They were sweaty and shaky, but she clasped his back tightly.

“I’ve got you, myskha,” he murmured quietly over his shoulder. “I promise.”

Her response was the squeezing of their fingers, but it was filled with a confidence in his abilities he wasn’t sure he deserved. Nevertheless, he pulled in a lungful of breath and edged through the doorway.

Eerie stillness greeted them. The light above their heads buzzed with electricity. It sounded too loud in the quiet. Their feet stepped over the bodies and onto concrete.

Nothing happened.

The night continued to hum, unbroken by any further violence. Dimitri took that as a sign and quickly pulled Ava in the direction of the Jeep.

Midway, he paused, remembering her bare feet and turned, turned just in time to see the movement. A full second before he heard the click. He had just enough time to grab her when the crack splintered the calm. But even with all the time he’d been given, he wasn’t fast enough to pull her free of the bullet’s path. Ava cried out. The momentum of the impact shoved her forward.

Dimitri swung out both arms. One to catch her. The other dislodged a second bullet through the parking lot. It collided dead center of the man’s head, snapping it back. He hit the ground once again, joining his two other fallen comrades in the doorway of the hotel room. This time, with a deadlier wound other than the one Dimitri had given him earlier in the arm.

It ended there. There was no one left to get up.

Dimitri turned to the woman in his arms, the hot blood slickening her side and dampening his grip on her.

“Ava?”

There was no concealing the raw terror that gripped him. He no longer cared as he dropped the gun with a noisy clatter and pulled her up into his chest.

She was breathing, hard and loud, which was music to his ears, but she wasn’t moving.

“Ava?”

“I’m okay,” she panted, lying horrible.

“Where were you hit?”

His hands were fumbling over her, tugging at ruined clothes and searching for the source.

She choked on a gasp. “I don’t know, but it fucking hurts.”

“Okay.” He held her closer. “Hang on. Don’t … just hang on.”

He ran to the car, gun forgotten on the concrete, nothing mattering, except getting Ava to a doctor.

Chapter Eight

Ava opened her eyes to the sweet scent of jasmine and honeysuckles. They drifted around her in soothing waves that made her want to sink into them and go back to sleep. Instead, her eyes opened and she found herself in a beautiful room painted a robin egg blue. White curtains hung from a bay window at the foot of a chestnut brown bed. A fan circled overhead in lazy loops, swirling the calming scent.

She recognized the room. She recognized the smells.

“Robby?” A quiet movement pulled her attention to the left. “Robby?”

“Sorry,” said the woman in the chair. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

In the still shadows of Robby’s guestroom, it was practically impossible to make out more than the fact that the woman had an insane amount of hair. It cascaded around her shoulders in a riot of curls that reminded Ava of vines taking ownership of her face. The rest of her was dipped in darkness until a pale hand extended and snapped on the crystal lamp on the bedside table. Ava winced at the flood of light that illuminated parts of the bed, but more importantly, the woman.

At first glance, she resembled someone’s hippie mom with her endless mane of gold and chocolate curls pinned back on top by a silver clip, the layer of beads slung around her throat, the plastic bangles clattering from her arms. She wore a long, flowy dress littered in fat flowers and a jean vest pulled over top. Silver earrings swung wildly when she pushed to her feet and came around to stand next to the bed.

She was a large woman, broad and tall. The kind of woman that took no shit from anyone and could take down a grown man in a fight if needed. Even her aura pulsed with a wild, dangerous hue that made Ava want to skitter back, if she could.

“Hello Ava,” she said serenely, but with a cold edge that swept through the room. “I’m Elena Tasarov, Dimitri’s mother. I thought it time we meet.”

There were no resemblances to suggest this woman was in anyway related to Dimitri, except her word and Ava’s head was too fuzzy to think clearly.

“Where’s Robby?” Her voice rasped around the question. “What have you done with him?”

Elena seemed unperturbed by the accusation. “Your friend is currently safe. I wanted time to talk to you without interruption.”

Terror knocked against her ribs in an erratic patter that made her chest hurt, but she willed herself to remain calm when she spoke.

“If you’ve hurt him…”

The woman smiled and it was the most terrifying thing Ava had ever seen. “Good,” she purred in that impossibly thick accent of hers. “I like feisty. Weepy women get on my nerve and don’t live very long.”

It had taken Ava ages to understand Dimitri properly and his pronunciation was far less severe compared to Elena’s. Nevertheless, there was no mistaking anything she said.

“Where’s Dimitri?” she asked instead.

“Busy.” Elena reached for something on the nightstand. She returned with a glass of water. “It is only you and me.”

Ava ignored the cool rim brought to her lips, no matter how her raw throat screamed for its soothing contents.

“What do you want?”

The cup was taken away and returned to the table.

“To meet this girl who has so many lives.” Her earrings jingled with the shake of her head. “To see if she is as impressive as she seems.” Cool, blue eyes fixed on Ava. “To see why she won’t die.” She snorted. “I should know my son is involved.”

Ava swallowed. “You sent those men after me.”

Elena chuckled softly. “Men. My mistake. I know to do something correctly, a woman does it herself. Hmm?” She raised an eyebrow as though asking Ava’s opinion on the matter. “Men, they fail and make mess women clean.” She sighed heavily. “This time, I say, Elena, only you must do this.” She spread her fingers open, palms up. “So, I come.

“What do you want?” The anger in her own voice surprised even Ava, but not nearly as much as the realization that she couldn’t move anything from the neck down. “What … what’s wrong with me?”

Elena glanced over her with calm interest. “Morphine … to calm you, make you easy to talk to, yeah? And pain.” She touched her own left arm. “Sometimes, a graze is more pain than actual bullet hole. I give you extra.”

That explained the odd fog clouding her head and the dull edges of her emotions. But she couldn’t see or feel her arm to judge the severity of the bullet’s damage.

“Are you going to kill me?”

Elena frowned, not in annoyance or anger, but contemplation. “Maybe,” she said at last. “I am determining your worth.”

She lowered herself gingerly on the edge of the mattress, close enough that her heat crept through the blankets to burn Ava’s hip. It was infuriating that she didn’t have the power to at least move away.

“Why are you doing this?”

Maybe if she kept the woman talking a while longer, Dimitri, or someone, might come to rescue her.

“I have many reasons,” she said. “I am concerned mother, maybe.” She didn’t seem to believe that either when she shook her head. “Maybe I waited long time to meet you.” She tugged on the blanket, tucking it almost lovingly around Ava’s shoulders. “Is hard, you know, I always see you like little girl.” She smoothed back a lock of hair off Ava’s brow, her fingers oddly soft. “I forget even little girls grow.” Her hand moved away and rested with the other one in her lap. “It hurts me that this will hurt Dimitri. But he will forget the loss. I will see to it.”

“Please don’t…” She hated the plea in her voice, but it came out before Ava could stop it.

Elena studied her, expression almost regretful. “It is the only way, zajka. The tree must be brought down.”

Ava blinked through the blinding terror and panic. “What?”

Elena shook her head. “Rest.” she stroked Ava’s hair lovingly. “It will be over quickly.”

She rose. Ava struggled against her own body, hating it for being so useless when she needed it most. Tears welled and spilled down her temples to soak into her hairline.

Elena never noticed. She retrieved a black pouch off the dresser and returned to the foot of the bed. Ava could only watch as the zipper was wrenched open and several items were unearthed. One, she recognized as a needle. The other one took a second longer.

It was a tiny bottle of clear liquid. Ava was no doctor, but whatever was in there had to be more than morphine, or it was so much morphine it killed her.

“This will not hurt,” Elena said. “You will sleep and then nothing.”

Ava tried to fight. She tried to struggle, to roll out of bed. But her body could only lie there as the woman approached. She wondered briefly if there hadn’t been more than morphine in the drugs Elena had originally given her. She wasn’t an expert but wasn’t sure morphine alone could keep a person locked in their own bodies.

“Dimitri’ll know,” she protested.

Elena paused, needle injected into the bottle. “Maybe,” she mused. “But you will still be no use.”

Couldn’t argue with logic like that, and Ava couldn’t bring herself to beg. She knew it would do no good and she couldn’t bring herself to give the women the satisfaction of it. Her last few minutes wouldn’t be spent crying to a monster.

“He’ll kill you,” she said instead with a confidence she felt all the way to her core.

“But you are part of a bigger plan, zajka. He will understand.”

Ava was about to tell her there was no chance of that when the door opened. The corridor beyond the room hung in darkness, obscuring the visitor. But hopes that it was Dimitri died instantaneously. The size was wrong, and when he spoke, it wasn’t Dimitri’s voice.

The two exchanged words in Russian that Ava couldn’t understand. But Elena looked back at one point and studied Ava a long moment. The man continued to speak, low, but quick, like there was a deadline and they were about to miss it.

She wondered if Dimitri was on his way back, or Robby. Maybe they needed for it to look like an accident. That was the only way Dimitri wouldn’t search for her killers. But Robby would know, unless they’d killed him.

Elena shut the door. She returned to the bag sitting open on the mattress and put away the needle and bottle, to Ava’s surprise. She sighed as she closed the pouch.

“It is your lucky day, zajka,” she said. “You get to live.”

Words that should have offered comfort fell short of their mark. Elena headed for the door and walked out.

Ava listened until the sound of her shoes on hardwood had faded before releasing the breath trapped in her chest. She gasped on a sob and closed her eyes.

Her moment of relief faded with the groan of wood beneath a large weight. Her eyes flew open, but all she saw was a hulking shape, then a sweaty hand smelling of stale tobacco slapped over her face, stifling her air. She tried to scream, but, by the time she found the breath, there was a sharp sting in her neck, and then nothing.

Ava came out of a foggy sleep to darkness, the foul stench of soiled leather, and the persistent chatter of an argument. It tangled with the muted hum of distant traffic, the low whisper of nature in the pre-hours of dawn, and scuffling feet on loose gravel. Her head was thrumming, a dull ache that made her brain feel numb and there was a dry, cotton taste in her mouth she couldn’t account for. Her shoulder hurt. The skin beneath the bandage itched and seared like a third degree burn. She was faintly aware of the cramped state of her knees and the prickle in her left arm from lying on it. She tried to shift and several things happened simultaneously; her neck gave a violent twang from being placed at an odd angle on a flat surface, the bottom of her foot slammed into a solid force that sang up her entire body, and she nearly toppled off a ledge.

She jerked upright, pains temporarily forgotten and tried to get her bearings.

The thing she noticed first was the nurse pants and white t-shirt someone had put her into. Maybe Robby. She couldn’t be sure when she’d been dressed, but something told her it had to be him. He wouldn’t have sewn her up without cleaning her up first. And she was all right with that. In the scheme of things, it was the least of her concerns. The more pressing matter was her current situation.

The world was a murky deep blue as the seam between heaven and earth tore to expose a sliver of light. She was in the backseat of a car, parked twenty feet from a cliff’s edge overlooking the grander of the city while it slept. The interior smelled of sulfur and burnt plastic beneath a more rancid stench of gasoline, copper, sweat, and week old garbage. The leather beneath her was cracked and sweaty from her skin.

It was a small car. She couldn’t tell make or model, but it was low to the ground, low enough so that when she raised her head to peer out the windshield, she could easily make out the group of men huddled in the low beams of the headlights.

There were five of them. None of them were Dimitri, or anyone she recognized. They seemed to be arguing. The bigger, burlier one kept waving at the car and trying to use his massive bulk to intimidate the other smaller four. It didn’t seem to be working. The man in front kept rocking his head from side to side, which further aggravated the giant.

He took a menacing stride forward, which brought him practically on top of the little guy, who surprisingly held his ground.

Ava didn’t watch the rest. She slipped to the edge of the seat and hooked a finger into the handle. She kept one eye on the group while gingerly popping the door open a crack and easing her body through the narrow slit. The attempt was clumsy and made more noise than anything she’d ever heard in her life, but she squeezed out into the muggy air and willed her heart to calm down and her breathing to slow. Both were a riot of noise drumming wildly between her ears. She couldn’t even hear herself think, never mind listen for any sounds she might accidentally make.

She kept low against the side of the car. The metal was cold through the material of her clothes. Everywhere it touched seemed to burn, but it was the least of her problems.

Behind the car was a solid wall of forestry. Trees loomed in giant force miles high into the brightening sky. There was a pale stretch of dirt winding through it all, but it was paved in stone. Somehow, she needed to make it to the edges and into the forest without getting spotted.

Glancing back once to make sure no one had spotted her, she darted forward, keeping to the balls of her feet as she sprinted for the trees. Her main and only focus was disappearing in the dense maze before they realized she was missing. Then she’d wait until it was brighter and find her way to the main road. That was the plan.

“Hey!”

The gruff boom splintered the very seams of her existence. It cracked against her retreating spine like a whip and she nearly screamed.

She’d been spotted. The exclamation was followed by the thunder of feet that masked the beating of her heart. She tried to run faster, pumping her legs until they burned, but her captors were faster and caught her before she could make it. A hand closed around her arm and she was wrenched back. Still disorientated, she had no way of stopping herself when she collided with her captor’s chest, nor was she fast enough to dodge the sharp prick in her shoulder before everything swam together.

The last thing she heard before the world collapsed in on itself, was, “Don’t be stupid, Cruz. What is one more girl?”

Chapter Nine

“Are we to believe that this isn’t the Russian’s agenda to push their way to more territory?” Theresa Maynard leaned back in her chair to scrutinize the room more closely with her cold, blue eyes. “If we had known we could toss names into the nominations, I could have selected at least five of my own men for the position.”

“What difference does it make?” John Paul cut in. “There are only five chairs. It would have been one of us regardless.”

“Nevertheless, why them?” Those pale eyes bore into Dimitri. “Why you? What do you bring to the table? Why should we even consider—?”

“My son has been invaluable to all five houses at any given time,” Elena interjected. “Even yours. Need I remind you it was Dimitri who saved your company billions of dollars when your own man turned on you during that drug bust two years ago? He has connections. He knows how to make problems disappear. That is beneficial to the Syndicate.”

Theresa’s gaze lowered. “Be that as it may be.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t feel like this is in the south’s best interest, giving the west so much power.”

“I won’t be part of the west once I take the northern seat,” Dimitri interjected. “My position would change for the good of all five houses.”

“And you will show no favoritism to your own mother?” Theresa arched a pale, finely shaped brow. “Is that what you are saying, Mr. Tasarov?”

“I am saying that my only priority is the security and leadership of this organization,” Dimitri said evenly. “You will not find anyone with my deep connections or my intolerance for disruption of balance.”

She peered from him to Marcus Lozano and Elena. “Disruption of balance.” She chuckled. “That one might be new.” She folded her long, slender fingers on the papers open before her. “It’s a difficult chair to fill. Killian McClary had been cut from a very refine stock and he was … exemplary. You will never be able to fill his shoes.”

Dimitri never balked. “I don’t intend to. I have my own shoes.”

Marcus shifted in his seat, stifling his snicker behind a cough. John Paul pinched the bridge of his nose, but said nothing.

Dimitri ignored them all, except the woman watching him with a shrewdness that would have made most men sweat. He never so much as batted an eyelash.

“I am not convinced this isn’t some takeover organized by the west.” Her gaze fixed on Marcus. “Where is your father, Marcus? Shouldn’t he be here as he is the head of that chair you’re currently occupying?”

“You are wasting our time now, Theresa,” John Paul cut in before Marcus could speak. “William Lozano hasn’t claimed that chair in nearly a decade, as you are well aware. You are simply attempting to misdirect the meeting from what it’s truly about.”

To her credit, Theresa never so much as flinched at the accusation. “The terms of claim are perfectly clear, only chair holders can pass their seats down to their chosen heir of that region. You can’t simply lay claim to whichever territory you desire.”

“With the exception of death,” Marcus piped in. “Killian is dead. His seat has been empty nearly two months, two months where we have found no one and every day that passes, we are losing control of the city to that … puta Devil and his fucking flowers!” Color rise hot and high on Marcus’ face. “I have lost billions. It needs to stop!”

Dimitri felt no guilt for the money he’d stolen over the months from Marcus. A truce didn’t mean he would turn a blind eye to the families Marcus has left homeless to fill his own pockets. The Dragons were a big crew, the second biggest to the Russians, and they were under the impression that they were untouchable. Dimitri had proven them wrong. Fifteen times.

“He is one man, why has he not been found and skinned in the streets?” Elena demanded savagely.

His mother had been a bit easier to take from. It was probably cheating that he knew all the passcodes to her warehouses, vaults, and hideaways, but it was satisfying all the same watching her flip a table—literally.

“Yes.” The single phrase was said with a calm that crackled like brittle ice. Sharp, red talons clipped hard on the round, onyx table. “That is something we must discuss.” Delicate nostrils flared once before Theresa focused once more on the topic at hand. “For the moment, let’s settle this matter first.”

“Killian had no heir,” John Paul continued as though the subject had never swayed from its path. “He has left no one to rule in his stead.”

“But he would have chosen Dimitri,” Elena insisted.

“Would he have?” Theresa sneered. “And why would he have, Elena?”

“Because unlike others,” Dimitri cut in before his mother could open her mouth. “I have no intention of changing the way he conducted business. I will continue his methods in controlling and cleaning the streets once more. I will keep all illegal traffics clear of the city.”

“And why would we want that?” She splayed slender hands. “Perhaps it’s time for a change.”

John Paul’s mouth tightened. “Is that the south’s agenda? Or yours, Theresa?”

Theresa allowed them a half smile. “The south has no agenda. We merely do our best to maintain the order.”

No one was fooled by the coy demeanor, but John Paul allowed himself to lean back in his chair. Still tense, but not as aggressively.

“Despite the objections of the south, the majority rules in this case. Of the five houses, excluding the north, three have agreed to sponsor Dimitri as head chair of the north. That puts the odds in his favor and automatically elects him, as I’m sure you are familiar.”

Theresa studied the gold head of her pen as though it were the most fascinating item she’d ever seen. The light from the wall of glass behind her caught the delicate curve and winked. In her small, manicured hand, it almost reminded Dimitri of a scepter, small, but wielding all the power in the world. He wasn’t sure she could actually kill them with it, but she was the type of woman who would try, and do it without getting blood on her crisp, white two-piece suit.

Theresa was beautiful the way the first glimmer of winter was when everything was white and sparkly, and held the excitement of Christmas. But she was also just as cold, just as bitter and sharp. She was vengeful and cruel. Her beauty stopped above the milky white of her complexion, the silky lines of her white-blonde locks, and the frosty, blue gems that sat in the center of that flawless, heart shaped face. Her aura pulsed with the same frigid fury as a meat locker.

Against her Snow Queen façade, Marcus was dark with a wavy mop of curly black hair that always reminded Dimitri of an oil slick. It was forced back from a face too young to be sitting in a seat of power. Brown eyes were dominated by heavy brows and a broad forehead. He wore a navy blue suit that sat aligned with his narrow shoulders in a perfect fit.

That was the thing Dimitri dreaded the most—the suits. Everyone seemed to be wearing one. Including Elena, who normally thrived in her baggy dresses and clunky jewelry had on a pair of gray trousers and a pale, green blouse. Even John Paul had pulled on an elegant suit of black and a white dress shirt. Dimitri was the only one in dark trousers and a dress shirt only. He’d rolled up the sleeves to his forearms and left two of the buttons undone. It wasn’t to be a rebel. He was just comfortable.

“Be that as it may be,” Theresa rose, gathering her papers as she did so. “This is a matter I would need to discuss with my father.”

“Hold on.” Marcus shot to his feet before Dimitri could even attempt a response. “What about that asshole stealing our money?”

The papers were set down gently, but with authority and Theresa regarded the room once more.

“A bounty,” she said simply. “One million from each of us for the person who catches this … Devil, and brings him to us.”

“And start a witch hunt?” John Paul countered. “That’s just asking for idiots to get involved.”

Theresa blinked her eyes very slowly. “And what is your suggestion, Morel? Nothing? Let him waltz into our homes, or warehouses, and rob us blind?”

John Paul said nothing.

“I say we set a trap,” Elena piped in. “Lure that bastard in and kill him slowly. Piece by piece and then send each one to his mother in a box.”

Dimitri tried not to shift uncomfortably.

A fine line of disgust wrinkled Theresa’s pert nose. “As … thorough as that may be, perhaps a less … graphic approach.”

“The trap thing might work,” Marcus said. “We put word out that there’s a shipment coming out, then we wait.”

“I can agree with that,” John Paul said.

Theresa took longer to respond. She stared from one to the other, her devious little mind churning.

“Very well,” she said at last. “Do it. The south will offer what it can in support.” Her papers were back in her arms. “Meanwhile, I will bring the other matter,” she shot Dimitri a quick glance, “to my father and be in touch.”

No one stopped her when she exited the room. No one spoke until the crack of her heels had disappeared into the elevator. Only when the steel doors had shut did the space seem to breathe.

It was a spacious room crafted of marble and glass. It held only a single, round table in its center and five leather chairs. It wasn’t the most impressive room he’d ever been in, but it was one of the most boring.

“That went well.” John Paul rose, fingers fastening the single button on his blazer. “There is nothing Theresa, or her father, can say that can change the rules.”

“It’s a stalling tactic,” Marcus said, pushing back his chair. “She’s enjoying her position of power a little too much to simply hand it over that easily.”

As leader of the south, Theresa was second in the chain of command until the north had a leader once more. That made her temporary head of the organization. Dimitri couldn’t blame her for wanting to hang on to that a while longer.

“Stupid whore,” Elena muttered. “Never liked her.” With a shake of her head, she turned to Dimitri. “The chair’s yours,” she said definitively.

Dimitri said nothing. Not because he was ungrateful, but because he knew why his mother was so excited about it. He just couldn’t tell her how wrong she was if she thought he would allow her any sort of leeway into his territory. Not until after he’d been elected. That went for Marcus as well. Things would change once Dimitri was in charge.

Marcus left after clapping Dimitri on the arm. Elena followed him into the elevator without another word to Dimitri. In the metal box, she fished out her phone. She was texting when the door closed

Then there was no one but the one man who wanted Dimitri dead.

“Where’s Ava?”

Dimitri turned to face his father. “Safe.”

If the assurance was supposed to pacify him, John Paul seemed immune. He studied Dimitri with an expression just short of loathing.

“I should kill you,” he said in a tone that vibrated with the urge.

“Who do you think made me like this?” Years of suppressed rage broke through Dimitri in a whirlwind of fire and pain. “I may be a monster. I may be evil, but at least I acknowledge it. I know what to expect when I look in the mirror. Can you say the same?”

John Paul was quiet for a lot longer than Dimitri had expected. Truth was, he had expected to get shot. Instead, the other man tipped his head back and regarded Dimitri with a curiosity he hadn’t in the past.

“What you know and what you acknowledge mean nothing when your core is rotten.”

It didn’t matter how old he got or how often he told himself he didn’t care—it hurt. It stung with the same unforgiving spear as it had when he’d been a child and wondered why no one loved him. He hadn’t felt evil, but it had to be true if everyone said it. It just hadn’t been as easy to accept. Once he did, he didn’t know how to stop.

“You will get her when I get my chair,” he said instead. “She’s safe for now, but I can’t promise she’ll stay that way.”

With that, he turned and started for the elevator. He stabbed the button and cursed inwardly when the doors didn’t open immediately.

“I don’t believe you’ll hurt her,” John Paul called after him. “Not when you loved her once.”

“Once,” he agreed stiffly. “Then I was reminded that monsters don’t fall in love. We don’t get a future.” The door opened and he stepped inside. “Beauty can’t save this beast.”

John Paul didn’t stop him, nor did he take the elevator. He remained where he was even as the box closed.

Dimitri pulled out his phone the moment the doors pulled open in the grand foyer of Arrow Holding Corporation, the hub of the Syndicate’s business dealings. called Robby’s phone, expecting the doctor to be awake and watching over Ava. Instead, he was barely focused when he answered. His voice was a garbled mash of words Dimitri couldn’t understand.

Dimitri frowned. “Where’s Ava?”

“Is … is … you know?” the man slurred groggily.

“Robby!” Dimitri snapped into the receiver. “Where’s Ava?”

Robby giggled. “Pie.”

Dimitri hung up and ran to his bike. He dug out his keys and punched them into the ignition.

It was a twenty-minute drive back to the doctor’s apartment. Dimitri made it in ten. He parked in some random spot and darted upstairs. He used the keys he’d taken from Robby and opened the door.

The earlier scents of flowers and garlic bread had been replaced by the sharp stench of vinegar, the familiar tang of heated metal and burnt rubber and sweat. The place smelled like a drug den, something Dimitri had walked through too many times in his life. The foul odor was unmistakable.

“Ava?”

In the dark, he pushed his way into the sitting area. He vaguely recalled the path from doorway to the first sofa and the lamp on the end table. He flooded the room with its dim glow.

He found Robby slumped to the floor, half under the coffee table littered with charred spoons, a syringe, bits of tinfoil, a lighter, strips of rubber, and a small, empty baggie.

“Shit!”

He dragged the man out and scrambled for a pulse. Finding one, faint, but present, Dimitri drew back. He shot to his feet and ran to the backroom.

“Ava!”

The sheets were in disarray, flung back carelessly, but no Ava.

He turned on his heel and bolted into the bathroom, then the kitchen, screaming her name and getting only silence in response.

He returned to Robby’s side, grabbed him by the shirt front and shook him.

“Get up, you son of a bitch! Where’s Ava? Where is she?  Get up!”

Robby’s head lulled uselessly on his shoulders. A fine trickle of drool dribbled from the corner of his mouth. His eyes rolled into the back of his skull. But he remained lost in his drug induced haze.

Dimitri dropped him heartlessly and lunged to his feet. He stayed there, mind in tatters.

Ava wouldn’t leave. She wouldn’t abandon her friend in this state. She wouldn’t. That was the thing he was certain of with glaring certainty. It left only one possibility; someone had taken her. Possibly the same people chasing them.

He ripped out his phone, but had no one to call. No one he trusted with this.

Panic swirled up around him in a black shroud. It pushed against his vision, blurring them. He tried to focus, but all he could think was how he’d failed her. Again.

The phone rang. Its vibration tickled the palm of his hand. He almost dropped it before a spark of hope had him shoving the thing to his ear.

“Ava?”

Silence strained for two full heartbeats, then, “No.”

The devastation nearly sent him to his knees. He squeezed his eyes shut tight and struggled to regulate his breathing.

“I called to see how the meeting went,” Erik said quietly. “What happened?”

He didn’t trust Erik, but he trusted him more than he trusted his mother. He was a man of integrity and had always been a support in Dimitri’s life.

“I need a crew.”

Chapter Ten

Ava woke to the metallic clang of pipes, the rumbling growl of an engine, the shuffle of someone weeping. It was all there, tangled with the stench of human excrement, sweat, rust, sewage, and something she couldn’t put a name to until she opened her eyes.

The ceilings were slabs of cut metal bolted from corner to corner in a dull, rusted gray highlighted by the three bulbs swinging from frayed cords.

Ava groaned as she struggled to roll onto her side. Her muscles protested the movement, her spine screamed as it was lifted off the sheet of ice. There was a pang in her lungs from being on her back for too long and her arm with the bandage screamed. But she sat up and squinted into the thick cloud of gloom stretching the length of her prison.

It was a metal box, stuffed to the max with … women. Women of various sizes, ages, and ethnicities. Women huddled in corners, curled up on the floor, standing against the walls. She had never seen so many women in a single place, except the bathroom at the mall during Christmas. But this wasn’t the bathroom at the mall. This wasn’t even a room. There was one door stamped into one wall and nothing else. There were no beds, not even blankets, and despite all the bodies, the air was frigid. There were no windows or vents to regulate air so the swirling stench of too many unwashed bodies in a single bit of space and the buckets in the corners kept shifting through the place like the ocean lapping and receding off the sand. Each one washed over Ava with an intensity that boiled her stomach up into her throat. But it was the terror. God, the terror was beyond elucidation. Hers rose off her and wove with all the others tangled overhead in a thick cloud. It crept along her spine with cold, serrated fingers and latched into something just behind her navel. It wrenched and she nearly cried out. She would have if she could find the voice.

“Where are we?” The question was aimed at no one and everyone. It rang out of her in a desperate breath she couldn’t regain. “Where are we?” she said again, louder, her voice shriller.

“A boat,” said a girl a foot away.

She couldn’t have been older than thirteen with a face smudged with dirt and tears. She wore jeans torn at the knees and a clumpy, knitted sweater that may have once been pink. It was a strange orange now. Blonde locks had escaped a flimsy braid and hung in matted, tangled clumps around stooped shoulders and there was a strange odor coming from the strands that Ava could smell, despite the distance between them.

“What boat? Where are we going? How did we—?”

A loud squeal echoed through the room, the distinct sound of hinges being pried open. Bodies shifted as the door opened and two men emerged. The sniffling increased. The girls scuffled back from the intruders, which seemed to amuse them as they set two woven baskets and a bucket with a ladle down.

From her place, Ava couldn’t see the contents, but it had several of the girls lunging forward, fears forgotten as their need for the items within became overwhelming. Even the girl next to Ava scrambled forward.

Ava watched as they returned to their seats with hunks of crusty bread. Some ate like they hadn’t in days. Others hugged theirs to their chests and wept. Ava didn’t move, no matter how much her stomach whimpered.

She wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t naive enough not to recognize her situation. She knew the likelihood of surviving were about a hundred to one. Those were not great odds. They were barely comforting odds. The reality of the situation was that she was completely alone, trapped, and somewhere no one knew where. She had no cellphone and no way to make contact with the outside world, and the girls there would be useless. Even if she could convince them to rise up and fight the assholes holding them captive, she knew it wouldn’t realistically happen. All she could do was wait for the perfect opportunity to think of something better.

The baskets of bread and the bucket of water were the only rations they got that day. Ava watched the comings and goings and noted that no one ever came or went. The doors remained shut. Hours passed. Possibly days. The weeping girls had stopped, but the sniffling continued as background noise. Ava tried to sleep, knowing she would need her rest, but it was impossible to do on a cold ground surrounded by feet, heads, arms that were always nudging.

But it was also harder to keep the other thoughts at bay when she let her mind relax. She couldn’t help wondering what if she didn’t escape? She knew what happened to girls in her situation. She may never have thought it would happen to her, but she had heard the stories. She had seen the articles, the banners trying to raise awareness. All the things she’d ignored because … it wasn’t supposed to happen to her. She wasn’t like the girls who went missing, the ones that lived on the streets. She had a home and a family. She had people who would miss her. She wasn’t ready to face what would happen. She didn’t want to.

The men returned, possibly the next day, with another two baskets of bread and a bucket of water. This time, Ava fought her way for a drink and a torn piece of bread. The water tasted of rust and the bread was rock hard and smelled faintly of mildew, but she returned to her corner with it clutched to her chest. A couple of girls got into a fight over the last chunk and the guards laughed. It stopped when the bit they held tore in half and each took off in their own corners to eat.

It was only afterwards, as she sat there nibbling on the stale crust, that she felt the stab of mortification. It burned beneath her skin and welled up in her eyes as she stared at the scrap she’d been thrown. It was so degrading, scavenging like some rat for a bit of bread that would probably make her sick anyway. And it had only been the second day.

The next day was the same. Lots of sitting. Lots of waiting. No one spoke. She wasn’t sure if it was because they weren’t allowed or because no one had anything to say. The girl next to her had become a tiny ball against the wall. She hadn’t said a word since Ava’s arrival and only moved when food was brought in. Then she was gone and back before Ava could blink.

During the one meal break, the buckets were emptied and returned, unwashed. Ava had to force herself to use one and she’d almost cried. She returned to her corner, feeling humiliated and small, and unable to meet any of the other eyes in passing.

“It’ll get easier,” said a tiny voice once Ava had properly mashed herself into the steel walls. The girl was studying her filthy sneakers, but she spoke again, softer. “No one watches.”

“How long have you been here?” Ava asked.

Tiny shoulders lifted and then dropped. “I don’t know.”

Of course she didn’t. None of them did.

“What’s your name? I’m Ava,” she said when the girl remained unresponsive.

Green eyes lifted a notch. “Ilsa.”

Chapter Eleven

“Where is Ava?”

Even in text, John Paul’s annoyance was palpable. It buzzed in a relentless hum in Dimitri’s pocket until there was no choice but to shut the blasted thing off. It was probably the wrong time to be checking his messages, anyway. There was a time and place for everything and this wasn’t the place to get distracted.

He stood on a square cut of pale moonbeam that had found its way through a crack in the blinds. He’d meant to shut them entirely over the open terrace doors; light fucked with the accuracy of his night vision goggles, but it still somehow came through, leaving a long slash across the marble floors of some asshole’s downtown loft. It illuminated the darkness that he required to remain hidden and he kept contemplating whether or not to make the walk back to shut them or continue onward.

Onwards won. The alarms would reset in ten minutes and it would take most of that time to break into the vault.

Ignoring the distracting stick of light, he crept the rest of the way around warped bits of glass and steel that may have been a table and some bit of cushion he assumed was a sofa. The place was thankfully sparsely furnished, but the pieces of art the man did have made Dimitri question his taste.

The man was a modern style architect. Most of his funding came from condominiums and downtown business buildings. Dimitri had never heard of him until recently when his name became synonymous with senior fraud. He’d conned hundreds of elderly out of their retirement checks in exchange for an updated retirement home. Dimitri had nearly passed on the opportunity; his days and nights were already preoccupied with finding Ava, but even he couldn’t turn away from this. It took a real lowlife to steal from people weaker than them. Stealing that money back was an almost pleasure.

He moved quickly across the room, treading carefully on the balls of his feet. His gun sat pressed into the palm of one hand while he followed the blipping dot of his scanner with the other. The screen was set to work with his goggles and he could see the dot-him moving forward with every step he took. The area the safe was located in was highlighted red and he knew he was getting close when the red began to glow.

The layout was fairly unimpressive with most of the space dominated by a sitting area, a thin cut of kitchen, and two bedrooms at the back. It was all in the blueprints he’d lifted from the building manager. But there was one wall his scanner picked up that wasn’t on the prints. It was put up after the loft had been sold to Neil Halle and it was thicker than was necessary to separate the sitting area from the bedrooms.

A painting in a gilded frame hung from the very center, a mishmash of colors against a sea of white. Like the rest of the room, it was placed aimlessly, an awkward attempt at artistic modernization that Dimitri found ridiculous. He liked clutter and warmth. Homey. None of this made sense to him. But it didn’t need to.

He stowed away his gun in its holster against his ribs and tucked the sensor into his pocket before reaching for the painting. He pulled it back and peered at the smooth plaster underneath. He wasn’t sure why he’d expected to find a safe there, but he was almost relieved when it wasn’t; nothing was more disappointing than a cliché.

Setting the painting gingerly aside, he reached for a spindly contraption of crudely fused bits of piping resting in the corner, tossed out the single blade of fake fern jutting from it, and hoisted it high. He brought it down with a sweeping blow. Plaster rained to the floor. More followed with every assault. The hole grew until he had a clear view of the solid sheet of metal on the other side.

He paused and thought faintly how absurd it was to hide a safe behind a wall. It just seemed like so much work having to get to every time it was needed. Most criminals, the smart ones, kept them easily accessible, hidden, but still close enough to reach if needed. The only time a safe was buried was if the person wanted the contents to remain hidden for a long length of time, which could very well be Halle’s motives. It was easier to deny participation if there was no money to pin him to the crime.

Maybe he wasn’t as stupid as he seemed, Dimitri mused, returning the pipe sculpture to its original place.

It was a Titan UL TL-15 safe with a digital bad and lever. Average height with a reinforced bolt chamber. Not the best in the world, but certainly a challenge with all the foolproof mechanisms and antitheft precautions. He’d only ever broken into one before and it had nearly taken him five hours.

Accepting a long night ahead, he set to work. He tore his pack off his back and was about reach for his tools when the light from behind him caught a series of numbers carved in pencil along the side of the dial pad. The sight of them momentarily stilled him. His fingers froze on the tongue of his pack’s zipper. He had to blink to make sure it wasn’t his goggles screwing around on him. But sure enough…

“No … way,” he mumbled, reaching up to tear off the goggles.

He dropped it and his pack to the ground and rolled up his mask to get a better look.

The moron had written down the fucking passcode right on the door. It was right there, clear as day, just glaring back at him

He considered ignoring it, in case it was a trap that got the safe to lock down on itself. It was definitely a possibility, because no one was that stupid. It wasn’t possible, especially when this guy was apparently some criminal mastermind.

But Dimitri couldn’t help wondering … what if…? Being able to scam the elderly out of their money didn’t take brains. It just took a fast talker.

Muscles tight, he reached for the pad. His gloves gave a faint squeak with the flex of his fingers before he hit the first number. Then the second. Each one beeped piercingly loud over the sound of his own breathing. He held it, growing increasingly annoyed by the hiss of it between his ears as the last digit was punched in.

He froze, hand hovering inches off the circular disk. His heart drummed against his ribs, the unsteady cracks making his chest hurt. He drew back his hand an inch, paused, and then reached for the lever.

It opened.

The heavy door swung open with an ease he wasn’t prepared for. He just stood there, staring at his own luck and wondering if that was some kind of record. Did it even count as a proper burglary?

Deciding not to look a gifted horse in the mouth, he reached for his flashlight. He unhooked it from his belt and flicked it on. The sharp beam pierced through semi darkness, capturing bits of dust as it sliced into the safe.

Empty.

The light skirted over the clean layers, glinting off the metal and nothing else.

“What—”

“Not so smart, are you?”

The slow, lazy drawl had Dimitri reaching for his mask. He tore it down over his face before whirling to face the tiny man standing behind him.

He was Asian, short and thin with neatly cropped hair and a smug grin on his face. He stood in his silk pajamas in the center of the room, his hands behind his back like a bratty child. Dimitri glanced past him, scanning the room for others, but it was just them.

He faced the stranger. “Who are you?”

It had taken him years to learn how to conceal his accent. He still had to be careful when he said certain words with R’s in them, but he was better now than he had been before, unless he got the shit scared out of him.

The man continued to smirk. “Didn’t you think it weird how easy I make it?” He chuckled what sounded more like a giggle. “I been waiting for you.”

“What do you want?”

“I am Chan Lee. I live here.”

Dimitri’s eyes narrowed behind his mask. “Neil Halle lives here,” he corrected.

Chan Lee shrugged. “They lied.”

Dimitri straightened as it all began to make sense; he’d been tricked. This pint-sized brat of a man had set a trap and Dimitri had walked right into it.

“There were no elderly people getting scammed, were there?”

Chan Lee rolled his shoulders up around his ears. “Could be. Somewhere.”

Accepting that he’d been played, Dimitri bent, keeping his movements slow as he gathered up his pack and slung it on. He picked up his goggles as well and gripped them close. Once he had everything, he faced the man once more.

“Was there something you needed?” he asked, not caring if he sounded annoyed.

“I like your work,” Chan Lee said breezily. “I am a fan.” He snickered at his own joke. “I want you to work with me.”

It took him all of a minute to realize the man was honestly offering him a job. It wouldn’t have been the first time, but none of the others had gone through the efforts of actually trapping him. That almost made him respect the guy, while at the same time, smack him upside the head.

“I work alone.”

Chan Lee clicked his tongue. “You not even consider?”

Dimitri shook his head slowly. “Don’t need to. I’m not interested.”

“Is too bad,” the man said with a sad little shake of his head. “I pay good money.”

“I’m not interested in money.”

Chan Lee’s thin chest lifted and dropped with his sigh. “Then maybe something else I can do for you, hmm?” He raised his eyebrows. “I am very powerful man.”

Ava’s face flashed through his mind. Just as quickly, he dismissed it; what were the odds of this man having any knowledge of her whereabouts? Getting random criminals involved would only insure he never saw Ava again.

“No.” He tightened his grip on his goggles. “You’ve got the wrong guy.”

Chan Lee said nothing for several long heartbeats. He stared at the terrace doors where the light continued to slice through, where a slight breeze was toying with the ends of the blinds, making them sway and flutter. Dimitri calculated his distance while the man was distracted in thought. He glanced down at the goggles and the flashlight still clutched in his hands and tried to mentally prep himself for his escape plan.

“I am saddened by your decision,” Chan Lee said at last. “I am reasonable man, very good employer. Together, we can have everything—Chan Lee and The Devil. We could take whole city for ourself.”

Something in the air had shifted. There was a lingering tension vibrating around them that had all the hairs along the back of Dimitri’s neck prickling. He judged his chances of going for his gun, but abandoned the idea. There was no way to do that without letting go of the light or the goggles and he knew he’d never make it.

The gun Chan Lee lifted from behind his back didn’t surprise Dimitri. Its predictableness only offered comfort to an unpredictable situation. He stared at the long barrel of the silencer attached to the head of a .45, then at the man wielding it.

“You’re going to kill me because I refuse to work for you?”

Chan Lee jerked up one shoulder. “Yes, I am not so good with rejection.”

Dimitri nodded slowly. He glanced down to where the flashlight had spilled a pool of gold across his scarred boots. He tapped his hands against his thigh thoughtfully and watched the flicker, the shimmer reflecting off the smooth marble beneath his feet. It was a stalling tactic he knew he needed to utilize carefully.

He exhaled grudgingly and lifted his head. “What is it you want me to do?”

The gun wavered. It visibly lowered a notch from Dimitri’s head to mid chest.

“You are reconsidering my offer!” Chan Lee cheered, beaming. “I knew you would.”

Dimitri frowned, though the man couldn’t see it, but he heard it when Dimitri spoke. “Well?”

The nozzle of the silencer lowered to the ground, and that was all Dimitri needed.

He swung up his own arm. The beam from his flashlight slashed through the dark in a glowing arc and slammed into Chan Lee’s face with deadly accuracy. The man cried out and flung up both arms to shield his wide, brown eyes. He stumbled, hit the glass table behind him and the two crashed to the floor.

Dimitri didn’t wait to see what would happen next. He jammed on his goggles and, as an afterthought, dug out his signature rose from the side compartment of his pack and tossed it down next to the debris before bolting.

In exactly fifteen steps, he was across the room to the terrace doors and out into the crisp night. The rope he’d used to propel himself down swayed in the breeze just inches from the top of his head. He grabbed it and hoisted himself up the side of the building towards the roof, one hand over the other.

Below, he heard the shout of voices, the tinkle of breaking glass, then Chan Lee was there, face a pale ghost in the darkness. He screamed something the wind and distance caught and distorted. Dimitri reached the roof ledge and hauled himself over just as the first bullet whizzed past his left leg. He hit the gravel and rolled, taking the rope with him and blocking Chan Lee’s attempts at following him.

The pops continued, spraying into the night in useless frustration. Dimitri had already cleared the roof to the other side and the second length of rope propelling him down into the alleyway and his escape.

Going down was always easier than climbing up. He practically slid to the bottom, grateful for his gloves and knowing he would need new ones before the night was over.

He hit the pavement with both feet, the sound muffled. He threw glances in all directions, searching through the tint of green for signs of life and finding none. Certain he wasn’t followed, he ripped off the goggles, stuffed them into his pack and raced to the edge between the two buildings. The concrete glistened like an oil slick despite the lack of rain. His boots crunched on broken glass and grit as he reached his parked bike and jumped on. The sound of its engine revving to life splintered the darkness.

He shot off, taking each turn, each street with a single minded determination. He didn’t slow until there was a full block between him and angry little Asian man.

How could he be so stupid? He should have realized something like that would happen eventually. Hadn’t the Syndicate been plotting the exact same thing only days before? He needed to be more careful. He needed to…

A sleek, black SUV swerved out of nowhere and clipped him. It was barely a tap and yet the world blurred as he flew four feet into the air and slammed down on unforgiving concrete. The blow jarred his teeth loose. They rattled in his mouth as the sickening crunch of his own bones echoed between his ears. There was a crunch and he knew his bike was finished even before he stopped rolling.

He gasped, the most he could do as all the air left him on impact. His vision distorted. He wasn’t fast enough blinking away the blur before the hands had him. They grabbed him brutally and heaved him to his feet. The mask was torn from his face and he was shoved into the back of the car. The door slammed shut behind him and he was trapped, trapped with the pale figure seated next to him on the smooth leather bench.

John Paul studied him from beneath the faint interior light. His features carved from the smoothest, coldest stone. He was dressed casual … for him, in slacks and a light sweater. Their dark tones made his complexion almost ethereal.

“You weren’t answering my calls,” he said evenly. “I thought I would come to you.”

Winded, aching all over, and furious, Dimitri glowered back at him. “So you run me over?”

John Paul never so much as batted an eyelash. “We clearly missed.”

Dimitri shook his head. He adjusted his torso, rolling his bruised shoulder and checking for broken bones. There weren’t any. He partially wondered what that snap had been. No doubt his goggles were finished.

Self-assessment complete, he faced the man again. “What?”

Chilling, brown eyes lifted and bore into Dimitri. “Where is Ava, Dimitri? Why haven’t I spoken to her in two days?”

He’d known that was what it was. Nothing brought out John Paul’s psychopath like the thought of something happening to Ava, and going two days without speaking to her was unacceptable. Dimitri understood. It was how he felt in that very moment, not knowing where Ava was, if she was all right, if he would ever find her. The idea of anything happening to her drove him half mad with rage and desperation. But he had nothing. He had found nothing. In two days, he was no closer to getting her back than he had been the day she went missing. It was enough to make him want to slam a fist into concrete.

“Where is she?” John Paul said again, louder, fiercer, with an authority laced in razor blades.

Dimitri dropped his chin, guilt, shame, and self-loathing devouring his insides. “I don’t have her.”

Nostrils flared in a barely repressed surge of fury that glimmered dark and feral in the other man’s otherwise calm demeanor.

“Where is she?”

A hand lifted, unsteady and damp to Dimitri’s face and scrubbed.  “I don’t know.”

There had never been a time in Dimitri’s life when he’d been scared of his father. Their paths had never crossed enough for anything beyond resentment, and the occasional disappointment. But Dimitri was terrified. And the longer the silence strained between them, the tighter the knots in his stomach became. A cold, slimy sensation formed in his throat. It clogged the path for any further explanation. Not that he had any.

“What happened?” The words were shredded through carefully stiff, unyielding lips.

It dawned on him in that moment that he’d been wrong that morning in Robby’s apartment. There was one person he could have called, one person who was as dedicated to Ava’s survival as he was. He should have realized that, just because John Paul couldn’t be bothered where Dimitri was concerned, didn’t mean he wouldn’t have dropped everything to find Ava.

“Someone took her.”

He told John Paul everything, oddly relieved to finally have someone who would understand the pure, raw hell he’d been living in the last two days. It was an eerie feeling. He was so used to keeping everything to himself, bottling it all up inside until he felt on the verge of exploding. Even when he’d been with Ava, he could never uncork his misery on her. He couldn’t bring his darkness into her world. He’d simply swallowed it all up and gone on.

He released it all now. Not everything, but everything from the moment he found Ava at the hotel bar. He described the shooting and being on the run with Ava, and Ava getting shot. He didn’t stop until he reached finding Robby unconscious in his apartment. Only then did he allow the words to die and the whisper of late night to fill the car. The air conditioner buzzed faintly, swallowing the low murmurs of the man outside on his phone, waiting for orders.

John Paul was a man carved from the very purest clump of marble. The world could have shattered in an explosion of fire and ice and still, he would have remained firmly frozen in his seat. Dimitri began to wonder if he’d died, if the news had been too much. He was beginning to think about calling the man outside when John Paul blinked.

He turned his head to the window and the view of a brick building on the other side. He stared at it, his jaw line a sharp point. He was breathing. Dimitri could just make out the steady rise and fall of his chest. But there was no other movement otherwise.

“I have men searching the underground,” Dimitri said, needing him to understand that he was doing something. “And the other territories—”

“She’s not here.” Said so softly, Dimitri almost didn’t hear it.

“What do you mean?”

His inhale was deeper this time when John Paul spoke. “They wouldn’t keep her here. They would know I would find them. They would have moved her.”

Something thumped in his chest, a patter of hope he hadn’t felt in … ever. “Where? Where would they take her?”

John Paul turned his head a notch and fixed Dimitri with solemn, angry eyes. “It’s a very big world. They could take her anywhere.”

That wasn’t the sort of assurance Dimitri had been hoping for.

“How do we find her then?”

John Paul went quiet again. He turned pensively back to the window.

A sharp rap against glass caused him to jump. His head jerked up just as John Paul lowered his arm. A second later, the man outside was slipping in behind the wheel. Door was slammed shut.

“Robby’s,” was all John Paul said.

Dimitri frowned. “I already talked to him. They caught him off guard. He was unconscious through most of it.”

John Paul never even glanced his way as the SUV started forward. “I don’t want to talk to him.” A muscle tightened in John Paul’s cheek. “This is why I wanted you to stay away from her. I knew you would be the reason I would lose her.” He sucked in a breath that flared his nostrils. “You should have came to me. You should have told me she was gone sooner!”

“I know.” Dimitri didn’t even attempt to justify his actions. He’d been an idiot. He’d been careless and reckless, and prideful. He’d allowed his own misery to cloud his better judgment. He had allowed Ava to get so far out of his reach that… “Just…” He trailed off with a vicious swipe of his fingers back through his hair. The dark strands had been released from the elastic he’d twisted them into and hung in locks around his bent face. “Please help me find her.”

John Paul remained impervious to his plea. His eyes narrowed before he looked away.

“Of course I will find her,” he mumbled. “I will tear this world apart if I have to, but I will find her, and when I do…” He glowered at Dimitri with a hatred birthed from the very brimstones of hell. “You will never come near her again, is that understood?”

Dimitri nodded. He would have accepted any punishment, any brand of torture, anything if it meant getting Ava back.

No one said another word as they crossed the city. No one even mentioned the bike they left abandoned. Not even Dimitri. He didn’t care. All he could do was cling to the possibility that this was it. That John Paul would get answers. They would find Ava. They would bring her back.

The SUV pulled up at Robby’s apartment. Doors began to pop open only to be stopped by John Paul.

“You won’t be needed for this, Jarvis,” he told his driver calmly as he opened his own door and slid out.

The driver inclined his head, but remained behind the wheel.

Dimitri followed his father out into the street. It was deserted, the block of apartments dark as their occupants slept. No one took any notice as the pair crossed into gray stoned building. Dimitri picked the locks on the main foyer doors and let them in. They took the elevator up in silence.

At Robby’s front door, they paused and stared at the gold three eighteen bolted into the wood. Dimitri noticed John Paul studying the knob and the area around it for forced entry.

“He let them in,” he said. “They knocked.”

John Paul said nothing. He raised a hand and knocked. Then knocked louder. When no one answered the second time, Dimitri pulled out his kit and went to work on the lock.

The tumblers gave too easily. The door swung inward and John Paul swept in as if he owned the place.

Dimitri was slower. The foul stench that claimed the air with a vicious obsession stilled him on the threshold. His eyes burned. His lungs ached, desperate not to draw that air in. His palms dampened. He knew, even before John Paul paused at the sofa, Dimitri knew Ava would never forgive him for this.

Chapter Twelve

Clothes were the only things Ava had in common with her mother. Not to the point where they discussed it or went shopping together, but a silent, mutual appreciation. It was actually Charlotte who convinced Ava to get a job at a magazine. Not directly. It was during one of her snide, cruel moods and she’d said it as a jab rather than a suggestion, but it had stuck with Ava.

Being an editor hadn’t been Ava’s original plan when she’d gone to college. Journalism didn’t interest her. She had no dedication to trudge through war wasted cities in search of a story. But she had always loved fashion and writing. Designing clothes had come to mind when she’d been deciding on an elective, but she had zero flair with a needle and thread, never mind the talent to actually draw. The only thing she’d known at that point was that she wanted to do something with clothes or something with writing.

Writing a column about clothes was practically a dream come true.

But that was gone now. Her position was probably filled by Trina or Sam, one of the other two editors at Chaud. Her things were probably boxed up and tucked away in some closet for her to go get, or already tossed out. Melanie wouldn’t have had the patience to wait longer than a week for Ava to show up. Brian, Ava’s assistant, would have tried to call her, had probably gone to her apartment. He would have told Melanie that Ava was unreachable. That would have been the end of that. Melanie would have ordered Brian to clear out Ava’s desk and get all her files to Trina, or Sam.

Without a job, it probably meant no more paychecks. Her rent cheques would have bounced. Ed, her landlord, would have already let himself in to see if her carcass wasn’t decomposing somewhere. He probably already had people clearing out her things and getting the place ready for new renters, renters that didn’t just up and vanish in the dead of night.

Or, maybe they’d all seen the news about her being held hostage and wanted by the police.

Whatever the case, whatever was happening in the world beyond the dipping and swaying ship, Ava no longer belonged to it. Her world had become the four metal walls and the scuffle of those trapped there with her.

In the time she’d spent with the cold metal biting through clothes to singe skin, she’d learned that her fellow prisoners were from all over the world. Some of them didn’t even speak English. Some had been captive for months, others for only days, like her. She learned that not all of them were homeless. Some had been taken from bars and nightclubs. Others had been scooped up off the street while walking home. None of them knew when they would ever see daylight. None of them had any hopes of going home.

There were fifty girls in total. Ava had counted them multiple times. The majority of them were teens, barely legal. They were the ones that cried at night. The older ones were resigned. They sat silent and motionless. Ava tried not to let their submission bring her down. She tried to remember that John Paul and Dimitri would never stop looking for her. She tried to be brave, to never cry when anyone was looking. But the tears were the one thing she couldn’t stop. They came whenever they pleased and left just as quickly.

There were eight men who periodically entered the room. They arrived in sets of two, always the same two, and they did it in shifts. They were mixed in races. Three were white. One black. One Asian. And three darker skinned, middle eastern or Hispanic. She couldn’t tell. They arrived with the same baskets of bread and the bucket of water. Ava was beginning to suspect those were days passed. At least, that was how she started counting them.

They never spoke, but their faces when they walked in said plenty. These were not men with an ounce of mercy in their bones. They felt no shame over what they were doing. They thrived on the fear and pain they caused. It was clear every time they walked into the room that this was the moment they’d waited for all day. The whimpers, the scuffle as girls tried to get away but couldn’t, aroused them. It made them feel strong and in control.

Ava hated them as she had never hated anything in her life. It was a violent, blood thirsty kind of heat that reared up from the very pit of her stomach. It was the kind of rage that made her want to sink her teeth into their throats. It was vile and bitter and maddening. She could literally feel herself going crazy every time they left and she did nothing. She wanted to scream and kick at the walls. But she didn’t. She didn’t move.

“How far do you think we are?” Ilsa asked in her soft little voice, distracting Ava from her thoughts.

Ava shrugged. “Back before ships had engines, it would take months to get anywhere. With an engine, we could be literally anywhere.”

“We’re probably going somewhere in Europe,” said the tiny Hispanic girl a few feet away.

Ava blinked, more surprised by the input of conversation than the comment itself. “Why do you think that?”

The girl shrugged “It’s always Europe.”

“Bangladesh,” said the blonde next to her. “I did a paper on it in school. They’re like the leading human trafficking country in the world.”

“I always wanted to travel the world,” the dark haired girl muttered. “Never thought it would be like this.”

“Hey,” Ava jumped in quickly when Ilsa whimpered and pressed her face harder against her raised knees. “We’re going to get out of this, okay?”

“What are they going to do to us?” The girl wept fat tears that cut clean paths down her dirty cheeks.

No one answered. Not the blonde. Not the dark haired girl. Not Ava. But they were all thinking the same thing.

Chapter Thirteen

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.

Steel shrieked across red brick when he shot out of his chair. He paced away from the table, going out as far as he could without leaving the patio entirely. Part of him had thought that if he got out from beneath the canopy, the air would somehow be different. But no matter how far out he went, he still couldn’t shake the noose from around his lungs. Sweat was beginning to collect at his temples and plaster his clothes to his skin. The uncomfortable chafing made him want to strip naked and jump into the pool he could see in the distance, glittering a pale blue against the carpet of lush green.

“This is your fault.”

It took several seconds of floundering through his own mind to realize the voice wasn’t in his head. That it was coming from an outside source.

He glanced over his shoulder to find John Paul standing just there, hands behind his back, face set as he stared across the yard.

“I warned you this would happen,” he went on so quietly it was almost impossible to hear. “I warned you, you would destroy her.”

Dimitri didn’t even pause to think, to consider his actions. He whirled with a speed that startled even him and shoved the other man. He’d wanted to punch him, but his fists had connected with John Paul’s chest instead, sending him back a full three feet. The flicker of surprise on John Paul’s face mirrored his own before rage took over.

“Don’t you think I fucking know that?” he roared, composure gone. “I don’t need for you to remind me that if anything happens to her … that if…” He broke off as the words tangled with the ball in his chest. “I would give my life to have her back.”

Carefully collected, John Paul glowered at him. “It might just come to that if anything has happened to her. Your life will mean nothing if I don’t get her back.”

Struggling to regulate his breathing, Dimitri bared his teeth. “Do you think I care about my life? Do you think I could go on without her? There is nothing you could possibly do to me that I wouldn’t welcome.”

John Paul studied him. Dimitri would have counted the heartbeats in between, but his was pounding too hard.

It didn’t matter. Marcus returned then, head bent over his phone, strides quick.

“I may have found something,” he said, oblivious to the serrated tension sawing around him. “I don’t know if it’s your girl, but a redhead was dropped off that night. My man remembers, because she was the last one brought in.” Marcus raised his head and peered from John Paul to Dimitri, then back. “Only problem is, they don’t know which boat they put her on. My main hand thinks San Juan, but he can’t be sure.”

“How many boats were there?” John Paul asked, tension hardening his question.

Marcus peeked at his phone quickly. “Three, all heading in different locations—Puerto Rico, Brazil, Bangladesh.” He raised his head. “The auction in San Juan will happen in five days. The rest will be held for buyers at a private sale.”

Hope became a jagged wire twisting around his heart. It was the most beautiful pain he’d ever felt; they weren’t any closer to finding her, but at least they had something.

“Can you stop them?”

Marcus shook his head. “No, but I have men at each port to oversee the shipments. You’d have to be there to confirm it’s her, but—”

“Set it up.” Dimitri was already stalking to the doors. “All three of the ports. Tell them I’ll be there in a few hours.”

“But the boats haven’t arrived yet!” Marcus called after him.

“I don’t care!” Dimitri yelled back. “I’m going to be there when she docks.”

“Dimitri!” John Paul called after him. “You can’t be in all three places.”

Dimitri’s strides faltered. He slowed, and then stopped and turned.

John Paul faced Marcus. “Give us the addresses.”

With a few quick keystrokes of his fingers, Marcus sent John Paul the addresses. The phone buzzed in John Paul’s pocket a second later. He didn’t check, but nodded his thanks.

“I hope you find her,” Marcus said as John Paul started towards Dimitri.

Neither Dimitri nor John Paul answered as they left the estate.

“What’s the plan?” Dimitri demanded before they even reached the bottom of the steps, his anxiety at an all-time high.

“We split up,” John Paul said simply. “We each take a location and wait. When the boat comes in, we check for her and bring her home.”

Chapter Fourteen

“He’s dangerous, Ava.” The hands gripping her thin arms tightened as the voice urged her to understand. “You’ll get hurt.”

Ava did understand. She may have only been ten, but she knew there were two sides to the world. Everything was either good or bad, black or white. Occasionally, John Paul mentioned a gray area, but she hadn’t seen it.

“But why is he dangerous?”

John Paul must have realized he was hurting her. He released her at once and straightened, pulling his long, lean frame to its full height. Ava was tall for her age, almost taller than the girls in her class, but she barely came to his stomach when he stood over her.

“Because he is,” he told her softly. “His kind are.”

His kind.

Ava had an inexplicable image of the boy from the carnival running through the forest, naked as his body transformed into a ferocious beast under the full moon.

“Is he a werewolf?” she’d wondered aloud and earned a softening of John Paul’s face, a subtle curl of his lips.

“No, darling.” He lowered himself, bending all that height until he was eyelevel with her. “But I need you to promise me you won’t go near him again.”

It was a rare thing for John Paul to make her promise anything. He always said children needed room to make mistakes and making them promise not to be children was unfair. But it also made her wonder who this boy was and why he was such an exception.

“I liked him,” she said with all the justification she could muster. “He talked to me, and it wasn’t to laugh.”

Sadness crept into John Paul’s handsome face. “I’m sorry your birthday wasn’t what you expected.”

Ava shook her head. “It’s wasn’t your fault. You tried. I just don’t think those are my kinds of friends.”

Amusement shimmered in his yellow eyes. “No? What is your kind of friends?”

She wanted to say the boy. He’d been normal. He hadn’t been dressed like the others. He certainly hadn’t talked like the others. But she knew John Paul wouldn’t like that.

“I don’t know yet,” she said instead. “I’m still trying to find my people.”

The smile spread across his face, tugging on his mouth until he was grinning. He raised a hand and lightly swept back a lock of hair. It was tucked behind her ear.

“You’ll find them. I know you will.”

He hadn’t made her promise to stay away again. Maybe he’d forgotten. She didn’t bring it or the boy up again. But he remained on her mind at the oddest times. She found herself wondering where he was and what he was doing. Several times, she found herself walking through the halls of her school, searching faces in hopes of spotting him. He was never there. She really hadn’t expected him to be, but she always hoped. Every time she saw a boy with dark hair, her stomach would clench and she’d hurry forward only to realize too late it wasn’t him. Her obsession with him had reached a level she knew wasn’t healthy. It was made worse by the fact that John Paul refused to talk about it. It was as though those few minutes behind the game booth had never happened. It was maddening. All she wanted was a name. Just one name. Something to call him other than boy.

A week passed and the desperate clawing in her chest hadn’t abated. She expected it never would. She had never been fond of mysteries. She hated not solving puzzles. But she had reluctantly begun to accept the conclusion that she would never learn his name or get answers for any of her questions. It would be one of those things she’d have to live with, like why her father couldn’t be bothered with her or why her mother was such a self-absorbed idiot. She would simply have to come to terms with it.

It was misting. The heavy rain of that morning had dwindled to an awkward spray that dampened everything and made her uniform cling heavily to her. Other students bowled out of the school, shouting and scurrying to their cars in a stampede that was bound to get someone killed going down the slick steps.

Ava didn’t rush. John Paul’s estate was a block away, barely a five-minute walk down a curving street lined with enormous houses and mile high walls. Even the school was heavily fenced by iron bars. It was the type of neighborhood that lived in constant fear that someone might break in and steal their original Monet’s, while terrified that no one would see just how grand their lives were. Ava had been subjected to that fickleness her entire life and had no desire to become one of the mindless—except for John Paul. He was the exception. He wasn’t like the others, hung up on the things he could show off. He wasn’t worried about other people’s thoughts when he jumped into the snow with her or if he made the walk to her school to pick her up rather than send a car. That had scandalized several of the parents. Rich people didn’t walk. They certainly didn’t pick up their children themselves. It had been the best day of Ava’s whole life, especially considering the traumatic first day she’d had.

New schools didn’t bother her. New people, new faces, new names, they were all part of some cosmic wheel she just had to live with. But this had been worse. The children had been worse. The teachers had been horrible. Everyone had looked down at her because she wasn’t one of them. It didn’t matter that her father and mother were both rich, influential people in society. They weren’t the right kind of rich and influential. There was a difference. Her mother and father couldn’t afford that school. But John Paul could and that only made matters worse.

“You’re like a charity case,” they’d told her. “One of those kids who get in on a lottery.”

She wanted to tell them the word was scholarship, but hadn’t bothered.

By the end of the day, she’d been barely holding back tears. All she’d wanted was to run home and hide under her covers until graduation. Then she’d walked down the front steps, looked up … and there he’d been, just standing inside the iron archway in his dark trousers and dress shirt. His sunglasses had glinted on his face when he’d turned his head and spotted her. He’d grinned and Ava had almost lost the war with her emotions.

It didn’t matter who’d been watching or what they’d say, she’d broken records tearing down the path to him. He’d caught her when she’d thrown herself full throttle into his chest and held her tight enough to cut off air.

“Long day?”

She’d only nodded into his shoulder, the material under her cheek wet from her tears.

“Want me to buy the school and kick them all out?”

Ava had laughed.

It was that moment she knew she loved him like she had never loved anyone in her entire life. It was why she would never do anything to disappoint him, why she would die if anything ever happened to him. It was why she was so torn when she looked up and found the boy standing just on the other side of the street, half concealed by the shadows of the shrub wall.

He looked exactly how she remembered him, tall, too thin, but with a fierce sort of determination that made him appear bigger than he was.

He wore dark jeans over scarred boots and a black t-shirt with some band she’d never heard of. Almost as an afterthought, he’d pulled on a leather coat. The front was left open despite the fact that he was getting wet. His sullen expression was half concealed by the dark glasses and the wet tangle of hair that crept around his face in waves, but she knew he was watching her.

She stopped walking and stared back, partially wondering if she had finally lost her mind. But when he didn’t dissolve into thin air, she sucked up her courage, hoisted her bag higher on her back, and marched over.

“You’re not allowed to be here,” she told him. “You’re going to get into trouble.”

He dragged off his glasses, neatly folded the plastic arms, and stuffed it carelessly into his front pocket. He peered up at her. A glimmer of something shone in his eyes, like he was laughing at her, but his lips never lifted.

“Are you going to tell on me?”

“Yes,” she stated firmly. “John Paul says you’re dangerous.”

He made a quiet humming sound and lifted his gaze over her umbrella. “John Paul,” he said the name quietly, contemplatively. “I suppose he’s right.”

“That you’re dangerous?” she clarified.

He hummed again, a soft, almost musical sound if it wasn’t so deep. “Yes.” His gaze lowered to her once more, watchful and still shining. “Are you scared of me?”

Ava had thought about it. She studied his face and the way he never seemed to blink. But it was that very thing that solidified her rationality. He never looked away the way people did when they lied. But it was more than that. There was honesty in his eyes, a deep, profound sort of wisdom that made her curious, and loneliness. She recognized that one. She saw it in the mirror every morning.

“No,” she whispered.

His dark head tilted to one side. “And why not? I’m older, bigger, and you don’t even know my name.”

He was right.

“Okay, what’s your name?”

His mouth did lift then. It was a gradual thing. It kind of reminded her of the cat from Alice in Wonderland, slow and mischievous. The kind of smile the boys at school got just before they shoved her into the puddles.

Instinctively, Ava drew back a step. Her fingers tightened in the metal bar of her umbrella.

The smile slipped. It vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. His entire body straightened or maybe it was just the lift of his chin.

“What?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

His eyes narrowed. “He’s right you know. John Paul. I am dangerous.”

He turned then, and for a panicked moment, she almost grabbed him.

“Where are you going?” she called after him.

“Go home,” he said back. “Little girls shouldn’t play with monsters.”

Ava didn’t understand that. “Will I see you again?”

“No.”

She believed him. It was in the harsh lines of his frame as he stalked off. It was only after that she realized she still didn’t know his name.

“Did you learn his name?” Ilsa watched her from over the curves of her bent knees, green eyes wide and curious.

Ava chuckled. “Almost two months later.”

Ilsa blinked. “He really didn’t come back?”

“No, he did.” Ava grinned at the girl. “He came back the next day, and the next. Every day for the next eight years.”

Ilsa’s head lifted. “Did you talk to him?”

Ava nodded. “Not at first. He stayed on his side of the street and I stayed on mine, but somehow, we wound up on the same side.”

“Which side?” the girl pressed softly.

Ava shrugged. “Mine, I think.”

Ilsa beamed. “You won him over!”

Ava laughed. “I guess I did.”

It hadn’t been easy. He’d been so determined not to come anywhere near her that every time she’d tried, he’d tensed like a rabbit sensing a wolf.

“Are you really not going to talk to me?” she’d shouted one day from her side of the street. “At least tell me your name if you’ve elected yourself my shadow.”

He’d only stared at her with that same quizzical frown, like he couldn’t quite figure her out. It was the same look he always wore. Sometimes, it was hidden behind his glasses, but she could see it in the way his lips kept mashing together, as if whatever he was concluding about her, lacked something. Like she lacked something.

“It’s weird!” she’d said. “I don’t bite.”

He hadn’t been convinced.

It was in that moment she realized he wasn’t going to make the first move no matter what she said or did. He was content just standing in the shadows, separated by that stupid road. It was up to her if their friendship was ever going to go anywhere.

She’d stalked over, ignored the way he’d stiffened, and planted herself in front of him with her hands on her hips and her eyes narrowed.

“Well?” she’d said. “Here I am. I crossed the street. Nothing happened.”

“Were you expecting something to happen?” he’d countered almost lazily, but with a tension she could see around his mouth.

“You seemed to. Did you think it would eat you? That a great, big monster would leap out and snatch you up before you got to me?”

He’d studied her carefully. “I am the monster,” he said at last.

Ava had snorted in disgust. She’d rolled her eyes and his had widened.

“Not this again. You’re not so big. I could easily beat you in a race.”

He had simply stared at her, almost like she’d smacked him.

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” she countered when he said nothing.

“I graduated this summer.” His voice had dropped several notches and wavered with confusion that confused her.

“And you’re spending your days following me around? Haven’t you got any friends?”

“No.”

Ava had considered this a moment. “I haven’t got any either,” she’d confessed. “The teachers say I exhibit antisocial and destructive behavior, but they’re all idiots.” She’d offered him a half grin. “Maybe we can be friends.”

“Why?”

She’d shrugged. “Because I would rather introduce you as my friend than as my stalker.”

She had never seen anyone look more appalled. “Introduce me? To who?”

“To whom,” she’d corrected smartly. “And I don’t know … people, I suppose. What if we were at the movies and—?”

“Why would you be talking in a movie?” he’d interrupted.

Ava had blinked. “Don’t you?”

“No! It’s for watching … silently.”

“What fun is that? I like discussing it while it’s happening.”

His face had bunched up in absolute disgust. “You’re one of those people I always want to hit with my popcorn bucket.”

“Hey now!”

He’d scoffed and shook his head. “We are never going to the movies together.”

“Fine!” She’d folded her arms. “I don’t want to go to the movies with you anyway.”

They’d fallen silent as a car roared past. It hadn’t stopped or slowed, but Ava had recognized one of John Paul’s neighbor behind the wheel. She’d waved and Ava had waved back. Then she was gone.

“Why do they say you’re destructive?”

“I’m not.” She’d looked at him, exasperated. “I hit a boy with a chair one time and knocked him out, but only after he and his friends had shoved me into the puddles nearly every day for a bloody month and I was forced to wear dirty clothes for the entire day. Retaliation, apparently, isn’t proper behavior. I think he had it coming.”

“With a chair?” he’d blurted. “You are crazy.” A grin had ghosted his mouth. “I would have stabbed him with a pen.”

Ava had laughed. “And I’m crazy?”

Things had changed between them after that. He no longer kept to his side of the street and she got to see the boy behind the yellow eyes. Their mutual need for someone had pulled them into an odd sort of friendship that extended well into her teens and his early twenties. He’d become her best friend, her confidant, the one person she could trust to never fail her. She liked to think she’d brought something to his table as well, though she could never guess what that was. It had always felt like she was getting the better end of the friendship.

“There was a boy I liked back in Germany,” Ilsa murmured. “Alois.” She smiled a little. “He had glasses and a million freckles, but he was always nice when other kids were making fun of me.” Her smile faded. “I’m never going to see him again.”

It was becoming increasingly difficult keeping morale up when she was the only one. The very air smelled of defeat. Even Ava was having a harder time than usual reminding herself this wouldn’t be the way she died. It was harder still to remember Ilsa was just a little girl.

It was horrible, the annoyance that always surged up every time the girl brought down Ava’s mood. She was constantly trying to keep herself from grabbing the tiny blonde and shaking her, and telling her that she wouldn’t let anything happen to her, that they would get out of this. There wasn’t a single flicker of doubt in Ava’s mind that Dimitri and John Paul weren’t looking for her at that very moment. They would find her and she would get Ilsa back to Germany and the freckle faced Alois.

But she kept her mouth shut and focused instead on the hum of the motor vibrating up the wall against her back. It was a strange sort of comfort, but it was all she had.

“Ava, stop it!” The agitation reverberated through the clenched force of Charlotte’s teeth. The only thing missing was the sharp slap of Charlotte’s hand, but Ava could see the whitening of her mother’s knuckles around the Gucci clutch, a sure sign the woman was barely containing the urge.

“I’m not doing anything,” she muttered, too restless to take her mother’s fussing seriously.

She peeked at her watch again.

“For Christ sakes! Ava!” Charlotte did slap her then, a flick of her dainty wrist that stung against the back of Ava’s hand.

“Ow!” She rubbed anxiously at the three strips of white rising out of a hue of red. “I haven’t done anything!”

“I swear, you look at that stupid thing again, I will rip it off and—”

“There’s my girls.” John Paul appeared seemingly as though he’d been summoned by the sheer force of Ava’s mind. He looked at the spot Ava was still rubbing at, at the welts, and focused on his wife. “What’s going on?”

Charlotte huffed and stuffed her clutch between her ribs and elbow. “It’s that ridiculous watch you bought her. She won’t stop staring at it. It’s rude.”

Ava glowered. “It’s not ridiculous.”

John Paul settled a loving hand against Charlotte’s lower back. “Darling, it’s her party.”

“Exactly!” Charlotte hissed, careful to do so while maintaining a beautiful smile. “She’s eighteen, not two.”

Exhaling, Ava looked out over the crowd and the sea of faces she barely recognized. The majority were friends of John Paul, people she’d met in passing, but had no real thoughts towards. The rest were people Ava didn’t care if she ever saw again. But they were all there for the same purpose, to celebrate the day of her birth while simultaneously rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s most powerful people. It was more the latter. No one really cared who Ava was or why she was there. Most barely even glanced at her.

“I need a drink.” Her mother turned to John Paul. “I think I’ll get one in my room.”

It was ridiculous. Waiters were circulating the room with silver tray laden with flutes of champagne. All she had to do was wait. But it was clear her mother had had enough of the evening. She’d come. She’d smiled and shown her support and happiness at having a grown, legal daughter. Her job was complete. There wasn’t enough bribery in the world to persuade her to stay.

This was the night she had been dreading since the day of Ava’s birth. It was the night the entire world would know that Charlotte Morel was no longer young. She was no doubt on her way to spend the remainder of the night in a blissful, drug induced hue. No one would see her for days, weeks even. Then she’d sweep out of the room, a glowing radiance off to some exotic place for some recovery.

Ava was happy to see her leave. While she hadn’t been counting down those minutes, it had certainly come up a time or two.

“Of course.” John Paul turned away from the woman at his side and focused on Ava. “Will you be all right—”

“Of course she’ll be all right,” Charlotte snapped. “She’s an adult now. Completely grown. She can legally leave now.”

From the moment it had come to light that Ava was her daughter, Charlotte had practically counted the days until the time when Ava would leave and give Charlotte back her life. It was a very fine razor blade she walked, Ava thought miserably.

“Nonsense.” John Paul frowned. “There is no need for her to go anywhere until she’s finished school and started a successful career.”

“It’s fine,” Ava interrupted. “I have plans to see the world, anyway.”

“Of course you do,” Charlotte muttered under her breath before turning away and making a quick exit.

“Don’t listen to her.” John Paul set a hand on her arm. “It’s your life now. Do what you want.”

With a loving squeeze, he followed his wife from the room.

Ava watched them go wondering yet again how someone like John Paul could stand being married to someone like Charlotte. The mysteries made no sense. She wasn’t rich or influential, at least not as rich or influential as he was. She wasn’t kind, generous, or loving. She was awful and brought nothing to the table, but he stayed.

Shaking her head slowly, she glanced at her watch. The tiny hands sitting precociously on the twelve had her heart jumping. Her skin prickled with a familiar sort of anticipation and her stomach cinched.

It was finally midnight. It was time. It was the moment she’d been waiting for nearly her entire life.

Lip caught between her teeth, Ava skirted the dancefloor. There was no need to creep when no one was paying any attention to her, but she moved quickly, quietly on the balls of her feet, careful not to let her heels touch the marble. One hand held tight to the soft fabric of her soft, crimson dress, elevating the hem off the tops of her strappy sandals.

The French doors had been left open to the remaining few warm nights of August. The balmy temperature whispered into the room, carrying with it the subtle scent of her mother’s garden and the approaching thunderstorm they’d been promised. The sky was a subtle black edged in a light, glowing blue where the moon hid behind a shroud of clouds. It was the perfect kind of night to trace the curving paths through the acres of manicured lawns and shivering trees.

They rustled as she hurried beneath them, heels clipping on stone as she followed the familiar trail. Fairy lights glimmered between the leaves, making up for the lack of stars and filling the moment with an ethereal hue that only fueled her anticipation. Solar lamps lead the way along the edges of her path, dipping and bending as the stones did. Not that she needed the guidance. She could have found her way if all the lights of the world had gone out and absolute darkness ruled supreme.

The guesthouse was rarely used by anyone outside the family. The estate was large enough, with plenty of space for guests, but Ava had always loved the two story cabin style with its simple décor and beach house feel. Plus, it was as far from her mother as she could get most days when she’d been younger. It had been her own personal little home. Her place of sanctuary. But it was also the one place no one ever thought to come looking for her, which always made it ideal for other things.

The glass doors swung inward without a sound. She shut them quickly behind her and turned to the silhouettes of slumbering furniture. In the semi darkness, each one reminded her of a lurking monster.

“Dimitri?” she murmured into the eerie quiet.

Her own voice echoed back, small and uncertain. She started to check her watch again, wondering if maybe it had lied to her when his voice broke through the silence.

“Ava.”

Her heart leaped even before the shadows parted to reveal him. They became the heavy drapes of a play, bending and slipping away to expose the beautiful poetry that he was. Ava’s breath caught even as he closed the distance between them and came to stand before her.

“Sz dnum rohzdeenyeh,” he murmured, wishing her a happy birthday.

Pale light toyed in the glossy locks swept back from his gorgeous features in thick waves. They glinted off the ends where they curled over the collar of his leather floor duster. The front hung open over the tight material of his white t-shirt and the dark cargo pants. Not many men she knew could pull off the Bohemian-gypsy look, but on him, it was perfect.

“You made it.”

An elegant eyebrow lifted. “When have I not?”

He had a point.

“All right.” She extended her hand, waiting dramatically for it with her palm open. “Where is my present?”

Heavy lashes dipped and his gaze fixed on the vulnerable flesh of her wrist and the tiny pulse beating rapidly under the pale skin. It was such an uninteresting spot and yet, standing there with it exposed, rushed her with a wave of embarrassment, the sort one felt when getting naked in front of another person the first time. The intimacy behind such a small gesture nearly made her pull away. Then he was reaching for her hand and she froze.

Long, blunt fingers cradled the back of hers like five, hot strips. She was drawn closer with a gentle tug until her curled fingers grazed the center of his chest. The heat of his skin burned through the thin material of his top, singeing her. Her fingers flexed involuntarily in his grasp, a startled bird too frightened to stay still, but too transfixed to leave.

His gaze sprung to hers, hot and wild behind the gold. His grip tightened by a fraction, a warning that she wasn’t going anywhere. She wanted to tell him that wasn’t possible. She wanted to tell him that nothing short of instantaneous death would have pulled her away from him.

“Have you decided what you want?” he countered quietly. His husky rumble glided along the naked skin of her back, making her painfully aware of just how little material actually made her dress.

It had been her idea, not as an act of adult rebellion, but she’d seen it and had immediately thought of him and the predatory glimmer he always got when she showed too much skin. He didn’t think she noticed, but it was a charge in the room that was impossible to ignore. It was a heat that prickled along her skin and made her aware of parts of herself she never noticed otherwise. The dress, the red swash of fabric barely restrained to her shoulders by pieces of thread, was a reminder to him that she was finally legal. That if he’d been hesitating because she was younger, it was no longer a problem. He could finally have her.

Now, she was nervous enough to pee herself. It had all been so clear in her head the entire week, so absolutely planned to the detail, but now, when she stood before him, partially naked, semi aroused, and ready to make the plunge, every nerve ending wanted to run.

“What do you want, Ava?”

The guttural question sent a shower of tingles erupting in the pit of her stomach. It was an intense spike of desire she hadn’t been prepared for. Her body clenched in a greedy, desperate sort of way that filled her cheeks with color from her dress. The excruciating pain thrummed through her in a sweet, silky caress that tore at her senses. The place between her thighs throbbed, a persistent and angry sensation that nearly made her cry out.

“I’ve thought about it,” she blurted, willing her stiff, dry lips to form words she had to struggle to find in the mess of fog in her head. “A lot…” The words rushed out of her in a choked gasp. “I’m eighteen now,” she went on, quicker now as her nerves threatened to revolt. “Legal everywhere in the world. An adult…”

“Yes,” he whispered softly, gaze never wavering from hers.

“We … you and I, we’ve done everything together, right? We … we’re a team, right?”

“Ava.” What little spaced remained holding her sanity in place was conjured by a single, forward step from him. The hand he held was lowered, removing all obstacles between them until there was nothing but a soft merger of their clothes brushing together. “You’re rambling.”

And you’re too close, she wanted to say. All she could do instead was tilt her head as far back as was possible and find his eyes in the shadows.

It struck her that she could be wrong. What if she was and everything went to hell because she was an idiot?

“Now you’ve left me.” His free hand slipped beneath her chin and held her prisoner while her mind came tumbling back. “Tell me what you want.”

Ava gulped. “You.”

If she’d expected shock, he never showed it. There was nothing but a solemn consideration in his eyes that told her nothing.

Bolder, she tried again. “I want to be with you … sexually.”

That got him moving. He shifted. His mouth quirked on one side.

“I know what you meant.”

Of course he did.

“You didn’t say anything,” she muttered, cheeks burning.

“No.”

Ava stiffened. She blinked. But neither helped filter his refusal properly, nor did it stave away the crash and burn of her heart as it dropped into her stomach.

“What? Why…?” She lowered her head to peer down at herself in the cut of light sifting in through the windows. “Is it me? Am I not what you want?”

“I want you,” he murmured. “I’ve wanted you for longer than I should have, but I want you.”

“Then … why?”

“Paris.”

Ava frowned. “What?”

“Rome,” he went on slowly. “China. Turkey.”

“What are you talking about?”

He smoothed back a lock of escaped hair off her cheek. “I don’t want you to stay here. You have dreams, Ava. It’s on your wall in your room, all the places you want to go.”

It was so ridiculous, she laughed. “To visit and I can still do all that and you can come with me.”

“You know I can’t leave.”

She shielded herself from the negativity of his reminder. “You can for a couple of weeks. We don’t have to go to all those places in a day. Maybe two or three trips a year, or—”

“Ava.” Both hands framed her face, silencing her. “I can’t leave, myshka.”

“That’s fine. I don’t have to go right away. Those places won’t just disappear if I wait a couple of years—”

“Stop.” He pulled her closer. “You’re not putting your life on hold for me.”

“Well, I’m not living it without you!” Her hands lifted and closed into the material of his shirt, just on either side of his waist. “I love you, Dimitri. I’m in love with you. I always have been.”

She’d said it to him before during quiet nights while they lay facing each other on her bed. She’d peer deep into his eyes and will him to see just how much she meant it. But she wasn’t sure he ever figured out that she’d meant more than just her best friend.

“Fuck, Ava!” His mouth was a hair width away now, so close they shared every breath, so close she felt the faint hint of his lips against hers. “Lyubb-lyu tebya vsem sertsem, vsey dushoyu.”

He’d taught her a few phrases in Russian, enough to swear at him and occasionally ask for something. It took her a few seconds to work out the rapid speech.

“You love … pie?”

He burst out laughing, the sound a beautiful crash of an angry storm, violent, deep, and mesmerizing.

“What?” She chuckled. “What did you say?”

He sobered, but the amusement continued to ring through his voice when he spoke. “I love you,” he stressed you, “with all my heart, with all my soul.”

“Oh.” She struggled with her breathing, but it was all too much. Her stomach had become an explosion of fireflies clamoring in an excited dance. Her lungs ached. Her heart was a mess thumping wildly against her chest. “I really like that.”

He hummed quietly, still quietly chuckling at her. “Ne magu zhit’ bes tebya.”

Ava gasped. “I know that one!” Lightheaded like the time he’d made her go on the tilt a whirl, she reached for him. Her hands went around his neck. Their fronts aligned and she wondered if he could feel how perfectly they fit. “If you can’t live without me, does that mean you’ll be mine?”

He shook his head slowly, eyes dancing in the pale light. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

Heart escalating in ferocity, Ava drew back. She let her arms slip from his shoulders and gingerly took a step back. She held his gaze, unwavering in her decision as she reached for the straps and peeled them over the curves of her shoulders. The material glided the length of her naked body in a cool, rippling wave to form a crimson puddle around her ankles.

She stood before him, dressed in nothing but light from the patio outside and his eyes. They roamed along the dips and valleys of her most private parts in a slow caress, the thoroughness of a man drinking in a sight too precious to take in all at once. He relished in her with an attentiveness that made her feel every second he wasn’t physically touching her.

“It’s all yours,” she told him. “It always has been.”

“Ava.”

The world seemed to rush out of him in that single exhalation of her name. It seemed to deflate and fill him simultaneously.

Without another word, he reached for her. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until his skin had melded with hers, until his fingers had curled into her sides. Her stomach pitched, a violent jerk that caught in her chest. She gasped, but it was shortened by the tug of her fully into his arms.

She was lifted seamlessly and hauled up the stairs to the first bedroom. He dumped her down on the bed without a shred of grace and stood over her, the calm gone, replaced by a furious darkness that was both frightening and exciting.

He cast off her sandals, then tore off his coat. The leather rustled as it struck the ground to the side. His top followed and she was given full view of his hard, chiseled torso, the solid cuts of his chest, the violently carved grooves of his abs, the steely bulges of his arms. He was a specimen of a man, rugged and ruthless. Every flex of muscle as he discarded his clothes made her feel that much smaller, that much more vulnerable and aware of everything around her. Her senses had become a beckon of sensations, feeling everything simultaneously until she was sure she’d go insane with the sensory overload. The world was a cacophony of sights, sounds, and smells and they all raged for attention.

“Dimitri…”

His buckle clattered as it was torn from his pants. It hit the ground next to his top, sounding impossibly loud despite the carpet.

“Open,” he ordered. “Your legs,” he clarified when she couldn’t think past the blood drumming between her ears. “Show her to me.”

Mortification swelled in an angry, hot wave up her neck and flooded her face. It wasn’t enough to make her call stop, but she did hesitate.

“You shaved her for me,” he went on, undoing the snaps on his cargos. “Made her soft and visible for when I put my mouth on your lips and taste you.”

Christ. Who was this person? Not once in eight years had he ever been so vulgar. God help her, but she loved it. Her body loved it. It melted in a hot, sticky puddle against the cool sheets. The heat of her desire had her forgetting all about her apprehensions and doubts as her knees dropped apart with a willingness that showed zero modesty.

He groaned, a deep, almost animal sound that speared her straight where she wanted him. She felt it as surely as though he’d penetrated her. Her hips lifted involuntarily and he smirked.

“Patience, my little mouse.”

She wanted to touch the swollen crest of her mound. She was so close that it would take only a brush of one finger and it would be over, but he’d discarded his pants. The soft material dropped down his legs and he stood before her gloriously naked … and hard.

His cock bobbed proudly from the center of his beautiful body, a rugged, intimidating force taunting her with its length and girth. She’d never seen one up close. She had no idea if they were all that size, if they all had that thick, purple head and sleek, fat body. But it seemed impossibly enormous for what he intended to do with it.

“It’ll fit,” he promised. “Once it does,” he went on slowly, bending over her. “Once I fill you all the way, you will never want me to leave.”

Despite her hesitation, her doubts, and worries, Ava met his gaze squarely. “I want him,” she whispered. “I’ve wanted him for so long. It’s all I could think about sometimes.”

A deep rumble escaped his chest. He stopped, suspended over her with his hands flat on the mattress on either side of her head, and his knees keeping her legs apart wide, and peered down at her.

“Open wider.”

She couldn’t, but she tried until he was satisfied.

He cupped her. No warning until the heat of his palm had settled possessively over her sex, his fingers prying open her lips and delving straight for her core.

She cried out.

“Already so wet.” He circled her opening with the tip of one finger. “Do you feel it?”

He ran her juices from center to clit in a sticky figure eight. He circled the cap before dipping back down to give just the tiniest pressure to her opening before swooping back up again.

The torment had her writhing beneath him, mindless and desperate for every little bit he was allowing her. He watched her. His eyes never left her face.

“Should I?” he taunted, pressing one finger inside her to the first bend in his knuckle.

It wasn’t much but the pressure had her delirious.

“Please!” she blurted. “Yes!”

His finger was so much bigger than hers, so much longer. It invaded the unused part of her body with a swiftness that stole her breath away. She dropped back against the bed, spine arching as he worked in quick, deep thrusts. She was just getting used to the foreign assault when a second finger pushed past the tight ring. Her cries of discomfort were gently shushed by him.

“Don’t stiffen,” he murmured softly. “Let me in.”

“It hurts,” she choked out.

He pulled out, much to her surprise. She expected him to tell her she wasn’t ready if she couldn’t even take two fingers. But he bent his head and kissed her. The sweet lock of his lips against hers melted her into the sheets. He gathered her up close and deepened the kiss. Ava’s head swam in a delicious swirl of colors. Her senses tingled with every loving caress of his fingers following the curve of her side.

Carefully, he pulled away. His eyes had become dark pits banded by a thin circle of gold. They peered down at her, void of the annoyance or anger she’d been expecting.

He kissed her again, lighter, before following a slow path down her throat, along the plane of her chest to the swell of her breasts.

Ava’s breath caught and wheezed out in a moan when he took the tip of one into his mouth. His firm lips closed around the shriveled peak and a lance of raw fire skittered through her. It tore her open, that single, simple gesture and she balked. Lights sparked behind the eyelids she squeezed shut tight. It blocked out the hand he lifted to cradle the second breast until he was rolling the nipple and drowning her in a pool of pleasure. He pinched it between his thumb and index finger. He tugged.

Ava swore, viciously and violently, her mind no longer working properly.

“Don’t stop!” she panted, practically hysterical in her command. “Whatever you’re doing…” she broke off with a low, lusty groan with the first nip of his teeth. Her head dropped back. Her fingers fisted into his hair, holding him while he soothed the sweet pain with light flicks of his tongue. “Other one…” She forcibly dragged him to her other nipple. “Again. Please.”

He complied. He caught the bundle of nerves between his teeth and tugged, adding just enough pressure to send her world teetering. The ferocity was so severe that she didn’t even stop him when his fingers returned, pushing past the slight resistance of her virginity to fill her. She was so lost in the approaching storm she didn’t even notice the discomfort.

Her release sang through her with violence that had her legs flailing and her hips lifting off the mattress in wild bucks. She might have screamed, but only the roar of her own blood filled her ears. Then the tides quieted. Her heart slowed and she could feel her toes again as they uncurled.

“Ava.” His warm breath tickled her skim. “Do you have anything?”

In the blissful hue of her aftermath, she couldn’t be sure he’d heard him correctly. The outrage and hurt swamped the pleasure he’d just given her.

“Of course not!” she snapped, still panting. “I’ve never been with anyone else.”

He kissed her, which wasn’t the best idea, in her opinion, when she wanted to bite him.

“Condoms, myshka,” he murmured against her mouth. “I need to be inside you.”

Slightly embarrassed, Ava shook her head. “I’m on the pill,” she told him softly. “I started five months ago.” To prepare for this moment, she didn’t say. “But I think there’s some in the bathroom. I saw a box there a while back.”

He rose off her and padded into the bathroom. The light flared on, temporarily blinding her before it was snapped off and he returned, a square foil in hand. She watched as he pulled it on, encasing all that rock hard length in rubber. Her stomach muscles fluttered. She licked her lips, partially in anticipation.

Then he was back, a warm, familiar weight draped over her. She welcomed him with her arms around his shoulders and her knees cradling his ribs. Her fingers combed into his hair and tugged his face down to hers. She kissed him, loving the taste of him slipping over her tongue, the way he softened above her. He held her tight, crushing her between him and the mattress as he returned the painfully gentle coaxing of their lips.

“I’ll be gentle,” he promised quietly.

Ava could only nod, then wait as he tucked one hand beneath her hips. She was lifted to him, to the solid length of his erection tucked between her thighs.

He kissed her again, harder, preoccupying her with the subtle pain of her lips pushing against her teeth, when he plunged his hips forward. The unexpected assault startled the shit out of her. He’d said he’d be gentle and yet the thrust had been anything but. His cock ripped up into her body with the same authority and dominance as its owner. It took what it wanted as it settled deep inside her heat.

“It’s done,” he whispered against the side of her face. “Okay?”

She was. It was like when she’d gone to get her ears pierced. There’d been the initial anticipation, the clap of the gun, and then it was over with only a mild burning afterwards. Part of her was relieved he hadn’t gone slow or told her when. It was done and over with, and he was inside her.

“You’re inside me,” she breathed, marveling at the feel of him nestled within the confines of her sex, filling her impossibly tight.

He chuckled unsteadily, but said nothing. He raised his weight slightly, pulling back his hips and then pushing forward.

Ava gasped as the friction worked against her walls. Her nails bit into his shoulders, urging him on.

“Feels so good…” She shut her eyes tight. “Don’t stop.”

She loved the feel of him pumping inside her and the way his body flexed beneath her hands and the glide of his chest rubbing against her nipples, teasing them. She had never realized how sensitive they were until now. She never knew how much she loved having them toyed with. All the times she’d given herself orgasms, she’d focused only on her clit. Her nipples had never even crossed her mind. Now, every whisper against them had her liquefying.

“I think I’m coming again,” she choked into the length of his shoulder, her voice wavering as the dark waves rose higher over her.

“I know,” he raised his head and met her wide gaze. “I can feel it around my cock.”

Ava swallowed hard. “You can feel it?”

He nodded. His pace slowed to smooth, even glides.

“Your pussy gets tight and wet, and … feel that?” he asked in a strangled gasp when her core clenched around him, gripping him as the first wave rippled through her.

“Yes…”

“That’s how I know.”

It was such a rush, being walked through it even as it took claim of her.

“Are you coming?”

“Yes.”

“Come with me” She dug her nails into the taut globes of his ass cheeks, forcing him in deep as her world began to splinter. “Come with me, Dimitri.”

He snarled something and quickened his pace. His thrusts angled and deepened. There was an urgency in his movement, a coiled tension across his back that roped the muscles. She felt the heat of his pants against her neck, felt the thundering of his heart meeting hers. But it was the insistent and demanding assault of his shaft rubbing against her clit that did the trick.

She came a full second before him. Her pussy clamped down hard even as he continued to drive inside her viciously, ferociously. Then he slammed up once, hard enough to hurt before breaking apart in her arms.

“I love you,” he whispered when the world righted itself once more.

Ava smiled against the side of his neck. “Are you saying that just to get into my pants?”

With a sound between a laugh and a groan, he rocked his hips, pushing his semi flaccid cock in deeper. “Already in your pants,” he panted. “Already in your tight pussy. God, I want to fuck you again.”

She could feel it. His cock had begun to harden and the thrill that knowledge brought on drew a smile. But she was assessing the possibility that her body could handle another go when he pulled out. The unexpected abandonment of the part of him she was quickly becoming very fond of elicited a startled yelp from her.

“Don’t leave!” she pleaded, reaching for him.

He rose up on his knees, chuckling, his cock full and hard again inside the blood stained and used condom. “You’ll thank me in the morning when you can walk properly.”

Her brows puckered in deliberation. “I don’t think I’d mind not walking properly.”

His smile vanished so suddenly, it was like the sun dropping into the ends of the earth and plunging the world into darkness. It was replaced by a baring of his teeth and the clasp of his hand in her hair as he yanked her to him.

“Be careful what you wish for, myshka.”

The shriek of rusted hinges ripped Ava from the memory. It tore her from the cocoon of warmth and security and thrust her back into the metal coffin with the cold and the fear. In the silence, the sound reverberated like the caw of death. It slammed into the walls, shaking everyone awake.

Ava lifted her head off the arm she’d been using as a pillow and squinted at the five men that ambled into the space.

They held no baskets of bread. No buckets of water. The hum of the engine continued vibrating beneath them so they hadn’t docked. The group said something to each other in low murmurs Ava couldn’t hear, but every nerve ending in her body prickled. A cold fist closed around her stomach. It spread through her veins. The other girls must have sensed it too because they all began to move, to shift and sit up. The older ones knew what was happening. The younger ones glanced at the older ones for answers.

Ava reached for Ilsa. The girl hadn’t moved from her curled position next to Ava. Her skin felt like ice where Ava took hold of her arm. She gave a gentle squeeze of warning to keep quiet, to not move.

Ilsa gave a rattling gasp, a sound between a choked sob and a breath. Ava squeezed harder.

It was ridiculous. Not moving wasn’t not going to draw attention to them. There was nowhere to hide in the open space, but God help her, she prayed it would be one of the other girls. It was horrible and selfish, but it had to be someone. It would be someone. She just didn’t want it to be Ilsa.

The men moved away from the door and began making a path through the crowd, stepping over legs, brushing up against bodies and snickering when the girls flinched. The terror they were causing built their resolve. It fueled their hunger. This was what they lived for, the domination and control of those weaker than them.

One broke away from the others and started towards their corner. Ilsa shrank back into Ava the closer he drew. Even Ava held her breath, her heart a drum pounding between her ears.

He grabbed a girl nearby by the arm and yanked her up. The girl immediately burst into tears, begging and pleading in a language Ava couldn’t understand. The man laughed as he dragged her from the room.

The others followed. The door slammed behind them like a final gong. And Ava had never felt so sick. Her insides roiled and for the first time since waking up in that nightmare, she openly wept.

Chapter Fifteen

The jet tires hit the tarmac at Isla Grande Airport, San Juan, Puerto Rico with a squeal of rubber and a rattle of glass. The impact had Dimitri’s attention reverting from his phone, his message to Erik forgotten as he took in the pale, blue waters of San Juan Bay in the near distance and the skyline of Old San Juan beyond it. He’d never been there before, but he’d spent the last seven hours reading about the island and its splendid beauty. There hadn’t been much else to do short of pacing and snapping at the overfriendly stewardess offering him hot towels every chance she got.

It was after one in the afternoon when the jet pulled into the terminal. Dimitri rose out of his seat before the prompt to unbuckle and stalked down the aisle. He hadn’t packed anything. The most he had on him was his wallet, his phone, his keys, and the guide to the city he’d grabbed at the airport. There was nothing he needed he couldn’t pick up after he had Ava.

His phone buzzed as he was crossing the terminal. He fished it out and pressed it to his ear.

“Yeah?”

“Your mother keeps calling me,” Erik said before Dimitri even finished. “You’re not answering her calls. She’s becoming concerned.”

Dimitri stopped short of rolling his eyes. “Concerned about what?”

“That you’re not answering her calls,” he repeated slower. “She seems to think you’re cutting ties after your arrangement.”

“There is no arrangement,” Dimitri bit out.

“There is always an arrangement. That’s how your mother works. What did you promise her?”

He hadn’t exactly promised anything, but Erik was right. His mother never did anything without getting something in return.

“I told her that I would allow her pipeline to run underground through the north.”

“Have you changed your mind?” Erik prompted.

“Of course not. I never go back on my word.”

“Good. Your mother is not the right person to get on your bad side right now … or ever,” Erik added as an afterthought. “Call her. Appease her. You’ll be thankful for it later.”

Erik hung up.

Dimitri considered ignoring the advice; he had more important things on his mind, but he called his mother.

Elena picked up on the third ring.

“I was beginning to wonder when you call me,” she said with a razorblade edge. “It figure that you listen when Erik tells you, but not your mother.”

Dimitri chose to ignore her. “I’m not going back on our terms. You can open your pipeline underground when I become elected.”

Elena sucked her teeth, a habit Dimitri hated. “Is good, but should you double cross me, Dimitri, son or not, I will cut you at the knee, understand me?”

“Thank you for flying with us,” said a woman as Dimitri reached the doors of the airport.

He gave her a nod and quickly passed through.

“Where are you?” Elena demanded.

“I have business,” Dimitri answered simply.

“Business where?”

Dimitri glanced up and down the asphalt, searching for the car that was supposed to be waiting for him.

“Business,” he repeated. “I will see you when I return.”

He hung up before she could prod.

No sooner had he stowed his phone away when a sleek, white town car rolled into view. The sunlight glinted off the chrome grill and the steel horse hood ornament.

The car slowed to a stop right in front of him. The tinted window rolled down and a pockmarked face half hidden behind designer glasses peered out.

“Dimitri?”

Dimitri gave a curt nod. “Hector?”

“Si.”

The driver rolled out of his seat and hurried around to get the door. Dimitri climbed in, but not before noticing the bulge under the man’s blazer.

“Marcus said to expect you,” Hector said once the door had been closed and the driver behind the wheel once more. “He did not tell me why, but to trust you.” He motioned the driver onward. “This is a problem,” he continued as the car turned out of the airport. “Trust, in my line of work, is … tricky.”

“I don’t care about your operation,” Dimitri stated simply. “You have someone in one of your shipments that belongs to me and I want her back.”

Hector thought about this as they turned out of the parking lot, drove past a freight lot and continued down a long road. Dimitri didn’t notice the scenery, too caught up in the man seated next to him and the armed driver who had let him into the car.

“Marcus told me this,” Hector confirmed.

“I thought Marcus didn’t tell you much,” Dimitri countered.

Hector chuckled. “He told me enough.”

The car continued onto a highway and over a bridge overlooking a marina.

Hector reached into the inside pocket of his blazer and pulled out a slim, gold case. He freed a cigarette and lit it. He offered the pack to Dimitri, who shook his head. With a shrug, he put the pack away.

“This someone in my shipment, she is someone special, I am assuming.”

It was a task keeping himself from stiffening as his senses prickled, his mind already knowing where this was going.

“Yes,” Dimitri murmured through stiff lips.

“Of course.” He waved the hand holding the cigarette, sending tendrils of pale, gray smoke swirling into the air. “You don’t come to San Juan for the cocina criolla, eh?”

Dimitri had no idea what that was, decided not to ask, and waited for the man to continue.

“She your woman?”

He thought of his promise to John Paul. “No.”

Hector’s brow furrowed over the gold rims of his glasses. “Sister?”

“No!” he said a little more forcefully.

Realization dawned and dark eyebrows lifted into a shiny, black helmet of hair. “Ah, a lover.”

“I told you—”

“A woman is a woman whatever she is,” Hector concluded, seemingly tired of his own game. “But you want her. I have her.”

“What do you want?” Dimitri interjected.

Hector sucked on his cigarette, enflaming the rosebud at the end until it blazed a startling red. He exhaled, spilling plumes of tobacco scented smoke through the car.

The driver wordlessly drew down two of the three windows. All the windows, except Dimitri’s.

“Marcus tells me you will be joining his Syndicate, in a seat of power.”

Dimitri said nothing.

Hector didn’t need a comment. He continued. “I can use a friend.”

Dimitri looked at the hand the man offered him, but didn’t take it. “I’m already friends with Marcus.”

Hector chuckled. “My cousin is a good man, but one day, you will need a bad man to … confide in.”

Dimitri weighed his options. He could tell the man to go fuck himself. Loyalty was an important, tenuous truce. To break that trust could mean many things, including bloodshed. Marcus could see it as an act of betrayal. However, to refuse Hector could mean he never saw Ava again.

He took the man’s smooth, dry hand. “I would like a friend.”

Hector smiled around the cigarette. “Good.”

Chapter Sixteen

The girl was never brought back. The men didn’t return either. Not for a while. Just long enough to allow the false sense of safety to set in. When they came, two girls went with them.

Then, five girls.

Each time, none were returned.

Their numbers were dwindling. Ava wondered if that was deliberate. Drug peddles never touched their own product to keep their sales numbers high. Maybe human traffickers didn’t follow that rule. They certainly weren’t trying to keep as many girls as possible, which made Ava wonder what they were going to do with them if not sell them. In no way was the thought comforting.

Someone coughed. The deep, guttural sound turned Ava’s head. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard it. A few of the girls had been coughing and tossing in their sleep. It wouldn’t have been anything unusual, except each time, it was somehow deeper, thicker, almost wet in the lungs. She prayed to God no one was getting sick. There was no telling how much longer they would be trapped together and she didn’t want to die from something as common as a cold. It didn’t help that there were no windows and the air circulating was filthy and—now—contaminated. There was a girl not far from where she and Ilsa sat who Ava wasn’t even sure was still alive. She hadn’t moved in days, not even to cough or shift in her sleep. If she gave off a smell, it was masked by the buckets that hadn’t been cleaned in longer than was sanitary and the fifty unwashed girls. But she hadn’t started decomposing, so Ava had hope.

“Should we check on her?” Ava wondered out loud.

Ilsa glanced at the girl, then shrugged. “Won’t make a difference if she’s dead.”

Willing to risk it, Ava shifted over and lightly touched the girl’s shoulder. Gingerly, she reached past the collar of her t-shirt and lightly pressed two fingers to the girl’s cold, clammy neck. She held her breath and waited.

The patter of her own heart masked the beat she was searching for. The vibrations around them did the rest. It took some fondling and readjusting until she found what she was searching for.

“She’s okay,” she told Ilsa, returning to her spot.

“For now,” Ilsa mumbled.

Ignoring that, Ava turned to the girl staring vacantly at her tattered sneakers. “Tell me about where you’re from.”

Ilsa barely glanced up. “Frankfurt.” She took a deep breath and went on a bit dryly. “It’s a city in Germany.”

Ava already knew that. It was the same thing she’d been told the first time she’d tried to draw the girl into conversation.

“I think it’s awesome that you don’t have an accent.”

Ilsa tugged on her filthy laces. “My parents moved to America when I was five for my dad’s work. We moved back last year when they promoted him.”

“Do you like Germany?”

Ilsa shrugged. “German is hard.”

Ava chuckled. “My stepdad tried to get me to learn French when I was younger. I learned five words in six months. I was very impressed with myself.”

Ilsa’s head lifted. “Which words?”

Ava squinted off into the distance. “I have no idea.”

Ilsa snorted what could have passed for a laugh. “My dad says I’m young and I’ll learn, but…”

“You will. I didn’t really learn French until I moved to Paris and heard other people talking.”

Green eyes lifted. They shone in the dimness.

“What if we never leave this boat?”

Ava reached over and took her small, cold hand. “It’s going to be okay.”

Ilsa sniffled. “How do you know?”

“Because Dimitri will never stop looking for me.”

The girl swiped at a stray tear. “I just want to go home.”

Ava squeezed her fingers. “I know. Me too.”

They returned that night. They pushed through the door in a cluster of five and stood surveying the room. The one in the middle, the tall, lanky one, stepped forward. His hands clasped in front of him as he addressed the room.

“I’m happy to announce that we will be docking in a few hours. It’s been a long journey, but we made it.”

He made no mention of where they made it to or how many days it had been or what would happen to them once they docked. He merely smiled as he surveyed the terrified faces peering back at him. He rubbed his hands together once before he spoke again.

“To celebrate, we will be selecting a small group of you to join us in our quarters for some light entertainment. The rest, we will see later this evening.” He rubbed his palms together again. “Gentlemen?”

As before, they fanned out. Ava shifted her position slightly, not too fast, until she’d successfully blocked Ilsa from view. The girl had balled herself into the corner, head buried against her raised knees. Her breathing was so loud, Ava heard it. Fear of being heard kept her from telling her to stop.

A girl cried out on the other side of the ship. A tiny Asian with enormous eyes. She was hauled up by her elbows and forcibly dragged to the door. Her screams echoed for what felt like hours before something banged and immediate silence dropped.

Ava tried not to think about what was happening to her, tried not to imagine that being all their fates. She was still having a hard time believing it was all actually happening, yet, when the second girl cried out, there was no denying it. But they just had to hold out this one last time. Then they’d be on land and the possibility of escape would increase. They just needed to…

One of the men spotted Ilsa. Ava didn’t know what had alerted him to her, didn’t know what could have possibly caught his eye, but his fat, bald head turned as though Ilsa had jumped up and started singing at the top of her lungs. His stubbled face broke into a grin, delighted by the girl’s terror. He pivoted on his heel, away from the others and started forward.

Ava couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t even move. All she could do was sit there and watch as he grew closer, her mind stuck on an endless loop of how? How had he seen her? How could he possibly know she was there? How could he be doing this? How could he not have a shred of decency? So many questions and still, she was frozen. Frozen until Ilsa’s sharp cry broke her.

Ava jolted just as Ilsa was being dragged to her feet. The girl’s struggles meant nothing to a man three times her size in height and weight. Her hair came undone of its braid, something it hadn’t done since the beginning and something about that spurred Ava into action.

She grabbed Ilsa and smacked at his hand on her.

The crack momentarily silenced everything. Heads turned in their direction, all in surprise and wonder. Ava felt a jolt in the pit of her stomach, that sensation that she’d royally just fucked up. But she met the man’s stunned expression with venom.

“Let go of her!”

The man seemed as stunned as everyone else by her bravado. He stared at her with the look of someone, well, slapped. But he came out of his shock with a bellow. He spat something at Ava in Spanish that definitely didn’t sound friendly. He wrenched Ilsa from her and started away.

“No!”

With a scream that tore from the very depths of her soul, Ava sprung to her feet and tore after them. Adrenaline pumped in wild waves through her, shadowing her exhaustion, hunger, and fears. She leaped into the air and launched herself to the man’s back. Her arms circled his fat, sweaty neck. Her bunched fists rammed into his Adam’s apple, just like Dimitri had taught her, fully prepared to kill him. She pressed until he was choking and flailing and had released Ilsa from his grip. She screamed into his ear, a high, deafening wail that was sure to have been rattling his eyeballs.

He bellowed. His body twisted violently from side to side, a desperate attempt to shake her off, but Ava wasn’t letting go.

Someone grabbed her from behind. Angry hands fisted into her clothes and she was dragged off. She hit the steel floor with a crash that sang up her entire side. The steel toed boot connected with her ribs, flooding her with excruciating pain. Another one caught the back of her thigh. She might have cried out. But the third blow was right in her jaw. Her teeth cracked together. Her head snapped back. Everything flickered. All the sounds muted, except Ilsa’s scream.

Then there was nothing.

“We’ll backpack across Europe first.”

Reclined across her rumpled sheets, bare chested and beautifully tussled, Dimitri took the post card she handed him and peered at the two backpackers trudging up the side of some mountain.

“Why?”

“Why not?”

She took down a magazine clipping of Paris’s Pont Des Arts Bridge and the thousands of locks glittering in the sunlight.

“Because we’re not nature people,” he reminded her.

Clipping in hand, she went back to him. She climbed into his lap, straddling his sprawled legs and sat comfortably on his thighs.

“I want to do this,” she whispered, turning the photo around for him to see. “More than anything else. This is what I want.”

He took the picture from her and looked it over.

“I want to put our names on a lock and hang it on each of the lock bridges around the world.”

“You’re not allowed to anymore,” he reminded her, still eyeing the photo.

“I know.” She took it back from him and peered at it longingly. “But I have this whole scenario in my head where we dress up in black and sneak onto all the bridges ninja style, snap on the locks and run away before we’re caught.”

He arched an eyebrow, his eyes dancing in the gold light of her bedside lamp. “You want to commit a dozen felons in several foreign countries?”

“But think about it,” she pleaded. “Our locks will be there forever … or until the whole lot tumbles into the water, but…” She sighed heavily. “We’ll have done it, you and me. A piece of us, of what we have will be out there in the world. Besides,” she grinned at him. “It’s only a felony if we’re caught.”

He took the photo from her and studied it a bit longer. She watched him watch it and nibbled her lip anxiously, waiting for an answer.

“This is what you want?”

Ava nodded enthusiastically. “More than anything.”

He pursed his lips. “All right,” he said finally. “Then we’ll do it.”

Euphoric, she squealed and punched the air above her head.

“Shh!” Laughing, he hooked her middle with his arms and tackled her down onto the mattress, stifling her high pitched sounds with his mouth. “You’re going to get John Paul in here,” he said once he’d properly silenced her.

Still giggling and squealing, but quieter, Ava hugged him, practically choking him. “I don’t care. I am so happy!”

He gathered her in close and kissed her until she stopped her flailing. Once he was certain she wasn’t going to start screaming again, he raised his head. He smoothed hairs off her cheeks and peered into her eyes.

“I like seeing you happy,” he remarked softly.

She continued to grin wide enough to make her face hurt. “But did you mean it? You’ll really go with me?”

He gave her a droll glower. “Well, I clearly can’t let you go alone. What if you get caught and thrown into some Turkish prison?”

Ava laughed. “Exactly! Yes, you need to come with me and we’ll travel the whole of Europe together and see everything and make love everywhere possible and—”

“Christ, woman, how many laws do you plan on breaking during this expedition?”

She beamed. “All of them! We’re going to make so many memories and tell them all to our children one day and maybe write a book and—”

“Children?”

Ava stilled. She hadn’t meant to bring up the C word. She hadn’t even realized she’d said it until he was peering down at her like she’d struck him.

“I didn’t mean this minute,” she tried to explain. “One day.” She bit her lip hard, but her next words came out anyway. “You do want them with me, don’t you?”

“Children?” he said again. His eyebrows had tangled together between his eyes as he pondered her question. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Ava.”

Willing the hurt down, she frowned. “Why not?”

“I’m a criminal,” he reminded her. “I could be caught or killed—”

“Stop it!” She pushed at his chest until he’d climbed off her. “I hate when you talk like that.”

“But it’s the truth.” He touched her face lightly. “There’s no changing that. I would give it all up to have a family with you, if I could, myshka, but I can’t.”

She knew there was no point asking him to quit. She knew he couldn’t, even if he’d wanted.

“Could we talk about it in a few years?” she asked instead. “I don’t want to give up on the idea entirely. Maybe by then something will have changed.”

He nodded even while his eyes told her that wouldn’t happen. “In a few years then.”

Ava woke with a groan. The memories of her last night with Dimitri dissolved with the rapidness of a sugar cube dropping into tea. It blended into the nothing, becoming what it was—a distant past she couldn’t change. It had taken countless hours of regret to conclude that her asking for a family had mostly likely been the trigger that had sent him running. It just didn’t explain why her skull was thrumming with an intensity of a live bee’s nest or why her ribs ached. There was distinct pang every time she inhaled that made her think maybe one of them was broken or fractured.

She pushed up with her good arm and squinted at her surroundings, not entirely certain why Ilsa wasn’t tucked against her. The loss of the girl’s warmth was startling.

“Ilsa?” She scanned the row of faces, all so careful not to meet her gaze. “Ilsa?”

It all came back to her in a roar. The pain vanished instantaneously, becoming a dull numbness that clapped against her chest.

They’d taken her. She was gone just like the other girls. They’d taken her and never brought her back.

“They … they took her,” she said to no one in particular.

The other girls averted their eyes, ashamed, uncaring, a little of both. It hadn’t been them. It had been someone else. Ava hated them in that moment. She hated herself. Mostly herself, because she had thought the exact same thing every time that door had closed over another girl’s pleading wails.

“It’s not me. It’s not Ilsa.”

Ilsa was gone and history insisted Ava would never see her again. She had broken her promise. She hadn’t been able to save the girl, hadn’t been able to take her home.

She had failed.

The door opened. Ava didn’t jump. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t even glance up as the thump of boots filled the space. She sat staring at her pale hands contrasting against the scarred sheet of metal spread out beneath her.

Something was said, could have been in English. Maybe Spanish. Those who could, shuffled to their feet. The rest were forcibly lifted, Ava included, and half carried, half dragged to stand in a line to the door.

Ava barely noticed the five fingers biting into her arm. Her gaze kept flitting over the faces around her, desperate and hoping she’d somehow missed the girl, that she was there, scared, but safe and unharmed. But even as she searched, she knew that wasn’t the case. Ilsa was gone. They’d discarded her like the others. They had taken what they could and … what did they do with the bodies? Toss them over? Burn them in the boilers? Did it matter?

She was shoved forward. She barely had time to lift her feet over the ledge when a dark bag was forced over her heads and her hands were fastened behind her backs with itchy rope. The rest of the walk was done in darkness. The muggy interior of the boat was replaced by hot, sticky heat.

Uncaring hands nudged and prodded, guiding her forward every time she slowed.

Metal turned to wood, turned to gravel. Loose stones scuttled under the march of many feet. Ahead, she heard the clump and thump of bodies climbing into something hollow. She tried to pinpoint the exact sound, but it wasn’t clear until it was her turn and she was shoved up metal rings and into a box. No. A truck or van. It was impossible to tell when so many other bodies squished into her from all sides.

“That’s it!” someone called and several doors rolled shut; Ava counted at least a dozen bangs.

The stifling air hung thick with sweat. There were seconds when she was certain they would all die from asphyxiation. There was very little circulation and even less room. The walls around them rattled, sounding close, which made her think definitely a cube van or a moving truck. Gravel road broke to smooth asphalt beneath the wheels. Ava tried to listen for markers, sounds she could identify later, but wherever they were, it was miles from anything or anyone.

It was possibly hours later before the faint hum of civilization filtered through the metal. They made more frequent stops. Not exactly full blocks, but enough to make her think they were fairly close to residences.

The vehicle stopped. The engine flicked off. What little air there vanished with the simultaneous inhale from the girls.

This was it. Whatever was to be their future, this is where it would start.

Rusty wheels squealed as the door was wheeled open. The rattling bang made Ava wince. Rough hands ripped them out, shouting when cramped legs sent girls to the ground with no way to stop their falls. Some cried out, but they were immediately hauled upright and told to move.

There was gravel beneath their feet. Ava could hear the crunch and scuffle as they went somewhere right. She could hear a woman’s voice in Spanish, barking orders. A door banged. The truck continued to vibrate every time a girl was pulled out.

Ava was next. Hands with jagged nails bit into the flesh of her arm and she was forcibly dragged to the edge. She slid most of the way on her knees before hitting the ledge and being swung down. Her feet spiked with a million needles and her legs screamed at being unfurled for the first time in hours. Her knees buckled and she was caught under the arms, held a full second before shoved. She stumbled, but somehow remained upright.

“¡Vamonos!” someone snapped.

Oddly groggy from the journey, quite possibly dehydrated, Ava wove her way forward at an almost drunken stagger. Her head pounded and there was a very real possibility she was about to be sick inside the sack.

Someone grabbed her elbow and she was marched up a rickety ramp. The thing clattered dangerously the entire way to the top.

The sounds of outside melted into a thick, relentless buzz of machinery. She was led down a set of steep stairs. From there, she had no idea where she was or where she was going. The entire place smelled heavily of grease, machines, and something burning. It was a large place. The vibrations around her seemed to be coming from a long distance. She thought maybe a warehouse, but couldn’t be sure.

A woman’s voice snapped something. It was only then Ava realized the hand holding her was small and narrow.

“I don’t speak Spanish,” she said weakly.

The woman might not have been talking to her, because Ava got no response. She was pushed forward. Her sneakers slapped against wet pavement. The air held the clammy and humid thickness of a bathhouse and the stench of backed up sewer.

“Strip,” the woman said in clear English.

“What…?”

Her restrained wrists were grabbed. The ropes were tugged free. The bag was liberated off her head and Ava blinked. Her shoulders screamed from the lengthy imprisonment. Her eyes burned as the sickly light from the single bulb overhead broke through her darkness.

It was a cubical, a filthy, slimy slab of cracked stone painted a dull, mint green. The floors were tiles, slippery and wet beneath her sneakers. A bronze manhole was punched into the center where the ground dipped inward slightly. Against one wall, a leaky showerhead dripped, leaving muddy brown water stains down the wall. There were no windows and the woman stood guarding the only way out with a Glock clasped in her hand.

She was a slender thing with a narrow face and a wide forehead. Her eyes were sunk deep in her skull and her eyebrows extended like awnings. She glowered at Ava, her lips curled back over her horse teeth.

“Shower,” she barked, pointing to the faucet with the barrel of the gun.

The woman didn’t move. Ava had a feeling she wouldn’t, not even to turn her back while Ava stripped out of clothes that had to be literally peeled off. Part of her didn’t care. Getting an actual shower trumped modesty, except the part where she wasn’t given slippers. The very idea of walking on the floor barefoot made her skin crawl.

Toeing off her sneakers, she stepped gingerly on the cold tiles. What she had assumed were puddles squished between her toes in a clear, white glob that had her biting back a scream. She edged to the faucet on her toes, hoping the less contact she had, the less chance she’d lose her feet from some flesh devouring disease.

The water gushed out in a sputter of brown sludge before clearing to a dirty gray. It was stone cold and had a tendency to spike out in razor sharp pelts or trickle out in lazy drops. Either way, it cut into naked flesh with the accuracy of a blade. But it was a shower and getting cleaned was her only focus.

She was handed a sliver of used, scentless soap with black edges and a bottle of some foreign shampoo. Ava made use of both liberally. It wasn’t the kind of clean she wanted, but it was better than nothing.

She wasn’t given any clothes. Not even a towel. The woman took hold of Ava’s elbow and propelled her naked and dripping out of the cubical and down a long, narrow corridor painted the same green. Ava tried to struggle, tried to wrench her arm free and run for her soiled clothes, but the woman was surprisingly strong for someone so small. It was some comfort to see other girls being marched out of similar showering stalls, naked and wet, leaving dark footprints in the concrete.

It wasn’t a warehouse. She couldn’t tell what kind of place it was, but the ceiling was high and the walls didn’t fully meet it. Each one was only seven feet high and broken occasionally by open doorways that led into various chambers.

“Where are you taking me?” Ava demanded, putting as much force into the question as possible.

The woman said nothing.

Her question was answered anyway when Ava was forced into one of the rooms, this one strung closed by dangling beads that clattered when disturbed by the force of Ava’s body crashing through.

It was an office, cramped by a desk in the center, a chair on either side, and a single filing cabinet behind it. There was a man in the chair opposite the wooden table, squat, hairy, yet oddly bald, and stinking of enough cologne and cheap cigars to kill a horse. He wore a green and orange bowling shirt streaked with grease smudges. Ropes of gold hung from where his neck ought to have been and tangled with thick, black curls sprouting from where the two top buttons gaped on his top. His oddly shaped head tilted when Ava stumbled in. Thick, angry eyebrows furrowed like a pair of wrestling caterpillars over the mud brown of his eyes. His scalp shone a smooth patch of rusty brown surrounded by a full ring of dark curls that hung to fat shoulders.

He was an ugly little man and he was studying her the way dog show judges scrutinized a thoroughbred.

He grunted. “Nice tits,” he said in a gruff English. “Pussy could use a trim, but not unbearable. Good hips. Face is okay.”

“Excuse me?” Ava snapped, trying to cover herself unsuccessfully with her hands.

“Turn around.”

Ava was wrenched around by the woman when she refused.

“Decent ass,” the man muttered. “Virgin?”

Ava twisted out of the woman’s hold and whirled around. “What?”

The man waved away his own question. “Unlikely. You’re too old. You’re still pretty.” He glanced past her to the woman. “Put her in the truck with the others. She’ll fetch a good price on the block.”

“The … block…?”

Her answer was being dragged back out of the room.

They put her in white shorts and a white camisole. Both were sheer enough to be nothing more than thin layers of onion skin draped over parts of her only a small few had ever seen. She may as well have been naked, but it was a comment she did not dare make in case they took it as an invitation.

She was being sold. They may not have said as much, but she wasn’t an idiot. The man’s comments combined with the outfit, there was no other explanation. The worst part was that she knew that once she was bought, the odds of Dimitri ever finding her would drop to zero. There would be no chance of it. She would be lost forever. It was up to her now. She couldn’t afford to wait any longer. She needed a plan and she needed it before she hit that auction block.

No idea came, nor would it through the drug induced haze they put the girls under. Ava could barely keep her eyes open. The world was a blur of faces and smudged colors. Sound rolled in an endless tumble down a dark corridor. Moments seemed to flicker from one instant to another. Whole rooms appeared and vanished with every blink. She tried to focus on where she was, but everything would spin and she would be somewhere else.

Somewhere in the back recess of her mind, she knew she’d been drugged. How, was a question her mind couldn’t fathom through the fog, but somehow they had and she couldn’t even remember her own name.

Blinding lights flared and swayed. A voice boomed in the distance and she felt everything tilt as her head rolled towards it. A dry grainy sensation worked around in her mouth, making speech impossible as she struggled to swallow the spit she couldn’t generate.

“Where…?” Her voice was swallowed in a slur.

The lights were too hot. Her skin was beginning to blister. She could feel her skin melting. She gasped and threw up her arms to shield her face and the ground dipped beneath her. She tried to catch herself, but she was tumbling for what felt like forever.

Something caught her. Hands under her arms. Their cool dryness felt amazing against the burning of her flesh.

“¡Espere!”

The voice was a booming force exploding deep in the cavities of her skull. Her eyeballs rattled in their sockets. She shut her eyes, willing it all to stop.

The quiet shuffle of approaching feet had her forcing her lids open. The space around it had grown painfully silent. Ava tried to adjust her brain, tried to get it to function, but it kept dipping in and out of focus, until the tall, regal man emerged onto the stage. Handsome with a head full of wavy dark hair and eyes covered by designer glasses. He strode forward, a commanding force in gunmetal gray and a cap of dark power. But it was the glint of light sparking off the gold grip of his cane that transfixed her. Each flare exploded in the darkness that surrounded him. The steady thump of it on wood coaxed her heart to follow its beat.

But despite the comforting lull, another voice penetrated her fuzzy sanctuary.

“¿Señor Armando?” said a voice from somewhere beyond the fog. “¿Qué estás haciendo aquí?”

She didn’t hear the rest. Time was slipping out of her grasp and she was tumbling down the rabbit hole after it.

When she landed, it was in the dark interior of a car. The leather rubbed uncomfortably against the clammy flesh of her thighs. The air smelled of something expensive that made her stomach whimper. But it was the rush of blurring lights that did it.

She doubled over and threw up. She had no idea what she hit or how far the mess went, but it all came out in an arc that seemed endless until it finished. The relief left her feeling semi normal again, if not mildly groggy.

A white piece fabric was passed to her and she wiped at her mouth and chin without even checking to see what it was. She scrubbed at the tears and shut her eyes as the feeling of sickness retook calm in her throat.

“In here this time, please,” said a smooth voice from her left as an ice bucket was pressed into her hands.

She took it gratefully and clutched it to her writhing stomach.

“We will stop soon,” the voice said after a moment.

She was handed a bottle of water. She wrenched the cap off and guzzled half of it.

“Easy,” said the voice. “You will make yourself sick again.”

Ava didn’t care. She hadn’t had clean, cool water in … however long it had been. It all dropped into her empty stomach with the weight of rocks and nothing had felt so good.

There was a whir of gears and a crisp, evening breeze wafted against her face, the first real kiss of the outside she’d had in days. The feel of it, the openness of it blowing back her hair and cooling her cheeks, Ava almost broke into tears.

She opened her eyes to the newly opened window and stared at the brightly lit skyline in the far distance, a beautiful glimmering gem against a dark velvet, backdrop. She had no idea what city it was, but they were moving towards it.

She faced her captor.

“Who are you?” she demanded, clutching the bucket closer.

The man said nothing as he adjusted the cuffs on his sleeves. He removed his glasses, folded the arms and tucked them into the front pocket of his blazer before lifting warm, brown eyes to meet hers from across the sliver of space.

“I am Julian Armando. I bought you.”

Chapter Seventeen

Dimitri had seen wealth, had been wealthy his entire life thanks to generations of cut throat ancestors not afraid to shed a little blood to make a profit. His family had been systemically getting rich off guns, drugs, gambling, and smuggling for centuries. It was always easy to recognize what type of money a person had just by walking into their home. It was an age old stereotype of new and old, and the old always recognized new. But in his world, it was blood money. It was always blood money. There was never such a thing as a victimless crime. That was something Elena always said. But the thing Dimitri took most notice of when walking into another person’s home was how their staff behaved. It was a real man’s tell. A scared staff reflected of greed and cruelty, whereas a calm, happy home reflected of a kindness and generosity.

Dimitri had yet to decide what sort of man Marcus’s cousin was.

Hector Lozano was a gracious host, accommodating and generous in making Dimitri feel welcomed. He’d offered everything he had to finding Ava and the promise that he would personally accompany Dimitri to the other two countries if necessary to locate her.

In a perfect world, that would be the makings of a good friend, someone to trust and rely on. In his world, it was someone to be wary of, because nothing was ever done from the goodness of a heart. There was a motive and it was only a matter of time before it became clear.

It was well after midnight by the time they made their way up the sixth and final location in the city, an abandoned bar tucked against the waterfront that had been converted into a gentlemen’s lounge. Dimitri didn’t see the name when passing through the heavy, onyx doors and stepping into the sultry purr of jazz and the heavy curtains of smoke. Women in black bodysuits and mile high stilettos wove around small, round tables and chattering men. Trays of silver glinted in the dim lights cast from the chandeliers above and lanced off the crystal glasses perched on top.

Dimitri had never had any desire to attend a gentlemen’s bar. He couldn’t fathom what a group of grown men could possibly have to talk about that couldn’t be done over the phone. But there were more than a dozen men packed into the tight quarters. They faced the dark stage across the narrow space. Anticipation vibrated through the air, in the glances they kept darting forward. It made Dimitri think they hadn’t started yet.

On the left, a bar of solid oak glinted beneath harsher lights. A man stood behind it, wiping down glasses while another man sat on stools on the other side.

“Who runs this?” he asked the man at his side.

“Carlos,” Hector said, motioning with a nod of his chin towards the bar.

Dimitri saw the man, tall, slender, almost handsome if it weren’t for the shark smile stretching far across his face. He sat to one side, away from the others, flirting with a scantily clad woman holding a tray of drinks.

Dimitri started forward.

“Carlos?”

Chuckling at something the woman whispered into his ear, Carlos looked up. “Si?” He caught sight of Hector over Dimitri’s shoulder and his expression brightened. “Hector!” Woman forgotten, he hopped to his feet and reached for the other man’s hand. “¿Como estás, amigo?”

Hector laughed and clapped the man’s palm hard and shook it with equal vigor. They chattered on in Spanish for nearly ten minutes, ten minutes Dimitri felt like they could have been searching for Ava. He kept checking his phone for messages from John Paul or Jarvis, just begging for those two little words telling him they had her. He knew it was unlikely. The Puerto Rico shipment was set to arrive before the other two. No doubt they were waiting for his assurances.

Stowing away his phone, he faced the two men at his side, patience at zero as he shifted his body, a not so subtle reminder of why they were there and why they needed to get a move on.

Hector seemed to notice him first. He blinked as though just remembering Dimitri’s presence. He broke off mid-sentence and grimaced with a chuckle.

“Pardona me.” He said, twisting his body so the other man in their trio could see him properly. “Carlos, we’re here for one of your girls.”

That seemed to baffle Carlos. He peered at Hector, then at Dimitri and gave a shrug.

“My girls are your girls.” He gestured to the room and the leggy women sashing around tables, filling drink orders and getting their asses groped by men. “Help yourself.”

“From the shipment,” Hector corrected smoothly.

“A redhead with green eyes,” Dimitri added. “Tall, slender.”

Carlos frowned. He sucked on his teeth, a grating sound that almost had Dimitri punching him in the mouth. He tapped a finger on the bar, sending sparks every time the light caught the gold rings adorning each knuckle.

“Not many redheads this trip. Manuel brought me six girls. They’re in the back. You can see.” He gestured to the door next to the stage.

Hector thanked him, but Dimitri had already lunged forward. His wide strides ate up the vast portion of the room in five determined steps. He shoved open the door and charged in.

The back resembled the organized chaos of any theater with ropes, bags of sand, props, stools, and electrical equipment. Narrow corridors splintered off on either side with a bigger main area directly behind the curtains. That was where the girls were, barely conscious in large dog cages all lined in a neat row. Some were upright, slumped against the bars. Others were dumped in an awkward angle on the floor. Some were big, some small. Some had dark hair, one was blonde. But the thing they all had in common was that none of them were Ava. Dimitri checked each one carefully, going over them again and again as if somehow he’d missed her, that if he checked one more time, maybe she’d mysteriously just appear there.

“She’s not here.” He faced the men hovering by the door. “Are you sure this is it?”

Carlos nodded. “These are the girls from this shipment.”

“She’s not here,” he repeated, desperation tangled with a building panic he couldn’t bottle back.

He could feel his heart thumping, could hear his blood roaring between his ears. He wanted to scream, to punch a hole in the wall, to do something, anything rather than stand there useless. But that was all he could do. This had been his final hope. The last place she could have been. All he could think was, maybe John Paul or Jarvis will get her. Simultaneously, he couldn’t stop the secondary voice prodding back with, what if they don’t?

“Where are the private sales?”

Hector shook his head. “There are none.”

“There has to be!” He was beginning to lose his temper. He could feel himself losing his grip on his sanity. “She was on that boat. She has to be here.”

“We have checked everywhere she would be,” Hector said with a gentleness Dimitri knew he wasn’t accustomed to.

“Take me to the booking house.” He straightened, filled with a new purpose. “I want to talk to the guy who selects the girls.”

Hector didn’t argue with him. They set out of the auction house and made their way back to the car. The night had grown cool, but his clothes continued to cling to the sweat collecting along his spine. Puerto Rico harbored the type of heat Dimitri wasn’t accustomed to. The humidity was almost wet, the kind that hung in the wilderness in the heat of summer after a rainfall. Hector seemed unaffected by it as he started the car and broke through the night.

They drove in silence down a long stretch of farm road, and came to a stop before an old paper mill. In the dark, it sat huddled on its haunches, a predator waiting for prey to snap up. Its dark windows leered down at them from a face cracked with age. A rotted plank rattled beneath their feet as they made the climb to the door.

Hector didn’t knock. He tugged open the metal door and motioned Dimitri down a long, steep flight of stairs.

Darkness swelled through tight corridors choked with the stench of machine grease and the muggy fog of a bathhouse. Squat walls divided the structure into compartments. It was quiet, but a loud sort of quiet. The kind that seemed to be screaming without ever making a sound. It reminded him of trapped souls wailing to be seen, reaching through the living for even a glimmer of warmth. It was a heavy sort of quiet.

“They must still be at the auction houses,” Hector decided after a sweep of the most desolate place Dimitri had ever been in turned up with nothing. “We can return in the morning.”

Dimitri didn’t like that idea. That gave the bastards too many hours to pack up and take off before he could get their hands on them.

“I will make certain they speak to you,” Hector promised when Dimitri hesitated. “They will not leave.” He motioned Dimitri to follow. “Let’s get some rest.”

He didn’t want rest. He wanted Ava. He wanted to fist his fingers through her hair. He wanted to crush her to him until she was fused into him. He wanted to fall to his knees and beg her to forgive him for all the pain he’d caused her. He wanted to see her smile just once more, even if from a distance and not meant for him. He would never forgive himself, not for this, not for leaving her the way he had, not for not being able to protect her. He would die wearing those thorns. But he needed to find her.

“Come, my friend.”

He allowed himself to be guided back to the car and back to Hector’s manor. He texted John Paul. Each press of the buttons seemed impossibly too hard, each word too heavy.

“Not here,” he wrote.

John Paul didn’t answer straightaway. There was a full five-minute gap where Dimitri knew the man had seen his message, but either had nothing to say or couldn’t think past the letdown.

“Okay.”

No assurances. No questions. But the disappointment was crippling.

The car was abandoned at the base of the grand staircase leading up to a set of twin, ivory doors. They opened the moment Hector reached the final step at the top. The man in the black suit inclined his head when they passed over the threshold into the magnificent marble foyer. It must have been a family trait, having a million sitting areas. Hector’s estate wielded as many, if not more collections of sofas, settees, and loungers as Marcus’s. Each one a soft, buttery cream color to compliment the gold accents around the room. All the windows were thrown open to the night, allowing in the fragranced breeze while spilling patches of light out. As far as Dimitri could tell, Hector lived alone, except for the staff. But the place was lit up as though a party was about to take place.

“¡Señor!”

Evita hurried into the foyer, hands twisted in a dishrag, a sort of panic twisting her pretty features. She said something in rapid, aggressive Spanish and gestured frantically into the next room.

Dimitri didn’t understand a word of it, but whatever it was had Hector stiffening and fine lines had begun to splinter around his pursed mouth. His brown eyes jumped past his housekeeper to the open archway leading into what Dimitri assumed was the formal parlor. He hadn’t been given a tour during his initial arrival five days prior, but it was the one with the most crystal and gold.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“A hindrance,” Hector muttered tightly.

He started past the tiny woman. Dimitri waited a heartbeat before following.

There was a man sitting in the room, a commanding force folded in a gray suit and a heavy blanket of power. He sat with an almost air of royalty in a velvet armchair. His long pianist fingers curled regally around the armrests. His chiseled features were turned slightly sideways as he regarded the wall of glass overlooking the rippling landscape of ocean and pristine gardens pathed in subtle twilight. Dark, wavy locks were swept back from a prominent brow, exposing an angular, poetic nose and firm lips. There was a distinct air of danger around him that came from a very large cat lying in wait in the cool shade of the jungle.

He was a man to be feared.

“You’ve arrived.” Warm, brown eyes slipped gracefully away from the windows and peered across the distance straight at Dimitri. “You are Dimitri Tasarov?”

Dimitri took a measured step closer. “Who are you?”

With the grace of someone born to lead, the man rose. A slender walking stick was produced from the side of the sofa. The gold handle caught the light as the end settled against the worn carpet.

“I am Julian Armando, and we have a matter to discuss. A private matter,” he concluded, casting Hector an almost impatient sidelong glance.

A muscle bunched in the other man’s jaw, a hostile wrench that converted his mouth to an ugly white line. Dimitri expected him to refuse. The man was a stranger, it was almost one in the morning, and it was Hector’s house. But to his eternal surprise, Hector inclined his head in a stiff little bow, turned on his heels and marched out.

Julian watched the doorway until the clip of Hector’s footsteps had faded. Then reverted his unnerving attention back to Dimitri.

“Forgive the late hour, but it seemed imperative we speak immediately,” he began in that cool, fluid demeanor. “Please.” He gestured to the armchair across the crystal coffee table, adjacent to his. “We have very little time.”

Dimitri accepted the offer and lowered himself gingerly on the plush cushion. He watched as Julian did the same and set his cane against the side.

“I know why you are here, Mr. Tasarov,” Julian began. “I have known of your arrival and the reason behind it before you boarded the plane. I believe I may have the thing you are seeking.”

Something leaped in Dimitri’s chest, a flutter of something he had to smother before it could show on his face.

“You have her?”

“The girl?” Julian sat back. “Ava?”

Dimitri sucked in a breath. The sharp sound pierced through the room.

“Where is she?”

“Safe.”

He was having trouble regulating his breathing. Each breath came out in an almost pant he couldn’t control.

“What do you want?”

“Nothing.”

His eyes narrowed. “Then where is she?”

Julian waved towards the door, and for a split second, Dimitri looked, half expecting her to be standing there. Nothing but an empty doorway greeted his searching gaze. He was about to snap, could feel his anxiety devouring his senses. There was a clawing beast working up his chest.

“Where—?” His snarl died with a suddenness that was the equivalent of a switch being flipped. All speech died the moment he caught the movement, saw the spear of darkness creeping along the floor through the doorway. Then, there she was, a beautiful sight so incredible, he couldn’t breathe. Golden light shone through unbound strands of auburn, spilled down the lines of her tiny frame draped in a man’s oversized blazer. Her legs and feet were bare, but it was her. It was really her.

“Ava…”

The gasp of her name could have been in his head. It may have been nothing more than his desperate thoughts attempting to regain its sanity, but it repeated over and over again, growing louder and louder until it did burst out of his chest.

Her head snapped around. The ferocity would have caused a normal person severe whiplash, but if she felt the pain, it was overlooked, forgotten in her wide eyed amazement.

“Dimitri?”

There was a sob from her that splintered the distance a split second before she was tearing through it at a run. He was already there, mere feet from her when she launched herself straight at his chest.

They collided with a force that cracked through the days and hours she’d been missing. It smothered the nights of absent sleep and mind numbing terror. In that moment, the second she became a folded part of him, finally returning to him, he submitted to his weakness. He allowed the savage tear of his soul as he hit the ground with both knees, her legs still coiled around him. His breath rocked out of him, a choked sound of disbelief as he clasped her tighter still.

“Ava.”

His fingers twisted into her hair, her soft, beautiful hair and he turned his face into the tender stretch of skin along her neck. He inhaled her, pulling in the smell of her skin mixed with sickness and fried meat.

“Ne magy zhit’ bes tebya—I can’t live without you,” he gasped into her skin, meaning it more than ever. “God, I can’t.” His voice broke. “I can’t.”

Her arms squeezed him, blocking him of air, but he didn’t ask her to loosen her grip. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t tight enough.

“You came.” Her thin back heaved. Her voice shattered into a million heart wrenching sobs. “You came. I knew you would. I knew you wouldn’t let me die there.”

“Never.” Fabric tore, whether under his fisted hands or hers, he couldn’t be sure. “I would never have stopped looking. I would have found you. I will always find you.”

He held her until her wails became sniffles. He held her until her trembling no longer rattled his bones. Even when she raised her face, puffy, red, and wet from his shoulders, he kept her fused to him, unwilling to release her for even a second.

“I want to go home,” she whispered. “Please, Dimitri. Take me home.”

He wiped at her face, brushing away the tears, the bits of plastered hair, the lines pulling down the corners of her mouth. Unable to stop himself, he traced the lines and curves, not trusting his eyes and mind that she was really there.

“I will,” he promised. “Tonight.”

Fresh tears spilled. She gave a weak, hoarse sob that shook her shoulders, but she nodded. Her arms unraveled with a reluctance he felt course through him. She rose unsteadily from his lap and waited for him to get to his feet before grabbing his hand. He laced the fingers and gripped her tight.

“Are you hurt?”

She shook her head. “I’m okay.”

A movement from the corner of his eye reminded him they weren’t alone. Everything had faded at the sight of her, but it all came roaring back now.

He turned to the man in the doorway of the parlor.

“Thank you for bringing her back.” He stalked the distance with Ava by his side and extended Julian a hand. “I am in your debt.”

Julian accepted with the hand not gripping the cane. “We will meet again.” He broke the shake and glanced back at Ava. “It has been a pleasure.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “For everything.”

“Keep it,” Julian said when she started to remove the blazer from her shoulders.

She stopped, but offered him a solemn nod. “Thank you again, and I’m sorry about your car.”

A ghost of a grin flittered over the Spaniard’s face. “It was not mine, but I will pass your apologies along to the owner.”

He started around them with a faint limp that was barely perceptible.

Dimitri stopped him. “I will transfer whatever you are owed to your account. Just send me the information.”

Julian paused, half turned away, watching the open doorway where another man stood. Dimitri hadn’t noticed him, but he wore the uniform of a very muscular driver. He didn’t move. His gaze was as impassive as his expression as he waited for his employer to join him.

Julian glanced back. “Take your woman home, Mr. Tasarov. Nothing else matters right now.”

Then he and his driver were gone.

“I need to call John Paul.” Dimitri dug out his phone. “He and Jarvis are in Brazil and Bangladesh.”

Ava blinked. “Bangladesh?”

Dimitri paused to glance at her. “What?”

She stared off at something over his shoulder a long moment before giving a faint shake of her head. “Nothing. Just something I heard. Can I call him, please?” she said before he could ask.

He gave her the phone.

Her eyes gleamed with excitement and a fresh flood of tears. Her chin wobbled despite the grin on her face as she brought the phone to her ear.

“Dad?” Her voice broke. Her fingers tightened in Dimitri’s.

There was a second, a full tense second where there was nothing, then, “Ava?”

Even whole countries away, John Paul’s broken gasp of her name was as clear as though he were right there in the foyer with them.

“Where are you, Ava? Are you hurt?”

Sniffling, Ava shook her head. “I’m okay. I’m coming home.”

“Where are you?” he asked again, loud and urgent now.

“Puerto Rico,” she told him. “I’m with Dimitri.”

John Paul breathed a long prayer in French, his voice fraught with a tangle of emotion.

“Are you hurt?” he asked again. “Are you safe?”

“We’re both okay. I don’t know where we are, but we’re okay.”

John Paul exhaled. “Dieu merci.” He inhaled sharply, a little wet. “Come home. I will be waiting.”

“I will. I love you.”

“Love you, too, ma petite chou.”

Neither hung up, seconds extended into minutes. Finally, Ava gave a wet chuckle, said I love you once more and hit the off button. She wiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand and drew in a shaky breath.

“I need to call Robby. He’s probably beside himself—”

Dimitri stopped her with a hand over the one holding the phone. “There’s something I need to tell you—”

Hector stepped into the room, followed closely by Evita. The pair seemed in a hurry, like they were afraid if they were gone too long, someone might set fire to the drapery. Hector looked from Dimitri, to Ava, and then glanced in the direction of the parlor.

“Armando…?”

“Gone,” Dimitri said.

Hector nodded slowly, then focused once more on Ava. He blinked and his eyes widened.

“Is this…?”

“Ava.” Dimitri tugged her slightly forward. “This is Hector Lozano, Marcus’ cousin. He’s been helping me try to find you.”

Ava extended her free hand. “Thank you.”

Hector nodded, still studying her carefully. “So … Armando found you?”

Evita spoke up. She pointed at Ava, then pointed an accusing finger at Hector, who actually shifted in discomfort.

“She’s angry that I don’t show better manners.” He translated. He looked to Ava. “She would like to know if you are hungry.”

Evita nodded briskly, confirming.

Ava shook her head. “No, thank you. Mr. Armando fed me on our way here.” She looked up at Dimitri. “He was very kind to me.”

He squeezed her fingers lightly. “We will thank him properly when we get you home.”

She gave a small nod of her head and faced the two once more.

Evita said something, softer this time.

Hector nodded. “She want to know if you would like to clean up.”

“Yes!” The word blurted out of Ava before Hector finished speaking. “Please.”

Evita stepped forward, small hand extended. She said something and motioned to the gleaming, marble steps.

“She will take you,” Hector translated, though it wasn’t necessary.

Thanking him, Ava followed the woman with an iron grip on Dimitri’s hand. No one spoke the whole way down a long, lavish corridor or when they finally reached a set of high, arched doors. Evita pushed them open and waved them through first.

The room was an extravagant display of feminine and class. Everything was a light brush of fine, pure white and delicate pink. A princess bed in lace and satin sat hugged by a pair of end tables a polished ivory. A matching dresser was tucked against the corner, next to a doorway that led into what looked like a sitting area. A wardrobe stood next to the bathroom, just adjacent to the vanity. Twin French doors stood open to a terrace overlooking the gardens. Sheer, white curtains swayed with every breath the night took and seemed to shimmer in the golden light of the chandelier.

Evita hurried across the room and pushed open a door half hidden by the wardrobe. She moved aside to let them in.

The bathroom was a room all on its own with a sunken tub cut in the middle and everything else circling around it. The counter space stretched the length of two walls with two sinks and a multitude of cupboards and drawers underneath. A shower was fixed against the opposite wall with a sheet of frosted glass as privacy. A few feet from it, another opening and another sitting area.

Evita turned on the tub. The roar of water filled the room. She left it running as she hurried around grabbing bottles and lotions from the drawers and cupboards. Several were dumped into the rushing water, sending an array of floral scents up into the air. The rest were set along the stone edges. She set two towels on a nearby bench, stepped back, surveyed her work before turning to them.

“Here,” she said, the word coming out gruff. She motioned Ava to get in. she said something else, paused, and then tried again in broken English. “I bring material…” she realized that was the wrong word, frowned, tried again. “Clothes.” She tugged on her pale, pink t-shirt in emphasis. “¿Si?”

“Gracias,” Dimitri murmured, utilizing the extent of his understanding of the language.

Evita smiled kindly, inclined her head, and hurried from the room, shutting the door behind her.

No sooner had he turned his attention back to Ava when he found her already in his arms. He wasn’t sure which of them made the move, but she was there, head tucked beneath his chin, arms around his middle.

“I can’t believe you’re really here,” she choked out into his chest. “Or maybe I’ve lost my mind.”

“I’m here,” he promised quietly.

Her next inhale was an unsteady rattle of breath that caught around her throat. “I was so scared I would never see you again.”

He didn’t tell her that had been his fear as well. He didn’t tell her that he’d nearly gone half mad with the thought of losing her forever. He didn’t know what to tell her, so he held her. He combed the tangles from her hair as water filled the tub. He stroked her back and took in the shape of her through the soft fabric of the blazer. She seemed smaller, but that may have been in his head.

“Will you stay?” she asked into his collarbone.

Dimitri nodded. “I’ll stay.”

She pulled out of his arms, started to turn away, and hesitated with her hand still balled up in the material of his top. Her throat muscles worked in a swallow. Her shoulders lifted with her deep inhale. Gradually, she released him. She turned away fully.

“I’m here,” he told her quietly.

She said nothing.

The blazer struck the ground. Underneath it, her shorts and tank outlined perfectly the lines of her body. There was very little fabric and what of it there was hid nothing. All her parts were left exposed, put on display beneath a teasing allure. He wondered how many had seen her this way, how many had admired what didn’t belong to them. He wondered where he could find those responsible and put an end to their miserable lives.

The shorts slid to the ground. The top quickly followed. She stood at the edge of the bath, her body a pale landscape of exhaustion and strife. Purple blossoms marred the back of her left thigh. Another exploded across her ribs. In the light, there was one beneath her jaw he hadn’t seen earlier. More littered her arms in a ladder of handprints alongside the graze from when she’d been shot. Stripes cut across her skin in varying shades of yellow, purple, and blue. When she moved, it was with the hesitance of the elderly hazarding a sheet of ice. She lowered herself into the frothing, foamy water and sank until it was over her head. She remained submerged until concern had him closing a step.

She broke the surface with a gasp. Dimitri hadn’t realized he’d been holding his own breath until that moment. He exhaled and slumped back against the counter. Ava leaned back against the inner walls and shut her eyes. Her head hung back and she didn’t move.

He wanted to say something, wanted to get her talking, to fill the eerie silence the absence of her usual chatter had left behind. But she was the one who typically started conversations. She was the one who had him opening up. He didn’t know what to say.

Evita arrived with a bundle of fabric. She knocked lightly twice before pushing the door open a crack and peeking in. When it was clear that no one was doing anything inappropriate, she hurried in, said something in Spanish that sounded vaguely like an apology and pressing the bundle into Dimitri’s hands. She left just as quickly, shutting the door behind her.

He set the items down on the counter and turned back to the woman in the tub. Her eyes were open, but she seemed a million miles away.

“Ava?”

She jolted violently. Water slapped against the edge with the ferocity. Big, green eyes jumped over to him.

“What?”

He went to her and knelt. “Did they hurt you?”

“Me?” Her chin twisted straight once more. “No.” Her gaze lowered. “No, they didn’t hurt me.”

He peeled a bit of hair away from her temple and tucked it behind her ear. “Tell me what happened.”

Her face lifted. Her gaze met his. Her chest rose, the nipples slick and pink rising over the suds.

“There were fifty of us in that metal coffin,” she whispered so low, he nearly didn’t hear her. “By the time we arrived, they had killed and disposed of thirteen of the girls, including a thirteen-year-old girl I really cared about.”

“Ava…”

She ignored him, too wrapped up in whatever memory had noosed around her thoughts. “Thirteen,” she said again, softer still. “Tiny, and so scared. Practically a baby and they took her and they never brought her back.”

A tear slipped down her cheek. Then another.

“Her name was Ilsa.” Her voice cracked around the name. “A German girl who didn’t speak German, who was raised in the US all her life with her mom and dad and had a crush on a boy named Alois who had freckles and glasses.”

She burst into tears.

“Ava.”

Grabbing the towels, he pulled her out of the water and swaddled her tight before dragging her into his lap.

“They took her,” she sobbed into his chest. “I tried to stop them. I tried so hard, but they still took her.” Air wheezed in her lungs as she gasped for breath and words. She clutched at his soaked shirt front, the caps on each knuckle bleached white. “She was just a baby and they used her in the most … then they discarded her like she meant nothing. None of the girls meant anything. How could anyone do this?”

Dimitri had no answers. Human trafficking had never been something he or his family had ever done. Out of principle for Dimitri. But Elena found the risks too high and, even with the sizable payout, the cost was too extensive for the payout. Guns were easier to move and, if caught, the penalties weren’t nearly as high. Nevertheless, Dimitri was familiar with the process. He understood the game. Most of the girls would be lucky to survive a full year after being sold.

But there was nothing anyone could do about it. Most didn’t want to believe something so disgusting could possibly exist in their city. Others were willing participants. The remainder tried, but with every operation taken down, twenty more always took its place.

Most were held in warehouses. Others were held at private properties for the very wealthy. Those ones, in Dimitri’s opinion, were the worst. People with money could afford not to be human, to not feel compassion for the girl they were destroying. To them, they were property, bought and paid for. If the girl ended up dead, it made no difference. No one would ever know and another would replace her before the day ended.

Those were all the things he couldn’t tell her.

“I’m sorry,” was the best he could do. “I’m so sorry.”

She wiped at her eyes with the corner of the towel. “I want to find Ilsa’s family. They deserve to…” She faltered. “They should know, right? So they can stop looking and … and bury an empty casket, or…” Her entire body shook with her long, rattling breath. “I promised her I would get her home.”

He kissed the top of her head. “If that’s what you want.”

She began to nod. Her lips parted only to have the words snatched away by the muffled crash of glass breaking somewhere inside the estate. It was loud enough to carry up from downstairs and reverberate down the corridors. It was followed by a female scream, then the distinct pop of an automatic revolver, the splinter of wood, the tinkle of precious glass shattering across marble.

Ava drew out of his arms. “Dimitri—?

He was already on his feet, body braced as the sounds grew louder. “Get dressed.”

Leaving her to follow through, he sprinted to the door. It creaked despite his attempts for silence. The knob rattled. It clicked when he released and peered around the edge into the bedroom.

The calm was unnerving when a war was taking place on the other side of the walls. Dimitri tried to visualize the exact proximity of the attack, but that was impossible with the sheer size of the place; there were too many echoes.

Ava joined him, towel replaced by a light, pink dress and bare feet. Her hair hung in damp ringlets around her blotchy face. She met his gaze, hers bemused, but alert.

“What’s—?”

“Stay behind me,” he told her quietly. “Whatever happens.”

Not waiting for compliance, he took her fingers and pulled her out behind him. He had no weapons, nothing he could bring with him across international borders. It was just him and whatever he could get his hands on once they left the security of the room.

They made it across the hardwood when the door flew open. The unexpected blur had Dimitri shoving Ava behind him, blocking her with his body as the figure lurched in.

“There are men in the house.” Hector slammed the door behind him with the hand wielding a revolver. “They killed Evita.” He shoved upright, swiping a sleeve across his sweat beaded brow. “They’re looking…”

He broke off as though something had just occurred to him. His brows furrowed. He blinked, then lowered his chin. Dimitri followed his gaze and the three of them watched in stunned horror as a red blossom appeared across the silk front of his shirt, just at his midsection and expanded. He sucked in a sharp breath and swayed back into the door. Both hands clamped over the flood in some desperate attempt to staunch the flow, but it bubbled over his fingers and trickled to the floor.

“Fuck!” he gasped. “Those putas … shot me!”

Dimitri started to go to him, but Hector waved him off.

“Go!” He shoved the gun into Dimitri’s hand. Then dug into his pockets and pulled out a set of keys. “Backstairs, second door behind the stairs. Drive to Fajardo Ferry Terminal. My man, Brock, will meet you there. Tell him I send you. He’ll get you the rest of the way.”

Dimitri took the keys. “Come with us. We can—”

Hector shook his head. “It’ll take too long.” He dug behind him and freed a Glock from the back of his waistband. “I have a score to settle anyway. I was very fond of Evita. Plus,” he offered them a lopsided grin, “this was my favorite shirt.”

Not arguing, Dimitri grabbed Ava’s hand.

“Backstairs,” Hector said again. “I’ll head them off.”

“Thank you,” Ava said.

Hector paused. He nodded. Then, without a word, threw open the door and ran out. Dimitri waited for the first crack of gunfire before sprinting right with Ava in tow. Their feet pounding on the worn carpet, his heavy, hers barely audible as they raced in the direction of the backstairs. He’d found the thing by accident when he’d taken a wrong turn heading down for breakfast. He led Ava down a steep set of stairs to the main floor. From there, it was just a matter of making it to the kitchen and the door leading into the main garage.

There were three, from what Hector had mentioned in passing. But the main one was used for everyday traveling.

“The others are for playing,” he’d said.

It was the oddest thing to remember when their lives were on the line, but Dimitri was grateful for it as he fumbled for the remote on the keyring.

The sleek, gray BMW sat hunched in the single car box, half hidden behind a shroud of darkness too thick to penetrate. Interior lights flickered on with a push of a button and he nudged Ava forward.

“Get in.”

Ava climbed into the passenger’s side seat as Dimitri threw himself behind the wheel. He hit the door opener clipped to the visor and waited with growing unease as the rumble seemed to shake the entire estate. The slow progression ticked at his nerves.

He glanced into the rearview mirror at the empty doorway leading back into the house, then back at the gap barely high enough for a toddler to pass.

“Come on!” he snarled at the droning gears.

“Wait.”

Before he could grab her, Ava had thrown herself out of the car.

“Ava!”

She was a streak of pink, tearing to the door. He started to climb out after her, had a hand on the handle when she slammed the door closed and snapped the lock into place. She ran back and dove into her seat.

“What the fuck?” he snapped at her.

“I’m not going back!” she shot, slamming her door closed and snapping herself in.

He had no idea what one thing had to do with the other, but the garage door was now high enough for them to pass through.

A muffled ping ricocheted off the hood. Ava cried out, but Dimitri had already seen the figure crouched behind the bushes.

“Put your head down!”

He didn’t wait for Ava to follow orders. He floored the gas pedal and flew down the driveway with the force of an unscrewed cork erupting from the neck of a bottle. Bullets pinged off the metal and reflected off the windows. He suspected the car was bulletproof when there was barely a dent. Other figures spilled out of the house, guns blazing. Their steady cracks splintered the early morning hour. He counted six, all wearing balaclavas and armed to the teeth. They moved with precision and the sort of joined unity of those who had fought together for years. He guessed ex-military.

They hit the end of the driveway. He twisted the wheel and shot in the direction of the city. Behind them, a dark van swerved into view. The window of the passenger’s side rolled down and a figure poked an arm out. A gun fired. The bullet hit the back end of the BMW.

“Keep down!” was all the warning he gave when wrenching the wheel hard left and spinning them down a one way going in the opposite direction. The streets were deserted, the hour was past the time for partying, even in a city that knew very little sleep.

He shoved right almost immediately after and bumped into an alleyway.

“How do you know this isn’t a dead end?” Ava asked, just a hint of hysteria in her voice, but very well hidden.

He didn’t. These weren’t his streets. It wasn’t even his country.

“Just stay down.”

The van appeared in his mirror, a rumble ghost gaining speed. He saw an opening ahead. He took it with a tap on the gas.

They hit a wider street with a barely controllable speed. Pure reflexes had him twisting the wheel and barely missing the parked car.

Another bullet hit the back window, sounding like a large pebble.

“Give me the gun.”

He wasn’t sure he heard right. “What?”

“The gun!” She didn’t wait for him. She reached for the weapon he’d dropped into his lap.

“Christ, careful! What are you doing?”

But she had already rolled down her window.

“Ava!”

He would have grabbed her, yanked her back into her seat when she started to force her torso out, but they had reached the heart of the city and the last stragglers leaving bars and clubs were still wandering the sidewalks and it was taking all his concentration not to hit one of them.

“Get back in the fucking car!” he roared.

“Drive!” was her response.

She fired, once, twice. He watched the bullets spark off the hood and the front grill of the van. She fired again just when he had to swerve around a drunken couple attempting to cross the middle of the street. They scrambled back onto the curb, but Ava’s aim had gone wide and created a spider web across the windshield, just face level with the driver.

“Fuck!” he heard her snap. “Hold the car steady!”

He was about to ask if she had wanted him to hit those people, but she was firing again, releasing a spray of bullets with an accuracy that was almost frightening. Each one hit the side mirrors, burst across the windshield, making the van swerve and clip a parked car. The driver tried to right the wheel, but Ava took out their front, driver’s side tire and they weren’t going anywhere.

“Christ,” Dimitri breathed, watching the whole thing through the rearview mirror. “Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”

Ava ducked back into the car and dropped the smoking gun into the cup holder. She exhaled, then looked at him with a small grin.

“I had a good teacher.”

He hoped to God she didn’t mean him, because that had been nearly eleven years ago. She’d been sixteen and he’d taken her to shoot empty cans off a log in the middle of nowhere and she’d been absolute shit at it.

“John Paul,” she said, snapping back into her belt. “He thought I would need to know how to protect myself if I needed to.”

Dimitri glanced at the dark, empty road behind them. “Remind me to send him a fruit basket.”

Chapter Eighteen

The schedule on the door of the Fajardo Ferry Terminal announced that they were hours too early. There was nothing sooner than seven. The terminal sat dark and lonely in the enormous parking lot. The absence of other life sent a chill through Ava that she concealed behind the tightening of her jaw.

“Are we in the wrong place?” Ava wondered, mostly to herself.

“No.” Dimitri pointed. “There.”

She followed the line of his gaze to the far end of the parking lot where the pools of light from the lamps didn’t quite reach. The sinister sway of shadows concealed the figure lurching towards them with long, even strides until he was nearly on them.

The window whirred as Dimitri rolled it down.

Clad entirely in black, the man crouched to peer in. He tipped back his baseball cap and squinted at them.

“My car’s parked just on the other side of the lot,” he told them in clear English. “We need to go now, if we’re going.”

Dimitri popped open the door and stepped out. He said something to the man that Ava couldn’t hear.

“I have it all covered,” she heard the man say.

Then the door closed and Dimitri was hurrying around the hood. Ava quickly unhitched herself, grabbed the gun, and reached for the door handle.

“Leave that,” Dimitri told her, nodding to the weapon.

“But—”

“Don’t worry.” The man came up behind Dimitri. “I’ll take care of it.”

Not sure what that meant, Ava set the gun back in the holder. It was empty anyway. She started to swing her legs out of the car, but Dimitri already had her up in his arms, tucked against his chest. She leaned into him, holding him close with her arms around his shoulders. If it were up to her, she would somehow crawl inside him and never leave.

“Just make your way in that direction,” the man said, motioning with one arm in the direction he’d come from.

Dimitri started to walk. Ava glanced back over his shoulder and watched as the man pulled a long piece of cloth from his pocket, maybe a rope, and stuffed most of it into the gas tank. She started to ask what he was doing, when a flare of fire lit up parts of the man’s face, and the dirty rag in an orange glow.

“You better walk faster,” Ava whispered to Dimitri.

He took one look back and broke out in a sprint. Ava tightened her grip on him, barely feeling the jostle as they put as much space between them and the car that was about to go up in flames.

The man met them just as the concrete ended and a curb rose to a grassy patch. They hurried past a series of buildings and thundered up a long, wooden pier. The crack of their feet on the planks matched the tempo of her heartbeat as they got away from the car. She kept glancing back, breath caught in her throat, waiting for the moment its explosion lit up the night sky. But the cloth Brock had used must have been several feet long, because they were at the end of the dock, getting ready to climb into a motorboat, when it finally went off.

It tore up into the sky in a cloud of fire and metal. The sound boomed for miles in all direction, sending waves of unbearable heat slamming into their backs. She tried to bury her face into Dimitri’s shoulder, but it slapped into her face. It blew back her hair and stung her eyes. She gasped as the stifling air washed down her throat.

Dimitri set her down. He climbed into the boat while Brock held it steady. He turned and held out his arms to her. She slid into them and let herself get lifted.

“Here.” Brock shook out a musty blanket that he withdrew from under one of the benches and held it out.

Dimitri swung it down around Ava’s shoulders and nudged her down. He took the spot next to her, but facing Brock.

“Where are we going?” she asked as the engine was revved to life.

“My plane,” Brock said, propelling them away from the pier and deeper across the open expanse of water.

A sickening thought jolted through her. It was that abrupt sinking sensation when you miss a step going down a flight of stairs.

“I don’t have any ID,” she had to shout over the roar of machine and the slap of waves against the sides. “Or my passport.”

“Not to worry,” Brock answered. “I can transport anything, anywhere.”

The twisting sensation continued. It intensified.

“Even women?” she asked, not exactly sure what she would do if he said yes. It was unlikely she’d jump overboard in protest, but she had to know.

“Women?” It was impossible to tell in the pitch darkness what his expression was, but his voice sounded confused. “No, things, mostly.”

Ava relaxed. She glanced in the direction they were headed.

It was impossible to tell how Brock knew which way to go when the entire world had gone an eerie black. Everything seemed endless as they hurtled through the void. Ava fought not to notice how similar it all felt to the cargo boat. Even the vibration in the seat made her shift. Suddenly all the air in the world wasn’t enough. No amount of calm, collected thinking staved away the rush of terror that pummeled her. She gasped and nearly swallowed a lungful of mist that sprayed back into her face. She choked on it, or her spit, or the clawing fist ramming down her throat.

One strong arm hooked around her middle and she was dragged into Dimitri. In that position, they would have been face to face if she could see him. Instead, all she could do was hug his arm to her chest and mash her face into the curve of his shoulder.

“You’re safe, myshka,” he murmured into the side of her head. “I will never let anything happen to you again.”

She didn’t speak. She honestly didn’t think herself capable without screaming. So, she shut her eyes tight and let the warmth of his embrace soothe her. Let his voice and the rhythmic skim of his fingers along her back lull her. It didn’t take away the panic that she might open her eyes and find herself back on that boat, but it numbed it slightly.

“Don’t let go,” she somehow choked out, teeth chattering so hard she half feared she’d take a chunk out of his arm.

His lips grazed her temple. “Never.”

It took what felt like days to reach a marina. The boat slowed and finally stopped all together alongside a dock. Dimitri climbed out first, then turned and hauled her up with him. He had to hold her up while she retained the use of her limbs. He didn’t seem to mind and probably would have stayed there until dawn if Brock hadn’t hopped out and urged them onward. Tucked against Dimitri’s chest, Ava allowed her eyes to close, exhaustion catching up to her.

The low, mechanical hum woke her. Its taunting buzz scuttled along her spine and radiated beneath her in a familiar vibration that made her skin break out in cold sweat. She bolted upright with speeds that sent the world tilting and her vision blurring. She shook her head, willing it to clear and bring her world into focus.

They were on a plane, a massive, metal bird painted a dark green and brimming with wooden crates and streamers of rope. There were only four chairs bolted into the ground; she and Dimitri occupied two.

He was sleeping, his head tilted back, his long, blunt fingers twisted possessively around hers. They both rested in her lap. She could barely see her hand, most of it was swallowed by his. The pallor of her skin clashed with the natural gold of his.

Even in sleep, he held her as though he intended never to let her go. It was with a fierce sort of determination that immediately dissolved her nightmares. Just having him there, knowing he’d come for her, that he’d been looking, made a world of difference she couldn’t even put into words. Walking into that house, not knowing what to except, and then seeing him there … it had been a moment she would never forget.

He looked rough. His eyes had thick, dark rings and there was a rough carpet along his jaw that needed a shaving. There were lines around his mouth that hadn’t been there before. The sight of them made her fingers itch to smooth them away.

You came, she kept thinking over and over again with an amazement she couldn’t account for. There had never been a moment during her captivity that she didn’t believe he would find her, and yet, seeing him again felt like some incredible dream, one she was terrified she would wake up from and find herself still on that auction block or worse.

She hadn’t told him everything. She honestly didn’t know if she could. There were so many things she just wanted to forget and immediately felt like the worst person in the world, because of all the girls, she was possibly the only one who survived. The only one who had people powerful enough to track them down. She was going home while they … she couldn’t think about it. The guilt was already too much. The not knowing was suffocating. She hated herself and knew there was nothing she could do.

“Hey.”

She blinked out of her swirling thoughts and focused on the man watching her through thick lashes. “Hey.”

“Sleep okay?”

She shook her head. “I will once I get into my own bed.”

Dimitri nodded. “Are you hungry?”

She was. Not as severely as she had been after Julian had bought her, but enough accept the tiny box of cereal Dimitri handed her from the filthy cooler bolted into the ground next to him. It was followed by a plastic spoon and a small carton of milk that they shared.

“Tell me what happened, Ava,” he said after she’d finished her first and asked for a second box.

Her appetite vanished. She stared at the Froot Loops she’d asked for and her stomach whined.

“How’s Robby?” she asked instead.

He shook his head. “You first.”

She raised her eyes to his face, wondering how on earth she was supposed to tell him his mother had tried to kill her? He wouldn’t be angry with her, but he would be furious and do something horrible and dangerous that would get him killed. At the same time, she couldn’t not tell him. The bitch had drugged her and sold her.

“Ava?”

There was no avoiding it, she realized with a growing sense of exhaustion.

“Elena,” she whispered, and watched every flicker on his face while he pieced together that bit of information.

“What about her?”

Ava pulled in a deep breath. “When I woke up in Robby’s apartment, Elena was there with a really big guy. Definitely Russian. I didn’t see his face, but I remember his car smelled of sulfur and burnt plastic. He was the one who made the trade.”

Dimitri was silent a long while, turning this bit of information around in his head. Finally, he sucked in a breath when it finally fell into place.

“Ivan.”

Ava blinked. “Your brother?”

She’d never met his brother. She’d never even seen a photo of him. But from the stories Dimitri had told her of the other man, she had hoped it would stay that way. He was a monster, evil to the core. The sort of person who relished in the need for violence and blood, even if there was an alternative. He just needed it. Lived off it. Enjoyed it. The very idea that she’d been at his mercy made her skin cold and clammy.

“It sounds like his car,” Dimitri said, cutting into her thoughts. “Or rather, it smells like him. He spends a lot of time around bombs. The smell is embedded in his skin, even when he showers.”

Ava swallowed hard. “Bombs?”

Dimitri met her gaze evenly. “He likes bombs.” He said it so flatly, like that was normal. Maybe it was for Ivan. “What did Elena want?”

She hesitated, not exactly sure why, but once she opened her mouth, it all came out in full detail about everything that happened between waking up to Elena sitting at her bedside and the moment she found herself in Julian’s car.

“He took me to eat and then brought me to Hector’s house. He never asked about you or me, except my name. I don’t know how he knew you were there.”

“He said he knew the minute I boarded that I was there to find you,” Dimitri said almost absently.

“He’s not dangerous,” Ava said quickly. “I don’t believe for a minute he had an ulterior motive.”

“I don’t believe he had one either, but no one does anything without wanting something eventually.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Whatever he wants, I will get it.” Those beautiful golden eyes met hers. “But it won’t be enough. I can never repay what he did.”

She squeezed his fingers. “How’s Robby?”

His expression tightened all over again. “He’s in the hospital, but he’s fine!” he added quickly when her mouth opened.

“What happened? Did Elena hurt him?”

“He was drugged,” he explained slowly. “He OD’d.”

“Oh my God!” Her hands flew up to her mouth.

“We took him to the hospital and the doctors assured us he was going to be okay.”

She shook her head wildly. “It’s not okay. He could have died.”

“He was very alive when I left.”

Ava wasn’t listening, her mind a white, pulsating fog highlighted in streaks of crimson that just kept spreading until all the white had been conjured. Robby’s smiling face blurred across her thoughts. His laughter rang in her ears. Robby with his lovely soul and generous heart. Her best friend.

“She almost killed him,” she breathed, her lips feeling unnaturally stiff. “She’s ruined his life.”

What Elena did would go on Robby’s record. The hospital would find out. He would lose his residency. His entire future, everything he’d ever worked towards, would be gone all because of her.

“I want her dead!” Everything Elena Tasarov had done to Ava seemed oddly overshadowed by the knowledge that she’d nearly murdered Ava’s best friend. That alone was the spearing wound that propelled her bloodlust. “I want to watch her suffer.”

Cool fingers took her chin and lightly turned her face to his. “She will.”

They arrived home eight hours later, exhausted, jetlagged, and miserable. Dimitri hadn’t said a word to her the entire flight, which had suited Ava just fine. She was preoccupied with images of Elena’s slow and painful demise. Plus, she had so many things she needed to do once she had her feet back under her. Calling her super was one and finding out about her apartment. Then was work. But before any of that, before her life could be put back in order, she needed to see John Paul. She needed to make sure Robby was all right. Everything else took a backseat to that.

“The men after us,” she turned her face away from the passing scenery and peered at the solemn figure behind the wheel. “They work for Elena. She didn’t tell me who they were, but she put the kill order on me.”

Dimitri said nothing. There was no outer reaction at all. He pulled up to stop at a red light and reached for his phone. He hit one number.

An explosion nearly sent Ava out of her seat. Her head whipped around as it continued, one after another in a rapid succession that rattled her brain. Her hand flew to the door handle, prepared to lunge out of the car at a single word from Dimitri.

“It’s all right,” Dimitri muttered, unfazed as the assault continued … inside the car.

It took her several shaky minutes to realize the sound was coming from the car speakers, that whoever he’d called was blowing something up. Her heart just about died in her chest.

“What…?”

“Fucking hell!” cried a voice over the loud clicking, the pop of gunfire. “There is no way those assholes knew where our flag was. No fucking way!”

“Stephen!” Dimitri shouted.

There was more clicking, more swearing, then the inevitable game over chime. Something clattered.

“Fuck.” The person muttered. “Bullshit.” He sighed. “Hey D, what’s up?”

Dimitri shook his head slowly. “That shit is going to rot your brains.”

“Meh, brain’s already rotted.” He sniffed. “You back in town?”

Dimitri’s eyes narrowed. He was silent as the light flicked green and he pushed onward.

“How did you know I was out of town?”

Stephen was silent, not the he was too busy killing virtual villains quiet, the oh shit, busted kind of silent.

He cleared his throat. “Hey man, I—”

“You’ve been working with Elena,” Dimitri cut in, fingers tense around the wheel.

“Look, it’s nothing personal. It’s a job, you know?”

It was Dimitri’s turn to be silent.

“Shit, don’t kill me! I’m just a kid and I needed the money, okay?”

Ava glanced at Dimitri, refusing to believe he would hurt a kid, but he was still squinting out the windshield, his features a perfect, blank mask.

“Did you know she was after Ava when I was asking about her?”

Stephen hesitated.

“I see…”

“No!” Stephen blurted in a near panic. “I mean, yes, I kind of knew, but I didn’t know they wanted her when she asked me to track your phone. I swear, I had—”

“What did you say?”

Stephen sniffled. “What?”

“You were tracking my phone?”

“Man, come on. I’m only eighteen!”

“Is Elena tracking my phone?” Dimitri snarled.

“Yes, but you know—”

Without waiting for the explanation coming, Dimitri pitched his phone out the window. Ava gasped and turned in her chair just as it struck the pavement and shattered beneath a minivan.

“I guess we know how her men have been finding us so easily,” he mumbled, rolling his window back up.

“You’re not really going to kill that kid, are you?”

Dimitri hummed quietly. “Should.”

“But you won’t, right?” she pressed.

He exhaled. “No … but I’m tempted.”

Partially relieved, partially wary, Ava glanced through the window and eyed the high buildings, the new and the old standing resolutely together. It had only been mere days, but being back on her streets, seeing the familiar, it felt like it had been years.

“How long was I gone?” she wondered mostly to herself.

“Nine days,” he murmured.

Ava sucked in a gulp of thick air. “It felt longer.”

“Much longer,” he agreed quietly.

It was unclear which of them reached over the console. Maybe it was a melding of their minds, a similar need to touch the other in assurance, but their fingers brushed, then wove together. She dragged them both to her side and held them in her lap.

“Where are we going?” she asked, not recognizing the surrounding shops.

“Stephen’s.”

“You said you weren’t going to kill him!”

“And I meant it … mostly.” He shot her a quick, sidelong grin. “I never said I wasn’t going to scare the shit out of him.”

Ava shook her head in a sort of amusement. “Who is he?”

A shoulder lifted in a shrug. “A good kid normally. Found him a few years back trying to hack into an ATM.”

“Did he get in?”

Dimitri nodded. “He did. In five minutes, he’d emptied it and was nearly caught by the police. I told him with talents like that, he’ll either wind up in prison or dead.”

“So, you offered him a job.” It wasn’t a question. She knew him.

“Like I said, he’s normally a good kid.” A muscle bunched in his jaw. “I just thought I knew where his loyalties lay.”

“Did you tell him not to work with anyone else?”

His frown deepened. “I shouldn’t have to. It’s implied. Loyalties,” he stressed.

Ava chuckled. “He’s eighteen. You flash a fifty in his face and he’ll do whatever you say.”

He scoffed. “Doesn’t matter. I need him to tell me what Elena knows and where to find her.”

“Wouldn’t she be home?”

He shook his head. “She would know by now that I have you and that you would tell me everything. She’ll have gone underground, which means you can stop looking over your shoulder for the time being. Elena’s too smart to come at you with the entire city searching for her.” He reached for the cup holder, cursed when is fingers closed around air. “I need to call Erik.”

Ava glanced back over the headrest of her seat. “We could maybe superglue it together.”

He ignored her teasing and focused on the shops they passed. “We need to make a quick stop.”

She didn’t ask where. She didn’t need to when he pulled up alongside a mobile store. He started to reach for the glove compartment and stopped.

“Stupid rental!” he muttered, then huffed.

She hummed softly in agreement. “How dare they not come fully loaded with semi-automatics and hand grenades. Bastards.”

He shot her an unimpressed glower. “Lock the doors.”

After assuring him that she would, she watched as he hurried into the store. There was nothing to do but wait and watch the steady flow of early afternoon traffic. Men and women rushed through the streets, most likely on their way to meet friends for lunch or finish shopping before the kids returned home from school. She briefly wondered if school was still in session. It had been so long since she’d thought about it that she almost missed the guy in the dark coat hovering just out of sight between two buildings. She only caught him in the side mirror when he poked his head out, glanced at the car and then popped back.

Could be nothing, she told herself over the unsteady patter of her heart. They didn’t have Dimitri’s phone anymore. No one would know where they were. This guy was probably just a creeper waiting for someone.

But she never took her eyes off him. Her fingers fumbled with the latch on the glove compartment. She pulled out a pen and gripped it tight between her fingers. All the while, she watched and waited and held her breath.

When the knock cracked against the glass, Ava screamed and brushed the felt ceiling with the top of her head when she jumped. Her head snapped around, expecting an attack.

Dimitri watched her from the driver’s side door, expression baffled and slightly annoyed. She should have seen him come out and circle the car. The shop was directly in front of her. But she’d been preoccupied by trench coat guy.

She unsnapped the locks. He swung the door open and peered at her, then at the pen in her hand.

“What are you doing?”

Her gaze jumped to the side mirror and the man still there. “That guy keeps looking over here,” she said. “The one in the trench coat.”

Dimitri pulled his head back and glanced in the direction she indicated. “Lock the door,” he told her, already slamming the door closed.

She did and watched as he stalked back onto the sidewalk, strides long, but watchful. His head turned casually as though he were taking in the scenery, but she knew he was looking for anything out of place. She looked too, but saw nothing.

He was on the guy before she could blink, grabbing him by the coat front and shoving him out of sight through the gap. No sooner did they disappear, Dimitri reappeared, face as dark as the cloud now thundering over his head. He stormed back to the car. Ava unlocked the door before he reached it. He threw himself into his seat and slammed the door with enough force to rattle the car.

“What?”

He put the car into drive without a word.

“Dimitri?”

“I’ve just seen things I will never unsee,” he muttered, his lips curled back like he’d just swallowed a bug. “Next time, I’m sending you and your pen.”

“What was it?” she demanded, trying to catch sight of the other man in the mirror, but he was gone.

“Nothing,” he mumbled. “Absolutely nothing.”

It took her several seconds before it all made sense, the sketchy behavior, the trench coat … Ava burst out laughing.

“Was he naked?” she wheezed.

“We are never speaking of this again,” was all the response she got, which was fine, she was laughing too hard to hear him anyway. And it felt amazing.

Stephen’s apartment was a rundown loft above a Chinese restaurant. It smelled like a teenage boy and looked like a frat party had taken place the night before. Ava almost didn’t want to be put down amongst the mountain of dirty dishes, the towers of pizza boxes, the festering piles of clothes—one she was sure actually moved a foot since their arrival—soda cans, snack wrappers, and a tough gang of cockroaches that seemed immune to the presence of human. One she could have sworn flipped her off.

“Don’t put me down,” she half hissed, half groaned into Dimitri’s ear. “I swear to God, I will scream like a little girl and wet myself.”

He frowned at her. “I can’t be intimidating with you in my arms.”

“Do not put me down!” she growled through clenched teeth.

With a roll of his eyes, he stomped over to a wooden chair and gingerly set her down. It was the cleanest thing in the place, once the splatters of red were overlooked. But she crouched on it like an over grown bird, refusing to let her feet dangle anywhere near that mess.

Across the room, shifting restlessly from foot to foot in a nervous twitch, Stephen watched them. His wide, blue eyes flicked from one to the other, a violent color against his ashen complexion.

Tall and gangly and hosting a litter of pimples big enough to start their own colony, he looked eighteen and scared enough to piss himself. He stood next to an open suitcase filled with computer equipment and a desk stamped with deep imprints of all the places he’d had stuff for ages without cleaning the surface.

“Going somewhere, Stephen?” Dimitri took a step forward and stopped, hands going to his hips.

“No?” the boy squeaked. “Just … cleaning.”

Dimitri hummed quietly and looked over the rest of the place that could have doubled as a landfill. “About time, I would say.”

Stephen’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I wasn’t—”

Dimitri put up a hand, stopping him. “You betrayed me.”

Stephen’s blue eyes all but bulged from their sockets. “No! I swear, I never meant—”

“I trusted you,” Dimitri went on slowly.

“Yes, but it’s not what it looks like,” Stephen blurted, hands up as if to ward the Devil to stay back. “I didn’t know about her.” He pointed at Ava without taking his eyes off Dimitri. “I mean, I did because of you, but I didn’t know Elena was after her.”

“Tell me everything.” The command reverberated from deep within Dimitri’s chest.

Stephen gulped again. “Okay, uh … a while back, like a year ago, Elena asked me to tap all her men’s phones. She said she wanted to make sure she knew where they were so she could protect them if something happened. I showed her how on her laptop and she left. I didn’t see her again until like three weeks ago. She said you were doing some kind of top secret mission or something and she needed me to keep an eye on you for her, let her know where you were, how often you went there. Things like that. I was just trying to help you, man,” he finished weakly. “I swear.”

Dimitri glanced back at Ava, one eyebrow lifted as if asking her permission.

“What?” she said. “You can’t kill him.”

“Kill?” Stephen croaked.

“He betrayed me,” Dimitri rationalized. “He’s essentially useless if I can’t trust him.”

“You can!” Stephen half wept. “I swear, you can. I will never, ever tell anyone anything ever—”

Ava sighed. “It was an honest mistake. He was trying to do the right thing.”

“Yes!” Stephen jumped on the wagon quickly. “I was. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Dimitri sighed. “I don’t know. How can I believe he won’t do it again if someone offers him more money or women?”

It was a struggle maintaining her neutral expression on the last part. “I’m sure he won’t,” she mumbled.

“I won’t,” Stephen agreed. “Not for all the money or women … no, not even for women,” he concluded after a second of deliberation. “Bros before hos, right?”

Ava caught the quick twitch of Dimitri’s lips before his face returned to its calm fury. He turned back to the kid.

“I want to gut you alive like a fish and hook you up to those rafters as an example of what happens to rats.” What little color remained on Stephen’s face vanished. The boy actually swayed a little. Ava felt horrible for him. “You would be alive through the whole thing, feeling the knife cutting you from neck to navel in a slow slice, feeling the hot rise of your blood through the incision as it runs down your chest, and then your insides spilling out.” Dimitri sighed heavily. “Unfortunately, she…” Dimitri jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Ava, “won’t let me and a gentleman doesn’t spill blood in front of a lady. But next time, I won’t bring her, understand?”

Stephen may have been nodding, or trying not to faint. It was impossible to tell when his eyes kept rolling back into his skull.

“Good.” Dimitri raised his chin. “Now, put your things together. I need you to look something up.”

“Can … can I use the bathroom first, please?” Stephen slurred.

Dimitri shrugged. “Yes.”

He stumbled across the room like a drunk and locked himself up inside the tiny room at the back. A second later, they heard retching, loud, violent heaves, followed by deep sobs.

“Gut him like a fish?” Ava muttered quietly. “Really?”

“What?” He shot her a feigned look of utter innocence she would have been an idiot to believe. “That’s what happens to rats.”

“And he would be dead before his guts fell out,” she continued sharply.

He huh’d contemplatively. “Maybe if he read more books, he would know that.”

Ava only shook her head.

Stephen emerged with an invisible cloud of sickness and shit. It plumed through the room before he shut the door behind him. He was green beneath the gray of his complexion. His eyes were bloodshot, the matching red of his swollen nose. His dirty, blonde hair hung limp and matted to his sweaty brow and there was a distinct puke stain down the front of his shirt. He was a mess.

He staggered his way to the suitcase and mutely began to rearrange his things back in their usual places. It took about fifteen minutes before his computer was whirring to life once more.

“Find Elena,” Dimitri told him. “I want records of all her financial holdings, her properties, any place she might go to hide.”

“That’ll take a while,” Stephen said hoarsely. “I need time.”

“You have five hours.”

Dimitri turned and stalked to Ava. He scooped her up into his arms and started for the door.

“Five hours isn’t enough,” Stephen called after them.

“Make it enough,” Dimitri called back.

“And clean your apartment!” Ava said. “This is disgusting.”

The sight of John Paul’s estate coming into view nearly had Ava in tears. The familiar rush of freshly mowed grass, the sweet honeysuckles, the familiar way the sun pierced through the canopy of trees, it all poured over her with an intensity that had her biting her lip to keep from laughing hysterically or weeping.

Dimitri had barely pulled to a stop when the front doors burst open. Ava threw herself out of the car and was swept up into familiar arms even before she’d taken two steps.

“Ava.” John Paul held her tight enough to break ribs. “Ma fifille, je vous ai manqué.” He squeezed tighter. “I missed you so much.”

The tears she’d been fighting burst free in a hot rush. It climbed out of her in waves, each one making her chest heave between sobs. She clung to him with a desperation that refused to be ignored.

“I’m sorry,” she cried in between pants. “I’m so sorry.”

“Shh,” he whispered, stroking her hair the way he used to when she’d been a little girl. “There is nothing to be sorry for.”

But she couldn’t stop. The words kept punching out of her chest in jagged shards. She wasn’t even sure what she was sorry about, but it was all she could say as she held him and soaked in his warm, comforting scent.

“Come inside,” he murmured. “I want to see you.”

She almost couldn’t let him go. It was a wonder her arms obeyed and relaxed their death grip around his throat.

“I have ordered all your favorites,” he went on softly. “Do you want to shower first?”

Ava nodded. The bath at Hector’s had felt wonderful, but it hadn’t been her shower. It hadn’t been her lotions or shampoos, or her clothes.

John Paul smoothed back her hair and cupped her face with both hands. He peered into her eyes, searching, assessing, trying to determine the depth of her damage, of all the things she wouldn’t tell him.

“I will find them,” he promised quietly. “Do you understand? And I will end them in the slowest manner possible.” He pressed a kiss to her brow. “Go. Get yourself together. When you are ready, I will be downstairs with those salmon sandwiches you like.”

Despite the weight on her chest, Ava laughed. It was wet and shaky, but it felt good. “I do like the salmon sandwiches.”

He grinned. “Well, hurry or I’ll eat them myself.”

With a gentle stroke of her head, he sent her off up the steps to the front doors. She paused at the top and glanced back.

John Paul was staring at the rental and the somber man standing next to it. Neither spoke, but the wall of hate between them was a solid force so hot and angry, she cringed at its ferocity.

“We had an agreement,” John Paul said quietly. “Do not test to see what will happen if you go back on it.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Dimitri replied. “But we need to talk.”

“Not today,” John Paul cut in savagely. “My daughter has only just arrived home.”

“You were right about Elena. She was the one after Ava the whole time and the one who had her taken.”

Marble could have been carved on John Paul’s shoulders. The reverberating tension radiated along his rigid spine and coiled around his clenched fists.

“Come to my office.”

Ava turned quickly and ducked out of sight before she was seen.

She jogged up the steps and followed its familiarity down the corridor to her room, the room she’d had since she was nine. The room she’d spent countless nights curled up in Dimitri’s arms. The room she did her homework in, sang horribly to music her mother hated, cried, laughed, and grew in. It was her space. Even with her own apartment, this had always been hers.

Yet, it had never looked so foreign. She barely recognized any of its usual clutter and charm. Everything there felt like it belonged to some other person, a close friend maybe, someone she’d lost. A fist closed in her throat and she felt a second welling of tears burning her eyes. A part of her had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do now. Touching anything felt like a violation, which was ridiculous. But John Paul was waiting for her. If she took too long, he’d grow concerned and she needed to be strong for him. She needed him to see she was okay. She didn’t want him to ever look at her as though she were some kind of damaged figurine.

It was only then she realized her mother was absent. She hadn’t exactly expected a tearful and hysterical Charlotte, but she had partially assumed the woman would be there. She made a mental note to ask John Paul later.

For now, she edged to the dresser and tentatively gathered fresh, clean underwear and a white wraparound dress with fat purple flowers scattered across it. She ducked into the bathroom and had the longest shower of her life.

Dimitri was gone when she padded into the kitchen. John Paul was at the sink, absently drying a butcher knife with a paper napkin.

“You didn’t kill him, did you?”

John Paul looked up, brown eyes wide with surprise. “Pardon me?”

She stepped deeper into the kitchen and took a stool at the island. “Dimitri.” She motioned with her chin at the knife in his hands. “Should I be worried?”

It seemed to take him a minute longer than normal to figure out what she was saying. When he did, he rolled his eyes.

“No … but I was tempted.”

It was so much like something Dimitri had said earlier that she only shook her head.

“Are you hungry?” he prompted. “Everything is set up on the patio. I thought we could enjoy the afternoon while we—”

“Where’s Mom?” she interrupted.

His hesitance said it even before he averted his eyes. “She’s very relieved to have you home, Ava. We’ve all been extremely worried.”

“Where is she?”

John Paul exhaled. “France, but she’ll be home in a day or two. She’s—”

“Does she know I was taken? That the last two weeks of my life have been a living hell?”

“Ava…” He peered at her imploringly.

“What’s in France that she can’t leave for her own daughter?”

It was insane to get so worked up over something so inconsequential, especially considering she knew how Charlotte was, but she had never felt so utterly betrayed. Of all the horrible, two faced, deceitful things her mother had ever done, somehow this … her not being there when Ava returned was such an unforgivable act.

“Your mother—”

“Is a cold hearted, self-centered, egomaniac who would die happy in a room full of mirrors.”

“Ava!”

She ignored John Paul’s sharp reprimand. “I won’t forgive her for this. I will never forget how little she really cares about me. How little she’s always cared.” She pushed to her feet, her appetite gone, her throat tight. “She’s just like you.”

It came out of her without a shred of consent from her. It hung in the air, an almost physical blade dripping with her venom, made worse by the look of absolute horror and agony twisting on his face. It sliced through her worse than anything her mother could have ever done.

“I’m sorry … oh, God, Dad, I am so sorry!” She hurried around the counter to his side. “I didn’t mean that. I swear, I didn’t.”

He started to turn away from her, one hand lifted to his mouth. He rubbed, not meeting her gaze.

“I love you,” she rushed on. “I love you so much. You’re the only person I have ever … the only person I would willingly die for. I didn’t mean … it’s not—”

“It’s because of the way I treat Dimitri, isn’t it?” He had taken the words straight out of the secret place she kept them, deep, deep inside herself. He looked at her, eyes dark with the lingering remains of his pain. “It’s because I don’t love him and I should.”

She could only swallow.

“Maybe I am like your mother.”

“No!” She lunged for his arm even though he hadn’t moved. “You are nothing like her. I’m an idiot for even saying something so stupid. You’re the best father anyone could ever ask for.”

“To you.” His shoulders lifted with his deep inhale. “I’ve only been that way to you, because I have never loved anyone the way I love you, Ava. I have never wanted to protect someone so fiercely I could have been protecting my own life. You,” he took her face between his hands, “have been my entire world for sixteen years and I would do things, terrible, unspeakable things without question to keep you safe. You’re my daughter.” Tears spilled down her face and caught on his fingers. He smoothed them away gently. “You mean everything to me.”

“But Dimitri’s your—”

“Flesh and blood?” he finished with a wry grin. His palms slipped from her cheeks. “I will never accept him as mine. I can’t.”

“Why?” She followed him to the other side of the island and stood as he lowered himself onto a stool. “What has he done that was so wrong?”

John Paul shook his head. “It isn’t the time for this talk. You only just returned. We should—”

“Please,” she pleaded quietly. “Please, I have to know.”

“Even if the answer will make you see me as a monster?” he said with a lopsided grin that never carried to the crinkles he normally gets around his eyes.

“There is nothing you could have ever done or do that would make me see you differently,” she said, meaning it. “You will always be my dad and I will always love you.”

He took her hand and held it in the soft cradle of his. He examined the fingers, the knuckles, and finally the palm.

“I hope that remains true, because I…” He broke off with a shake of his head. “I haven’t told this to anyone.”

Chapter Nineteen

Erik looked up from the gleaming surface of his mahogany desk when Dimitri stalked into his office. The tiny brunette Erik kept like a guard dog outside his downtown office scurried after him, frantic and crimson faced.

“Mr. Tasarov, forgive me, I told him—”

“It’s all right, Meghan.” Erik set his gold pen down on the documents open before him and rose. “This is my nephew.”

That only served to make Meghan even more anxious. She fretted with her hands, waving them and twisting them together at her midsection.

“Oh! Oh, okay, I’m sorry. I’m new.”

Dimitri waved her apology aside. “It’s all right. I understand. You can’t allow just anyone to waltz in here. I am armed, after all and could be up to anything.”

Her green eyes nearly bulged from her head. Her small, pink mouth parted. She glanced from Erik to Dimitri, making weird choking sounds.

“He’s joking, Meghan,” Erik soothed her. “Please shut the door behind you.”

Visibly relieved to have escaped, Meghan scuttled from the room and shut the frosted doors behind her.

Erik half groaned, half sighed. “Must you torment my employees every time you visit?”

Dimitri smirked. “But I am armed.”

Erik shook his head slowly, but the longer he did it, the harder it was to maintain his grin until he laughed and circled the desk. Dimitri met him halfway and accepted the hard embrace, and the harder thump on his back.

“What brings you?” Erik pulled back to peer into his face. “Everything okay?”

Dimitri paused, still not wholly firm on his decision. He’d been mulling it over during the entire drive, but the closer he got to his destination, the more he began to question the idea.

Erik was the only person he semi trusted. The man had been more of a father than his own father and there was a loyalty in that. But at the end of the day, Erik was his mother’s brother. He was part of the Bratva. His loyalties may have extended to Dimitri, but it would always remain strong with the brotherhood.

“It was Elena,” he started. “She’s trying to kill Ava.”

He watched Erik’s face carefully, waiting for even a flicker to determine which side the man stood on.

“Ava?” Dark brows twisted in genuine confusion. “Who … John Paul’s girl?”

He motioned Dimitri to the small, leather and steel sitting area tucked against one wall. It faced a solid sheet of glass overlooking the entire west side of the city.

Dimitri never understood the appeal of monster skyscrapers towering over all the little people below. He never considered himself above those struggling to make a living of the lives they were given by chance. But he understood the necessity to show power. It was the only way keep that power.

“She hired men who chased us all the way to Puerto Rico,” Dimitri said, lowering himself gingerly onto one of the cool seats.

Erik took the seat adjacent. “Puerto Rico?”

It was a delicate processes weaving both truth and fiction together in a knot that sounded possible. He didn’t tell Erik about their years together, or that they’d ever met before this, except in passing. In this version, Ava was a virtual stranger who happened to have something Dimitri wanted—John Paul’s vote.

“You kidnapped her?” Erik’s exclamation of disbelief erased any lingering shadows of doubt Dimitri might have had about the man’s involvement. “Are you insane? You should have talked to me. We could have found another way.”

It was the moment of truth.

“I wanted to hurt him.” He stared at the wide space between his feet, through the triangle of his arms where his hands were clasped and braced on his knees. “I wanted him to see how it felt to lose something he loved.”

Even to his own ears, the confession came from his throat, but in a voice that hadn’t been his since he was six and sitting in bed with Erik, trying to figure out why his father didn’t want him.

“It’s not you,” Erik would say while pulling the blankets around him. “You’ll see that one day.”

“It was dangerous and reckless!” Erik snapped now. “He could have killed you.”

Dimitri nodded. “I know.”

Erik sighed heavily. “This is a disaster.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “If we don’t fix this quickly, we will have a mutiny on our hands. The city will be in flames by nightfall, and the other territories will swoop in and steal the rest.”

“No.” He waited until he had the other man’s full attention. “That’s not going to happen. You’re not going to let that happen.”

Erik frowned. “Me? What can I do?”

Dimitri rose and offered the other man his hand. “Trust me?”

In all his life, Dimitri had never seen more apprehension on anyone’s face than the one permanently warping his uncle’s. He sat stiff and unyielding in the passenger’s seat of Dimitri’s rental and stared at their passing surroundings with the aversions of a dog on his way to get neutered and being fully aware of it.

The idea was entertaining, if Erik didn’t carry at least four guns at any given time.

He rolled to a gentle stop right outside the glass doors of Arrow Holding Corporation and killed the engine. The keys jingled as he pocketed them and faced the man.

“All right?”

Erik’s brows deepened in their scowl, if that were possible. “This is a bad idea.”

“Or a very good idea,” Dimitri countered. “Come on.”

He rolled out before the man could try and talk him out of it. He closed the door and circled the hood to the curb. He waited.

“This is a no parking zone,” Erik muttered, eyeing the sign inches from the car’s trunk.

Dimitri shrugged. “It’ll save me from having to return it.”

Erik shook his head sadly, but said nothing.

Dimitri led him up the onyx steps to the doors and into the foyer. Gleaming rods of steel and sheets of dark glass created an atmosphere that was both cold and impersonal while being atrociously wealthy. He still had absolutely no idea what it was the company did exactly, but men and women in thousand dollar suits loaded and unloaded from the elevator with stock expressions and brisk steps.

A stone faced blonde sat perfectly rigid behind a glass desk. She looked up when they entered. Her cool gaze rolled over Erik’s crisp, neatly tailored suit with a flicker of approval. Then she peered at Dimitri’s cargo pants, duster and faded t-shirt, and the disapproval could have been eaten with a spoon.

“Can I help you?” she chirped.

“¡Amigos!” Marcus stalked into the foyer, phone in one hand, the other waving for their attention. “Traffic…” He shook his head, exasperated. “Would have been here sooner.” He spotted Erik and a spark of interest had him tilting his head. “Erik, long time no see.”

Erik grinned, accepting the hand Marcus extended. “Been keeping busy?”

“Always.” Marcus chuckled.

The two shook once and then both turned to Dimitri.

“So, uh…” Marcus rubbed his hands together. “You said it was urgent?”

Dimitri rehashed his idea to the man. Erik said nothing, but Dimitri could sense his growing unease the longer they stood in that lobby.

“Yeah,” Marcus said when Dimitri finished. “You have my support.”

Dimitri patted him on the shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Let’s do it quickly though, eh?” Marcus grinned. “I have a date tonight.”

No one could argue that. They made their way to the elevator and rode it all the way to the top floor. It opened directly into the meeting room with its single, round table and marble walls. Theresa was already there, standing by the window in a form fitting dress in deep plum. Her pale hair gleamed in the light, a silvery sheet down her back. She turned when they arrived, one hand raised to her ear.

“Yes, I want all required documents to me in an hour,” she said, gaze moving swiftly from Dimitri, to Marcus, and settling on Erik. “Don’t fuck with me, Penny. I don’t sharpen my nails just to make them look pretty.” She hung up and fixed her full focus on the trio exiting the lift. “Gentlemen, how incredible presumptuous of you to think a lady can be summoned on a whim. This had better be important.” She stalked to the table and tossed her phone into her clutch. “Why are you present at a chair meeting, Erik?”

“We will discuss that once John Paul arrives,” Dimitri stated evenly, motioning Erik to Elena’s chair.

Theresa didn’t miss the gesture. “Will Elena not be joining us?”

Dimitri was saved from having to answer when the elevator doors rolled open and John Paul stormed out with a head full of boiling fury.

“What is this meaning of this?” he snarled, eyes borrowing into Dimitri. “How dare you summon a chair meeting today of all days.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Theresa drawled, lowering herself into her chair.

“You will want to hear this.” Dimitri told them both. He waited until everyone had claimed their seats and he had the full focus of the room. “I’m electing Erik into the western seat.”

Theresa chuckled. “What? You have zero power here. You’re not even officially elected yourself.”

“You’re wrong.” Dimitri cut her with a single glance. “This is my chair. I am the leader of the north and main head of this committee.”

“Excuse—”

“Shut up.” He didn’t raise his voice but the words snapped through the room. “Your little power trip is over. I won. Majority rules. You were outnumbered and out voted. You and your father no longer have any power here. Now, shut your mouth.”

Theresa blinked, startled into silence. But he knew that wouldn’t last.

He quickly went on. “I’m electing Erik in Elena’s place at the table. No one knows the west better than he does and he is a direct descendent to the western hierarchy.”

“Ivan is,” John Paul interjected. “That chair rightfully belongs to him.”

“Elena and Ivan are fugitives against the west,” Erik stated. “Their crimes against the Syndicate and their own territory disqualify them from power.”

“Hold on a minute,” Theresa spoke up, having come out of her shock. “Are we here to vote Elena out of the Syndicate? What has she done?”

“She attempted to kill, and then kidnapped my daughter.” John Paul said, eyes fixed, cool and calculating on Dimitri. “This is a dangerous game you’re playing.”

“With Elena and Ivan disqualified, that chair would have been given to me,” Dimitri said, ignoring the statement. “I’m forfeiting that right. That leaves it to Erik.”

“You can’t do that,” Theresa blurted. “You no longer belong to that territory. You said so yourself.”

Dimitri nodded. “Which is why I requested this meeting.”

“He has my vote,” Marcus piped in. “The east and the west never saw eye to eye. Maybe this will change things.”

Erik inclined his head, but said nothing.

“I want Elena.” John Paul flicked his steely gaze to Erik. “That is my condition. Bring her to me and you have my vote.”

Erik hesitated. A muscle tightened in his jaw that Dimitri understood; no matter what Elena was and what she’d done, she was still his sister. He partially wondered where his sentiments were. She was his mother. That should have meant something, but there wasn’t even a flicker of apprehension in him. No doubt. No remorse. They could have been talking about demolishing a building for all the love and warmth he felt regarding the matter.

“I accept,” Erik said at last, with more conviction than Dimitri could see on his face.

Theresa sighed. “You have my vote. Getting rid of Elena is all I’ve wanted since taking the chair. What?” she snapped when the others stared at her. “She’s a psychopath. I can stomach blood with the best of them, but she made even my stomach churn.”

“That leaves me.” Dimitri took up the conversation. “Erik already has my vote.”

“It’s unanimous,” Marcus said.

“That’s interesting.” Theresa smirked. “I don’t think that’s ever happened. We must really want to see Elena crucified.” She looked from one to the other. “Does anyone know where she is?”

“No.” Erik rose smoothly. “But the west will be putting word out that she is no longer in power.”

“And we will certainly do the same,” Theresa purred, already on her phone, fingers flying over the keys. “Let’s see if we can’t dig her out of whatever little hole she’s hiding in and…” She sent off her text, set her phone down, and beamed. “Have ourselves a proper lynching.” Chuckling at her own joke, she bounced out of her seat, more alive and happy than Dimitri had ever seen her. “I think I might give Penny the day off.”

With that, she gathered her things and stalked to the elevator. One perfectly manicured finger jabbed at the button. While she waited, she turned back to the group of men studying her.

“I nearly forgot. Any luck on capturing The Devil?”

It was amusing to watch four fully grown men shift in their seats and avert their eyes.

“He didn’t take the bait,” Marcus muttered. “We’re going to try again.”

After his run in with Chan Lee, Dimitri had promised himself he’d be more careful about where he went. He couldn’t afford to get captured by the Syndicate. Even Marcus wouldn’t hesitate to have his head if ever knew just how much Dimitri had stolen from him.

“Try harder,” Theresa drawled lazily as the elevator doors rolled open. “He’s becoming a pest that is no longer adorable. Take him out.”

She dug out her phone and stepped into the metal box.

They waited until she was gone before facing each other.

“I’d like to take her out,” Marcus muttered when the doors had sealed shut. “What?” He laughed when the others eyed him. “I mean to dinner. She’s a colossal bitch, but she’s hot. I like hot, feisty women with legs like hers.”

No one wanted to touch that.

“What about Elena?” Erik reverted the conversation back to the matter at hand.

“We should get the word out,” John Paul said. “The more eyes looking for her, the less places she’ll have to hide.”

“I’ll inform my men.” Marcus got to his feet, phone in hand. “The east won’t give her passage.”

Dimitri followed the man when he moved across the room to make his call. Marcus looked up when Dimitri stopped in front of him.

“I’m sorry about your cousin,” he said quietly. “He was a good man.”

Confusion wrinkled Marcus’s nose. “Hector? Why? What happened?”

Dimitri braced himself. “He died saving my and Ava’s life the night before when men Elena sent to his house shot him.”

“What?” Marcus laughed. “Hector’s fine. He texted me this morning to see if you arrived.”

It was Dimitri’s turn to blink. “What?”

“Yeah, see?” Marcus showed him the text time stamped for some time earlier that morning.

“He was shot,” Dimitri argued.

Marcus shrugged, lower his arm. “Hector gets shot a lot. Never dies though. Mi mama says he made a deal with the devil.”

Dimitri almost choked on his laugh, but didn’t comment.

Grinning, Marcus clapped him on the arm once before hurrying away to make his call.

“You okay?” Erik came up behind Dimitri, hands lost in his pockets. “She’s my sister, but she’s your mom.”

Dimitri had thought of that when he’d had the idea to bring Erik into the Syndicate. But Elena had sealed her own fate. She had gone after John Paul, breaking one of the oldest accordance’s in the book. It was one thing for their territories to fight between each other, but they were the leaders. They and their family was out of bound to the other leaders and the other territories. Going against that treaty was punishable by death.

But she’d gone after Ava. Even if John Paul could forgive that, Dimitri couldn’t.

“She brought it on herself,” he told the man.

Erik nodded. “Yes, but … she is still your mother.”

Maybe by birth, but Elena had never felt like a mother. She was more like an employer, one that had the power to end your life if angered. She had said herself that she wasn’t capable of motherly affection. Having children was just her way of passing along the throne one day, of wielding power and two loyal warriors. It would have made no difference to her if one of them had died so long as she had another one to replace him. He knew that the only reason she’d agreed to back him for the north was the power she would gain by having a son in a seat of such high regards. There had been no pride in her. It was all about what Dimitri could do for her.

“Are you okay?” He decided to ignore Erik’s question when he couldn’t give a proper answer.

Erik shrugged. “My sister has always been complicated. Our father … your grandfather, wasn’t an easy man to be around.”

Dimitri had never met his grandparents. People in their line of work didn’t live very long to enjoy a family. But Elena told them often of her father, of the bear of a man with hands large enough to wrap around their heads and squeeze until blood was pouring from their nostrils and feet bigger than canoes that could kick them clear across a field. Dimitri may never have met the man, but he was fairly certain he would have killed him.

“Don’t lie to John Paul,” Dimitri said quietly. “You made a promise.”

Anger tightened the skin around Erik’s eyes. “I know how a promise works, Dimitri. I will not go back on my word.”

Dimitri was about to nod when he caught sight John Paul heading for the elevators. He said he’d call Erik later and hurried after him just as the doors slid open and the other man stepped into the metal box.

The doors closed behind them, sealing them in, and Dimitri wondered the wisdom of what he was about to do.

“I recant my word,” he said, never taking his eyes off the thin seam running lengthwise down the gleaming, steel sheets separating him from all chances of escape. “I love her and I will fight for her, even if I’m fighting you.”

The lights above the door blinked steadily, almost lazily ticking off floors in a slowness that made every second of silence unbearably painful. The man beside him never moved. He never looked away from the lights. Dimitri was nearly certain he hadn’t heard him, when…

“You don’t deserve her.”

“No,” Dimitri admitted softly. “And I never will, but I am willing to die for her. I would kill for her. I would set this entire city up in flames to keep her safe. You will never find anyone who will ever cherish her more than I will.”

“You can’t have her.”

He’d expected that. It was strange that it no longer meant anything to him.

“You can’t stop me.”

There was a sound, a chuckle maybe, but when he dared a peek, the man’s face was a frigid line.

“I could.”

“You won’t,” Dimitri countered smoothly. “She would hate you.”

The door opened. Neither of them moved.

“I lost her once,” Dimitri murmured quietly. “I won’t lose her again. If you’re going to kill me, you better do it and make sure I’m dead, because if you stop me again, I will end you.”

He walked out and never looked back.

The rental was still there when he emerged, with a bright, yellow tag tucked beneath the wiper telling him he owed the city bi-law three hundred dollars for parking in a no parking zone.

The ticket was tossed somewhere into the car. The rental company would take care of it and put the bill on his credit card. In the scheme of things, the ticket meant nothing to him.

He drove to John Paul’s estate with the dedication of someone outrunning the end of the world. His mind was playing and replaying all the things he would say to her when he parked at the base of the stairs and climbed out. He pocketed the keys and jogged up the steps.

He knocked, which surprised even him. The whole way there, he’d had an image of himself just storming into the building, grabbing her, pulling her into his arms, and kissing her until she forgave him. Yet, the moment he was standing before those great doors, he realized he didn’t deserve her forgiveness that easily, not for the way he’d behaved, not for the things he’d said to her, the things he’d done. It had been his fault she had been kidnapped. It had been his fault her best friend had nearly been killed. If she forgave him because of a kiss, she wouldn’t be the girl he loved.

The door opened and Ava’s freshly scrubbed face peered back at him through the crack. Her hair was pulled back into a messy knot and she wore yoga pants and a white t-shirt that clearly showed the black bra underneath. She blinked at the sight of him, but her surprise quickly vanished into a wide smile.

“Hey!” She opened the door wider. “I wasn’t sure when I was going to see you again. Want to come in?”

He shook his head. He didn’t want to risk pissing John Paul off even more than he already was at Dimitri.

“What are you doing tonight?”

A fine crease appeared between her delicate eyebrows. “I was just getting ready to go over to Robby’s and get a late lunch. Why?”

He searched the perfect lines of her features, the sweet curves of her mouth, the adorable way the tip of her nose tipped up just slightly, and wondered how the hell he’d survived without her the last eight years. His sanity deserved some kind of medal for its resistance.

“Would you like to have dinner with me?”

Time became an endless loop of dread and anticipation while he waited for her answer. Her silence was the most excruciating thing he’d ever experienced.

“Yes,” she whispered at last. “I’d like that.”

It felt too easy, even as he inclined his head and blurted something about picking her up at eight, a part of him kept waiting for her to come to her senses and tell him to take a flying leap. He would have certainly deserved it. He had absolutely no right at all to come waltzing into her life after the way he’d treated her the first time. But he was a selfish bastard and he wanted her. Hell, he needed her. He may not ever deserve her, but he’d work his ass off to come close.

“Dimitri?”

With one hand on the handle of the car door, he glanced back to where she stood, small and perfect in the open doorway.

“Don’t be late.” She shot him a lopsided grin before shutting the door.

No. He would most definitely not be late.

Chapter Twenty

“Sign here.” The small, French manicured finger slid down the length of the page to yet another line. “And here.” The page was flipped over before Dimitri even had a chance to lift the pen. “A few more,” the tiny blonde promised. “Here. Here. And … here.”

Penny, Theresa’s assistant was the polar opposite of her boss. Where Theresa was a powerhouse of sophistication, charm, and confidence, Penny was timid, skittish, and looked like she was so stressed out, she’d forgotten to eat … for a week. There were dark circles under her gray eyes and a perpetual tremor in her chin like she was just holding on. And every so often, he’d hear the faint whine of her stomach.

“Here,” her voice cracked slightly. “I’m sorry.”

Dimitri shook his head. “Don’t be.”

She flipped the ninth page of what could have passed for an encyclopedia. Her fingers were beginning to tremble, making the pages rustle. Dimitri wondered if it was from fear of his impatience or hunger.

“Here.”

“How long have you been with Theresa, Penny?” he disturbed the crackle of papers to ask.

“Two years, sir. Here.”

“Impressive.” He ticked the box she indicated. “You must be very good at what you do.”

“Yes sir.” She flipped to the next page.

“What exactly do you do?”

She paused in her signature directing and straightened a notch. “Whatever Ms. Maynard requires.”

“Do you like it?”

“I’m sorry?”

He looked up at her. “Do you like your job?”

Her hesitation spoke before she did. “Of course. Ms. Maynard is a … wonderful employer.”

Her lie was so thick, he almost choked on it. But he let it slide and focused on the next set of documents and the low whimper growing increasingly louder the longer she leaned over him.

“Are you hungry, Penny?”

She visibly started. “Sir?”

He scribbled his signature where she indicated and turned the page himself. “Are you hungry?”

“Uh…”

“I haven’t had lunch yet,” he went on, indicating to the untouched plate of burger and fries growing cold at his elbow. “And since you’re here, asking me to sign away my soul and first born, you should at least join me.”

He could have sworn there was a glimmer of unshed tears in her eyes before she blinked them away and squared her thin shoulders.

“That’s kind, but Ms. Maynard is expecting me straight back.”

Dimitri flicked a glance up at her face. “There’s at least another hour of signatures here. Sit.”

Her butt hit the chair like an obedient retriever. He pretended not to notice. He returned his attention to the pages.

“Eat.”

He was careful not to look at her again while he skimmed through the documents Theresa had deemed imperative he address immediately.

“Official Syndicate business,” she’d called it in her text.

He still wasn’t sure how she’d managed to track him down across town at the hole in the wall burger joint, but that was where Penny had found him.

The papers were his acceptance into the organization. It officiated his position, his duties, and obligations. There was even a map outlining the exact perimeters of his territory.

His territory.

Christ.

His hand gave a tremor that disfigured his otherwise confident and aggressive loops.

He had a territory.

It hadn’t really been a reality until that moment as he signed his life away, in one case, quite literally. He was officially the head of the city. His title stated the north, but it was all his. He held sixty percent of a hundred percent share. He just became the wealthiest man in the entire province.

“Jesus.”

“I’m sorry?” Penny’s head jerked up so quickly, he heard the snap of her neck.

Her big eyes seemed even bigger over the bulges of her stuffed cheeks. One bit of fry sat on her lip, half chewed, half being shoved the rest of the way, but now frozen as she blinked at him around horrified guilt.

“No, not you,” Dimitri said quickly when she started to lower her hand, half eaten fry still pinched between her fingers. He shoved his untouched drink closer to her. “Keep eating. I want that plate empty.”

He went back to staring at his new life, a life of unimaginable power, wealth, and, Christ, power! So much fucking power. He could feel it rushing through his veins in a burning wave.

He couldn’t breathe. A tsunami of emotions rolled over him, sucking him through the carnage until he was crushed by it. The heady sensation was both exhilarating and terrifying. He didn’t know whether to cry or laugh.

He was untouchable.

No. No one was untouchable. Not even him. But in that moment, he may as well have been.

“Sir?” Penny hastily set the empty cup down, wiped her hands and fingers on a napkin, and rose. “Please, sir, I really need to get back.”

With a sigh, he placed his signature on the last line on the last page and closed the file.

“I think that’s the last of it.” He stacked it all neatly together and passed them to her, noting how much steadier her grip seemed to be. “Anything else?”

She shook her head. “No, thank you, and I’m very sorry.”

“For?”

Her cheeks turned a violent red that almost had him concerned. “For interrupting your lunch … for eating your lunch. God, I’m so sorry!” She reached for her purse. “I’ll get you a fresh plate.”

He stopped her when she turned on her heels and started searching for a waiter. “Penny…”

Her face had gone a deathly white. “No, no, I … I’ll fix this.”

He rose when her voice hitched and took her firmly by the shoulders. He held on until her tear filled eyes stopped darting frantically around.

“Slow breaths,” he instructed softly. “You’re fine.”

He watched her carefully, waiting for her rapid, shallow breaths to even out, fully prepared to force her head between her knees if necessary.

“I’m okay,” she croaked. “I’m so sorry. Please don’t tell Ms. Maynard.”

He relinquished his grip on her. “Do you have everything?”

With a sniffle, she nodded.

“Good, now, calm down, collect yourself and get back.”

She nodded again, more vigorously. “Thank you, sir.”

“I don’t want it,” he said when she pulled out several folded bills. “Just get there safely, okay?”

File clutched to her chest, she hurried off the restaurant’s patio and ducked into a rusty pile of crap that was more duct tape than metal. The yellow bug must have been something she got from a dump for a penny. It wasn’t worth more than that. If anything, it was a death trap just waiting to explode if she braked wrong.

It shrieked as she pulled away from the curb. He heard it all the way down the block and around the corner.

He put down what he owed for the meal, plus a little something extra, and left the restaurant. He caught a cab to the financial district, a fifty block radius dedicated entirely to people helping other people spend their money while skimming a little extra off the top. Time Group Financial, the home of Evan Maynard sat in the very heart of it, a sophisticated spear of glass and steel twisted into to a tower of power. It rose above the city line from a hilt of concrete. Dimitri had never had a reason to visit the place, but he had one now.

He dug out his phone and called Theresa.

She answered on the fifth ring. “God invented texting for a reason, Tasarov,” was her greeting.

Dimitri prolonged his response by wandering over to a street vendor and motioning for the number two hotdog combo.

“And I suppose competence is for the gifted,” he replied as his hotdog was prepared. “Next time you want something done properly, send someone who actually knows what they’re doing and not some scared little mouse that jumps at her own shadows. The girl’d been useless. I’m actually insulted that you would interrupt my lunch with her.”

He accepted his fully loaded hotdog, drink, and bag of ranch chips, and made his way to a nearby bench.

“Penny has been a very successful project of mine for nearly two years. I hand trained her myself. I don’t believe—”

“Then maybe feed her once in a while before she blows away with the wind. I’m a bit embarrassed for you.”

Something cracked in the background. “Excuse me?”

“I’m just saying.” He took a bite of his hotdog. “She’s supposed to be representing you, and from what I gathered, she makes you look weak and pathetic. Just being helpful.”

He hung up. Then he waited.

He could have counted the exact moment from the time he cut communication to the second Penny stormed from the building on one hand. She held a box of her things against her chest and looked about two seconds from bursting into tears. He almost felt bad for her.

Dimitri rose. He tossed his wrappers into a trash bin and went to her.

“Penny.”

Her head snapped up. Bits of pale blonde blew across her flushed, wet cheeks. Her gray eyes blinked, then widened.

“You!” Her items were slammed down on a marble ledge making up the flowerbeds lining the stairway to the front doors. “You got me fired!”

Dimitri nodded. “I did.”

Tears skated down her cheeks, but her expression was livid. “Why would you do that?”

He held out a napkin that she ignored. He sighed and stuffed it into her hand anyway. She pitched it aside angrily. The wind caught it and it drifted out of sight.

“All right,” he mumbled. “I understand you’re upset—”

“I am … pissed!” she spat, almost screamed. “This job was my life! I worked my ass off to keep that woman happy. I sacrificed everything…”

“Breathe, Penny,” he murmured softly when she began to wheeze.

“Fuck you!” she shrieked at him. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

He had to remind himself she had every right to be angry when his own temper prickled.

“I got you away from a man-eating beast,” he snarled back. “Tell me you actually liked the way you were being treated.”

She said nothing for a long time, but the anger didn’t dim from her eyes. They continued to shine like she wanted nothing more than to kick him in the crotch.

“I needed that job,” she ground out through clenched teeth. “I needed that job!” she said louder. “You had no right to decide anything for me. And to think I actually thought you were one of the decent ones. Why would you do this?”

“Because you would never have left and she would never have let you go otherwise.”

Penny blinked. “What?”

“I want you to work for me.”

Her jaw swung open so wide, he could see all the way down to her tonsils. “What?”

“I need an assistant, a good one. I don’t like searching for things and you seem qualified.”

“I seem qualified?” She stared at him like he was a moron. “You had me fired because I seem qualified?”

Dimitri exhaled, patience waning. “Do you want the job or not?”

She gasped, disgust curling her lips. “Yes, I want the bloody job! I clearly need one now, thanks to you.”

“Good. You can start now.”

He started turning on his heels.

“Hold on a minute,” she called after him. “You haven’t told me what I’m getting paid.”

He paused and glanced back. “What were you getting paid before?”

She hesitated. “Twenty-five an hour?”

“Okay, double that.”

Penny blinked, quickly caught herself. “I mean, thirty, plus full benefits.”

“Done.”

She bit down her lip, poorly concealing the grin glowing in her eyes.

“You can add an hour lunch to that,” he continued.

“And weekends off?” she pressed, carefully, slowly, a little fearfully.

Dimitri nodded. “Fine.”

She gave a little gasp, something between an exhale and a squeak. But she must have remembered she was supposed to be a professional, because she straightened quickly and rearranged her features to appear stoic.

“Deal, but I want all that in writing.”

“Write it up and I’ll sign it.”

She snatched up her box. “Lead the way, sir.”

They left her car. He refused to get into it and she didn’t seem eager to have him in it. Instead, they grabbed a cab that he hadn’t realized he had nowhere to take until they were crammed into the backseat.

“Sir?” Penny prompted when Dimitri sat squinting at the back of the driver’s seat, trying to determine what was supposed to happen next. “Was there somewhere you wanted to go?”

He didn’t. All of this was new to him. He hadn’t really thought any of it out. Penny hadn’t been part of his plan that day. He’d gone to have lunch and think over what he wanted to do with Ava later when he picked her up. Penny had been a surprise.

“Sir…?” The driver abruptly broke off when Dimitri’s gaze snapped up, narrowed with warning.

“Okay, um…” Penny bit her lip, thought for a moment. “Do you have an office?”

Dimitri shook his head.

“That’s okay!” She cleared her throat and turned to the sheet of glass separating them from the uncomfortable man on the other side. “Corner of Teal and Warden, please.”

“What’s there?” Dimitri asked.

Penny sat back, adjusting her box more comfortable on her lap. “Nothing, but at least we’re not just sitting here, and by the time we get there, maybe we’ll have a plan. So, what are your plans?” she asked as the car turned into the flow of afternoon traffic.

Judging by its thickness, he guessed a two-hour drive to where they were going. That suited him fine. He liked driving. It cleared his head.

“I really don’t have one,” he admitted, admiring the driver’s tenacity when he cut three cars off and still flipped them off when they leaned on their horns.

“Okay…”

Items were shoved carelessly around in the box as she dug through them. He watched as she mumbled absently to herself while pulling out a fake, potted plant, a stapler, several hair elastics, a makeup case, and a framed photo.

That caught his eye. He tilted his head slightly to study the boy grinning back at the camera, holding a trophy three times his size.

“Brother?”

“Hmm?” Penny lifted her head, swiped back several locks of pale hair and followed his gaze. “Oh no, that’s my son, Daniel.”

Dimitri blinked. “He’s, what? Eight?”

“Nine.” She peered at the photo, lips curved in a soft smile.

He really looked at the woman seated next to him, attempting to judge her age. It really made no difference, but he’d been under the assumption she was in her early twenties.

“You don’t look old enough to have a nine-year-old,” he told her honestly.

Penny laughed and tucked the frame back into the box. “I was sixteen when I had him. He’s my whole world.”

“What’s the trophy for?”

Her grin blossomed into an arrogant smirk only a mother could pull off. “He’s also a genius.” She pulled the photo out again and showed him. “First place at the National Artificial Intelligence Competition—NAIC. That’s where kids from all across the country…” she said country like it was something that needed extra attention, “compete to see who can build the best, high tech robot of the future.  Daniel won … three years in the row, even though he’s the youngest competitor to date,” she finished with a haughty tone that had his lips twitching. “This was last year.” She smoothed her fingers along the dark, wood frame. “He’s going to compete again in the fall.”

“That’s amazing.”

“I think so.” Beaming, she stowed the photo away and went back to rummaging. She came back out with a pen and crumpled notepad. She flipped to a fresh page and turned to him. “So, what do you do?”

Dimitri had to consider that carefully before answering. He couldn’t very well tell her, rob people, for a living. Although, she worked for Theresa so she probably wouldn’t be overly surprised.

“I know about … the other stuff,” she said quietly when he took too long to answer, just under her breath. “It doesn’t bother me.”

Dimitri bit the inside of his cheek to contain his grin. “What other stuff?”

“Other … stuff,” she stressed slowly. “Syndicate business.”

Of course she did. Theresa wouldn’t have sent her with papers for Dimitri to sign regrading Syndicate business if she hadn’t trusted Penny with the information.

“I currently have no business,” he told her evenly. “Other or otherwise.”

A fine crease appeared between her brows while she mulled that over carefully. The top of her pen tapped rhythmically on the coils of her notepad. She said nothing when the driver swerved in and out through heavy traffic like an Indy five hundred racer. He had to give her props for that. Most would have soiled themselves at the pace.

“Then, let’s start small,” she decided. “Office space. Once you have a general idea of what you want to do, I’ll look up proper locations and building structures.” She scribbled on her page while she spoke. “We’ll need a name and logo, and business cards. Employees, obviously, which means interviews.”

Dimitri stopped listening. Business had never been his strong suit. He didn’t care for the confinement of a suit and desk. All the other heads had corporations they hid behind, legit businesses that kept suspicious eyes from prying. John Paul invested hugely in pharmaceuticals. Elena had several herbal shops throughout the city catering to the wellness of body and mind—which Dimitri always found highly ironic. Theresa’s family held a large portion of the city’s financial holdings and Marcus’s family wielded a firm grip on games. They operated everything from horses, to the casinos and fighting rings. But Dimitri had no business plans. He didn’t think there was anything for what he did. Vigilantes couldn’t exactly open their own shop and hand out business cards.

“You need a car and driver,” Penny interrupted his thoughts, head still bent over her list. “You’re an important man. You can’t be taking cabs all over the city.”

Her efficient prioritization of his life made it clear that he’d made the right choice stealing her from Theresa. He’d known she would be; Theresa had zero tolerance for slacking and even less patience with people who displeased her. The fact that Penny had kept her position for the better part of two years had said a lot about her competence.

He pondered for a moment if he felt bad. Not about getting Penny fired, but for lying to Theresa. They were essentially partners now. Their territories were allies. He should at least feel semi-guilty.

He realized he really didn’t. Freeing Penny from that woman was worth the fight it would start when Theresa found out. Sure, he could have found someone else. There were agencies for that kind of thing, women far more qualified. But for Theresa’s bullshit during the elections, it only seemed fitting he take something equally significant, but not too significant. He didn’t want to start a war, just piss her off a little.

“Where do you live?”

His question interrupted Penny’s lengthy ramble about color scheming and playing to his strengths. He partially wondered if she thought he was an idiot, but pushed it aside.

“Do you mean actual address or territory?”

“Territory.”

“The south, but that won’t interfere with my job.”

“You need to move.” He slanted her a sidelong glance from the corner of his eye. “I can’t protect you if you’re in someone else’s territory. You work for me. You’re a member of the north now.”

She considered that a moment, pen making that irritating tapping sound she seemed very fond of. Finally, she moistened her lips and cleared her throat.

“Yes, I understand that, but I have to respectfully decline.” She shifted a little higher in her seat. “Daniel’s school is there and his friends. My mom lives in our apartment building so there’s someone I can call if I need him watched. I know all my neighbors and the people of my community and…” She wet her lips again, nervously. “Daniel has autism. His clinic and doctor are there. I can’t just leave.”

He wanted to push, but stopped himself. He gave a reluctant nod.

“We’ll find another way,” he decided.

Her shoulders drooped visibly and she offered him a small smile in thanks.

The matter was dropped. She went back to her notes and he watched the insane way their driver kept taking short cuts. At one point, he turned into a one-way, going the wrong way, just to twist the wheel and bounce them into the flow of traffic on the other side. The transition had been so fluid, Dimitri hadn’t even felt the jostle.

Saeed Parvez, read the photo ID above the rearview. Dimitri judged him to be in his early twenties, clean cut, and an incredible driver. They hadn’t shared more than a single word between them, but he’d understood English.

“Where are you from, Saeed?”

Brown eyes lifted to meet his in the mirror. They were parked at a red light or Dimitri may have wet himself.

“Here, born and raised. Eight generations.”

No accent. Perfect English.

“Do you always drive like you’ve robbed a bank?”

A mischievous smirk twisted up one side of his face. “Maybe I have.”

Dimitri immediately liked the kid.

“Get a lot of speeding tickets?”

Saeed shook his head. “Never had one a day in my life.” He knocked on the dashboard. “Knock on wood.”

“That’s plastic,” Penny cut in before Dimitri could. “Fiberglass most likely. Here. Use this.”

While she was busy wedging the corner of Daniel’s frame through the money slot for Saeed to knock on, Dimitri’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the screen. Surprised to see Robby’s name, he put it to his ear.

“Yeah?”

“Dimitri? It’s Robby. Ava’s in the hospital.”

He didn’t listen to the rest.

He cracked the glass with a knuckle sharply, startling Saeed and Penny. He barked the orders and directions to the hospital.

“Get us there in ten minutes and I’ll give you five hundred bucks on top of what’s on the meter right now.”

Saeed popped his neck, rolled his shoulders, and narrowed his eyes on the road. “Hang on. I’ll get you there in five.”

They got there in four. It was absolutely beyond him how the boy did it, but the cab squealed to a stop right in front of the hospital doors with a ferocity that soaked the air with the stink of burnt tires. The windows rattled with the jerking stop and everyone pitched forward.

“Jesus Christ!” Penny shrieked, glowering at Saeed through the glass. “Does your mother know you drive like that?”

Saeed smirked. “Who do you think taught me?”

Penny’s nostrils flared, but she said nothing as she kicked her door open and threw herself out.

Dimitri wedged everything he had in his wallet through the money slot. It was more than five hundred, but the boy had kept his promise.

“Stay here,” he told him.

“Sure thing, boss,” was his reply.

Dimitri climbed out, slammed the door closed behind him and turned to Penny, who was slightly green under the pallor of her complexion.

“Hire him.”

Leaving her to sort it all out, he stalked through the doors, strides long and commanding. The painfully familiar stench greeted him like an old friend. It draped around his shoulder, a heavy weight as he maneuvered the corridors. His duster flapped around his legs, snapping like raven wings. He could feel the air climbing beneath him and the fabric, lifting it off his back.

“Ava Emerson,” he snapped at the woman behind the counter.

“Dimitri!” Robby waved at him from the other side of the desk before the woman could open her mouth.

Dimitri abandoned the spot and hurried to the other man and the beast of a man looming just over his shoulder. He ignored the latter.

“Where is she? What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Robby blurted, white all the way to his lips. “We were having lunch and the next second we were being shot at—”

“Where is she?”

Robby jabbed a thumb in the direction of the door just over his shoulder.

Dimitri stomped forward, heart a wild tangle of dread and determination. He paused in the doorway, mostly to prepare himself before closing the steps to the bed he could see peeking around the corner.

Ava was on the bed, fully dressed, and awake. John Paul stood next to her, arms crossed and a very agitated twist around his mouth. But Dimitri focused on Ava, taking her in from head to toe over and over again, trying to pinpoint the location of her injuries and finding nothing.

“What happened?”

Her head shot up from the clipboard she held. Her green eyes brightened at the sight of him a split second before she grinned.

“Hey!”

Ignoring that, he moved to her other side, mostly to get a better view of her. “Where are you hurt?”

Her smile melted into one of annoyance that could have rivaled John Paul’s. “I’m not!” She shot the other man a severe sidelong glower. “There is nothing wrong with me.”

It made no sense.

“Then … what the hell are you doing here?”

“She needs to be checked,” John Paul retorted hotly. “Even despite this, you’ve had a traumatic two weeks. You need doctors to see you.”

“I’m fine!”

“Are you a doctor?” John Paul argued. “You can’t possibly know what type of things you could have contracted over there or how this stress will toll on your body. Just sit there and let the doctors have a look.”

Dimitri was trying to keep up with the flow of argument, but he still couldn’t understand what the fuck was happening.

“Robby said you were shot,” he said, breaking into the conversation before the two started again.

“I was not,” Ava muttered, the clipboard falling into her lap. “They missed.”

“Christ!” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Who?”

He asked the question of John Paul, who merely shook his head in response.

“Had to be Elena,” he decided. “No one else is this determined.” He sucked in a breath and peered at Ava, so small against the mound of pillows. “I thought for sure she would keep her head down.”

“The question is why she wants Ava dead as badly as she does,” John Paul corrected. “It’s with a single minded determination that boarders on obsessed.”

“She mentioned a tree,” Ava piped in. “That night she had me taken. She said something about bringing down a tree.”

“A tree?” Dimitri frowned.

“Me.” Hands clasped at his back, John Paul met his gaze. “She’s referring to me.”

“But why?” Ava asked.

“Elena seldom requires a reason to do anything,” John Paul muttered. “There is obviously more to this, but we can deduce that Ava is not safe until I have Elena.”

“She’s not safe anywhere if Elena has her eyes set on her,” Dimitri said. “Elena won’t stop. She’s like a dog with a bone.”

John Paul nodded. “Agreed.”

“So, what’s the plan?” Ava looked from one to the other. “Witness relocation? CIA? Homeland? And for how long? I mean, I need to go back to work and my apartment—”

“I’ve already taken care of your apartment and any bills you may have had,” John Paul assured her. “That isn’t important.”

“And you’ll get another job,” Dimitri added. “The only important thing is keeping you alive.”

Ava sighed. “And I appreciate that, but I…” She scrubbed a hand over her face. “This is all just too much.”

John Paul smoothed a hand over the top of her head. “We will fix this, ma petite chou.”

“Sir?” Penny clicked into the room on her pale, pink pumps, phone in hand. “I apologize for interrupting, but there is a matter I believe requires your immediate attention.”

An awkward sort of silence followed her into the space as all heads turned in her direction. She must have felt it as well as she came to an abrupt halt two feet over the threshold.

“Who’s this?” Ava asked casually, but there was just a hint of something underneath that made the skin between Dimitri’s shoulder blades prickle.

“I’m sorry.” Penny hurried forward, hand extended. “I’m Penelope Beauchamp.”

“I know you,” John Paul said slowly, accepting the woman’s tiny fingers.

“Yes sir.” Penny paused to shake Ava’s hand before taking a hurried step back. “We’ve met … when I worked for Ms. Maynard.”

Realization flickered across John Paul’s face. “Yes, that’s right.”

“I hired Penny to be my assistant,” Dimitri offered carefully.

“Assistant?” Ava prompted.

“I was going to tell you tonight,” he told her, careful not to make any unexpected movement and even more careful to keep his gaze unwavering. “I got the chair. I’m head of the north.”

Ava didn’t move for a full second. Her green eyes bore into his, reflective and painfully vivid. It seemed like hours before her expression changed, before the softness of her mouth turned up into a smile.

“Dimitri!”

She was off the bed, clipboard abandoned, and leaping into his arms. Hers twisted around his shoulders, forcing him to stoop slightly at the knees to meet her. Even then, she was pulled to her tiptoes. Her weight settled perfectly against his. Their fronts were in perfect alignment in all the places that made his blood stir and his fingers tighten against her back. Her sweet fragrance dripped through the foul stench that occupied hospitals and spread until it was all that he could smell.

“I’m so proud of you,” she whispered into his ear. “You’re going to do so much for this city.”

A lump had begun to form in his throat, a golf ball sized knob that made it nearly impossible to speak.

“Only if you’re with me,” he breathed into the side of her throat. “I need you with me, Ava.”

She said nothing for so long he began to think he’d made a mistake. He honestly hadn’t meant to say anything. The words had come out of him before he even knew he’d been thinking them.

“Don’t hurt me again.”

Four little words and she’d stuck a rusted dagger into his chest and torn him open. They bled through him in crystalized shards of ember that burned and cut all the way up to enclose around his heart. He started to tell her he swore it on his life when a discreet cough reminded them where they were and just how long they’d been standing there, tangled together.

He expected her to jerk back, but she held on a second longer before her arms loosened and her feet went flat on the floor, detaching her from him. She peered up at him once more, eyes pleading before she turned to Penny with a whole new sort of smile, this one void of the steely edges.

“It’s really nice to meet you.”

Penny inclined her head. “Likewise.” She faced Dimitri. “Sir, that matter…”

“I’ll be right back,” he told Ava, who nodded and stepped aside to allow him to pass.

He followed Penny just outside the door to the nurse’s counter.

“It’s Syndicate business,” she told him quietly. “There’s been a shooting in a market place.”

“Was anyone hurt?” Another thought struck him then. “How did you know?” She’d only been his assistant for all of an hour.

Penny nodded grimly. “Eight dead. Six injured. Two of them were children. And I have connections in the north … and, well, everywhere. It’s my job.”

A muscle tightened in his chest. “Who was it?”

She shook her head. “My informant doesn’t have that information, but it was the north against an outside attack.” She raised her chin. “Would you like me to deal with this, sir? I will gather further information and select the appropriate group to contain the situation.”

Dimitri thought about it. He knew he couldn’t deal with the matter himself. He wouldn’t leave Ava alone, not after this and she was his main priority until his mother was found. But this was a matter he would need to deal with on some level. If someone hadn’t heard of the new switch in power and was trying to creep their way into a takeover, he needed to stop it now before it got out of hand and more innocent people suffered.

“Call a meeting with all the clans in my territory,” he told Penny. “I want every head present and I want a full report on the people responsible, even those who retaliated.”

“Yes sir, and where would you like that meeting to take place?”

Fuck.

“Find me a building, Penny.”

Penny inclined her head once and then hurried away with her face bent over her phone.

Dimitri returned to the room to find Robby had taken his side of the bed. His giant friend had lodged himself in the chair across the room, far away from the others. John Paul was on his phone by the window and Ava was on the bed, looking over the clipboard once more.

“Everything okay?” Ava lifted her face when Dimitri approached.

He nodded. “Territory stuff.”

Robby shifted. His eyes narrowed contemplatively. “So, if I wanted someone killed, would you be my guy?”

“Robby!” Ava swatted him in the gut.

“What?” Robby laughed. “It’s a legit question. There’s a guy in my residency class—”

“He’s not killing anyone for you!” Ava hissed.

Dimitri only shook his head. While amused, he was too exhausted. It had been a nightmare of a month and there didn’t seem to be a fucking end.

“Hey.” He hadn’t heard Ava get off the bed and move towards him until her cool fingers had curled around his. “It’s going to be okay.”

Without realizing it, he drew her to him, needing her calm like an addict needed a hit. He tucked her against his chest. His finger slipped beneath her chin. He tipped her face to his. His own face reflected across the soft pools of green peering up at him with question, with trust, and a longing he couldn’t ignore.

He kissed her. He let his lips linger for a full stroke of breath over hers, allowing them that heartbeat to re-remember the other’s taste. It had been so long he could have wept with every long, slow drags of her that he claimed. Her infinite sweetness, its healing abilities coursed through him, pooling in all the broken pieces inside him like soothing resin.

“Dimitri…”

Her hesitance, the waver in her voice even as she opened for him tightened his grip.

“Let him see it.” He nipped lightly on her bottom lip. “I’m not hiding anymore.” He drew back to frame her flushed cheeks between his palms. “I’m not hiding you.”

The glimmer in her eyes was more than just tears. They shone with the light and laughter he’d stupidly banished from his life. They glowed with a radiance that washed over him in a warm, loving caress that made him feel more like a man than anything ever had. She smiled and every evil in the world simultaneously vanished. There was nothing but the absolute love and happiness that seemed to pour from that single gesture.

“You still owe me dinner,” she teased him. “And, if you play your cards right, breakfast.”

She wiggled her eyebrow suggestively and Dimitri burst out laughing. It just broke out of him in a flood of sound that could no longer be contained. The deep rumble of it swamped the room, overshadowing everything else.

Ava giggled.

He kissed her again, harder before pulling back.

Penny took that moment to step back into the room. She met Dimitri’s gaze and gave a nod.

John Paul was off his phone and was staring a bit too hard at the stretch of fading sun in the distance. He turned at the sound of Penny’s heels. He glanced from her to Dimitri and narrowed his eyes.

“How did you wind up with Theresa’s assistant?” he asked, sounding more like an accusation.

“Luck,” Dimitri stated simply.

John Paul wasn’t ready to let it go that easily. “Theresa isn’t the sort of woman who would simply give up something she considers her possession. My apologies,” he added for Penny, who shook her head.

“I needed an assistant and Theresa had one.”

If he thought that would appease John Paul, it didn’t. The man’s lips curled back over his teeth.

“You never seem to stop taking things that don’t belong to you.”

“Dad!”

Dimitri settled a gentle hand on Ava’s lower back, but kept his gaze fixed with the man across the room. “I only take what I feel deserves better.”

Crimson splotches appeared on the man’s cheeks and a tightness formed around his mouth. But he didn’t press, though, Dimitri could see he wanted to.

“Stop.” Ava moved between them, but faced Dimitri. Her small hands settled lightly on his chest. “Please don’t make me choose between you, because I won’t and it’s not fair to make me.”

John Paul looked away.

Dimitri turned his gaze down to her. He followed the soft lines of her face and the shadows of sadness that had replaced her earlier happiness, and he knew he’d do anything she asked to erase it.

“You don’t have to choose,” he told her quietly. “But I’m not going anywhere either.”

The hard lines of her shoulders relaxed, mirroring the relief in her eyes.

“This is the best drama I’ve seen since Days of Our Lives.” Robby broke through the tension with a seamless ease that made Ava laugh.

Dimitri shook his head, but said nothing. His gaze went to the last man in the room, the one who hadn’t moved or said a word in all that time.

“Who’s your friend?” he asked, eyeing the man’s massive bulk and stern features.

“This is Ki,” Robby introduced, dropping down on the bed. “He’s my dealer.”

Ki’s squinty eyes narrowed into thin slits.

“John Paul hired him to keep Robby company,” Ava supplied, shooting her friend a glower.

“That is a very diplomatic way of saying babysitter,” Robby countered breezily.

“Will you stop?” Ava’s whine was mashed into the palms she scrubbed into her face. “Why are all the men in my life so frustrating?” She lowered her hands. “I swear, you three are going to drive me to drink.”

“Sir, I’m sorry to interrupt … again, but if I could borrow you again for—”

The doctor arrived then, interrupting Penny. He faltered at the sight of all people already inside, but he recovered quickly.

“Ava?”

“That’s me.” Ava stepped forward only to abruptly stop when the two other figures walked in after the man in the white coat.

John Paul stiffened the same time Dimitri did. The coil in their muscles filled the small room with a thick sort of tension only those averse to law enforcement would understand. Neither glanced at each other. They didn’t need to.

“Ms. Emerson?” The taller of the two stepped forward. “We’d like to ask you some questions.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“Sign here.” The small, French manicured finger slid down the length of the page to yet another line. “And here.” The page was flipped over before Dimitri even had a chance to lift the pen. “A few more,” the tiny blonde promised. “Here. Here. And … here.”

Penny, Theresa’s assistant was the polar opposite of her boss. Where Theresa was a powerhouse of sophistication, charm, and confidence, Penny was timid, skittish, and looked like she was so stressed out, she’d forgotten to eat … for a week. There were dark circles under her gray eyes and a perpetual tremor in her chin like she was just holding on. And every so often, he’d hear the faint whine of her stomach.

“Here,” her voice cracked slightly. “I’m sorry.”

Dimitri shook his head. “Don’t be.”

She flipped the ninth page of what could have passed for an encyclopedia. Her fingers were beginning to tremble, making the pages rustle. Dimitri wondered if it was from fear of his impatience or hunger.

“Here.”

“How long have you been with Theresa, Penny?” he disturbed the crackle of papers to ask.

“Two years, sir. Here.”

“Impressive.” He ticked the box she indicated. “You must be very good at what you do.”

“Yes sir.” She flipped to the next page.

“What exactly do you do?”

She paused in her signature directing and straightened a notch. “Whatever Ms. Maynard requires.”

“Do you like it?”

“I’m sorry?”

He looked up at her. “Do you like your job?”

Her hesitation spoke before she did. “Of course. Ms. Maynard is a … wonderful employer.”

Her lie was so thick, he almost choked on it. But he let it slide and focused on the next set of documents and the low whimper growing increasingly louder the longer she leaned over him.

“Are you hungry, Penny?”

She visibly started. “Sir?”

He scribbled his signature where she indicated and turned the page himself. “Are you hungry?”

“Uh…”

“I haven’t had lunch yet,” he went on, indicating to the untouched plate of burger and fries growing cold at his elbow. “And since you’re here, asking me to sign away my soul and first born, you should at least join me.”

He could have sworn there was a glimmer of unshed tears in her eyes before she blinked them away and squared her thin shoulders.

“That’s kind, but Ms. Maynard is expecting me straight back.”

Dimitri flicked a glance up at her face. “There’s at least another hour of signatures here. Sit.”

Her butt hit the chair like an obedient retriever. He pretended not to notice. He returned his attention to the pages.

“Eat.”

He was careful not to look at her again while he skimmed through the documents Theresa had deemed imperative he address immediately.

“Official Syndicate business,” she’d called it in her text.

He still wasn’t sure how she’d managed to track him down across town at the hole in the wall burger joint, but that was where Penny had found him.

The papers were his acceptance into the organization. It officiated his position, his duties, and obligations. There was even a map outlining the exact perimeters of his territory.

His territory.

Christ.

His hand gave a tremor that disfigured his otherwise confident and aggressive loops.

He had a territory.

It hadn’t really been a reality until that moment as he signed his life away, in one case, quite literally. He was officially the head of the city. His title stated the north, but it was all his. He held sixty percent of a hundred percent share. He just became the wealthiest man in the entire province.

“Jesus.”

“I’m sorry?” Penny’s head jerked up so quickly, he heard the snap of her neck.

Her big eyes seemed even bigger over the bulges of her stuffed cheeks. One bit of fry sat on her lip, half chewed, half being shoved the rest of the way, but now frozen as she blinked at him around horrified guilt.

“No, not you,” Dimitri said quickly when she started to lower her hand, half eaten fry still pinched between her fingers. He shoved his untouched drink closer to her. “Keep eating. I want that plate empty.”

He went back to staring at his new life, a life of unimaginable power, wealth, and, Christ, power! So much fucking power. He could feel it rushing through his veins in a burning wave.

He couldn’t breathe. A tsunami of emotions rolled over him, sucking him through the carnage until he was crushed by it. The heady sensation was both exhilarating and terrifying. He didn’t know whether to cry or laugh.

He was untouchable.

No. No one was untouchable. Not even him. But in that moment, he may as well have been.

“Sir?” Penny hastily set the empty cup down, wiped her hands and fingers on a napkin, and rose. “Please, sir, I really need to get back.”

With a sigh, he placed his signature on the last line on the last page and closed the file.

“I think that’s the last of it.” He stacked it all neatly together and passed them to her, noting how much steadier her grip seemed to be. “Anything else?”

She shook her head. “No, thank you, and I’m very sorry.”

“For?”

Her cheeks turned a violent red that almost had him concerned. “For interrupting your lunch … for eating your lunch. God, I’m so sorry!” She reached for her purse. “I’ll get you a fresh plate.”

He stopped her when she turned on her heels and started searching for a waiter. “Penny…”

Her face had gone a deathly white. “No, no, I … I’ll fix this.”

He rose when her voice hitched and took her firmly by the shoulders. He held on until her tear filled eyes stopped darting frantically around.

“Slow breaths,” he instructed softly. “You’re fine.”

He watched her carefully, waiting for her rapid, shallow breaths to even out, fully prepared to force her head between her knees if necessary.

“I’m okay,” she croaked. “I’m so sorry. Please don’t tell Ms. Maynard.”

He relinquished his grip on her. “Do you have everything?”

With a sniffle, she nodded.

“Good, now, calm down, collect yourself and get back.”

She nodded again, more vigorously. “Thank you, sir.”

“I don’t want it,” he said when she pulled out several folded bills. “Just get there safely, okay?”

File clutched to her chest, she hurried off the restaurant’s patio and ducked into a rusty pile of crap that was more duct tape than metal. The yellow bug must have been something she got from a dump for a penny. It wasn’t worth more than that. If anything, it was a death trap just waiting to explode if she braked wrong.

It shrieked as she pulled away from the curb. He heard it all the way down the block and around the corner.

He put down what he owed for the meal, plus a little something extra, and left the restaurant. He caught a cab to the financial district, a fifty block radius dedicated entirely to people helping other people spend their money while skimming a little extra off the top. Time Group Financial, the home of Evan Maynard sat in the very heart of it, a sophisticated spear of glass and steel twisted into to a tower of power. It rose above the city line from a hilt of concrete. Dimitri had never had a reason to visit the place, but he had one now.

He dug out his phone and called Theresa.

She answered on the fifth ring. “God invented texting for a reason, Tasarov,” was her greeting.

Dimitri prolonged his response by wandering over to a street vendor and motioning for the number two hotdog combo.

“And I suppose competence is for the gifted,” he replied as his hotdog was prepared. “Next time you want something done properly, send someone who actually knows what they’re doing and not some scared little mouse that jumps at her own shadows. The girl’d been useless. I’m actually insulted that you would interrupt my lunch with her.”

He accepted his fully loaded hotdog, drink, and bag of ranch chips, and made his way to a nearby bench.

“Penny has been a very successful project of mine for nearly two years. I hand trained her myself. I don’t believe—”

“Then maybe feed her once in a while before she blows away with the wind. I’m a bit embarrassed for you.”

Something cracked in the background. “Excuse me?”

“I’m just saying.” He took a bite of his hotdog. “She’s supposed to be representing you, and from what I gathered, she makes you look weak and pathetic. Just being helpful.”

He hung up. Then he waited.

He could have counted the exact moment from the time he cut communication to the second Penny stormed from the building on one hand. She held a box of her things against her chest and looked about two seconds from bursting into tears. He almost felt bad for her.

Dimitri rose. He tossed his wrappers into a trash bin and went to her.

“Penny.”

Her head snapped up. Bits of pale blonde blew across her flushed, wet cheeks. Her gray eyes blinked, then widened.

“You!” Her items were slammed down on a marble ledge making up the flowerbeds lining the stairway to the front doors. “You got me fired!”

Dimitri nodded. “I did.”

Tears skated down her cheeks, but her expression was livid. “Why would you do that?”

He held out a napkin that she ignored. He sighed and stuffed it into her hand anyway. She pitched it aside angrily. The wind caught it and it drifted out of sight.

“All right,” he mumbled. “I understand you’re upset—”

“I am … pissed!” she spat, almost screamed. “This job was my life! I worked my ass off to keep that woman happy. I sacrificed everything…”

“Breathe, Penny,” he murmured softly when she began to wheeze.

“Fuck you!” she shrieked at him. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

He had to remind himself she had every right to be angry when his own temper prickled.

“I got you away from a man-eating beast,” he snarled back. “Tell me you actually liked the way you were being treated.”

She said nothing for a long time, but the anger didn’t dim from her eyes. They continued to shine like she wanted nothing more than to kick him in the crotch.

“I needed that job,” she ground out through clenched teeth. “I needed that job!” she said louder. “You had no right to decide anything for me. And to think I actually thought you were one of the decent ones. Why would you do this?”

“Because you would never have left and she would never have let you go otherwise.”

Penny blinked. “What?”

“I want you to work for me.”

Her jaw swung open so wide, he could see all the way down to her tonsils. “What?”

“I need an assistant, a good one. I don’t like searching for things and you seem qualified.”

“I seem qualified?” She stared at him like he was a moron. “You had me fired because I seem qualified?”

Dimitri exhaled, patience waning. “Do you want the job or not?”

She gasped, disgust curling her lips. “Yes, I want the bloody job! I clearly need one now, thanks to you.”

“Good. You can start now.”

He started turning on his heels.

“Hold on a minute,” she called after him. “You haven’t told me what I’m getting paid.”

He paused and glanced back. “What were you getting paid before?”

She hesitated. “Twenty-five an hour?”

“Okay, double that.”

Penny blinked, quickly caught herself. “I mean, thirty, plus full benefits.”

“Done.”

She bit down her lip, poorly concealing the grin glowing in her eyes.

“You can add an hour lunch to that,” he continued.

“And weekends off?” she pressed, carefully, slowly, a little fearfully.

Dimitri nodded. “Fine.”

She gave a little gasp, something between an exhale and a squeak. But she must have remembered she was supposed to be a professional, because she straightened quickly and rearranged her features to appear stoic.

“Deal, but I want all that in writing.”

“Write it up and I’ll sign it.”

She snatched up her box. “Lead the way, sir.”

They left her car. He refused to get into it and she didn’t seem eager to have him in it. Instead, they grabbed a cab that he hadn’t realized he had nowhere to take until they were crammed into the backseat.

“Sir?” Penny prompted when Dimitri sat squinting at the back of the driver’s seat, trying to determine what was supposed to happen next. “Was there somewhere you wanted to go?”

He didn’t. All of this was new to him. He hadn’t really thought any of it out. Penny hadn’t been part of his plan that day. He’d gone to have lunch and think over what he wanted to do with Ava later when he picked her up. Penny had been a surprise.

“Sir…?” The driver abruptly broke off when Dimitri’s gaze snapped up, narrowed with warning.

“Okay, um…” Penny bit her lip, thought for a moment. “Do you have an office?”

Dimitri shook his head.

“That’s okay!” She cleared her throat and turned to the sheet of glass separating them from the uncomfortable man on the other side. “Corner of Teal and Warden, please.”

“What’s there?” Dimitri asked.

Penny sat back, adjusting her box more comfortable on her lap. “Nothing, but at least we’re not just sitting here, and by the time we get there, maybe we’ll have a plan. So, what are your plans?” she asked as the car turned into the flow of afternoon traffic.

Judging by its thickness, he guessed a two-hour drive to where they were going. That suited him fine. He liked driving. It cleared his head.

“I really don’t have one,” he admitted, admiring the driver’s tenacity when he cut three cars off and still flipped them off when they leaned on their horns.

“Okay…”

Items were shoved carelessly around in the box as she dug through them. He watched as she mumbled absently to herself while pulling out a fake, potted plant, a stapler, several hair elastics, a makeup case, and a framed photo.

That caught his eye. He tilted his head slightly to study the boy grinning back at the camera, holding a trophy three times his size.

“Brother?”

“Hmm?” Penny lifted her head, swiped back several locks of pale hair and followed his gaze. “Oh no, that’s my son, Daniel.”

Dimitri blinked. “He’s, what? Eight?”

“Nine.” She peered at the photo, lips curved in a soft smile.

He really looked at the woman seated next to him, attempting to judge her age. It really made no difference, but he’d been under the assumption she was in her early twenties.

“You don’t look old enough to have a nine-year-old,” he told her honestly.

Penny laughed and tucked the frame back into the box. “I was sixteen when I had him. He’s my whole world.”

“What’s the trophy for?”

Her grin blossomed into an arrogant smirk only a mother could pull off. “He’s also a genius.” She pulled the photo out again and showed him. “First place at the National Artificial Intelligence Competition—NAIC. That’s where kids from all across the country…” she said country like it was something that needed extra attention, “compete to see who can build the best, high tech robot of the future.  Daniel won … three years in the row, even though he’s the youngest competitor to date,” she finished with a haughty tone that had his lips twitching. “This was last year.” She smoothed her fingers along the dark, wood frame. “He’s going to compete again in the fall.”

“That’s amazing.”

“I think so.” Beaming, she stowed the photo away and went back to rummaging. She came back out with a pen and crumpled notepad. She flipped to a fresh page and turned to him. “So, what do you do?”

Dimitri had to consider that carefully before answering. He couldn’t very well tell her, rob people, for a living. Although, she worked for Theresa so she probably wouldn’t be overly surprised.

“I know about … the other stuff,” she said quietly when he took too long to answer, just under her breath. “It doesn’t bother me.”

Dimitri bit the inside of his cheek to contain his grin. “What other stuff?”

“Other … stuff,” she stressed slowly. “Syndicate business.”

Of course she did. Theresa wouldn’t have sent her with papers for Dimitri to sign regrading Syndicate business if she hadn’t trusted Penny with the information.

“I currently have no business,” he told her evenly. “Other or otherwise.”

A fine crease appeared between her brows while she mulled that over carefully. The top of her pen tapped rhythmically on the coils of her notepad. She said nothing when the driver swerved in and out through heavy traffic like an Indy five hundred racer. He had to give her props for that. Most would have soiled themselves at the pace.

“Then, let’s start small,” she decided. “Office space. Once you have a general idea of what you want to do, I’ll look up proper locations and building structures.” She scribbled on her page while she spoke. “We’ll need a name and logo, and business cards. Employees, obviously, which means interviews.”

Dimitri stopped listening. Business had never been his strong suit. He didn’t care for the confinement of a suit and desk. All the other heads had corporations they hid behind, legit businesses that kept suspicious eyes from prying. John Paul invested hugely in pharmaceuticals. Elena had several herbal shops throughout the city catering to the wellness of body and mind—which Dimitri always found highly ironic. Theresa’s family held a large portion of the city’s financial holdings and Marcus’s family wielded a firm grip on games. They operated everything from horses, to the casinos and fighting rings. But Dimitri had no business plans. He didn’t think there was anything for what he did. Vigilantes couldn’t exactly open their own shop and hand out business cards.

“You need a car and driver,” Penny interrupted his thoughts, head still bent over her list. “You’re an important man. You can’t be taking cabs all over the city.”

Her efficient prioritization of his life made it clear that he’d made the right choice stealing her from Theresa. He’d known she would be; Theresa had zero tolerance for slacking and even less patience with people who displeased her. The fact that Penny had kept her position for the better part of two years had said a lot about her competence.

He pondered for a moment if he felt bad. Not about getting Penny fired, but for lying to Theresa. They were essentially partners now. Their territories were allies. He should at least feel semi-guilty.

He realized he really didn’t. Freeing Penny from that woman was worth the fight it would start when Theresa found out. Sure, he could have found someone else. There were agencies for that kind of thing, women far more qualified. But for Theresa’s bullshit during the elections, it only seemed fitting he take something equally significant, but not too significant. He didn’t want to start a war, just piss her off a little.

“Where do you live?”

His question interrupted Penny’s lengthy ramble about color scheming and playing to his strengths. He partially wondered if she thought he was an idiot, but pushed it aside.

“Do you mean actual address or territory?”

“Territory.”

“The south, but that won’t interfere with my job.”

“You need to move.” He slanted her a sidelong glance from the corner of his eye. “I can’t protect you if you’re in someone else’s territory. You work for me. You’re a member of the north now.”

She considered that a moment, pen making that irritating tapping sound she seemed very fond of. Finally, she moistened her lips and cleared her throat.

“Yes, I understand that, but I have to respectfully decline.” She shifted a little higher in her seat. “Daniel’s school is there and his friends. My mom lives in our apartment building so there’s someone I can call if I need him watched. I know all my neighbors and the people of my community and…” She wet her lips again, nervously. “Daniel has autism. His clinic and doctor are there. I can’t just leave.”

He wanted to push, but stopped himself. He gave a reluctant nod.

“We’ll find another way,” he decided.

Her shoulders drooped visibly and she offered him a small smile in thanks.

The matter was dropped. She went back to her notes and he watched the insane way their driver kept taking short cuts. At one point, he turned into a one-way, going the wrong way, just to twist the wheel and bounce them into the flow of traffic on the other side. The transition had been so fluid, Dimitri hadn’t even felt the jostle.

Saeed Parvez, read the photo ID above the rearview. Dimitri judged him to be in his early twenties, clean cut, and an incredible driver. They hadn’t shared more than a single word between them, but he’d understood English.

“Where are you from, Saeed?”

Brown eyes lifted to meet his in the mirror. They were parked at a red light or Dimitri may have wet himself.

“Here, born and raised. Eight generations.”

No accent. Perfect English.

“Do you always drive like you’ve robbed a bank?”

A mischievous smirk twisted up one side of his face. “Maybe I have.”

Dimitri immediately liked the kid.

“Get a lot of speeding tickets?”

Saeed shook his head. “Never had one a day in my life.” He knocked on the dashboard. “Knock on wood.”

“That’s plastic,” Penny cut in before Dimitri could. “Fiberglass most likely. Here. Use this.”

While she was busy wedging the corner of Daniel’s frame through the money slot for Saeed to knock on, Dimitri’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the screen. Surprised to see Robby’s name, he put it to his ear.

“Yeah?”

“Dimitri? It’s Robby. Ava’s in the hospital.”

He didn’t listen to the rest.

He cracked the glass with a knuckle sharply, startling Saeed and Penny. He barked the orders and directions to the hospital.

“Get us there in ten minutes and I’ll give you five hundred bucks on top of what’s on the meter right now.”

Saeed popped his neck, rolled his shoulders, and narrowed his eyes on the road. “Hang on. I’ll get you there in five.”

They got there in four. It was absolutely beyond him how the boy did it, but the cab squealed to a stop right in front of the hospital doors with a ferocity that soaked the air with the stink of burnt tires. The windows rattled with the jerking stop and everyone pitched forward.

“Jesus Christ!” Penny shrieked, glowering at Saeed through the glass. “Does your mother know you drive like that?”

Saeed smirked. “Who do you think taught me?”

Penny’s nostrils flared, but she said nothing as she kicked her door open and threw herself out.

Dimitri wedged everything he had in his wallet through the money slot. It was more than five hundred, but the boy had kept his promise.

“Stay here,” he told him.

“Sure thing, boss,” was his reply.

Dimitri climbed out, slammed the door closed behind him and turned to Penny, who was slightly green under the pallor of her complexion.

“Hire him.”

Leaving her to sort it all out, he stalked through the doors, strides long and commanding. The painfully familiar stench greeted him like an old friend. It draped around his shoulder, a heavy weight as he maneuvered the corridors. His duster flapped around his legs, snapping like raven wings. He could feel the air climbing beneath him and the fabric, lifting it off his back.

“Ava Emerson,” he snapped at the woman behind the counter.

“Dimitri!” Robby waved at him from the other side of the desk before the woman could open her mouth.

Dimitri abandoned the spot and hurried to the other man and the beast of a man looming just over his shoulder. He ignored the latter.

“Where is she? What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Robby blurted, white all the way to his lips. “We were having lunch and the next second we were being shot at—”

“Where is she?”

Robby jabbed a thumb in the direction of the door just over his shoulder.

Dimitri stomped forward, heart a wild tangle of dread and determination. He paused in the doorway, mostly to prepare himself before closing the steps to the bed he could see peeking around the corner.

Ava was on the bed, fully dressed, and awake. John Paul stood next to her, arms crossed and a very agitated twist around his mouth. But Dimitri focused on Ava, taking her in from head to toe over and over again, trying to pinpoint the location of her injuries and finding nothing.

“What happened?”

Her head shot up from the clipboard she held. Her green eyes brightened at the sight of him a split second before she grinned.

“Hey!”

Ignoring that, he moved to her other side, mostly to get a better view of her. “Where are you hurt?”

Her smile melted into one of annoyance that could have rivaled John Paul’s. “I’m not!” She shot the other man a severe sidelong glower. “There is nothing wrong with me.”

It made no sense.

“Then … what the hell are you doing here?”

“She needs to be checked,” John Paul retorted hotly. “Even despite this, you’ve had a traumatic two weeks. You need doctors to see you.”

“I’m fine!”

“Are you a doctor?” John Paul argued. “You can’t possibly know what type of things you could have contracted over there or how this stress will toll on your body. Just sit there and let the doctors have a look.”

Dimitri was trying to keep up with the flow of argument, but he still couldn’t understand what the fuck was happening.

“Robby said you were shot,” he said, breaking into the conversation before the two started again.

“I was not,” Ava muttered, the clipboard falling into her lap. “They missed.”

“Christ!” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Who?”

He asked the question of John Paul, who merely shook his head in response.

“Had to be Elena,” he decided. “No one else is this determined.” He sucked in a breath and peered at Ava, so small against the mound of pillows. “I thought for sure she would keep her head down.”

“The question is why she wants Ava dead as badly as she does,” John Paul corrected. “It’s with a single minded determination that boarders on obsessed.”

“She mentioned a tree,” Ava piped in. “That night she had me taken. She said something about bringing down a tree.”

“A tree?” Dimitri frowned.

“Me.” Hands clasped at his back, John Paul met his gaze. “She’s referring to me.”

“But why?” Ava asked.

“Elena seldom requires a reason to do anything,” John Paul muttered. “There is obviously more to this, but we can deduce that Ava is not safe until I have Elena.”

“She’s not safe anywhere if Elena has her eyes set on her,” Dimitri said. “Elena won’t stop. She’s like a dog with a bone.”

John Paul nodded. “Agreed.”

“So, what’s the plan?” Ava looked from one to the other. “Witness relocation? CIA? Homeland? And for how long? I mean, I need to go back to work and my apartment—”

“I’ve already taken care of your apartment and any bills you may have had,” John Paul assured her. “That isn’t important.”

“And you’ll get another job,” Dimitri added. “The only important thing is keeping you alive.”

Ava sighed. “And I appreciate that, but I…” She scrubbed a hand over her face. “This is all just too much.”

John Paul smoothed a hand over the top of her head. “We will fix this, ma petite chou.”

“Sir?” Penny clicked into the room on her pale, pink pumps, phone in hand. “I apologize for interrupting, but there is a matter I believe requires your immediate attention.”

An awkward sort of silence followed her into the space as all heads turned in her direction. She must have felt it as well as she came to an abrupt halt two feet over the threshold.

“Who’s this?” Ava asked casually, but there was just a hint of something underneath that made the skin between Dimitri’s shoulder blades prickle.

“I’m sorry.” Penny hurried forward, hand extended. “I’m Penelope Beauchamp.”

“I know you,” John Paul said slowly, accepting the woman’s tiny fingers.

“Yes sir.” Penny paused to shake Ava’s hand before taking a hurried step back. “We’ve met … when I worked for Ms. Maynard.”

Realization flickered across John Paul’s face. “Yes, that’s right.”

“I hired Penny to be my assistant,” Dimitri offered carefully.

“Assistant?” Ava prompted.

“I was going to tell you tonight,” he told her, careful not to make any unexpected movement and even more careful to keep his gaze unwavering. “I got the chair. I’m head of the north.”

Ava didn’t move for a full second. Her green eyes bore into his, reflective and painfully vivid. It seemed like hours before her expression changed, before the softness of her mouth turned up into a smile.

“Dimitri!”

She was off the bed, clipboard abandoned, and leaping into his arms. Hers twisted around his shoulders, forcing him to stoop slightly at the knees to meet her. Even then, she was pulled to her tiptoes. Her weight settled perfectly against his. Their fronts were in perfect alignment in all the places that made his blood stir and his fingers tighten against her back. Her sweet fragrance dripped through the foul stench that occupied hospitals and spread until it was all that he could smell.

“I’m so proud of you,” she whispered into his ear. “You’re going to do so much for this city.”

A lump had begun to form in his throat, a golf ball sized knob that made it nearly impossible to speak.

“Only if you’re with me,” he breathed into the side of her throat. “I need you with me, Ava.”

She said nothing for so long he began to think he’d made a mistake. He honestly hadn’t meant to say anything. The words had come out of him before he even knew he’d been thinking them.

“Don’t hurt me again.”

Four little words and she’d stuck a rusted dagger into his chest and torn him open. They bled through him in crystalized shards of ember that burned and cut all the way up to enclose around his heart. He started to tell her he swore it on his life when a discreet cough reminded them where they were and just how long they’d been standing there, tangled together.

He expected her to jerk back, but she held on a second longer before her arms loosened and her feet went flat on the floor, detaching her from him. She peered up at him once more, eyes pleading before she turned to Penny with a whole new sort of smile, this one void of the steely edges.

“It’s really nice to meet you.”

Penny inclined her head. “Likewise.” She faced Dimitri. “Sir, that matter…”

“I’ll be right back,” he told Ava, who nodded and stepped aside to allow him to pass.

He followed Penny just outside the door to the nurse’s counter.

“It’s Syndicate business,” she told him quietly. “There’s been a shooting in a market place.”

“Was anyone hurt?” Another thought struck him then. “How did you know?” She’d only been his assistant for all of an hour.

Penny nodded grimly. “Eight dead. Six injured. Two of them were children. And I have connections in the north … and, well, everywhere. It’s my job.”

A muscle tightened in his chest. “Who was it?”

She shook her head. “My informant doesn’t have that information, but it was the north against an outside attack.” She raised her chin. “Would you like me to deal with this, sir? I will gather further information and select the appropriate group to contain the situation.”

Dimitri thought about it. He knew he couldn’t deal with the matter himself. He wouldn’t leave Ava alone, not after this and she was his main priority until his mother was found. But this was a matter he would need to deal with on some level. If someone hadn’t heard of the new switch in power and was trying to creep their way into a takeover, he needed to stop it now before it got out of hand and more innocent people suffered.

“Call a meeting with all the clans in my territory,” he told Penny. “I want every head present and I want a full report on the people responsible, even those who retaliated.”

“Yes sir, and where would you like that meeting to take place?”

Fuck.

“Find me a building, Penny.”

Penny inclined her head once and then hurried away with her face bent over her phone.

Dimitri returned to the room to find Robby had taken his side of the bed. His giant friend had lodged himself in the chair across the room, far away from the others. John Paul was on his phone by the window and Ava was on the bed, looking over the clipboard once more.

“Everything okay?” Ava lifted her face when Dimitri approached.

He nodded. “Territory stuff.”

Robby shifted. His eyes narrowed contemplatively. “So, if I wanted someone killed, would you be my guy?”

“Robby!” Ava swatted him in the gut.

“What?” Robby laughed. “It’s a legit question. There’s a guy in my residency class—”

“He’s not killing anyone for you!” Ava hissed.

Dimitri only shook his head. While amused, he was too exhausted. It had been a nightmare of a month and there didn’t seem to be a fucking end.

“Hey.” He hadn’t heard Ava get off the bed and move towards him until her cool fingers had curled around his. “It’s going to be okay.”

Without realizing it, he drew her to him, needing her calm like an addict needed a hit. He tucked her against his chest. His finger slipped beneath her chin. He tipped her face to his. His own face reflected across the soft pools of green peering up at him with question, with trust, and a longing he couldn’t ignore.

He kissed her. He let his lips linger for a full stroke of breath over hers, allowing them that heartbeat to re-remember the other’s taste. It had been so long he could have wept with every long, slow drags of her that he claimed. Her infinite sweetness, its healing abilities coursed through him, pooling in all the broken pieces inside him like soothing resin.

“Dimitri…”

Her hesitance, the waver in her voice even as she opened for him tightened his grip.

“Let him see it.” He nipped lightly on her bottom lip. “I’m not hiding anymore.” He drew back to frame her flushed cheeks between his palms. “I’m not hiding you.”

The glimmer in her eyes was more than just tears. They shone with the light and laughter he’d stupidly banished from his life. They glowed with a radiance that washed over him in a warm, loving caress that made him feel more like a man than anything ever had. She smiled and every evil in the world simultaneously vanished. There was nothing but the absolute love and happiness that seemed to pour from that single gesture.

“You still owe me dinner,” she teased him. “And, if you play your cards right, breakfast.”

She wiggled her eyebrow suggestively and Dimitri burst out laughing. It just broke out of him in a flood of sound that could no longer be contained. The deep rumble of it swamped the room, overshadowing everything else.

Ava giggled.

He kissed her again, harder before pulling back.

Penny took that moment to step back into the room. She met Dimitri’s gaze and gave a nod.

John Paul was off his phone and was staring a bit too hard at the stretch of fading sun in the distance. He turned at the sound of Penny’s heels. He glanced from her to Dimitri and narrowed his eyes.

“How did you wind up with Theresa’s assistant?” he asked, sounding more like an accusation.

“Luck,” Dimitri stated simply.

John Paul wasn’t ready to let it go that easily. “Theresa isn’t the sort of woman who would simply give up something she considers her possession. My apologies,” he added for Penny, who shook her head.

“I needed an assistant and Theresa had one.”

If he thought that would appease John Paul, it didn’t. The man’s lips curled back over his teeth.

“You never seem to stop taking things that don’t belong to you.”

“Dad!”

Dimitri settled a gentle hand on Ava’s lower back, but kept his gaze fixed with the man across the room. “I only take what I feel deserves better.”

Crimson splotches appeared on the man’s cheeks and a tightness formed around his mouth. But he didn’t press, though, Dimitri could see he wanted to.

“Stop.” Ava moved between them, but faced Dimitri. Her small hands settled lightly on his chest. “Please don’t make me choose between you, because I won’t and it’s not fair to make me.”

John Paul looked away.

Dimitri turned his gaze down to her. He followed the soft lines of her face and the shadows of sadness that had replaced her earlier happiness, and he knew he’d do anything she asked to erase it.

“You don’t have to choose,” he told her quietly. “But I’m not going anywhere either.”

The hard lines of her shoulders relaxed, mirroring the relief in her eyes.

“This is the best drama I’ve seen since Days of Our Lives.” Robby broke through the tension with a seamless ease that made Ava laugh.

Dimitri shook his head, but said nothing. His gaze went to the last man in the room, the one who hadn’t moved or said a word in all that time.

“Who’s your friend?” he asked, eyeing the man’s massive bulk and stern features.

“This is Ki,” Robby introduced, dropping down on the bed. “He’s my dealer.”

Ki’s squinty eyes narrowed into thin slits.

“John Paul hired him to keep Robby company,” Ava supplied, shooting her friend a glower.

“That is a very diplomatic way of saying babysitter,” Robby countered breezily.

“Will you stop?” Ava’s whine was mashed into the palms she scrubbed into her face. “Why are all the men in my life so frustrating?” She lowered her hands. “I swear, you three are going to drive me to drink.”

“Sir, I’m sorry to interrupt … again, but if I could borrow you again for—”

The doctor arrived then, interrupting Penny. He faltered at the sight of all people already inside, but he recovered quickly.

“Ava?”

“That’s me.” Ava stepped forward only to abruptly stop when the two other figures walked in after the man in the white coat.

John Paul stiffened the same time Dimitri did. The coil in their muscles filled the small room with a thick sort of tension only those averse to law enforcement would understand. Neither glanced at each other. They didn’t need to.

“Ms. Emerson?” The taller of the two stepped forward. “We’d like to ask you some questions.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

The spit turned to ash in Ava’s mouth. Its gritty texture rubbed the roof of her mouth sore with every desperate attempt to swallow and regurgitate actual words. Her fingers slipped clumsily down the length of Dimitri’s toned forearm and clasped around his hand.

“Is there a problem?”

It was a stupid question. She’d been missing two weeks after the shooting of three men and now, she was in the hospital for being shot at. It was a wonder the police hadn’t tracked her down sooner.

“We just have some questions, ma’am,” the one on the left said, one hand resting comfortably, but with authority on his belt.

“Your friends can wait for you outside,” said the second one. “This won’t take long.”

“Yeah, but what’s this about?” Robby had moved to stand at Ava’s other side. “Ava hasn’t done anything.”

“Sir,” the single word vibrated with warning. “Please wait outside.”

“It’s okay.” Ava reached out with her free hand and lightly squeezed his.

Robby looked about to argue, but he relented. He and Ki left quietly, followed by Penny, but not before Dimitri murmured something in her ear before motioning her to leave. Then it was just her, John Paul, Dimitri, the doctor, and the two cops.

“I’m her father,” John Paul said when the officers glanced at him.

“Forget it,” Dimitri said the moment they turned their attention to him.

The two exchanged glances, but it must not have been a problem worth fighting over, because they didn’t push.

“Can I examine her while you ask your questions?” the doctor asked.

The bigger one nodded once and the doctor immediately motioned Ava back to the bed. She sat rigidly on the edge, eyes on the two men in the doorway while her blood pressure was taken.

“Ms. Emerson.” The smaller one stepped to the foot of the bed and removed a pen and pad from his pocket. “I’m Detective Newlyn. This is my partner, Detective Arellano. We’re investigating a string of murders that all seem to have one thing in common—you.”

“Were you at the East End Hotel in Williamsburg, May twenty-first, Ms. Emerson?” Arellano asked, staying by the door, watching his partner’s back.

“Yes,” Ava whispered, cotton mouthed. She cleared her throat. “I was there for the journalist convention.”

The scratch of pen on paper filled the room.

“How many nights had you planned to stay?”

Ava shook her head. “The one. I was going to leave in the morning.”

Newlyn flipped to an earlier page, then flipped back. “The convention was a full weekend event.” He raised his head and fixed her with his cool, hazel eyes. “Why were you leaving early?”

“Because I didn’t want to be there in the first place,” she confessed. “My boss was making me go.”

“So, it was for work?” Newlyn pressed.

Ava nodded. “I’m … was … may still be an editor with Chaud.”

“You’re not a journalist?”

She shook her head.

“But it was a convention for journalists,” Newlyn prompted.

Ava sighed. “My boss thought it would be a great way to scout new writers and make new readers for the magazine.”

“And did you?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Did you meet new writers and readers?” Arellano asked.

Ava hesitated. “Well, I met people, if that’s what you mean.”

“Detectives.” The doctor interrupted the questioning to jam a flat stick in Ava’s mouth and check down her throat. It wasn’t the best time to be so close to her gag reflexes, Ava thought, especially when she was barely suppressing the urge to throw up as it was. But she managed to control her breathing just long enough for him to pull out.

Arellano continued when the stick was removed. “What happened at the hotel, Ms. Emerson?”

She tasted Dimitri when she licked her lips. The urge to glance at him nearly had her faltering in her concentration. It wouldn’t have been because she needed his guidance to tell the story, although, maybe, she did a little of that too. But she knew if she looked at him, she’d remember that kiss and she didn’t think the police would appreciate her animalistic leap to claim the man standing a few feet away. Really, it was a bad time to be thinking of anything, but what she was being asked. Acting scatter brained and incoherent would most likely get her tossed in jail.

“I honestly don’t know,” she said simply. “I was sleeping when it all happened.”

“Ms. Emerson, we have witnesses who put you in the bar and then leaving with a man.” Arellano scrutinized her face carefully when he asked, “Was he the one who kidnapped you?”

That prickling insistence to glance at Dimitri was a palpable assault grinding into the base of her skull, taking over her motor skills.

“It was me,” Dimitri broke in. “I took her from the bar. She had too much to drink. I took her to her room. Your witness will attest to it.”

“And you are?” Newlyn twisted his torso in Dimitri’s direction, pen hovering over a clean sheet.

Cold sweat slickened her skin, dampening her clothes and making her stomach writhe. She did turn to him now, unable to stand not seeing his face when he explained who he was. At the same time, she had no desire to watch when they realized his identity and snapped him in cuffs.

“Dimitri Tasarov.”

Ava bit back a gasp; she had been so certain he would give a false name.

Newlyn scribbled that down.

“And what were you doing in Williamsburg, Mr. Tasarov?”

“I went to see Ava.”

“Were you there when the men came to her room?”

“No—”

“Yes,” Dimitri cut Ava off. “I shot them.”

She couldn’t fathom why on earth he was just telling them that. How could he not be scared mindless? She was. She could barely think straight past the dull numbness of fear.

“Dimitri…”

He spared her a firm glance filled with meaning she didn’t understand. “They need to know, Ava.”

She didn’t think so at all. If it meant that she would lose him again, just when she got him back, she didn’t care.

“Mr. Tasarov, could you please walk us through the events of that evening?”

He turned his attention back to the two men who both had their hands resting with purpose on their belts, inches from their guns.

“We were in Ava’s hotel room and they came in.”

He walked them through every second of their adventure. He concealed nothing, not even blowing up his safe house. He described in detail his journey to find her when she’d been taken. The only thing that never came up was Hector or Julian. There was no one else mentioned except her and him.

When he finished, he peered from one to the other as though waiting for their response. But they must not have realized the exact extent of it, because they seemed incapable of speech for almost ten heartbeats. They exchanged glances, speaking in that way only two people who were very close possibly could. She used to have that power with Dimitri. It might still have been there, though she couldn’t be certain, because it wasn’t working at that moment.

“The man who brought Ms. Emerson back to you, do you remember his name?”

Creases formed across Dimitri’s brow, giving him the illusion of really having to think about that. Slowly, he shook his head.

“No, can’t say I do.”

“Really?” Arellano raised an eyebrow. “This man brought back the woman you love and you don’t remember his name?”

One shoulder lifted in an almost sheepish jerk. “I’m not very good with names.”

Arellano glanced at Ava. “What about you, Ms. Emerson?”

Ava shook her head automatically. “I don’t.”

The detective looked nowhere near appeased, but Newlyn interrupted his prodding.

“Why was the police not informed of any of this, Mr. Tasarov?”

“There was nothing they could have done,” Dimitri said. “Ava and I only just arrived this morning.”

“Which is why we must insist that this interview be concluded.” It was the first time John Paul had spoken and everyone, including Ava, had forgotten he was still there. “Ava needs her rest.”

“Sorry.” Newlyn snapped his notepad shut. “That won’t be possible. You just admitted to more crimes in the span of two weeks than I have seen my entire life. I’m sorry, but you’re under arrest.”

“No!” Ava lunged to her feet, but Dimitri stopped her with just one hand.

His gaze remained fixed firmly on the pair watching him back.

“That, I’m afraid, is not going to happen.”

“Oh yeah? And why’s that?” Arellano asked.

Dimitri switched his gaze to the second man, expression frighteningly calm. “Because I have a date tonight and getting arrested is a hindrance.”

While incredibly romantic, enough so to make Ava’s terrified heart pause in its panic to flutter, it did nothing for the police officers.

“Well, change of plans.”

Arellano stepped forward, cuffs already in hand. Newlyn had a firm grip on his gun hilt, eyes watchful for even a flicker of movement. Dimitri never moved. He watched the pair with something akin to mildly annoyed. He checked his watch. Then peeked at the doorway.

He exhaled. “Traffic,” he said like that explained everything.

No sooner had he spoken when three figures stepped through the doorway. The first was a handsomely dressed man in a navy suit and a beautiful smile beneath a razor straight mustache. He wore an officer’s uniform with his cap tacked beneath one arm. Medals gleamed against his left chest and shoulder. The second one was a uniformed officer, and lastly, Penny.

Dimitri stepped forward. “Police commissioner.” He extended his hand. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

Ava thought he’d looked familiar. She’d probably seen him during one of John Paul’s parties, but she couldn’t place his name.

“Your assistant insisted it was urgent,” the man said, gesturing to Penny. “I would have been here sooner, but traffic is a nightmare this time of day. Now.” He looked over the faces in the room. “What do we have here?”

“We’re making an arrest,” Arellano blurted. “This man has confessed to multiple offences and—”

“Dimitri is a very close friend of mine,” Geaten cut in gently, but sternly. “I’m sure you must have heard incorrectly.”

Newlyn and Arellano exchanged glances, neither wanting to be the one to question the commissioner of police.

“Sir, with all due respect,” Arellano began.

“What I see here is a hospital room where sick people come to get treated.” Geaten took another step into the room. “This isn’t the place for this. Why don’t you two come with me and we can discuss all of this on our way back to the station, hmm?”

“But, sir, the fugitive…”

“Are you questioning me?”

Arellano quickly snapped his mouth shut.

Geaten smiled. “I didn’t think so. Now, let’s get on the road and you can tell me everything.”

The two hesitated, but they’d already pushed their luck as far as it would go.

“Oh my God,” Ava breathed the moment the group had left and oxygen returned to the space once more. She dropped down on the bed, making the frame squeak. “I…” she broke off when she remembered the doctor, standing just to her left, quiet and slightly ashen.

The others seemed to remember as well as all eyes fixed on him.

The doctor shifted, a faint flutter of his hands before they were stuffed into the pockets of his coat. “I’m just going to get a nurse to help me with—”

Dimitri moved before the other man could even lift his feet.

“By now you must have concluded that I am dangerous and have many friends in very high places,” Dimitri interjected, blocking the older man’s speedy escape. “What do you think I could do to a doctor who couldn’t keep his mouth shut?”

The doctor shook his head. “I … I wouldn’t…”

“I know,” Dimitri assured him. “You’re a smart man.”

The two clashed gazes, steel against butter. Dimitri won when the doctor’s chin dropped.

“Actually, Doctor, before you go.” John Paul moved forward by three steps. “Now that you know the full story, could you examine Ava properly? I would like the entire checkup done, overseen personally, by you.”

The doctor’s lips parted. “I have other patients—”

John Paul’s eyes narrowed. “Are you saying that my daughter’s health is an inconvenience for you?”

“No, of course not. I was just—”

“Full exam,” John Paul stressed. “Now.”

“Dad,” Ava protested. “I have to go home.”

“Not until you have been checked.”

“And you’re not going home,” Dimitri added. “Elena found you in a public market. There is nothing stopping her from getting you at your apartment.”

Ava’s jaw dropped. “I can’t go home?”

It made no sense to her after the words had left her why it was such a shock. Logically, everything they were telling her made perfect sense. Her life was in danger. She was completely out of her element and if she wanted to stay alive and avoid being on another cargo boat, she needed to trust them to keep her safe.

“You’re right,” she amended. “So, what’s the plan?”

“Well, you’re not leaving my sights until Elena’s head is on a spike outside my estate walls,” John Paul answered. “Metaphorically speaking, of course,” he added when the doctor’s face dropped several shades to green.

“What about my clothes?” Ava interrupted. “There are things I need from my place.”

“You have clothes at the estate and what you don’t have, we’ll get,” John Paul assured her.

She nodded, accepting this as her fate until Elena was put away or dead.

“In the meantime.” John Paul fixed the doctor with a level stare. “Doctor, if you please.”

There was nothing Ava wanted less than being poked and prodded for the rest of the time she would need to prepare for her date. It didn’t even leave time for her to get an outfit. All she had at her parent’s house were light summer dresses, jeans, and casual things for every day wear. There was the odd business suit, things she could wear at work, but nothing for a date. Part of her was tempted to reschedule for another night, one not marked by a shower of bullets and blood. It was a bit frightening how calm she really was about it. Deep down, she knew that wasn’t normal. People who were kidnapped, drugged, sold, and nearly killed several times were usually a blubbering mess. She just felt exhausted and weirdly numb. She knew that once that wore off, she’d be a mess, but in the meantime, she let herself sink into the emptiness, partially relishing in it.

The doctor motioned her to follow him with a twitch of his hand in the direction of the door. She wanted to apologize for the unsteadiness in his strides, but it probably wouldn’t have sounded convincing. She honestly couldn’t care less if he was terrified so long as he kept his mouth shut. It wasn’t like he was hurt.

“I will join you.” John Paul stalked after them.

Ava paused on the threshold and glanced back, not entirely sure why until her gaze met Dimitri’s. His tawny eyes soothed her like no sedative ever could. His beautiful face was painted in the late strokes of sunlight filtering through the window and she marveled how someone so damaged could still look like a fallen angel. She wanted to go to him and ask for another one of those kisses; her lips wouldn’t stop pulsing with the anticipation, but she didn’t dare. Not yet. Not until they’d talked and she had a better view of the ledge she stood on.

“I will be here when you return,” he assured her, mistaking her hesitance for fear of him leaving.

She only nodded. It was all she could ask for really.

She turned and followed John Paul and the doctor from the room. The three of them walked across to the nurse’s station and crowded the hassled brunette on the other side.

The doctor—Allen—rattled off a series of forms and tests he needed scheduled faster than Ava could memorize them. The nurse rapped at the computer keys, logging it all in without batting an eyelash. She must have been used to it, getting barked at by doctors and patients alike. Ava felt a pang of sympathy for her. At Chaud, Melanie had the same sort of policy where her editors and writers were concerned, so Ava was very familiar with the nurse’s suffering.

She turned away before her exhaustion broke the lock she had on her tongue. Her gaze flicked to a nearby chair, a stiff looking thing with cracked leather spilling yellow foam and steel rods for the frame. It was pushed into a corner, away from the others and all Ava wanted was to curl up in it and sleep. She could already imagine it, her knees drawn to her chest, her head propped against the wall. It wasn’t a bed, but it was perfect. She could make it work. Just for a few hours.

“Ava?” John Paul touched her arm lightly and she gave a startled twitch that she immediately regretted when his eyes narrowed.

“I’m okay,” she said, putting all her efforts into not letting her eyes slip shut. “Just really tired.”

He nodded like that made sense. “The shock’s wearing off.” He stroked her head gently, pushing back locks of hair. “It’ll be over quickly. Then I’ll take you home where you can rest.”

Rest. God, that was the most beautiful word in the human language. All she wanted was to rest, to crawl into a real bed with real pillows and sleep.

“Dad?”

“Yes darling?”

“Thank you for keeping Robby safe and for being there for him. I should have thanked you sooner. I’m sorry.”

His features softened, making him appear younger, despite the weariness around his eyes and the slight downward tilt of his mouth. The hardness in his shoulders relaxed and he peered down at her with so much love it was almost painful to look directly into.

“He’s a good man,” he said. “What happened to him was the result of his loyalties. His loyalties to you. I won’t punish him for that.”

There were so many things she wanted to ask about that night, about the night Robby OD’d, about what would happen now. Would Ki stay until the day Robby was too old to hold a syringe? Would Elena ever be caught? Would anything be normal ever again?

She surveyed the waiting area on the other side of the oval nurse’s station. Her gaze shifted over weary faces, men, women, and the occasional child, compacted into unforgiving seats, waiting for someone to make them feel better. There was no cheer in the room. No photos on the walls, no toys for the children, no books. There were a few medical magazines tossed haphazardly on an end table, but no one seemed to be touching those.

Ava exhaled, the sound heavy, drifting out of her lungs and into the stifling stink of human illness. She turned her head away, searching for Robby. He wasn’t there. She guessed he’d gone to get coffee. At least, she hoped; no one was safe until Elena was caught and that infuriated her.

The people she loved, those who meant the world to her, were in danger because of some crazy woman hell bent on … what? What could she possibly be after? John Paul said him, but why? It was madness.

“Ava?”

She blinked and focused on John Paul. “Just wondering where Robby went.”

He seemed to realize the other man was missing as well and narrowed his eyes. He didn’t exactly seem concerned, but he hummed quietly in contemplation.

“Do you think he’s all right?” she wondered.

He nodded slowly, seemingly lost in thought. “Yes, of course. Ki is with him.” He glanced at his watch. “I need to make a call.” His brown eyes focused on her. “Can you stay here for a minute. I won’t go far. Just there.” He gestured to a corner not more than ten feet away.

Ava nodded. She watched as he left her, hand digging into his pockets. She glanced at the doctor, still half bent over the counter, directing the nurse to the battery of tests he was about to put Ava through.

She was listening with half an ear when she felt hands on her hips. The contact sent a jolt through her. She jumped and snapped her head around.

Dimitri peered down at her while the strength of his chest lined up perfectly with the length of her spine. Being that close to him after so long was nothing compared to the sensation of his public displays of affection. She wasn’t sure how to accept them or how to react. All the places he touched, every subtle graze of his breath along the curve of her neck, lulled her to submit, to lean into the embrace. But there were too many eyes and she wasn’t used to the attention, even if no one was actually looking their way.

“Okay?”

She nodded and glanced at the doctor. He seemed oblivious to everything but getting things in order. The nurse was focused on her screen. John Paul was on his phone and no one else was around.

She tilted her head back to peer into Dimitri’s face. “Why did you tell the police the truth? You could have gotten in so much trouble.”

“Because lying is worse.”

“What’s going to happen now?”

He lowered his chin to the side of her head. “The matter will be dropped. There’s nothing the police can do anyway. This is a matter for the Syndicate.”

A chill passed through her and she shuddered violently. It caught her completely by surprise.

“What is it?” Dimitri’s fingers dug a little harder into her hips.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Nothing, I think. Just a shiver.” She licked her lips. “Are you leaving now?”

“Not right now.” There was still an edge to his voice as he continued to study her face, searching for signs of discomfort. “I have some matters that require my attention, but you will not be left unattended. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Dimitri, I—”

The doctor finished then and turned to them. Whatever she was about to say died on her lips as she caught sight of the massive folder clutched between both hands.

“Is that everything we’ll be doing?”

He also peered down at it, expression resigned as he heaved a sigh and nodded. “The sooner we begin…”

Ava’s jaw dropped. “Will I ever be leaving?”

The doctor chuckled. “Not for a bit.”

“But I…” She glanced helplessly towards Dimitri.

He kissed her. It was quick. She barely had time to realize it was happening before he pulled back.

“This is important,” he told her. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He’d said that before. It must have shown on her face because his softened.

“I swear it,” he said quietly. “I won’t ever be that stupid again.”

She had to believe him, didn’t she? Well, she would, once they’d talked. Whenever that happened. For now, she could only accept his word at face value and do what needed to be done.

“Okay,” she said to the doctor. “I’ll follow you.”

John Paul arrived then, hands busy stowing his phone away. He peered at Dimitri, his hands on Ava’s waist, then Ava, and finally settled on the doctor.

“Are we ready?”

The doctor held up the bulging file.

“Excellent.” John Paul turned his head to Ava. “Why are we still here?”

“We were just about to go,” she started to say.

Dimitri interjected. “I have some matters that require my immediate attention. I won’t be—”

“More important than Ava?” John Paul broke in, expression thunderous.

“Dad!”

Dimitri never balked. “It’s for Ava.”

Golden eyes clashed as the two squared off. Dimitri lowered his face, kissed the side of Ava’s head before straightening and letting his hands slip off her.

“I won’t be long,” he said to Ava, but stared fiercely at John Paul.

He walked off, leaving Ava and John Paul staring after him. He passed the room Ava had been in and Penny quickly sprinted after him, her heels cracking all the way down the corridor until it was gone entirely.

Ava wondered about the blonde. Not out of jealousy or paranoia. Not entirely, she wanted to think. It was curiosity, she told herself. No one could blame her for that. She had no hold on Dimitri. He was a free man who could do what he wanted, see who he wanted. She’d had her own fair share of dates and relationships over the years. She never expected him to live like a saint. But did he need to find someone so pretty to follow him around?

“Ava?” The brush of John Paul’s fingers on her elbow broke her out of her thoughts. She blinked and focused on the task at hand.

“Yes, I’m ready.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Dimitri hated paisley wallpaper. There was something about walking down a long, dimly lit corridor surrounded by the dizzying pattern that made his stomach woozy. It didn’t help that someone had lined the carpet with the same design, leaving him no choice but to grit his teeth and stomp through it.

“How much further?”

Surprisingly quick in her pumps, Penny kept perfect stride with him. The pale glow of her phone screen illuminated her furrowed brows and her focused concentration as she went over her notes.

“Yes sir.”

Her tone was distracted. Her lips were pursed thin in displeasure. She muttered something as her thumbs flew over the screen.

“Something wrong?”

She started to shake her head, only to huff, type something, wait, and then beam in pleasure.

“Not anymore.” She stowed the phone away, smirking like a cat who ate the canary. “Had a bit of a bidding war for the building I just obtained. The other party was determined, but … I won.”

Her smug self-assurance almost made him laugh. But they’d arrived at our destination.

The door was like all the others they’d passed, narrow and painted a dull, shit brown. Three hundred and twenty was drilled into the front, the numbering a bright gold.

Penny knocked.

They waited in silence for almost a minute before the lock clicked and the door opened.

A man loomed before them, tall as he was broad with skin the color of dark espresso beans and eyes a calm, deadly black. He blocked the entire doorway with his frame and peered at them, expression a perfect, blank mask.

“Can I help you?” he asked, his tone deep and gruff.

Dimitri waited a heartbeat to see if the man would recognize him. They’d met a few times in passing, never formally, but enough to be mildly familiar.

Frank Johnson simply stared at him.

“Mr. Johnson?” Penny edged a step closer. “Frank Johnson?”

Dark eyes pivoted away from Dimitri and fixed on her. “Yes?”

Penny thrust out a small, pale hand. “I’m Penelope Beauchamp.” Frank accepted, swallowing her hand entirely with a curl of his long fingers. “I’m here with—”

“I know who he is.” Frank pulled away and focused on Dimitri once more. “What can I do for you, Mr. Tasarov?”

So, he did recognize Dimitri.

“We need a moment of your time,” Dimitri said. “It’s urgent.”

Frank didn’t move. His gaze remained rigidly pinned on Dimitri as seconds Dimitri didn’t have slipped away. But Dimitri didn’t move. He didn’t blink. He knew the game well enough to recognize a battle of wills. The man was testing him out, waiting for him to look away first. It was like playing chicken on an open highway with two semis.

“What is it you need?” Frank prompted, and it became clear he was not going to allow them into his home.

Dimitri could accept that. He wouldn’t have either.

“I’m told you’re the best at what you do, Mr. Johnson,” he said. “I would like to hire you.”

Frank’s chin rose up a notch. “I’m sorry to inform you that I’m no longer in that business.”

“I will pay you.”

Frank never budged. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not for me,” Dimitri cut in when the other man began shutting the door. “It’s for someone whose life I put in danger.” He willed his voice to remain calm, but the more he spoke, the more it threatened to betray him. “They will kill her if I don’t stop them, but I can’t if I’m constantly worried about her. I need someone who will keep her safe when I can’t.”

Seconds bled into minutes, minutes that stretched on forever. The air in the corridor held a staleness he hadn’t noticed until he was forced to stand in it, bathing in its thickness. He was aware of Penny’s gaze shifting from him to Frank and back, but he didn’t glance at her.

“I lost her once already,” he said quietly. “I almost didn’t get her back.” He met the other man’s eyes, unwavering, determined. “I can’t lose her again. Please. She’s the only important thing in my life.”

“Then let her go,” Frank said not unkindly. “That’s the only way to keep her safe.”

Dimitri shook his head. “I won’t do that. Not again.”

Frank seemed to think about it a moment, his dark gaze assessing and level. “You are aware that I failed in my previous two assignments?”

“A … actually,” Penny cut in softly. “You didn’t.” She peered at her phone, then back up at the large man watching her. “Both those things happened because you weren’t with them. Your success rate, being employed by the same family, successfully for nearly five decades speaks very highly of you.”

“My success rate.” Frank made a sound that could have passed for a scoff or a chuckle. “Both my previous employers are dead. Being there or not doesn’t change that fact.”

“Ava will be dead if I don’t protect her,” Dimitri said, a bit sharply. “She’s not part of our world. She’s innocent. It would only be until I get this matter settled.”

Frank pursed his lips. “No, I’m sorry.”

Dimitri had no recollection of moving, but his palm slammed into the door, jolting it back open when the bigger man started closing it again. He glowered at Frank, every muscle coiled.

“That is not an acceptable answer,” he bit out through stiff lips. “Your wants and needs, my wants and needs, they don’t matter. I don’t care that you’re feeling self-pity for yourself over something you had no control over. I don’t care what you think of me. I don’t care what it costs. This is about her, about keeping her safe. I need you for her and you are going to say yes, or believe me, things will end badly.”

If Frank Johnson had appeared small before, filling the entire frame of the door with his massive bulk, he seemed to grow in size, expanding and lengthening to monstrous proportions. Dimitri had a quick flash of his head getting torn off by the ham sized fists balled at the man’s sides, but he didn’t back down. He wouldn’t. If the man wanted to try and beat the shit out of him, then that was what needed to happen. Whatever it took. He wasn’t leaving until he had this man watching Ava.

Everyone in the underground knew about Frank Johnson. Everyone wanted him. Even back when he worked for Callum McClary, then Killian. He was a legend. No one knew where he’d come from or what his background was, because he supposedly didn’t have one, but the man was lethal in a way no one ever saw coming until it was too late. That was the sort of man Dimitri needed and he would do whatever it took to make it happen.

“You’re at my home, Mr. Tasarov,” Frank said very slowly, each word reverberating with a serrated hum of danger. “Threatening me—”

“It wasn’t a threat,” Dimitri interjected. “But if that’s what it will take to get you, then fine. Just know that I’m not leaving until you agree and the longer you force me to stay here, the longer Ava is alone and in danger.”

He didn’t mention John Paul. He didn’t feel like that was necessary.

Frank stopped trying to shut the door. His eyes narrowed.

“Mr. Tasarov, you are aware that I’m armed, aren’t you?”

Dimitri didn’t so much as bat an eyelash. “So am I.”

“Sir … sirs,” Penny interjected quickly, probably foreseeing where this conversation was heading. “Maybe there’s another solution—?”

Dimitri was about to tell her that this was the only way, but it occurred to him that he couldn’t go around starting fights anymore. He couldn’t use force and strength. It was all politics and diplomacy now.

He stopped forcing. He took his hand off the wood, which seemed to take Frank by surprise.

“Penny, can you give us a moment, please?”

Penny hesitated. Her gaze jumped from Dimitri to Frank, then back anxiously. She bit her lip, but gave a reluctant nod and moved several feet away.

Dimitri waited, grouping his words carefully before speaking again.

“I apologize,” he said slowly. “It’s been a stressful few days, but I didn’t come here to butt heads with you, Mr. Johnson. I wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for the simple fact that the woman I love is in danger and I will go to any length to protect her, even arm wrestle you for it.”

A ghost of a grin twitched around Frank’s mouth before it was gone.

Dimitri pushed on. “The fact of the matter is that I only require your services just until Elena’s been captured and—”

“Elena?” Frank’s eyes narrowed with a dark glimmer. “Your mother?”

There was no getting around it. He would need to explain. He just wasn’t sure how much time he had.

He looked at his watch. It had already been fifteen minutes. Adding that with the thirty-minute drive, he’d left Ava in the hospital for nearly an hour. John Paul wouldn’t leave her. Dimitri was confident of that. But that didn’t mean he liked being away longer than was necessary. Frank’s stubbornness was not necessary. It was bothersome.

But in as few words as humanly possible, he told Frank the story, everything except how he’d kidnapped Ava to convince her dad to vote for him. That would have only complicated things and Dimitri needed to get the man onboard already.

“You don’t know where she is?” Frank ventured when Dimitri finished.

He shook his head. “The longer she’s out there, the more in danger Ava is. She needs to be found, but I can’t do that if I need to stick next to Ava.”

Frank had become a giant stone statue boring down at him with the force of an angry god. Dimitri would have backed away, but he’d learned long ago that running from a wolf was the worst idea. So, he stood his ground, watchful and waiting for the first hint of an attack.

Carefully, Frank moved. He reached for the doorknob, his massive hand practically crushing it in his palm. Dimitri expected to have the thing slammed in his face. But Frank stepped into the corridor with him, shutting the door behind him.

“I accept,” he said, moving past Dimitri towards the stairs.

“You’re coming?” Dimitri pivoted on his heels and followed.

“Only until she has been found.”

That perked his interest, and Penny’s from the look of surprised confusion on her face when she met Dimitri’s quick glance.

“Can I ask why?” Penny asked for him.

Frank never slowed his pace, which was fine with Dimitri who easily kept up, but Penny had to practically run to match their strides.

“She killed someone I cared about.”

Dimitri didn’t push. It wasn’t his place to pry. Plus, any excuse to get the man onboard was good enough for him.

They took Saeed’s cab back to the hospital. Frank wedged himself into the seat next to the boy as Dimitri and Penny slipped into the back. The scuffed and filthy window made peering into the front nearly impossible, but Saeed’s discomfort was palpable.

“So, uh, what’s up?”

Frank glanced sideways at him and said nothing.

Saeed hastily faced forward and fell quiet.

“We’re going to need a car,” Dimitri said to Penny, who nodded, eyes fixed on her screen.

“Yes sir, I have an SUV already waiting to be picked up and transferred to your preferred location.”

“Saeed?”

The boy took his eyes off the road for two seconds to flick a glance at Dimitri through the rearview mirror. “Yeah, boss?”

“Drop me off at the hospital, then go with Penny to pick up the car.”

“SUV,” Penny mumbled under her breath, staring almost innocently out the window.

Dimitri shot her a side glance. “SUV,” he corrected a bit tightly. “Drop your cab off and hand in your resignation, effective immediately.”

Saeed bobbed his head. “Sure thing, boss.” He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “Do … would you like any references or my criminal record, or anything?”

“No.” Dimitri dug into his pocket for his phone. “I’m not hiring you to do my finances. I just need you to be on call when I need a driver.”

Saeed said nothing. He followed the flow of traffic back to the hospital.

Dimitri called Stephen.

“What do you have for me?” he asked when the kid picked up.

“Nothing. I’ve searched everywhere.”

“Search harder,” Dimitri stressed. “Have you checked her bank account?”

Stephen cleared his throat. “I did…” he paused a long two seconds. “It’s been emptied. All of it.”

There was no way on earth Elena had only one bank account. The one Stephen was looking at was most likely her legit one for the herbal shops. He’d never be able to find her hidden ones.

“Where was it transferred to and when?”

He heard the faint click of keys being struck rapidly.

“It was sent to a dummy account under the name Sophia Antonovich three days ago. From there it just vanishes. No trace at all.”

“It’s a bank account. There has to be a paper trail.”

“I’m telling you, there isn’t. It hits the account and … gone.”

“Keep looking. Find out who Sophia Antonovich is and get back to me.”

He hung up.

Three days ago. That was around the time Dimitri had talked to her at the airport in Puerto Rico. She must have realized what he was doing and pulled all the money before it all went south. She’d had a five-day head start, which meant, she could be anywhere.

“Did you make that appointment I asked for?”

Penny nodded. “Yes sir.” She squared her shoulders and turned her torso just enough so she was facing him with her phone held aloft. “The building I leased is being prepared as we speak. All sector heads have been contacted and informed to await further instructions.” She lifted her chin and peered at him. “All I need is a time that works for you.”

Dimitri peered at the sky barely visible over the looming skyscrapers. It was growing dark. The entire day was a blur. He honestly couldn’t recall what he’d done or what he’d accomplished. It felt like nothing when he thought of all he still needed to do.

“Tomorrow morning, first thing,” he decided, suppressing the urge to rub his eyes. “Find me men, at least eight. Strong, capable, ex-military.”

Penny’s thumbs flew over the screen, a blur of French tips.

“I might be able to help you with that, sir.” Frank turned his head over his shoulder and peered into the backseat. “I know a few very good men who could use the job.”

Penny paused in her note taking to peer questioningly at Dimitri, who gave a nod.

“Call them. Tell them to meet us at the hospital.”

Frank dug out his phone and did as he was told.

Penny’s phone took that moment to chirp. She peered down at it and Dimitri couldn’t help wondering what she’d do if she didn’t have the thing.

“Sir…” She scrolled through the message carefully. “I just received that information you requested.”

They were pulling up to the hospital. Saeed put his blinkers on and pulled up to the front entrance. He climbed out quickly and sprinted around to get Dimitri’s door. Penny must have instructed him to do so, because he hadn’t the first time.

Dimitri climbed out. Frank and Penny followed, but Dimitri focused on the blonde.

“Get the SUV, then come back. We’ll talk about that after.”

Penny inclined her head and turned to Saeed. “Let’s make it quick, yeah?” She checked her watch, grimaced. “Actually, sir, I need to get home after. Can I text you everything?”

Dimitri nodded. “Send Frank a copy as well. I want him to be prepared for anything.”

She was already bent over her screen as she took the seat Frank had vacated. Saeed shut her in and hurried around the hood.

Dimitri left them to sort it out and lead Frank inside. Neither spoke as they climbed into the elevator and rode up. The lights above the doors blinked on and off the higher they went until it finally dinged open on Ava’s floor.

John Paul stood at her door, phone at his ear. He glanced up when Dimitri approached. He said something and disconnected the call. His gaze moved past Dimitri to the man at his shoulder.

“Frank.” He stepped forward, hand not holding the phone extended. “It’s been a while.”

Frank accepted the shake. “John Paul. Good to see you.”

They separated.

“What brings you here?” John Paul asked.

Dimitri answered. “I’ve asked Frank to stay with Ava until we’ve settled things.”

That seemed to surprise John Paul. His eyebrows lifted as he looked to the other man.

“I thought you’d retired.”

“I have,” Frank drawled with just a hint of aggravation. “Mr. Tasarov was insistent.”

John Paul flicked a glance towards Dimitri, his expression unreadable. “Is that right?”

Dimitri ignored the snide remark and peered past his father. “Where’s Ava?”

He didn’t wait for a response. He pushed forward and glanced in the room.

She lay on the bed, a small, pale figure curled up on her side with two pillows stuffed under her head and IV tube taped to the back of her right hand. Her shoulders rose and fell in slow, rhythmic breaths. She didn’t stir when he crossed to her and took a seat next to her hip.

Even in sleep, she looked exhausted. Her face was drawn and pinched, and she didn’t budge when he stroked back her hair. He tugged the blanket higher around her and watched as she slumbered, resisting the urge to crawl in behind her and cradle her close.

“What did the doctors say?” he asked the quiet rustle from the doorway.

He didn’t need to glance up to know John Paul had followed him in. The other man’s fatigue and expensive cologne filled the space.

“Dehydrated,” he said, surprising Dimitri with an answer. “Bruised ribs. Nothing she won’t physically heal from.”

Dimitri glanced back. “Emotionally?”

John Paul shrugged. His hands disappeared into his pockets. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

Dimitri made a mental note to find someone Ava could talk to, a professional who could help make her forget or at least feel better. He never believed in people who tried to understand the human mind. It was too complex and people were too good at lying, but if that was something Ava needed, then he would find someone. The best someone. A dozen someone’s. What ever she needed. He would help her through this. He promised her as much silently while combing back locks of tangled hair. The auburn was startling against the white pillowcases.

“I’m impressed,” John Paul continued. Dimitri had almost forgotten he was there. “Getting Frank is the equivalent of getting Justin Bieber to play at a young girl’s birthday party.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask how John Paul knew about Justin Bieber, but decided he didn’t care.

“Ava deserves the best,” was all he said.

“Oh, I agree.” He dared a couple more steps closer and stopped at the foot of Ava’s bed. “But I’ve already decided to send Ava to France to join her mother for a few weeks.”

Dimitri frowned. “France?” He turned his head over his shoulder to squint at the other man. “With her mother? Why would that be a good idea? Hasn’t she suffered enough already?”

A muscle tightened in John Paul’s jaw. “It’s not here and that’s what I want, for her not to be here.”

“And sending her across the ocean is your idea of a solution?”

Anger flared white hot in the other man’s eyes. “And what is your solution? Keep her here? Let her get killed?”

Dimitri waved towards the doorway where they could just make out Frank’s wide shoulder on the other side. “I found a solution.”

“So you want to keep her here,” John Paul argued. “Where she’s been kidnapped and nearly shot to death.”

“Do you honestly think sending Ava to France will stop Elena? Shipping her off will make no difference, except that we won’t be there to protect her. She’ll be in another country, alone.” He lowered his voice when Ava stirred. “I don’t know what Elena was thinking when she shot up an entire restaurant, but we both know that isn’t normal, not for Elena. It’s not smart. Elena would know better. She would know to keep low and stay hidden until she could find a way back in.”

The other man’s chin lifted a notch. “What are you saying? Someone else is after Ava?”

Dimitri shook his head, his brain too numb from the last week to function properly with thought. He needed sleep, proper sleep. The last time he even shut his eyes was on the plane home and that hadn’t been comfortable at all. He needed a bed and about an hour to reboot. His entire body was running on fumes and well wishes.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m just saying that this isn’t like Elena. You know that.”

“Erik—”

Indignation sparked to life in the pit of Dimitri’s stomach. “Erik would never—”

John Paul put up a hand. “That’s not what I was going to say.” He waited to make sure Dimitri wouldn’t interrupt again before continuing. “Erik might know where she is and not realize it. They’re siblings. They grew up together, have special places they used to go to, places of sentimental meaning.”

Dimitri had already thought about that, but hadn’t been sure how to bring it up to his uncle without causing a fight. He didn’t want Erik to think Dimitri didn’t believe him or that he wasn’t trying hard enough to find Elena. For all that she was and all that she’d done, she was still his sister and that made even Dimitri question Erik’s true intent. Not in the sense that he would betray everything. Erik wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t give up his position or territory and power, not for anyone. But he would do what he could—while keeping his hands clean, and that was what worried Dimitri, because unlike his uncle, he had no loyalties towards Elena. In this case, blood wasn’t enough.

“I’ll ask him.”

John Paul shook his head. “That might not be enough.”

Dimitri peered up at him. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying…” The steady clip of footsteps filled the space as he circled to stand on Ava’s other side and peer down at her. “As it stands right now, we can’t trust anyone … but each other.”

That made Dimitri pause. Long enough that John Paul had the time to reach down and hook a bit of hair off Ava’s temple and push it back.

“We’ve never seen eye-to-eye, have we?” he went on when Dimitri said nothing. “We’ve never agreed on anything, except her. We both agree on her, on keeping her safe, on keeping her happy, on keeping her. I sometimes wonder what kind of men that makes us, being so completely weak when it comes to a single girl.”

“Woman,” Dimitri corrected.

John Paul snorted. “To you. To me, she’s still a gangly nine-year-old desperate for love. I promised myself that I would set the world on fire before letting anything happen to her. I failed.”

“We both failed,” Dimitri murmured. “We both let her down.”

The other man nodded slowly. “We can’t let her down again. We need to find Elena and make an example to everyone about what will happen if they go near Ava again.”

Dimitri couldn’t argue that. He didn’t even care what kind of example John Paul had in mind. Whatever it took to keep Ava safe.

“I didn’t find her,” he confessed quietly. “Remember I told you she wasn’t there?” He didn’t wait for a response. “She’d already been sold. I was too late. I don’t know how. I don’t…” He forced five fingers back through his hair. “I was five days early. I was there before the boat even ported. I was there. I should have … but it was too late. She was already gone. All I keep thinking is, what if she hadn’t been brought back? What if they’d kept her?” he broke off, unable to continue without crying or throwing up.

John Paul was quiet a long time. It became evident why when his exhale spilled into the room a shaky whisper.

“The man who brought her…”

“Julian Armando,” Dimitri supplied.

“What did he say?”

Dimitri shook his head. “Nothing. He just gave her to me and left.”

“Does Marcus know him?”

He lifted his face for the first time and met John Paul’s gaze. “I would think so. Hector did.”

John Paul considered something, then nodded. “We will have to extend a hand in thanks to this Armando and see what he has to say about things.”

He was right, of course. They would need to make the first move if they were to stay ahead of whatever may come. There was no such thing as a free helping hand or random acts of kindness. Not in their world. Julian Armando may have asked for nothing then, but that didn’t mean his actions didn’t come with strings.

“I have a matter that requires my attention in the morning,” he told the other man. “But I will meet you in the afternoon to see Marcus.”

John Paul agreed with an inclination of his head before he turned and headed for the door.

It wasn’t until later, when the hospital was a quiet buzz of machines and the occasional shuffle of feet around the nurse’s station that Dimitri realized that was the first time in thirty-one years that he and John Paul had ever had a civil, agreeing conversation about anything. It was the first time the man hadn’t sneered or snarled at him. It was the first time they’d spoken as equals, two men moving towards a common goal. Dimitri wasn’t a teenage girl so he didn’t believe for a minute it would last or happen again, but he let himself take in that moment for what it was worth, which was probably not very much. Ava would never believe him, or maybe she would. She always said all he and John Paul needed was a push. Maybe she was that push. Maybe everything that had happened was what he and the other man needed to finally get on the right foot.

Didn’t matter, he told himself, shifting to a more comfortable position in the chair at the foot of the bed. If it happened again, it happened. If it didn’t … well, he wouldn’t lose sleep over it.

He’d sent Frank home hours earlier with instructions to return at five to begin his shift. It was early, but it gave Dimitri time to shower and dress for his meeting with the heads of the north. He wanted to make sure he fit the part he was about to step into. It would be their first impression of him and it needed to be one that said power, strength, and leadership. It also meant he might need to get over his aversion to suits, which made him grumble a curse and shift in his seat. The very idea made his skin clammy. He could almost feel the tight clasp of a collar around his throat, the stiff fabric making him itch. It made no sense whatsoever why a grown man would willingly put himself in that level of discomfort. John Paul lived in suits. He was clearly deranged.

But he shot Penny a text despite the insane hour to find him a suit. Then a second one to find a good trauma counselor. Then a third text to Saeed, telling him to meet Dimitri at the hospital by five.

Then there was nothing to do, but write out what he would say during the meeting on his phone and wait for the sun to come up.

Chapter Twenty-Four

There was a strange man sitting by her bed when Ava jolted awake. What was odder than that was the glossy fashion magazine he was flipping through. Vogue, by the look of it, and he appeared to actually be reading an article with single minded focus, like whatever it was about, had him riveted.

Ava didn’t move. She lay perfectly still, trying to get her bearings. She’d had a dream she was back on the boat, but the room had been converted into an auction house and it was full of people all bidding on her. Faceless voices kept shouting out numbers, increasing it each time until it was a sum that didn’t even exist. She kept begging them to stop, to let her go home, but no one was listening.

Then her eyes had snapped open. Just like that. No sound. No warning. Just popped open and she found herself eyelevel with a bent knee clad in soft, black trousers. The leg it was joined to was too big, too muscular to belong to Dimitri or John Paul. She’d followed it up to a pair of enormous hands with long fingers gripping a magazine and concealing the owner’s face. She stayed quiet and only because she still had no idea where she was. What if it hadn’t been a dream? What if getting found by Dimitri had been the illusion? What if she’d been sold and was now in some nightmare?

It came back to her then, the shooting and doctors and tests. She dared a glance past the man at the end table, then down the length of the bed to the open doorway and the nurse’s station on the other side.

She relaxed.

“They brought you breakfast.” Gruff and deep, the voice rumbled like an approaching thunderstorm through the soft silence. The magazine rustled as a page was flipped. “It might be cold now.”

No use pretending to be asleep, Ava shifted upright. The blankets were tangled around her legs and her IV tube was partially wrapped around her arm, and she had to fight to free herself from both.

“Who are you?”

The magazine was folded and lowered into his lap. Eyes the warm, dark brown of rich chocolate met hers from a face void of any expression. They sat beneath dark brows and a prominent brown that expanded high over his smooth scalp. There were no visible facial markers, no scars, no lines. It was impossible to tell his age at all, except he could be anywhere over thirty. He wore a dark suit a tone shy of funeral clothes with a white shirt and a black tie. The light from the window sparked off the toe of his gleaming shoe as his right foot was lowered off his left knee.

“I’m Frank,” he told her. “I’ve been hired by Mr. Tasarov to accompany you.”

“A bodyguard,” she mused.

He considered this, then gave an almost imperceptible shrug. “If you like.”

Her gaze moved over the room, not really excepting Dimitri to be there, but in case. “Where is he?”

Frank rose, tossed the magazine down on the end table and nimbly fastened the button on his blazer. “Mr. Tasarov had business to oversee, but will return the moment he’s able. In the meantime, would you like breakfast?”

He walked towards the rolling table at the foot of the bed holding a covered tray. He pulled it over until it was over the bed and directly in front of her.

It was cold toast, a small cup of butter, a plastic knife, one boiled egg, a tiny carton of orange juice, a cold, plastic cup of coffee, and a thin packet of cheese that had gone rubbery. None of it looked appealing.

“Where are my clothes?” she asked instead. “Am I allowed to leave?”

Frank didn’t push her to eat. Maybe he too noticed just how prison worthy the display looked, because he set the cover back on top and pushed the table away.

“I have not been informed of your discharge,” he informed her curtly. “The doctor has not yet arrived.”

“Could you—”

“No, my job is to stay with you at all times.”

Ava thought of Robby and Ki and inwardly grimaced.

Carefully, she nudged back the covers and rose to her feet. She’d kept her socks on, which she normally hated, but no matter how gleaming the floor, she couldn’t help envision puddles of puke and piss everywhere. Having it touch her bare feet made her want to shudder. Plus, cold laminate made her think of the showers back in that … place. She still didn’t know what it was, but she remembered the feel of its iciness, the slime squishing between her toes … it was enough to make her want to throw up.

Her hand went to the steel pole containing a clear, plastic bag of fluids and she edged towards her shoes where they sat side by side beneath a nearby chair. Her clothes were on top, neatly folded and waiting to be pulled on. But she only tugged on her shoes, not sure if there would be more tests and not wanting to get undressed a second time.

Feeling better, she turned back to the man across the room. She took a deep breath and tried to remember he was there to protect her and it wasn’t his fault she was in this mess.

Ava smiled. “I’m Ava.”

He inclined his head, but said nothing. It wasn’t like he could introduce himself a second time.

She let it go. “I’m going to find a doctor,” she told him simply, deciding the sooner they were all on the same page, the better. “Once we know when I’m leaving, I need to go home, and shower and change. I don’t know how you do things, but I don’t have many friends, only one, actually. His name’s Robby. Please don’t tackle him, or ID him, or pat him down.”

She thought of Ki as she said the last part. Last thing she wanted was to have everyone she knew ID’d and frisked. Her circumstances were different from Robby’s, clearly, but better safe than sorry.

Frank actually cleared his throat. She wasn’t sure if he was concealing a laugh or he just needed to clear his throat, but there was a glimmer of something in his eyes.

“I’ve already been given very specific instructions,” he said. “Robby has been cleared by Mr. Tasarov. Anyone else, I will have to follow up with him.”

Oh God, she thought miserably. This wouldn’t end well. She didn’t like having her day planned out by someone else and authorized by yet another person. She could accept Frank’s presence as protection. She was even willing to accept that protection with grace and silence. But who she saw and where she went … that needed some discussion. Not with Frank, because he was only following orders. She needed to go to the source.

“All right.” She willed herself to work through it. “Well, doctor first, yeah? Then we’ll work on the rest.”

Frank said nothing, but he followed her from the room to the nurse’s station, a massive shadow at her shoulder. Not exactly touching her, but his presence was an unwavering force pushing against her back.

“Excuse me?” She released the IV pole and set her hands on the cool surface and leaned in to peer over at the tiny blonde on the other side. “Excuse—”

“Please wait your turn, ma’am,” the woman mumbled, never looking up from the file she was flipping through.

There was no one else anywhere near the oval set up. There was one man in the waiting area across the room and a dozen doctors and nurses hurrying back and forth, but not a single person waiting.

Nevertheless, Ava waited. She waited and watched as one file after another was opened, peered over and set aside. It went on for ten minutes before her patience waned.

“Excuse me?” she said again, firmly. “Can you please just tell me if I can leave?”

Annoyance blazed behind round glasses. The nurse raised her head and pinned them on Ava.

“Name?”

Ava told her and waited while the files were rifled through. Hers was unearthed from the very bottom and smacked open.

“No.” The file was slapped shut. “The doctor still needs to see you.”

Ava tried not to sigh. “Do you know how much longer—?”

“It’s a hospital,” the nurse interjected. “Doctors are busy helping other patients. They will get to you when they can.”

“Is Doctor Allen—”

“He’s gone home and won’t be back until late tonight.”

In no mood to spend another full day there, Ava stiffened her spine. “Can I discharge myself? This isn’t a prison, right? I’m not under arrest? Can I just leave?”

“We would not advise—”

“It’s fine. I feel fine. Please, where are the forms?”

The nurse—Dorothy, from what it said on her nametag—sat back in her seat. “A doctor has to sign off on them. They’ll be with you shortly,” Dorothy added when Ava started to protest. “Just be patient. You’re not exactly our main priority right now, not after what happened yesterday. There are people who need every available body on hand.”

Ava froze. She hadn’t thought, not once, it hadn’t even … how could she forget? How could she not still be hearing the sickening, sucking sound of iron piercing flesh? The gurgling gasps of desperate lungs trying to keep functioning. The cries, the pitiful sobs of those remaining in the aftermath. It had only happened yesterday and yet it felt like it hadn’t happened to her, like it had been a movie she’d seen ages ago. Even the memory of climbing to her feet and reaching for Robby felt distorted. She couldn’t even remember coming to the hospital. Had they been picked up by an ambulance? Had they walked? Caught a cab? How was she not feeling anything? What was wrong with her?

“Miss Emerson?”

Cold fingers clamped around her arm. She had no recollection of doubling over until she was being shoved into a chair.

It was too much. She could feel the entire world rocking back on her, a vicious wave careening out of control as everything, every moment of the last two weeks rushed up at her. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t inhale past the airtight box closing around her. Faces rose up behind the darkness of her closed eyelids. Ilsa with her big, green eyes. The other girls, their faces twisted in terror as they were hauled out of the room. She remembered each one with a clarity that shouldn’t have been possible. She knew what they’d been wearing. She knew what color their eyes were. She remembered the people from the bistro, remembered them with painful accuracy, despite having only glanced their way once the entire time. They were all there, all the people she couldn’t save, all the people she put in danger, all rising and falling with the tides.

“How … how many died?” she heard her voice ask from a distance.

“What?” Dorothy sounded confused. “Just keep breathing, Miss Emerson.”

She pulled away from the hand rubbing her back. “How many died?” she asked again, louder.

Dorothy drew back, lips pursed. “Eleven.”

Eleven.

Eleven dead.

Eleven dead because of her, dead by the bullets meant for her.

“Let’s get you back in bed, yeah?” Dorothy hooked her hands beneath Ava’s arms and hoisted her up forcibly. “I’ll have a doctor come see you.”

It was what she’d wanted, a doctor to tell her she could leave, to head out and live her life while all that blood was still wet on her hands. She was as guilty as the people responsible. She should have realized she was a danger to others. She should have stayed home.

“Miss Emerson.” The voice was too male to be Dorothy. Its deep baritone had her head coming up and focusing on the soft, dark face of the man assigned to stay with her. “Are you all right?”

“I killed them,” she blurted without any thought, without a second to even realize what she was admitting to. “All those people … I killed them.”

Frank’s eyes narrowed. Then he was pulling back and addressing someone else in the room. Dorothy maybe. She heard footsteps hurrying from the room. Then Frank was back, closer, his voice low and gentle.

“Miss Emerson, can you hear me?” He didn’t wait for a response. “I advise that you say nothing else, do you understand?”

What had she said? She couldn’t even remember.

Dorothy returned then with a glass of water. It was tepid and smelled of rusted pipes, which reminded her of the boat, the rancid air. Poor Dorothy had no time at all to jerk back before Ava threw up on her sneakers.

“I’m okay,” Ava swore for the ninth time in the last hour and a half. “It was nothing. I’m still just a little tired. That’s all.”

No one believed her. Not the doctor that rushed in. Not Dorothy, who kept insisting she was fine and had another pair of sneakers in her locker. Not John Paul who one of the other nurses must have called. Even Frank look skeptical standing by the door, watching the commotion in his dark, silent way.

The doctor checked her again and a janitor was brought in to mop up her mess. It was all done thoroughly and with a lot of placating smiles.

God, they all thought she was some poor, traumatized child who needed to be assured everything would be okay. They didn’t seem to realize nothing would ever be okay again. They didn’t realize that those people were never coming back and Ava would have to live with that for the rest of her life. It was just another notch in her rapidly growing list of sins she would need to account for in the afterlife.

“Ava.” The cot dipped as John Paul lowered himself gingerly down next to her hip. “Darling, it’s okay not to be all right. You’ve had a bad couple of weeks.”

Dorothy came up behind him with a clear, plastic cup of water and another of pills. She passed both to John Paul.

“No … please.” Ava turned her head away at the sight of the liquid, already knowing it had come from the same place as the last cup. “I can’t drink that.” Already her stomach was beginning to rebuff the idea.

“Is there a vending machine nearby?” Frank said, speaking for the first time.

Dorothy nodded and directed him to some place down the hall.

Frank left.

“Could we have a moment, please?” John Paul asked the doctor and nurse.

Both nodded and walked out without a word.

John Paul faced Ava. He smoothed her clammy face and peered into her eyes.

“What happened, love?”

She couldn’t meet his eye when she told him. “It smelled like rust,” she whispered, feeling ashamed for reasons she couldn’t fathom. “It reminded me of…”

John Paul took her hand gently in his. “You’re not there anymore, Ava. I know it’s too soon to get past it, but you will. One day at a time.”

She could think of nothing to say to that, so she sat quiet, studying the crisscross pattern on the itchy blanket.

Frank arrived with a bottle of water. He passed it to John Paul, who unscrewed the top and passed it to Ava. She took it gingerly and sniffed.

It smelled like nothing, just like water is supposed to smell like. She guzzled half of it down, chasing away the rawness in her throat and taste of vomit on her tongue. She was panting when she finally stopped.

“Thank you.”

Frank inclined his head, and said nothing.

“Get some rest,” John Paul suggested. “And when the doctor okay’s it, I’ll take you home.”

He took the bottle from her and set it next to the plastic cup of pills he hadn’t made her take.

Ava didn’t argue. She felt exhausted. Her very soul felt weary. All she wanted was to wake up and it be a month ago, back when her biggest concern was getting an article read and edited before Melanie threw a fit. All that seemed so inconsequential now. Melanie. Chaud. Who cared what the spring colors were or what popstar wore what best. It didn’t matter when there were girls being carted across whole countries like cattle, when they were being ripped away from their families and sold. Everything she loved in the past seemed utterly frivolous and ridiculous. She was mortified she ever allowed herself to be so incredibly shallow.

“It’ll be all right,” John Paul soothed, stroking her head as she curled onto her side.

She didn’t have the heart to tell him nothing would ever be all right again. How could it?

“How do you do it?” she asked instead. “How do you do what you do and sleep at night?”

His hand stilled. She didn’t look at him. There was a fine, jagged scar along the side of the end table. She stared at that.

“I don’t hurt people,” he said quietly, a little hurt.

“Then what do you do?”

She’d never asked before. Not him. Not Dimitri. She’d gone on in her little fantasy haze with the illusion that just because they were her entire world, that they weren’t criminals, people who did bad things.

“I do many things, and yes, sometimes people get hurt,” he said.

“How do you sleep?” she asked again, her voice oddly hollow even to her own ears.

He was quiet a long time. She was beginning to think he wouldn’t answer, when he shifted.

“The world isn’t black and white, Ava. There is no all right or all wrong, all good or all evil. A powerful man could be cruel and just. A good man could kill without mercy. A child could steal—”

“But he’s not hurting anyone,” she protested.

“Isn’t he?” he answered in that same calm tone. “What about the shop owner who has to cover the cost of that stolen item? That’s money he could be using to buy food for his family. Without it, his own children could starve.”

Cause and effect. He’d been drumming it into her head since she was a little girl.

“I killed those people,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have left the manor. I should have realized … I should have been smarter. They would all be home with their families right now.”

“No, love.” He touched her shoulder. “This is on Elena. The blood is on her hands.”

“I should have stayed home.”

Her voice broke. Her face crumpled as hot tears flooded down her cheeks to dampen her pillow. John Paul comforted her until there was nothing left but to shut her eyes and will herself to rest.

It must have worked, because when she was thrown out of her moment of temporary peace by a scene of her trapped in a metal coffin, the room was dark and filled by the jagged gulps of her own breaths. Everything was still, that sort of silence that came from being surrounded by sick people. Occasionally, it was broken by a scuffle of feet or the low drone of someone being paged over the speakers, but it was all muffled in her room. Someone had shut the door and snapped down the blinds. Her room was a murky black softened only by a few slivers of light that had found their way through the gaps in the pleated shades over the window. But despite the darkness, she felt him, felt his warm presence. She didn’t even need to turn her head and he was already there, putting a dent in the flimsy mattress as he leaned in to pull her into his arms.

They circled her without so much as a murmur. Their strength enveloped her, enclosing her like a blanket on a winter’s night. His body settled into the curve of her back, fitting perfectly so there wasn’t even a centimeter of space between them. Then he was settled, taking up most of the space, but he was there, anchoring her to reality, which was that she was here with him, not there in that box with its smell and echoing sounds. His warm breath rolled and receded over the shell of her ear and along the side of her face. His chest rose and fell with it along her spine. His heart pattered, strong and consistent against her shoulder blade.

“I’m here, myshka.”

It was all she needed. Three little words and the demons gnawing on her soul dissipated. The world around her calmed. Her muscles relaxed, and when she shut her eyes again, there was nothing waiting for her behind her eyelids.

He was gone when she opened her eyes again. The space behind her was void of his warmth. The weight of his arm was missing from around her middle. She could no longer hear the whisper of his breath. And she lay there, trying to drag it all back around her, to imagine him there again, but it didn’t happen. Instead, she turned onto her back, not at all surprised to find Frank in his seat once more, a new magazine in hand.

“They brought you breakfast again,” he said without glancing up. “They suggest you eat since you didn’t yesterday.”

Ava glanced at the tray on the table at the foot of the bed. “I’m not really hungry for boiled eggs, to be honest.”

A page was flipped. “You might like it.”

Not sure what there was to like about cold toast and even colder coffee, but she crawled to the foot of the bed, careful not to pull out her IV, and peeled off the lid. She stared at the bowl of mixed fruit, the plastic fork, croissant and still warm coffee next to a note that read, I think they’re trying to poison you into staying longer. Also, you owe me. I almost lost an arm. -D

“What happened?” she asked the stoic man behind her.

Frank peered at her over the edge of the magazine. “Mr. Tasarov was very insistent they not try to feed you anymore.”

She tried to work that out in her head, but couldn’t. She made a mental note to ask Dimitri herself later.

“Where is he?”

Dark eyes went back to the pages. “He’s been momentarily called away, but asked me to assure you that he will be back before lunch.”

She was finishing off her fruit bowl when the doctor came in, clipboard in hand. It wasn’t Doctor Allen or the doctor from the previous day. This one was younger with a floppy mop of blond hair and bright, happy eyes behind gold wired glasses. He had the bounce of someone fresh out of medical school, someone who hadn’t yet been worn down by the grimness of the job.

Ava liked him. All the doctors had been nice, but it was nice to see a real smile for a change.

“Hi, I’m Doctor Wright. How are you feeling?” He caught sight of her breakfast and his grin broadened. “I see you managed to avoid the oatmeal.”

Ava laughed. “Is that what it was?”

Dimitri hated oatmeal. It was the one thing she could never get him to try, not even a spoonful. His note almost made sense now.

“Believe me, you dodged a bullet,” Doctor Wright murmured, rolling his eyes. “So, what do you say we do a quick checkup and see about getting you on your way?”

Ava was all for that. She nudged aside her half eaten breakfast and waited patiently for him to begin.

He talked while he checked her over. It was all routine, but he asked if she wanted Frank in the room. One glance at Frank told her very clearly he wasn’t leaving, even if she did need to strip naked, which thankfully, she didn’t.

“Well, you seem fine,” Doctor Wright went on when it was over. “I have most of your test results from yesterday here and they all seem to be in order. Your blood pressure’s a bit high, your iron a bit down, but those are things we can work on. I’ll write you a prescription for folic acid and I have a pamphlet on how to lower your blood pressure. It’s mostly about keeping active, eating properly, and not stressing too much.”

It was a challenge not to bark a laugh at the latter, but she maintained her amusement, mostly anxious to get going.

“Am I okay to leave?” Ava asked, unable to keep the hope from her voice.

Doctor Wright chuckled. “I don’t see why not. I’ll have the release forms ready in a bit here…” He scribbled something quickly on his clipboard. He set it aside and reached for the hand with the IV needle. “Let’s get this out, then you can be on your way.”

Ava thanked him five or six times once the rod and fluid pouch were detached from her body. Then she sprinted to the chair with her clothes the moment he was gone and snatched them up to her chest. She turned and grinned broadly at the giant looming in the corner.

“Would it be all right if we go to my apartment real quick? Real quick,” she insisted. “I just really need to get a few things and … I haven’t been there in so long, I just … I need to smell my own things, does that make sense? Please?”

Frank seemed to hesitate. He peered at her like he was trying to determine if this was a trick of some kind.

“Please,” she said again, lowering her voice. “I will be so fast, it won’t even feel like we went.”

He sighed. “I will have to confirm with Mr. Tasarov.”

It was her turn to hesitate, but if that was the only way … she nodded. “Thank you.”

She washed up and dressed in the bathroom. No one had thought to bring her a toothbrush, but she rinsed her mouth the best she could and returned just as the nurse on duty arrived with her release form.

The world outside the stifled, recycled air of the hospital was incredible. Everything was brighter than it had seemed inside. The sun was warmer. She stood a moment, basking in it, allowing the warm breeze sweep along her skin and back into hair that needed a washing. She made a list and put that at the top: shower, followed by, fresh, clean clothes. It was amazing how much she’d taken such simple things for granted until she was begging a complete stranger to let her have them.

She pushed the depressing thought aside and focused on getting the day started. It was already late afternoon and John Paul expected her back at the manor the moment she was out of the hospital and she couldn’t argue it. She wanted to be back as well. Honestly, she never wanted to leave again, not until Elena had been captured and put away or dead, whichever came first. She didn’t even feel bad about thinking it. John Paul was right the night before, this wasn’t on Ava. All those deaths were on the person who hired those men to open fire at a group of people enjoying their afternoon. Ava wouldn’t burden that guilt. She already had too many of her own, legitimate ones that required deeper thought once she had a moment to sit and think properly.

Frank took a cab with her to her apartment. They had to make a detour to Ed’s office for a spare key to replace the one Ava lost at some point between being kidnapped by Dimitri and having his hideaway blown up. She lost a lot of things, she realized later as they walked the cream and gold corridor to the sprawling main entrance at the back of the complex. Ivory columns guarded the oval chamber with its row of diamond patterned glass and gold trim. Everything gleamed, a stubborn polish that reflected every bit of light that came through to a blinding sheen. Ava hated walking through there. The unrestricted radiance made her head thrum.

Ed, in his thousand-dollar suit of white cream and hundred-dollar haircut, rose from behind his solid marble desk with a flourish even Ava couldn’t pull off. He fastened the front of his blazer over the soft, lilac purple of his dress shirt and the light caught the square diamond on his varsity ring.

“Ava!” He burned through their retinas with his toothpaste commercial smile, which she could have sworn was whiter since the last time she’d seen him, or his tan was darker. She couldn’t be sure. “We were beginning to worry about you.” He stalked towards them, his brown loafers clicking on the marble. “There was no news that you were back.”

Ava offered him a smile, even as he extended her his smooth, manicured hand. “It’s been a long few days, but I was hoping I could use the spare key to get into my apartment. I seem to have misplaced mine.”

Ed beamed. “Of course.”

He motioned her to follow him back to his desk. Ava didn’t. Her head was beginning to feel like Swiss cheese just standing there. Any closer and the lights might just kill her.

Ed rifled through one of the top drawers of his desk and unearthed a clump of keys as bright and polished as his office. He flipped through several before finding the one he was looking for. He held it up in triumph.

“Here we are.”

It looked like all the other keys on the ring. She couldn’t fathom how he was able to tell them apart, but he seemed confident in his selection as he walked back to them.

He was right in front of her when he seemed to notice Frank hovering right behind her. The man was six-four and built like an ox. How he could ever be missed was beyond her.

“Oh,” Ed said with a startled little blink of his silvery eyes. “Who’s your friend, Ava?”

She had no idea why it was any of his business who she brought up to her apartment, but she answered anyway.

“This is Frank.”

Smelling money and the scent of fresh meat, Ed moved in for the kill, forgetting to give her the keys.

“Pleasure!” He offered Frank a hand. “Ed Cummings, gatekeeper of this fine establishment. Are you looking to buy at all?”

Frank stared at him with that bland expression he was so fond of. “No.”

Ed’s face drooped a little. “We have some excellent prices for all the amenities we have to offer. Gym, sauna, Olympic-sized swimming pool, tennis court, basketball court, and so much more, and our residents are welcome to use all of them twenty-four hours. We even have our own restaurant dedicated entirely to serving our—”

“No.”

Ed visibly deflated, but quickly caught himself and the extravagant smile returned. “If you change your mind.” A card was produced seemingly out of nowhere with just a flick of his wrist. Ava suspected he had a stash of them tucked up his sleeve, but could never prove it, nor did she really care. “I’m available twenty-four hours, all week.”

Frank took the card. Ava guessed to shut the man up.

“Ed,” Ava interrupted. “The key, please?”

Ed jerked a little and spun around to face her, keys jingling. “Right.” He chuckled. “Here you are. Please bring it back when you’re finished. I’ll have another set made for you by tonight. Does that work for you?”

Ava assured him it would, took the offered set and hurried out with Frank right on her heels. They returned to the main area of the building and stopped before a row of gold elevators. She hit the button and waited while the numbers above the door flicked downward one by one. From the corner of her eye, she caught Frank tossing the card into a nearby trash bin and bit back a snicker.

Ed was an amazing business man. He owned several lavish, high end condo buildings that had waiting lists four decades long. He knew just what needed to be said to lure clients in and wring them for every penny. But he lacked modesty. Ava mused he could probably afford to go without. But he hadn’t been there when Ava had bought her apartment. The place had been owned by a sweet old man who sold it and retired to Florida. Ed bought it and everyone on the list. She’d considered selling and moving to something less … grand, but it had never been a priority. It still really wasn’t.

The elevator arrived and they boarded. She selected her floor and watched as the doors closed and the gears began to crank. Higher and higher it went, lifting well over the twenties and thirties. It bypassed the forties and fifties. The building only had seventy floors, but hers arrived at sixty-two. When she’d first looked at the place, there had been a slot open on the seventieth, and she’d looked at it, but the view had made her queasy. Strange considering she was only eight floors down and it was fine.

“I won’t be long,” she promised Frank, quickening her strides along the thick, comfortable carpets. “There’s a TV and food in the fridge if you’d like to make yourself a snack. I’m just going to grab a quick shower and some change of clothes.”

They arrived at her door and Ava quickly inserted the key. She turned it, heard the tumbler give and slide back from the frame. It snapped its release. Her fingers curled around the doorknob. She twisted, heard a secondary click…

“Get down!”

Frank’s entire bulk slammed into her before she even had time to suck in a breath. It crashed into her with the force of a small car and she went flying sideways and hitting the ground with a shattering thump that sang up her entire body with a razor blade of pain. But there was no time to cry out, and if she did, it was swallowed by the whoosh and the bang of her entire world erupting in a fiery explosion.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Christ, the pain.

Dimitri fought not to shift in the stiff, leather seat Penny had selected specifically for him at the head of an onyx cut into a long drooping oval. The hinges gave an undignified squeak anyway. In the commotion, it was barely heard.

War.

It was the only way to consider the chaos unfolding before him. It was far more tamed compared to the one of the previous day, but he needed to get a hold on it before it escalated.

“Everyone, sit down!”

He would have slammed his palms on the table, but the pain in his side was still too fresh. The skin was too raw around the stitches. Even breathing made his eyes want to cross.

It had been a cheap shot meant for someone else that Dimitri got in the path of. It hadn’t been a deliberate gesture, but it had won him a favor with the Panthers and he considered that mild success.

The room quieted, gradually, a slow descent of noise until it was just the shuffle of bodies and chairs being dragged back to the table. Grown men glowered at each other all up and down the glass, now smudged with handprints and speckles of blood. Dimitri could only stare at it and shake his head.

“What is the matter with you?” he said out loud, trying to look each person in the face when he spoke. “We are one territory. Our job is to have each other’s backs and fight against those trying to come into our sector. Not this.”

He nudged back his chair, ignored the pang in his side and started down the mahogany paneled office.

The conference room was just a small area of an enormous business structure. Penny had somehow found and bought the biggest building in the north and turned it—overnight—into his place of command. He didn’t even know what the building had been before he’d taken over, but there were giant printers and fax machines edged into corners and cubicles and boxes of packed files piled into rooms. He’d made a mental note to ask Penny when they’d arrived for the initial meeting yesterday, but then he’d been stabbed and the question had left his mind.

What a nightmare, he thought miserably. An all-out brawl had not been how he’d wanted to introduce his new leadership to the lower clans. It certainly hadn’t been how he’d wanted to ruin his first ever suit. The whole thing had been a disaster from the start.

From the moment he’d walked into the office and into the throng of over fifty of the city’s worst criminals, he had known the whole situation hadn’t been thought out properly. For one, he should have had every one disarm. Taking a man’s weapon never sat well with anyone, but, as he learned later while he lay in a puddle of his own blood, it was necessary.

Another thing he’d learned was to seat everyone better. The absence of a leader had generated an animosity amongst the clans that was thick enough to cut through with a knife. Dimitri didn’t know the full story and never got the chance to ask when the fight started, but from what he gathered between the shouting and before the switchblade was that someone stole something from someone, but no one could prove it and no one wanted to admit to anything.

Dimitri didn’t care. He wasn’t a teacher rounding naughty children. He had no patience or time for useless bickering, which was what he’d been about to say when shit had gone terribly wrong.

“This will not continue,” he told the group. “We will not fight amongst ourselves. That is weakness and we will not give the other territories the opening they need to take us down.” He paused as he walked. Yelling had begun to agitate his side, making the skin burn, and he needed a second to catch his breath without wavering. “We have the heart of this city, the crown, without us, it will all fall into chaos. It is our job, our duty to keep the body working and the system flowing. Whatever animosity you might have towards each other needs to be resolved. Now!”

No one spoke. Even if they disagreed, no one said as much. He was their leader. What he said was law.

He struggled not to check his watch. He really had no time for this. Ava had been discharged and he wanted to see her. Instead, he was babysitting a room full of grown, pouty men.

Resigned, he slowed to a stop and pivoted to face the group, his hands behind his back. He studied their faces, taking in their enmity and barely suppressed rage, and calculated the best course of action.

Asking them to kiss and makeup wasn’t going to happen. They weren’t children, despite their behavior. They were dangerous men, men with power and money, who, in all reality, could easily kill him right where he stood.

But they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t for the same reason guards wouldn’t kill their king, or soldiers their commanding leader—retaliation. There was an order in the hierarchy and those who did not abide by the laws were made examples of in a gruesome and violent manner that only a few had ever tested. The Syndicate was a fierce organization that would come down unforgiving and mercilessly on anyone who attacks one of its own. It was a dysfunctional family that bickered, but would band together when threatened.

Dimitri thought of Elena and wondered if she was even in the city anymore. It was unlikely, but that wouldn’t matter. Her world had become a fishbowl. It was only a matter of time before someone caught her.

“Yesterday,” he continued, gentler now, “we started discussing the strengths of our boundaries, the security on our streets. We were attacked and that cannot go unpunished. We set it straight here and now what will happen to those who come into our turf and try to take what is ours.” He paused, his side giving a twinge. “I want names of those responsible for the lives lost.”

One hand went up, immediate and without flinching. Wheels squeaked as a seat was shoved back and a boy rose.

A boy.

Barely twenty. He couldn’t have even been shaving yet. But he stood before Dimitri with a firm, unyielding expression, his brown eyes unflinching against a round face and a set jaw.

“It was me, sir,” he said shortly. “I was there. I gave fire.”

Dimitri hadn’t honestly expected a forthright admission. It took him a second to school his features.

“Walk us through it,” he told him. “Starting with your name.”

Dimitri had done his homework before setting his sights on the territory he would claim. He knew the name of the clan leaders, their preferred crimes, their seconds, and their locations. He knew their house names, its insignias, the colors. But he was still working out their crews.

“Rusty,” the boy said. “Vipers.”

Dimitri slanted a glance at the rigid, stone faced man on the boy’s left. The resemblance was striking, too close not to be the boy’s father.

“What happened?” Dimitri made his way back to his seat, fairly certain he’d pulled a stitching.

“Me and my boys were out in the market,” Rusty began, clear, confident, a boy prepared to lay it all out and accept his punishment. Dimitri could respect that. “My mom sent me out to get green onions for supper. We get there and there’s these busters hassling Old Mama Marie. We roll up—” His father elbowed him. Rusty faltered, cleared his throat and tried again. “We go up to them and we tell them this our turf and they needed to bounce … leave,” he corrected.

Dimitri almost found himself grinning. “You can just tell the story. I understand the lingo.”

The boy looked relieved. His shoulders sagged a fraction, but he plowed on.

“Yes sir.” He straightened. “They retaliated, got up in me and my crew’s face, saying we ain’t got no leader and it’s free man’s land. They disrespected Old Mama Marie, knocking over her things and stepping on them. We dealed.”

“You fought,” Dimitri clarified.

Rusty nodded. “Yeah, but they pulled first. We were only going to knock them around a bit, teach’em respect, you know? Things got out of hand from there.”

“Who’s Mama Marie?”

“Old Mama Marie … sir,” Rusty added quickly. “She gets testy if you don’t say it right, and she owns the grocery store in the market.”

Dimitri made a mental note to see this Old Mama Marie and get an outsider’s take on things.

“Do you know who the other crew was?”

Rusty nodded. “Chan Lee’s crew, the Scorpions. Them and their busters run out under the east side bridge.”

Chan Lee. The name made a resounding clang striking Dimitri’s memory. What were the odds? He wondered to himself. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the same guy who tried to trap The Devil was also trying to move into Dimitri’s territory.

“Are they affiliated with the east?”

Rusty shook his head. “They’re nobody. Busters, sir. Fake wannabes trying to be gangsta. Never even heard of them until they started tagging scorpions up and down the west side. Started a lot of bad shit before Tyrone, leader of the Horns, chased them out.”

“And now they’re on our turf,” Dimitri mused, sitting back gingerly. “I think someone needs a sit down with this Chan Lee. Find him and bring him to me.”

The father inclined his head.

“Sir,” Rusty spoke up. “I don’t mean no disrespect, but we were only trying to protect our people. The people who got hit, the blood on our streets … they were ours. Our community is feeling their loss and that’s on us as much as on the busters, but my crew was only following my lead. I take responsibility for what happened, so I only ask that you spare them.”

Dimitri studied him closely, admiring him for his tenacity and grit.

“We’ll discuss it after the meeting,” he said, and watched the color leave the boy’s face.

His throat muscle flexed rapidly like whatever was lodged in there refused to go down, but he squared his shoulders and gave a firm nod.

“Yes sir.” He dropped down into his chair and stared hard at the table.

“Next order of business,” Dimitri began, turning to the rest of the table. “You all should have been informed by now that the Syndicate is on a manhunt for Elena and Ivan Tasarov. They are wanted for high treason against the order. Anyone harboring her, assisting her in anyway, will be prosecuted with her when she’s found. If anyone here or anyone in your crew knows her whereabouts, step up and lay it out now. Otherwise, inform your districts that she is to be found and brought in alive. There is an award, a hundred grand to the clan who finds her first.”

A low murmur rose over the room, a chatter of confusion and excitement. Dimitri didn’t stop it. There was no reward, but he would offer it, himself, from his own pocket if it meant ending Ava’s suffering. He would give a million if necessary. Whatever it took to take Elena out of Ava’s life for good.

A soft knock interrupted the commotion. The chatter died instantly as the knob turned and Penny poked her head inside. Her inexplicable appearance prickled Dimitri with annoyance. He’d told her to stay in the other room with the men he’d hired as protection. He’d told her to keep away on the off chance things had gone south like they had the day before. She’d escaped that disaster purely on luck by not being in the room when the fight had started. He hadn’t wanted to risk her getting hurt if another one broke out. Yet, there she was, smiling sheepishly at the room like it was perfectly normal.

“Pardon the interruption.” She nudged her glasses higher up on her nose with the tip of one finger. “The snacks you’ve requested has arrived. Would it be all right if I showed them in?”

He hadn’t ordered snacks. The very idea had his head cocking to the side, trying to recall when this supposed conversation took place. This was a gathering of criminals. Canapés weren’t exactly common.

“Sir?”

Realizing there was no way to turn it down now, he motioned her to continue.

There were no pigs in blankets or tiny cheese and cracker platters, thank God. It was sandwiches and chips and trays of sodas and coffee. The caterers marched in, single file, and began organizing the table, laying out plastic plates and cutlery, asking gun lords and drug cartels if they wanted coffee or Coke. The whole scene was almost laughable.

While the others were busy helping themselves, Dimitri rose and joined Penny by the open doors.

“Snacks?”

She shrugged. “I thought it might deter you from getting stabbed again, sir.”

He remembered her face clearly when it had happened. She had been firm, but pale beneath her feeble attempts not to cry. It had been sweet, considering. She had stayed with him while he’d been stitched up by one of the men. Hell if he remembered which. Then he’d made her swear never to tell Ava.

“She can’t know,” he told her. “She worries enough.”

Penny’s lips had been pinched so tightly together, they’d becoming a white slash despite the pink gloss. Her chin had wobbled once, but it had been stiffened and she gave a shaky nod.

“I thought I told you to stay away from here,” he told her, not unkindly.

She nodded slowly. “Yes sir, but seeing as how I really need this job, I’m adding your survival to my list of top priorities.”

With that, she walked out, leaving Dimitri shaking his head and smothering a grin.

“Sir?” Rusty approached him, hesitant, but determined.

Dimitri turned to him. “Yes, Rusty?”

Rusty cleared his throat. He glanced back over his shoulder to where his dad was in deep discussion with one of the other men. Then he focused his attention back on Dimitri.

“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.

But the explosion was isolated, perfectly designed to destroy only that single suite. It was the works of an expert, someone who knew explosives and knew how to properly detonate them to only take out what was necessary.

“Ivan.”

His brother was the only person Dimitri knew who was this perfect at demolish. It was his art, his talent. For as long as Dimitri could remember, Ivan had been tinkering with homemade pipe bombs. Anything that exploded and caused suffering. He used to throw firecrackers into the girls’ locker room and stand back laughing as the girls would run out screaming. The other boys liked that most of the girls would be in towels or their underwear. Ivan liked it because of the terror he evoked. Dimitri had seen him more than once, tucked away from the crowd, a solitary figure off to one side, watching the mass panic he’d caused. His blue eyes would shimmer with a sick sort of triumph, reflecting the subtle twist of his mouth. No one could ever prove it was him, even if they could, no one was stupid enough to point a finger at the son of Elena Tasarov. Every year, he’d up his game, making the bangs louder, the hysteria bigger, the components more lethal until he’d blown up half their school. Eight students had died. Ivan had been tried as an adult and sent to prison, but Elena had used her connections and had him out in four years, bigger, meaner, and deadlier than before. He threw himself into the art of explosives, creating and testing until he’d perfected his talent, until he was an unstoppable phantom taking lives in the blink of an eye.

He’d never been close with his brother … half-brother. Dimitri hadn’t been bloodthirsty enough. He hadn’t grown hard at the idea of causing terror. He hadn’t been a proper criminal. Not by the standards Ivan considered normal. To Ivan, killing was a release. He didn’t care who died, just so long as he watched it. Dimitri was more selective. He killed those who deserved it, those who were a threat to his city, to his people, to those he cared about. Senseless slaughtering held no appeal to Dimitri and that had always been a thorn in Ivan’s side.

But it also may have been why Elena preferred Ivan. His lack of conscious made him the perfect killing machine. She never had to ask him. His ruthlessness made him the perfect second. The west was more afraid of Ivan than they ever had been of Elena. In return, for that single act of kindness of getting Ivan out of prison years before, Ivan had become enduringly indebted to her, which might have been her plan, because when Dimitri had gone to prison briefly, there had been no connections to tug on for his release. Granted, he’d only been sentenced to six months for carrying an unregistered weapon, but Elena hadn’t been concerned about it. Whereas, with Ivan, she would have moved heaven and earth to get him freed before the cuffs were snapped into place.

It never bothered Dimitri, the love Elena had for Ivan, the love John Paul had for Ava. At some point in his life, he’d grown to accept that he was the unnecessary spare part, the spare tire in the trunk that was only brought out when neither had a choice. In a lot of ways, he was grateful for Elena’s dismissal. He didn’t think he’d be as mentally put together if he had to endure half the things she made Ivan commit. Elena’s love could only be bought through the amount of blood one spilled for her. It was too high a price for Dimitri. John Paul had always been a different matter. He hadn’t been unnecessarily cruel and the unconditional love and affection he showed Ava had made Dimitri curious … and a little lonely. Not that he ever told Ava, or anyone. He was too old to have daddy issues.

But that didn’t matter now. None of it did. They had a bigger problem. If Ivan was behind the explosion, that meant he would stay close to watch his handiwork. He would tuck himself into a corner, out of sight, and enjoy every moment until the last straggler was gone and the streets were calm once more. Every second would be precious. He wouldn’t notice anything else. It may have been the only chance they had of getting out of there without Ivan realizing his plan had failed. He wouldn’t have yet, Dimitri was certain of it; had Ivan seen Ava leaving the apartment, he would have completed his mission already. The crowd, the horde of police would not have stopped him. This was their only window.

“Frank.” He motioned the bigger man closer with a jerk of his chin, careful to keep his features neutral even as he drew Ava tighter against him. “We need to get Ava to the car. Quickly.”

“What? Why…?”

He gave Ava’s middle a gentle squeeze to keep her quiet. His gaze remained level with Frank’s willing him to recognize the situation.

He did. His giant hand closed around Ava’s upper arm. Together, they wedged her between them and shoved their way through the crowd in the direction of the SUV. Ava kept her head down and didn’t speak until they’d cleared the courtyard.

He had no idea if she was allowed to leave, but he took her anyway. They propelled her to where Saeed stood, head tipped far back, peering up at the building overhead. He caught sight of them approaching and quickly straightened. He hurried to the back and yanked open the door.

They climbed in, Ava and Dimitri in the back and Frank in the passenger’s side seat. Saeed got in behind the wheel and gingerly pulled out backwards.

“What happened?” Ava asked, peering at Dimitri.

“Ivan’s here,” he told her, staring out the window at all the faces, trying to see if he could spot the one grinning at his own handiwork. “He wouldn’t miss this. He would want to see what he’d caused.”

“Oh my God!” Ava gasped.

“Backroads, Saeed,” Dimitri said. “Keep an eye on our tail.”

The boy’s face was set in a grim line. “Sure thing, boss.”

Dimitri sat back, mostly to elevate the burning pulse along his side. With nothing to do and nothing to really preoccupy his mind, all he could think about was the wound and how it honestly felt like it was on fire.

“Dimitri?” Ava’s quiet murmur of his name had his attention turning away from the rolling scenery. He found her studying him, head cocked to one side, eyes narrowed as she assessed him. “You’re hurt.”

“What?”

Instinctively, his gaze dropped to his side, half expecting his stitches to have ripped open and for him to be bleeding out where he sat. But despite the pain that was letting itself be known with a vengeance that was nearly unbearable now that the adrenaline had worn off, it wasn’t visible through his clothes. The entire area felt wet beneath his clothes, but he couldn’t tell if that was just in his head or actual blood. He opted not to check. He’d do it later and deal with the damage then.

But it was too late. His momentary lapse in judgment was all Ava needed to realize she was right.

“Are you hurt?” She reached for him, her voice holding a tinge of panic. “Let me see.”

He caught her wrists before she could yank his top up. “I’m fine, just an accident.”

She didn’t believe him. He didn’t expect her to, but she did stop fighting him. Her big, green eyes watched him, threatening a long talk once they were alone.

Dimitri didn’t mind. No had ever cared enough to worry, never mind try and strip him in public to see to his injuries. It was still a mystery how she always seemed to know. It wasn’t as though he’d been doubled over, gasping through the agony. But for as long as he could remember, she had always just sensed it. He’d asked her once, but her answer had been a shrug and a simple, I love you.

He reached for her, even though she was already as close as she could possibly get in the cabin. “I’ll fix this,” he told her quietly. “I’ll get it all back for you.”

She peered up at him, her gaze weary, her mouth tugged down at the corners. “I just want it to end, Dimitri. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

That was the thing he couldn’t promise her until Elena was caught. He couldn’t guarantee no more lives would be lost or that it would end any time soon. Elena was clever. She wouldn’t be captured easily. She wouldn’t give up. The only connection they had between Elena and her plan was Ava. The former territory leader was hell bent on killing her and no one could tell them why.

“Can I borrow your phone?” Ava asked after almost three blocks. “Robby and John Paul will have heard what happened on the news and they’ll be frantic.”

She took the phone he handed her and dialed John Paul first. Dimitri listened to the tired murmur of her voice assuring the man she was all right and she’d be there in a few minutes. Then again when she called Robby, repeating over again that she was okay. But even to his ears, she sounded false and hollow.

She was still talking when his phone chirped, signaling an incoming call. She lowered the device just enough to study the screen.

“It’s Penny,” she told him quietly. “She wants to know where you would like to meet her.”

He thought about telling her to head over to John Paul’s estate. That was after all where they were going, but the more he thought about it, the less sense it made. Everywhere Ava went, Elena seemed to be one step ahead. She had known about Ava being at Robby’s the night Ava was kidnapped. She’d known about the restaurant with Robby. She had known Ava would go to her apartment. She would know, the moment it hit the news that Ava wasn’t dead, that the only place Ava had left to go was John Paul’s, and Ava would be cornered.

“I need the phone,” he told Ava.

She said goodbye to Robby quickly and passed it over to him.

He called Stephen.

The boy picked up almost immediately.

“Yeah?”

“I need a hotel room. Don’t use my name. Something low key.”

That last part must not have registered properly, because when they arrived at the hotel where Stephen had rented a room for the next two weeks and Dimitri got the key from the front desk, the low key room was a presidential suite on the top floor, overlooking the entire northern part of the city, including a sprawling park. Dimitri stood in the foyer and surveyed the expanse, the gleaming marble, the grand piano, the wall of glass, the crystal dripping from the ceiling, and figured the boy was deaf.

“Why are we here?” Ava asked, standing next to him, small and pale faced beneath the streaks of dirt.

“Because Elena would never think to look here,” he told her. “She would know you would head to John Paul’s and that is where she would hit next.”

Her eyes widened. “Is John Paul going to be okay? I should call him.”

He gave her the phone and wandered away to survey the rest of the two story suite.

The girl at the front counter had eyed him when he’d lied about having lost his key. He clearly wasn’t the president, and since Canada didn’t have a president, he couldn’t figure out why there was a presidential suite, but he didn’t ask. He’d accepted the card she offered him and led their battered little party upstairs. He texted Penny in the elevator and gave her the address to meet them. Then he’d contemplated getting food sent up; his stomach was beginning to remind him he hadn’t eaten yet.

“Dimitri?” Ava had returned, phone held out to him. “John Paul wants to talk to you. I’m going to go up and shower,” she added once he’d accepted the device.

He didn’t stop her.

He put the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”

“You should take her out of the country.”

Dimitri frowned. “I can’t leave and I’m not sending her alone.”

“So, what is your plan? Keep her there forever? Elena will find out.”

“I honestly have no plans beyond this,” Dimitri confessed. “I just know that if I bring her to your place, we’re basically handing her over on a silver platter. This might not be the best idea, but it gives us a day or two to think of something else.”

John Paul sighed. “This is getting ridiculous. How far could she have possibly gone?”

“Far.” Dimitri moved to the terrace doors and peered out at the city line. “This is Elena we’re talking about.”

John Paul spat something in French.

There was a stretch of silence that extended almost fifteen heartbeats.

“Are you still coming with me to see Marcus?”

Dimitri had forgotten all about their plans to find out more about Julian Armando. The whole matter seemed small in comparison to their much bigger problem. He couldn’t bring himself to care why Julian did what he did or what his motives were or what he wanted later. All Dimitri wanted was to fix the problem in front of him and worry about the rest later.

“No.” He glanced over his shoulder towards the stairway and the second floor where Ava had disappeared. “I’m not leaving her alone again. You go and tell me what you learn.”

John Paul agreed and they hung up.

Dimitri stowed away his phone and faced the other man in the room, the giant, silent ghost that stood impossibly still on the other side of the sitting area.

“You saved her life,” he said. “I owe you.”

Frank shook his head. “That’s my job.”

Dimitri looked the other man over closely, something he hadn’t done when he’d arrived on scene. He took in the dirty, dusty, slightly tattered suit, the cleaned gash on his smooth, round head, and felt a twang of guilt.

“Are you all right?”

He should have asked sooner. He wasn’t sure what sort of employer that made him. A bad one, most likely.

Frank gave a curt, stiff nod. “Yes sir.”

“Do you need time off? Do you have any injuries?”

“No sir, none that will affect my performance.”

Dimitri sighed. “I keep trying not to think what might have happened if you weren’t there. She may not have gotten off with just a few bruises. Thank you.”

Frank only inclined his head again, his expression unreadable.

“This situation with Elena is getting out of hand.” Dimitri moved several steps closer. “I need to find her. I need to know what you know about her. You said she killed someone you cared about, that means you would have information on her. I need to know what you know.”

Frank remained firmly unaffected for almost eight heartbeats. Dimitri wasn’t sure if he was trying to remember everything he knew or if he was deliberating the wisdom of sharing it. Just when it seemed clear he wouldn’t speak, his mouth opened.

“I believe she’s responsible for the death of Killian McClary.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Frank was gone when Ava emerged from the bathroom, swaddled in a thick robe, her hair a damp tangle around her shoulders. She’d scrubbed off whatever little makeup had managed to cling on and felt oddly vulnerable without her mask. Not that it mattered. Dimitri had seen her without her war paint—as her mother calls it. He’d seen her in the morning, tussled and bedraggled with mascara smudged beneath her eyes and her mouth smelling stale. It had never stopped him from leaning in and kissing her anyway, despite her protest.

He stood at the terrace doors, back to the room, watching the sway of late afternoon creep over the city. The deep orange and red traced the straight lines of his shoulders and tinted the tips of his hair a light gold. She loved his hair. Loved how it hung around his face in soft, shiny waves and how he’d always shoved them back when he was frustrated and how that one coil always slipped right back, a rebel. When they’d been younger, him about eighteen, maybe nineteen, he’d wear it restrained in an elastic. It drove her mental. She hated seeing them contained, imprisoned. She’d tear the band out every chance she got, driving him to the point where he stopped wearing one.

It wasn’t as long as it once was. He stopped not cutting it. It still hung in his eyes, curled around his ears and tickled the collar of his top, but it wasn’t as wild anymore. But then, neither was he. He’d been much more reckless when they’d been younger. He’d come back with bruises and cuts and looking like he’d spent the day boxing with a gorilla. He’d tell her not to worry, but she did. She always worried. Even after. She was certain she always would.

He turned his head, startling her. She thought maybe she’d made a noise, but she realized, he wasn’t looking at her, but at something just out of Ava’s line of sight. She crept two steps lower and peered over to where the tiny blonde assistant stood, tapping away furiously at her phone screen.

Dimitri said something, too low to be heard and she—Penny—nodded, never once glancing up.

Unable to stand not knowing, feeling ridiculous for needing to know, Ava took the final steps and stopped at the bottom.

“Hey,” she said, hoping her voice was cheerful and not wary.

It was by far the most insane thing, this feeling of misplaced jealousy. He had never once been unfaithful to her. Before they were together, she knew he’d been with other girls. She’d never met them and he never mentioned them, but she knew and expected it. She’d always been too young for him and no one would have expected a twenty-year-old to wait for a gangly fourteen-year-old. What non-pervert would? Most men by that time were already in university and starting their first steps into adulthood. So, she never let him see how much she hated the idea of him with anyone else. None of them had ever been serious. He never once put them before her and actually made more time to see her than them. But the moment she’d put her claim on him the night of her eighteenth birthday, he’d been hers, all hers. He’d been loyal, generous, attentive, romantic. All the things any girl could possibly want. He’d been the exception, she realized later on when she’d started dating again. Other men weren’t nearly as dedicated or even as affectionate. He’d ruined her.

But they weren’t together now. A few kisses, a few promises, didn’t mean commitment. He was still single. He could still change his mind. He could still pick the tiny blonde with the big eyes.

Then his eyes lifted and met hers and the fears vanished. It was all there, as clear and beautiful as it had always been. She felt stupid for ever doubting him in the first place.

He was hers.

No matter what happened before, no matter the words that hadn’t been spoken, he was hers.

“How are you feeling?”

She wanted to run to him, to throw her arms around his neck like she used to and let him remind her just how incredible they were together. She had missed him, had missed his touch, the feel of his skin, the weight of his body, the length of him moving inside her. She missed the deep murmur of his voice in her ear, the low, guttural growl in his chest just before he came, the way he always waited until she was just about to fall asleep before whispering he loved her.

She’d asked him about that once, why he waited until that second when they spent nearly every hour together, and he told her, “I want you to dream about me.”

As if she could possibly dream about anything else, but the thought had always stuck with her. It was hardest when he was gone and she kept waiting for those words to push her the rest of the way into slumber. When it didn’t come, she’d spend the night lying awake, trying to fit her heart back together.

“I’m all right.” She whispered. “I hardly feel anything. Those aspirins really did the trick.” She licked her lips and glanced at the woman. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

Penny shook her head. “No ma’am, I was just finishing up.”

Ma’am. Jesus. They couldn’t have been more than a couple years apart.

“Would you like me to bring everything here, sir?” Penny turned back to Dimitri.

He nodded.

Penny tapped that into her phone, then pivoted on her heels. She started forward a few steps, head still bent, but stopped. She looked up and met Ava’s gaze.

“I’m sorry about your apartment,” she said, sincerely meaning it. “I couldn’t imagine…” she stopped to shake her head. “It’s terrible. I, uh…” She poked back her glasses to the bridge of her nose. “I hope you don’t think I’m being intrusive, but could I have your measurements, please?”

“My … measurements?” Ava glanced at Dimitri, then back at the woman. “Why…?”

“Clothes,” Penny said. “Mr. Tasarov thought you would need some.”

She did need some. She needed a lot of things, too many things to fit in a tiny phone. Her entire life had been in that apartment, memories she would never get back. A few clothes would not cover it.

“I can do it,” she murmured, fumbling with the balance of her emotions. “Thank you, Penny.”

Penny glanced at her phone quickly when a reminder blinked up on the screen. “Oh! I was just informed there’s a prescription from the hospital waiting for you.” She lifted her chin and blinked almost owl like at Ava. “Would you like me to fill it for you?”

Ava’s jaw unhinged. “How did you…?”

A sheepish little grin lifted Penny’s mouth. “It’s my job. So…?”

She started to shake her head, but Dimitri cut in.

“Yes, please, Penny, and bring a laptop with you when you return.”

Penny typed that into her phone, then nodded once before moving towards the door.

“Penny,” Dimitri called after her, stopping her with one hand on the knob. “Take one of the men with you.”

Penny visibly grimaced. “Oh, sir, really, that is not necessary.”

“I insist,” Dimitri prompted. “No one goes anywhere without an armed escort.”

Penny clutched her phone to her chest and stared across the expensive expanse, and Ava could see she was trying to think of a nice way to decline.

“I really wouldn’t know how to explain that to Daniel,” she said. “The change might upset him.” She forced a bright smile. “It’s fine, sir. We’ll be okay.”

“Penny, that isn’t a request.” The firmness in Dimitri’s voice was impenetrable. There was no room for disobedience. “Take one of the men with you. He doesn’t need to be inside your house, but he needs to be there.”

Penny’s lips pinched thin, but she gave a reluctant nod and left.

“That was nice of you,” Ava ventured, painfully conscious of the fact that they were alone in a hotel room designed for royalty. She couldn’t even imagine what the cost per night was. Well into the thousands no doubt and she remembered him booking it for two weeks. The math hurt her head. “She seems nice.”

She was rambling, trying to avoid the fact that the suite that could easily fit her entire apartment in the center of it was suddenly airless and tiny. The entire place smelled of him, hummed with his presence. She could feel the heat of him radiating along the floors beneath her feet. She could taste him, the hard, salty tang of him in the air. It was all a prodding reminder that she was completely naked under the robe. That her hardened nipples were rubbing against the soft fabric. She could almost imagine them being his hands, his thumbs teasing and rolling them just the way she liked. She had always loved having her breasts played with. Even a hint of contact and she was a writhing, begging mess.

But it wasn’t just her breasts. Her skin was tingling, hyper sensitive to every whisper of fabric brushing against her stomach, her sides, her back, gliding against her legs. It made her want to open them and let the material slip between and skim against the place no man had seen in longer than she could even remember. Not including that moment in the roach infested motel where Dimitri had briefly lost control.

God, she was turned on. The insanity of it made her want to laugh. The whole situation was borderline madness. After everything she’d been through, all that she’d lost, everything she still had to go through before it ended, and all she wanted was his hands fisted in her hair as he bent her over and fucked her senseless. All she wanted was to be bowed and molded into utter submission and let him break her again and again. The need was a palpable drive she could physically feel thrumming between her thighs, a phantom penetration that had her pussy gripping at nothing and weeping thick, sticky tears down the insides of her leg. She could feel the moisture, slippery and hot against her skin.

Fuck.

“Are you hungry?”

He was watching her, studying her the way only he knew how and she knew … she knew he knew. He always knew. Just looking at her and he could tell how badly she wanted him. He never told her how he knew. She’d tried to hide it, just to see if he could still tell and he always did.

He knew now. There was no way he couldn’t when the flush from her chest had spread up into her face and she could barely contain her panting.

“Yes,” she whispered, not sure what she was answering, maybe to the food, maybe confirming just how badly she needed him. Whatever the question—yes.

He was wearing a suit. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him in one before, but there he was, hair swept back, face cleanly shaven, body draped in a firm, form fitting suit of the deepest, richest black. It suited him. Everything did. He could wear a cardboard box and make it look good. But this wasn’t him. The lines of him were too rigid, too formal. He held himself a little too straight, like he couldn’t stand the feel of it against his skin. She wanted to liberate him of it. Wanted to strip him bare and drape him with herself.

“Fuck me.” The words were hers, unabashed and demanding, no room to be ignored. “I need you.” Her hands were at her waist, snapping apart the sash with hurried urgency. “I need to feel you inside me, harder, faster, deeper than we’ve ever done it before.” Her robe slithered off her shoulders and dropped to the floor in a white, abandoned puddle. She stood before him, flushed, painfully aroused, and unwilling to take no for an answer. “I need to feel something beyond everything that’s happened.”

His expression never altered. It remained frustratingly calm, focused, measuring. He was reading her, picking apart the fragileness of her and trying to determine just how much of what she was asking him was what she really wanted or what she felt she needed.

“Stop analyzing me,” she snapped. “I won’t break.”

“You’re hurt.”

She allowed herself a full second to assess her own injuries. She knew her ribs were tender from the kick on the boat and assault of having Frank shove her to the ground and his weight crushing her into the fluffy carpet. It hadn’t hurt then, her adrenaline had been too high. It hadn’t made itself known until the paramedics had forced her into their ambulance.

Her ribs had throbbed then, a merciless agitation that had made it impossible to breathe. Nothing was broken, so they told her, but the area was a dizzying mess of purple, red, black, and green with a jagged trim of yellow. They’d given her two aspirins, which must have been double extra strength or laced with crack, because she felt almost nothing, but a mild discomfort now. She knew it was there, but it wasn’t enough to sway her desires.

“I know what I can handle,” she told him.

His gaze lowered. He seemed lost in thought for several seconds before they lifted to hers again. Without a word, he stalked past her, his strides long and even all the way to the front doors. He opened one panel and poked his head out. She watched as he said something to someone she couldn’t see. Then he shut the door and turned to her, shrugging out of his blazer.

“Come here.”

She went. He met her in the center of the sitting area. His coat was tossed carelessly aside. He undid the buttons on his cuffs, his eyes never leaving her. He kept watching her even as one palm lifted and brushed the blossom of colors along her side. The contact sent a jolt through her, it elicited a gasp that made her breasts bounce slightly.

He didn’t notice that, or if he did, he didn’t react. His only focus was the gentle skim of his thumb along the curves of her ribs, tracing the different hues like he could just wipe them away.

“One word and it’s over, understand?” He lifted his gaze and locked them with hers. “I mean it. One tiny squeak, one flinch, and we stop.”

Ava nodded. “I know.”

“You’ll tell me.” It wasn’t a question.

She nodded again. “I will.”

He hesitated a full second before giving a stiff bob of his head. “On your knees.”

She didn’t ask. Her body had no intention of disobeying.

She hit the soft, thick carpet with both knees. Her chin tipped up, anticipation coursing through her in serrated rivulets, expecting him to pull out his cock and make her suck him. She could already feel him pressing against her tongue, his taste filling her mouth, his hands tugging at her hair. She almost moaned.

“Lie back, arms over your head.”

That was new, but she followed his command. She reclined across the carpet. The bristles tickled her spine, her shoulders, the backs of her legs, sending shivers across her sensitive skin.

She extended her arms over her head and felt a subtle pain when her knuckles rapped against the marble leg of the coffee table. She started to shift away.

“No, stay there. Grip the leg.”

The smooth, round stone sat perfectly in the palm of her hands. The position arched her back a fraction, thrusting out her breasts and forcing her knees up and apart. Cool air skimmed the junction of her thighs, kissing the dampness slickening her lips and trickling freely down the crevice of her ass. The displayed arrangement left her open in a way that only made her all the more aware of how exposed she was lying at his feet while he watched her with that unreadable expression.

He finished unbuttoning both sleeves before he reached for the buckle. The metal jingled as the leather was freed from the loops of his trousers. Ava held her breath and listened over the pounding of her heart as it slipped free.

He twisted it over until the buckle dangled between them, between her knees, hovering in the V inches from her sex.

Ava gave a shuddering gasp. The muscles of her stomach quivered. Her sex clenched. She tightened her grip on the leg. Her legs widened their stance.

Cool metal kissed lightly against her lips. The contact her hips jerking off the carpet like he’d slapped her. The violent, gripping sensation that ripped through her was proof of just how long she’d gone without.

He toyed with her, slipping the leather between her lips and rubbing the swollen crest until her eyes were rolling back into her skull. But it ended, the buckle slipped over her mound and started a slow journey up the plane of her stomach. It stopped when the gold nestled between her breasts.

Dimitri leaned down, gathered up the belt and fastened it around her wrists, keeping her restrained. Once she was properly imprisoned, he rose and stood over her with his hands on his hips, admiring his handy work.

“Okay?”

She nodded vigorously, too lost in the white wash of her own need for release to feel anything, but the hot pulse coursing through her.

“Dimitri…”

His dark eyes lifted off her pussy and met hers. “Do you remember the first time I fucked you in your bed?”

She did. Vividly.

But he was still talking. “I climbed in through the window and you were on the bed, naked, legs open so your pussy was the first thing I saw. You were lying just like this, with your hands over your head and my cunt wet and ready and beautifully on display. You were so ready, so fucking ready. You’d been playing with her for an hour, you said, getting yourself close, but waiting for me to finish.” He circled slowly around her, his eyes the eyes of a predator never leaving its prey. “Do you remember what happened next?”

He’d fucked her. He’d torn off his clothes and was inside her before she could even catch her breath. He’d been vicious and wild and she’d come screaming.

“What happened, Ava?” he prompted, hands unbutton his shirt with frustrating slowness.

She licked her lips, attention riveted on the smooth expanse of mouthwatering skin slowly coming into view.

“I … we fucked,” she panted.

He nodded slowly, confirming her answer. “Yes, but what else?”

She couldn’t even remember her own name anymore. Her mind had gone a murky red of desire caught in her need for him to end it.

“I don’t know … please…”

His shirt struck the floor somewhere behind him. His pants were chucked down around his ankles and removed, along with his shoes and socks. He stood before her, gloriously naked and rock hard, an exceptional piece of delicious art marred only by the square patch of gauze stamped into his side. It was just beneath his ribs like a tiny, white door against the tan of his body and the swirl of colors. She made a mental note to ask him later, but her attention was diverted by the head of his cock as it wept and she moaned with the need to taste him.

“When I was pounding into you, what did I tell you?”

She tried to focus. She really did. But he was lowering himself down between her knees and all she could do was squirm and spread even wider.

“To not … to not…” She had to swallow and moisten her lips again. “To not make a sound.”

He hummed deep in his throat, his eyes heavily lidded as he studied her. One hand lifted and ghosted the inside of her quivering thigh, drawing a line from knee to apex.

Hot, sticky cream rushed out of her. He watched it run down her ass and dissolve into the carpet. He never looked away from her pussy, but that was all the contact she got—his eyes feasting off her.

“No sound,” he murmured. “I had to cover your mouth shut. I barely could. You were … God, you were beautiful coming apart. I thought for sure John Paul could hear you, could hear what I was doing to you only doors away, what you were letting me do to you.” A slow, devious smirk twisted his perfect features. “It was the first time I came in you. There was so much of it. I remember watching it pour out of you and thinking—Mine. She’s fucking mine.” He raised his head, his fingers inches from her clit, the muscle glinting and fat for attention. She knew it would only take one nudge to send her over. “Is she still mine, Ava?”

There was more in the question than what he was simply asking. It wasn’t just about her pussy. It wasn’t about fucking her and pumping her full of his come. He was asking her something she needed full brain power to think about.

“Yes,” the word left her unrestricted and with confidence. “Yours.”

“Good.”

That was all the answer she got before he was on her. His cock broke through the ring of her sex in one vicious plunge that had her limbs flailing and her body balking. The world tilted a multitude of colors across the eyes she squeezed shut tight. Her initial cry rose to a deafening roar as every slam sang up her with a new spear of pain. Her arms tugged at the restrain, the buckle pinging off the stone, barely audible beneath her sobs and the sharp slaps of skin meeting skin.

He was wild, an untamed beast seeking revenge and she had gotten in his way. He was ravenous and brutal, and there wasn’t a loving bone in his body.

It hurt. More bruises to add to the ones she already claimed. The carpet was burning her in all the places she was being forced against it. All marks she wanted, desperately needed. She was crying and still begging him not to stop.

She needed this. She needed the reminder that she was there, alive, unharmed. She needed to hurt, a reminder tomorrow that it hadn’t been a dream. She came and the sheer violence of it rocketed through her with such intensity, she was sure all fifty floors heard her screaming his name.

“Not. Loud. Enough!”

He rose to his knees and grabbed her by the hips. His dark eyes bore into hers, merciless and driven, a madman on a mission. His hair was no longer tamed back. The strands hung in wild wisps around his face. They swung with every slap.

Without warning, he yanked out. She thought it was over only to be wrenched over onto her belly. Pain crackled in her shoulders when her arms twisted. Then he was back, his cock a punishing force.

“Scream for me, Ava,” he taunted into her ear, his hips pumping against her backside, forcing her to take him deeper. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? Harder, faster, deeper than ever before? Can you feel how deep I am?”

It wasn’t the deepness that had her shoving back against him. It wasn’t the punching blows of his cock head against the very base of her that had her leaking. It was the angle, the grind of his cock against the spongy bump inside. It was the burn of her nipples chafing against the carpet, the pinch of his fingers on her hips.

She came again with the roar of the ocean between her ears and the suction of her channel sucking at his assault.

She slumped, boneless and exhausted with her face wedged in the knot of her arms. His cock pulled free and she barely noticed. She didn’t even hear him move until the belt was released and her arms dropped. Tingles of relief scuttled up her shoulders and down the blades. Her knuckles popped with her feeble fisting.

He gathered her up and turned her offer. She was allowed a weak whimper before he was wrenching apart her knees and wedging his shoulders between her thighs.

“You know what I want, myshka.”

Fingers and toes tingling, Ava had just enough sense to reach between her legs and peel apart her lips. Her fingers slipped in her own juices, a mess that made her clit throb. There was so much of it. It was all over her pussy, smearing her thighs, soaking the carpet, dripping off the end of his cock.

“Hold her open wide,” he instructed, breath hot on her exposed sex. “We need to clean up the mess you’ve made.”

Ava managed a moan of his name, but it was broken by the gasp that quickly followed with the angry sweep of his tongue. He ate her like he fucked her, like he hated her. Like he wanted nothing more than to hurt her. But then his eyes would lift over her mound and find hers and the love in them … there was no name for it. He looked at her like she was the most precious thing in the world.

With his eyes still on her, she lifted her hands and cupped her breasts. He watched as she rolled the nipples in time to the flicks of his tongue around her clit. Her hips lifted and he suctioned his lips to her trigger, recognizing her request even before her back arched and her head rolled back.

She came with the gentle rocking of waves and the suckling of his mouth. She was still riding the blissful sway when she felt him rise over her. Her eyes opened to his beautiful face, his warm eyes. She found her lips twisting into a smile. Her arms lifted and coiled around his shoulders. She drew him to her, to her mouth.

He tasted like her mixed with him and something subtle. Coffee maybe. She gripped him to her, moaning into his lips when he slid inside her. Her over sensitive walls rippled around him as he settled into place.

“Okay?” he whispered quietly.

She nodded, hooking her legs around the back of his thighs. “Yes.”

He was slower, gentler this time. He never broke the kiss, not even when he reached between them for her clit.

“I don’t think I have another one in me,” she said, only partially teasing.

“One more,” he urged huskily. “I need one more.”

She gave it to him. She didn’t know how, every bit of her was exhausted, beaten, and ready for bed, but she came under the patient strokes of his thumb.

He came inside her. The heat of it filled her sex and dribbled out when he withdrew. No one else had been allowed that. His was the only release she actually longed for, the only one that felt right drenching the most private parts of her.

“Okay?” he asked again, hovering over her with his hands braced on either side of her head and his hips still nestled between her sprawled thighs.

“Yes,” she whispered, eyes closed.

“I wasn’t too rough?”

Ava chuckled weakly. “Felt so good.” She sighed, already half asleep. “Missed it.”

She didn’t remember the rest. There was a vague recollection of arms gathering her up, then nothing.

She woke sometime later with a dull ache in her side and a familiar pinch in her shoulders. The kind that made the previous night worth every second. But neither were the causes of her disturbance. Neither were strong enough or painful enough to steal away the blissful fingers of sleep she’d been curled up in. It was something else, something too faint to comprehend until she heard the rustle of fabric.

Her eyes opened to the soft navy blue of early dawn. The bed behind her dipped and the weight of Dimitri’s body eased against her back, naked, warm, and perfect.

She snuggled back into him. “Where’d you go?”

“Late business.” His arm snaked around her middle and she was tucked securely into his curve. “Did I wake you?”

Her answer was prolonged by the adjustment of her body slipping half onto her back to study the painted lines of his face bathed in the rising morning.

“Devil business or leader of the north business?”

His fingers ghosted the curve of her cheek. The single gesture sent a scatter of shivers along her spine.

“I can’t believe you know about that.”

One shoulder lifted in a shrug. “I’m clever like that.”

The finger glided down to tuck beneath her chin. It lifted her mouth to his in a deep, toe curling kiss that had her head spinning and her nerve endings prickling to life.

“Devil business,” he murmured to her lips. “And a little leader business.”

She hummed quietly. “Sort it?”

He nodded. “I’m yours for another…” he peeked over her to the alarm clock on the nightstand. “Two hours.”

A slow grin worked over her face, curving her lips into a wicked grin. “That’s plenty of time.” She hooked her arms around his neck and bunched her fingers into the damp locks of hair at the back of his head. “And you have eight years to make up for.”

His answer was the crash of his mouth over hers and the tightening of his arms. He held her to him with a possessive dominance that made her stomach muscles flex. Her senses tore at the clean scent of him washing around them, smelling of spices, night, and man, at the feel of his smooth, taut skin gliding beneath her palms. God, he felt good. The feel of him on her, his hips pushing apart her thighs, his mouth invading her sanity. He was an addiction she had no notion of ever relinquishing.

“I need to taste you.”

She gave him no chance to react. In a single motion, she heaved him onto his back and straddled him. Her bare mound settled with him nestled between her thighs. The fat head of his cock peeked out from the moist folds of her lips, nudging her swollen clit.

He was rock hard. The feel of him rubbing so close to the place she needed him filled her with a desperation she could barely stand. It rode over her in columns of heat. It took everything she had not to lift her hips and slid him inside her all the way until it hurt.

She wasn’t one of those women who needed to be choked and smacked during sex. The ones who wanted to be spat on and tied into a ball with itchy rope. She just liked that sweet pang of it the next day while she went about her daily routine and she couldn’t sit down without grinning. She loved the violence of a good fuck. That’s what it was. It just didn’t feel real if it wasn’t wild and left both parties sweat drenched and exhausted.

Maybe it was his fault. The first time he’d taken her in anger it had been the afternoon they’d had their first real fight as a couple. It had been about something she couldn’t even remember, but he’d slammed her into the wall and there had been a vicious attack of hands and mouths, and the assault of his cock pounding into her while he held a firm rein on her hair.

The orgasm had lasted hours. It had sizzled through her entire body. It had turned her legs to jelly and her brain to pudding. She couldn’t even cry out as the world was ripped apart around her. Her mouth had hung open in a silent scream while he hissed into her ear what a good little cunt he had. Then, when she’d been semi coherent, he’d forced her to her knees and fucked her mouth with the cock dripping with her release. He hadn’t been kind about that either. There had been very little gentleness after that, after they both realized how much better it was compared to all other lovemakings, but that was how she liked it, how she came the hardest, and only he’d ever done it properly.

Grinning at the memory, Ava started her descent down the masterpiece of his torso. Her lips sucked, licked, and nipped their way over the artwork tattooed across the rigid muscles, worked down along the lines of his stomach, and followed the dusting of fine, dark hairs guiding her from navel to the appendage waiting for her. She paused only a split second, curious a second time about the gauze inches from her face, but like the last time, she would wait for later when she wasn’t starving for him.

He gave a grunt even before she was there, before her chin glided the smooth length, before her hot breath traced the cap. His fingers twisted into the sheets on either side of his hips, the knuckles white, reminding her of someone preparing themselves for a crazy carnival ride. The thought made her smirk to herself as she went to work breaking him apart.

It was probably her favorite part of him being on his back. Usually, she liked him on top, liked him in control, liked being dominated. But, occasionally, she enjoyed returning the favor, enjoyed making him squirm and snarl his frustrations. Occasionally, she liked being the one in control.

“Don’t go anywhere,” she whispered, pressing a hot kiss along the stretch of skin between his belly button and the puddle he was creating beneath the head of his cock.

“What…?” His head jerked off the pillow, his bemused, and slightly panicked expression comical.

She snickered. “I’ll be right back.”

She rose off the bed quickly, unabashed by her nudity, and padded quickly into the bathroom. She shut the door and ran the faucet. She let the sound of rushing water striking the bowl muffle the sound of the drawer being tugged open and the rattle of pills as she shook two extra strength aspirins into her palm. She downed both with a glass of water.

The pain wasn’t unbearable. She knew she could go another couple of hours before she really felt the assault of the previous day, but the sooner she caught it and numbed it, the better. This way, Dimitri wouldn’t catch it either. He wouldn’t get that look on his face, the one that always made her think he’d just been skewered in the heart with something blunt. She hated that look, hated seeing it tightening his jaw, darkening his eyes. She hated knowing he only got it when he felt responsible for something he had no control over.

Properly medicated, she quickly brushed her teeth, ran hurried hands through her hair and stepped out.

He was still exactly where she’d left him, one arm hooked over his eyes, his cock a hard bump against his abdomen. But she knew the moment she got close enough and heard the subtle rattle in his chest, saw the slow rise and fall of his chest, that she was too late. He was asleep and the fact that he’d hardly slept the night before made her pass up the idea of waking him up.

Ava sighed with a miserable shake of her head. “Damn it.”

Dejected, she padded to the empty spot next to him and climbed in. She tugged the sheets up around her and was getting comfortable when he turned over. The unexpected movement startled her, but she didn’t resist when his arm tucked around her and she was dragged into his side. The pillow was replaced by his shoulder and his heat became her blanket.

“Don’t tease,” he mumbled sleepily into her ear. “Blue balls are not fun.”

Ava laughed, one leg snaking over his hip. “You fell asleep.”

He made a sound between a grumble and a groan. “Sleep. Not dead. Get back down there.”

Her laugh deepened, but she wiggled her way back down to his midsection. Her fingers closed around the thick shaft.

Dimitri moaned huskily. “Good girl,” he praised, watching her through half opened eyes. His hand stroked her head. “Let me come in your mouth.”

Not many would agree that the taste of a man’s release could make their mouths water, but his did. Only his. The very idea of having him spill down her throat swarmed her with the same electric sizzle of anticipation as the first sweep of his tongue against her sex. It made her wet just thinking about it.

Driven by greedy hunger, she leaned in to lap up the clear liquid off his stomach and the hood of his erection. Her tongue danced over the cap, circling and gathering every last drop before her lips closed over it in a kiss.

She’d missed the taste of him. She missed how he felt stretching her jaw and flattening her tongue to slide all the way into the back of her throat. She missed cradling him there as he pulsed against the tight suction of her lips.

“Ava.” He purred her name as though whispering a prayer. His hand stilled in its rhythmic stroking. His hips gave an involuntary jerk. “Deeper…” He broke off with a guttural gasp. His fingers curled into the strands at the back of her head. “Deeper, myshka. All the way. Let me … yes!”

His head dropped back. His teeth closed along his bottom lip. Ava would have grinned if she weren’t so focused on her mission.

Her throat muscles worked with her first swallow, massaging his head while she expertly rolled her tongue around the shaft. The fingers on her right hand snuck between his thighs and cupped the tight sack of his balls and she tugged in time to her swallows.

“Ava…” His hips rose, pushing him deeper against the back of her throat. “Fuck, I’m…”

That was all the warning she got before hot, thick ropes of salty come spurted out of him and pooled in her mouth. She tried to keep it all in, but it kept jetting out until she was sure she would drown. She gulped down as much of it as she could before breaking the seal. She was panting almost as hard as he was, but she still cleaned him off, collecting every last drop before pushing her hair back and lifting her head.

His arm was back over his face, but his breathing was rapid.

She climbed over him, straddling his middle and bracing her weight with both palms planted on his chest. She followed a series of circles with the tip of one finger, following it along an interact path to a starburst of tiny images hidden amongst larger images. The ones she remembered, the row of tiny stars along his right breast plate for his fallen comrades, the full length angel with spear in hand on his left arm, the old time keeper and clock on his right, the hungry bird of prey swooping for the kill across his chest, wings extended across his ribs were all there. The rest, the phoenix, wings protracted on his back, the embedded Celtic cross tattoo, the patchwork of minor designs weaving it all together to become a single piece of artwork with smaller images engraved in its hidden meanings. It was thousands of hours of work. Years, maybe even. But nothing there was hers. Everything spoke of violence, loss, pain, anger, but nothing said her.

It really shouldn’t have bothered her. He got all of those after he’d left her. He clearly wouldn’t want a reminder of her on him when he was the one who walked away. She was being ridiculous. Besides, there was so much there that even if he did have something about her inked on him, she’d need days and a magnifying glass.

The hand not balled loosely over his face lifted and closed over the hand she had running over his chest. He never opened his eyes, not even when he directed her to the place between his breasts plates, just over the bird’s head where the wings curled in an almost not so distinct, upside down heart. It wasn’t visible if someone didn’t point it out, but she could almost see it. But there, in the center of it, in elegant loops, embraced closely by discarded feathers and an array of patterns, were the words, lyubb-lyu tebya vsem sertsem, vsey dushoyu in black ink. Words he had whispered to her over and over again so many times, they had become their own tattoo in her head

She couldn’t breathe. Each time she tried, the lump in her throat grew an inch and she had to fight back the sobs. Tears blurred her vision, smudged the colors and images, and she had to blink several times to keep them from falling.

Why did you leave? She wanted to ask him, wanted to shake him and cry until he answered. And that was why she didn’t. When they talked about it, she wanted a clear head. She didn’t want to fall to pieces and blubber all over him.

She pulled herself together, doing it carefully so he wouldn’t notice. She cleared her throat and put on what she hoped was a playful smile.

“Does this mean you’re done already?” she teased him.

The forearm lifted a fraction and he squinted at her with one opened eye. “Woman.” His low warning had her biting back a grin.

“You are getting old,” she reminded him. “I’d hate for you to break a hip—”

In a movement she never saw coming, he had her face down across the bed. Her head dangled over the edge, her fingers gripped the mattress. Then he was on her, forcing apart her thighs and draping his body over her. His hands curled over hers, locking them into place, locking her into place when he pushed inside her.

Christ.

There was no better sensation than that initial penetration. It stole her breath, her sanity, her inhibitions—if she’d ever had any—and her thoughts in a single, downward plunge.

“How’s this for my hips?” he taunted, low and gravelly into her ear, just the way she liked it.

She managed a strangled mumble of something even she didn’t understand and was rewarded by the long, even thrusts of his cock. Each one painfully slow, painfully hard, painfully perfect. Each one sang through her in sweet, beautiful pangs of pain and pleasure that had her sobbing into the ledge of the mattress. Her fingers tightened and his tightened with hers.

“No matter how old I get,” he went on, delivering each word with a forward rock of his hips. “I will still fuck you the way you need it. The way you deserve it.”

Ava couldn’t think. The world beyond the pounding beat of her own pulse had abandoned her to the man coaxing her closer to the edge. She didn’t know how he did it, but he always seemed to find that spot inside her, that little hidden gem no one else could ever seem to find. He rode against it now, a rhythmic persistence that had her eyes squeezing shut tight. She didn’t even notice when his right hand lifted off hers until it was tucking beneath her hips, lifting her to him. She pushed back, digging her knees and toes into the mattress and meeting every plunge.

His movement quickened. The hand beneath her splayed along her pelvis. The fingers pulled apart her lips and slipped between to attack her clit.

“Fuck!” her sob broke against the mattress.

She was a wild, untamed bundle of nerves on the verge of snapping. She could feel herself coiling, tighter and tighter. Her hips rolled and bucked with unchecked gluttony.

She came begging him to fuck her harder, to not stop. The final push was the hot spray of his release rushing up her body. Her freed hand squeezed under her and clamped over his, holding him to her pulsing mound now drenched with a heavy dose of their combined fluids. Her finger joined his in teasing the last tremor from her clit. Her hand slid in deeper to where he was still joined with her. Her fingers wrapped around the wet base, loving the feel of him, still semi hard and throbbing.

“Don’t leave,” she slurred groggily. “Just stay here. Right here. Inside me.”

“I would fuck you raw if I could,” he murmured into the side of her face. “Just eat, sleep, and fuck until both our hearts stop.”

Ava giggled. “Didn’t we try that once?”

His hum rumbled against her sticky back. “One of the best weeks of my life.”

Her response was a sleepy mumble about trying again, but she couldn’t be certain if it was in her head or if she’d actually said the words before exhaustion claimed her in a peaceful slumber—him still nestled where she loved him best.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Dimitri had been expecting the call. He’d just been hoping it would be later, like some time after he’d gotten more than two hours of sleep, had a proper shower, and stuffed something other than bland toast into his mouth. But, no sooner had he tucked Ava beneath the sheets when his phone had buzzed across the surface of the nightstand. He thought about ignoring it. But the thing had vibrated right up against the metal base of the lamp and somehow grown in volume and persistence. Ava had shifted and made a low groaning sound, and that had been enough for him to grab the damn thing and stuff it against his ear.

“What?” He climbed out of bed and padded to the bathroom.

“Hey boss, you gotta to see this.”

He didn’t recognize the voice. Only Saeed called him boss, but the number on the screen wasn’t his. The voice was male, so definitely not Penny.

“Who is this?” He shut the door quietly behind him.

“Rusty.”

He hadn’t been sure who would call him with the news, but he should have guessed it would be that kid.

“Is it important? I’m busy—”

“Believe me,” the boy interrupted, excitement making his voice almost high pitched. “You want to see this.”

He told Dimitri the address. Dimitri already knew it, but he told the kid he’d see him there in an hour. Then he disconnected the call and turned on the shower.

While the jets sprayed and steam rose up the glass case, he checked on the gauze. He hated peeling those fuckers off and he was one of those people that picked at it slowly, grumbling and gritting his teeth the entire time as skin and hairs were lost. He’d never mastered the art of just ripping the bandage off. But he got the damn thing off and tossed it into the trash bin. He surveyed the puckered line, the neat incisions and compared them to the ones still healing on his shoulder. The latter was nearly healed. It barely hurt at all. But the new one was a bitch in heat the way it screamed at him, the flesh around it red and raw. He knew he hadn’t helped it the last few hours he’d been fucking Ava like a madman, but, if he were honest with himself, tearing them open hadn’t even crossed his mind. He’d forgotten all about them until now.

Exhaling, he stepped into the spacious box for his second shower of the day. The water ran clean, this time. It wasn’t rivulets of crimson swirling down the drain. Christ, he’d been a mess. Ava would have been horrified if she’d seen him sneak back into their bedroom, dripping in another man’s blood.

He hadn’t been prepared for it, that was the problem. He hadn’t planned properly. He never would have believed someone so small could bleed so much. But the moment he’d driven his knife into Chan Lee’s thin, pale throat, he’d realized he should have put tarps down.

It wasn’t about lessons. It wasn’t even about warnings. The man had killed eight of Dimitri’s people, two of which were children, and injured six more. It was personal. Dimitri would have killed him on principle alone, but there was a lesson and a warning to be learned, and it was about to become known.

Ava was on her back when he padded into the room with a towel slung around his waist. Her hair was a wild tangle of red ribbons, a harsh contrast to the white pillows. One hand was loosely balled next to her slightly parted lips. The sheets had twisted around her, exposing her to the pale light of morning filtering through the sheer curtains over the French doors. Each ray danced over a stretch of flawless alabaster skin. They illuminated the rosy tips of her breasts, the soft, pink of her sex, the slender bends and valleys of her figure.

Beautiful.

Everything about her was all the things he lacked otherwise, all the things he was born without. Normal people were naturally kind, generous, loving, open and caring. Children were born with it. Most adults still retained it. But not him. She brought that out in him. She brought out the beauty in the devil. She made him better.

He dressed before going to her, not trusting himself anywhere near her when she was so perfectly vulnerable. He lowered himself down next to her bare hip and studied her like he hadn’t in eight years.

She’d changed, obviously. She wasn’t eighteen anymore. She’d matured in the face. The lines had become more defined, cleaner. She no longer held the youthful pudge she hated so much. He hadn’t minded. He never even noticed.

From the moment she’d turned sixteen and gone from the little girl behind the game booth to a bright, gorgeous … God, he couldn’t even say woman, but she hadn’t been a girl. Not in body. Not in maturity. She’d been all the things he never expected to find in a single person and she wasn’t even fucking legal.

He’d tried to keep away more. He tried to go whole weeks without seeing her, but the hurt on her face when he would return threw that idea out the window. He tried to remind himself she was still just a kid, then she’d walk out in a two-piece bit of scrap fabric and he was sure God hated him in the worst way.

Those two years had tested his boundaries, his sanity, his endurance, his fucking morals, like he’d never been tested since or after. The night of her eighteenth birthday, when she’d come to him in that red dress and asked him to be hers, he did try to fight, but he was already so worn down that even he had to admit it wasn’t a very good fight.

He would have stayed with her forever. He’d sworn to himself that night while she’d lain sleeping in his arms that he would never let her go. He would never give her up. She was his and he would fight for her.

He’d meant it. At the time, all he saw was her finally being his and the universe finally giving him a break. When in reality, it was just waiting to kick his teeth in.

He’d let her go.

At the time, he honestly believed it was the right thing. The way John Paul was talking, it had made sense. It was the only way to keep her safe. He had to leave. He had to give her a chance. What future could he possibly give her, except one hidden in shadows and darkness and constant fear? How could he ask her to stay and not be able to guarantee them a future? He couldn’t give her children. He couldn’t give her a life. In the end, he wasn’t sure he could give her himself. He’d done what he thought was best for her.

“Never again, myshka,” he murmured, stroking the side of her face, her cheeks warm from sleep.

He bent his head and kissed her first lightly on the mouth, then the cheeks, nose, eyes, chin, the hollow of her throat, the faint little pulse at her neck.

In his ear, she gave a weak little gasp of his name. The sheets whispered with the shift of her hips and the scent of her, mixed with him drifted around them with a subtle parting of her knees. He watched the slow puckering of her nipples becoming tight little buds and the warm flush working up her chest to her throat.

He didn’t look at the clock. He couldn’t give a shit how much time he had.

He took the nipple closest to him between his teeth. The other one was captured beneath his thumb. He tugged and nipped one and rolled and pinched the other. The woman moaned in her sleep. Her scent thickened.

He wanted to taste her. He wanted to wedge himself between her thighs and thrust his tongue so deep inside her that she could feel him at the very base of her. He wanted to fuck her. He wanted to put her legs over his shoulders, bend her in half and beat into her until she was screaming. It was his fingers who won. They dove into the pool of her heat, one, two, and then three, full to the knuckles.

Ava sobbed her gratifications. Her hips tore off the mattress and slammed her down on his hand. The urgency maddening.

“Cock!”

He hadn’t realized she was awake, but her eyes were partially open, the green swallowed by an endless, hungry black.

“Need you…” she panted. “Need you inside me. Now. Now, Dimitri!”

Fuck!

He didn’t take his pants off. The fabric was shoved somewhere around his thighs and his top was ripped up his chest. Then he was on her. His plans forgotten.

She clutched him to her, fingers digging into his scalp, clumping in his hair as her knees hugged his ribs.

“Fuck me … fuck me!” she chanted into his ear, urging him in harder, deeper with the heels of her feet against his backside.

The walls of her pussy grabbed at him, holding tight as she bowed and cried her release. The rush of her heat sent him over and he came, filling her already stuffed channel. He vaguely wondered how much he could get in there before no more could fit. It was a challenge he was more than willing to accept.

“Oh my God…” she half panted, half whimpered, body still quivering. “Wake me up like that every morning.”

Dimitri chuckled weakly into her shoulder. “Deal.”

He pushed himself up and peered down her body to where they were still joined. A thick, white ring surrounded the base of his cock and coated her clit, a clit that was still giving little quivers.

He looked good there, he thought. He liked the sight of her impaled on him, their come smearing them both. He liked her under him, her body splayed open and ready for whatever he wanted to do to it.

“Unless you plan on finishing what you’re starting … you better stop looking at her like that,” Ava teased with a soft little moan as a fresh wave of heat engulfed him.

His own cock was growing hard again and he couldn’t help thinking that this was how one of them was going to die.

“Do I have to leave?”

Her answer was a deeply, lusty purr and both hands cupping her breasts. Her pussy flexed around him with a downward push of her hips.

“Stay,” she urged, watching him through heavy lashes. “And you can make me lick you clean.”

He was rock hard even before she finished. The sultry drawl of her voice even had his hips pushing deeper into her slick folds.

He could stay. He was the boss. He could do whatever he wanted, and if he wanted to stay there, balls deep in his woman until a crash pad had to be brought in to revive him…

“Fuck!”

He pulled out and almost whimpered at the sight of her hole, still gaping from his abandonment and leaking onto the sheets. It was such an inviting sight. Too inviting.

He threw himself off the bed before he could even think about returning to where he belonged. He forced himself back inside his pants, ignoring the wet, stickiness of it and moved away from the bed.

“I won’t be long,” he promised.

She bit her lip. “Hurry.”

It didn’t need to be said. He barely took any notice of the man sitting on the sofa in the sitting area, idly flipping through a magazine. If Frank had heard anything, his blank features gave nothing away. He barely glanced up when Dimitri half sprinted to the doors.

The two men stationed in the hallway straightened quickly. It wasn’t the same two from the night before when he’d given them heads up not to burst in if they heard screaming.

He didn’t know their names. He probably should make an attempt to learn them.

“Stay here with Ava,” he told the pair.

The two exchanged glances.

“Sir…” started the one on the right.

Dimitri shook his head. “I can handle myself. I want her covered at all times.”

Neither seemed to think that was a good idea, but they didn’t argue.

Dimitri marched to the elevator, phone in hand. He texted Saeed and told the boy to meet him downstairs.

“Now?” came the immediate response.

Dimitri frowned. “Yes now!” he typed back.

“Be there in a flash.”

He wasn’t there when Dimitri exited the hotel and reached the curb. He was there a full three minutes before the shriek of tires had his head spinning around. The black SUV swerved back and forth over the two-way lane, zipping through incoming and forward going traffic until it squealed to a stop in front of Dimitri with a rattle that made him think the vehicle had already started reaching its limits.

Saeed jumped out and darted around the hood to yank open the backdoor.

“Sorry, boss,” Saeed panted like he’d ran the entire way. His shirt was inside out and his fly was open, and he only had one shoe on. “I thought we had a few more hours.”

Dimitri climbed into the backseat, waited until Saeed was behind the wheel again before speaking.

“Your fly’s open.”

Saeed’s head jerked down. He cursed and quickly fastened the zipper.

“Thanks.” He cleared his throat, the back of his neck a subtle pink. “Where to?”

He gave the address and waited until they were going with the flow of traffic before asking, “How have you not lost your license?”

“Cousins.” Saeed smirked at him through the mirror. “My family breeds like rabbits on Viagra. There’s literally thousands of us. Anyway, I have cousin cops, cousins who work at the DMV, cousins who monitor the speed cams. I have a sister who’s a legal secretary and close with her bosses so…”

“So, you’re basically untouchable,” Dimitri finished for him.

Saeed thought about that, then shrugged one shoulder. “Yeah, sure.”

“And you drive a cab?”

“Drove a cab,” he corrected. “Check me out now.”

Dimitri couldn’t help it. He laughed. Yeah, he really liked this kid.

“Are you married?”

A dark brow lifted. “No offense, boss, but you’re not my type. I’m kidding!” he said quickly when Dimitri kicked the back of his chair. “No, but seriously, not my type, and no, no wife.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Got a sister you’re trying to pawn off?”

Jesus, the kid was impossible.

“No girlfriend,” he said when Dimitri glowered at him. “No boyfriend. No dog. I do have a parakeet named Melvin.”

“Live alone?”

He expected a smart ass answer, but the boy only nodded.

“Yup, just me and Melvin.”

They arrived on the scene of yet another mass gathering of stunned onlookers and law enforcement vehicles with their yellow tape. Dimitri recognized the dais rising up in a circle of stone and grass, connecting the sidewalk to the building looming several stories over the ones around it. It was his first time to the location in daylight, but he’d become fairly familiar with the place during his visit the previous night. The crowd poured off the steps to cluster along the outer parameters of the complex, far enough away not to be yelled at by the police, but close enough to watch as the ropes were undone and the body was peeled off the twisted heap of rusted steel decorating the lawn in the place of a fountain.

Dimitri never cared for art, modern or otherwise, but the subtle X of this one had been exactly what he needed to make his point. The fact that Chan Lee had weighed nothing, had made the task moderately simpler.

“Boss!”

Rusty broke away from the crowd and jogged over, meeting Dimitri halfway up the tier of steps. The boy was in baggy jeans he had to hold up and a massive red shirt that read, Boy, I know where your sister sleeps. And he wore a grin so wide, Dimitri half expected it to rip open his face.

“You ain’t gonna believe this,” Rusty crowed, practically bouncing on the spot.

Dimitri said nothing as he followed the kid back up to where the tape started.

The manicured courtyard was overrun by police, CSI, the medical examiner, and detectives, all searching, tagging, and bagging evidence to the murder they’d already taken down and tucked away from prying eyes in a black body bag. It must have all just ended, because the coroner was still zipping the bag up on the stretcher.

“It was Chan Lee,” Rusty was saying when Dimitri focused. “All roped up to that…” He motioned at the artwork. “Whatever that is.”

It was an expression of freedom. At least, that was what the plaque had read. Dimitri had only noticed it briefly while he’d been strapping Chan Lee to coils. The irony hadn’t escaped him.

“He’d been done up good,” Rusty went on. “Had fish on his chest and everything, real street style.”

It had been years since Dimitri had to resort to street lingo, but he had to make it clear why Chan Lee was silenced. He had to make his territory and those around it know that a takeover was not going to happen and anyone stupid enough to spill blood on his streets was going to get gutted like the fish they were. That was just how it was done. That was the street code.

“I thought I said I wanted him brought to me.”

Some of the smile died on Rusty’s face. “We didn’t do this. I swear, boss. This wasn’t the Vipers. I heard it down the pipeline like everyone else.”

“Find me the person responsible,” he ordered, turning away. “Bring them to me. Alive.”

Rusty hesitated. “See, there’s talk, you know? Some chatter, people saying it’s … you know who.”

Dimitri’s raised an eyebrow. “Voldemort?”

Rusty blinked at him, bemused, a sure sign this kid didn’t read very much. “Who?”

Ava had made him read the entire Harry Potter series way back in the day. Begging and pleading until he’d agreed. But, by the seventh book, he’d been the one calling her, asking her if she could believe that shit. She’d been delighted by his enthusiasm as the stories had progressed. He’d never admit it to Rusty, but it was one of his favorite books.

“Never mind,” he said.

Rusty continued to eye him a moment before whispering the name. “The Devil.”

Dimitri was very careful not to let his features get the better of him. “The Devil? That masked asshole everyone’s looking for? Why would he do this?”

It was an odd sensation talking about himself in the third party, but it would have been strange if he didn’t.

“It’s his kind of thing, you know? Getting justice for the little guy.”

“Find him. Bring him to me.”

“Uh…” Rusty cleared his throat, glanced over at a group of boys about his age standing off on the other side of the street. Dimitri guessed they were his crew, but they didn’t get any closer. “He’s a ghost, sir,” Rusty said, a little hesitantly. “No one knows who he is or where he’ll be next.”

Dimitri looked back once, pinned the boy with an unwavering glower. “Find him.”

Rusty nodded. “Sure thing, boss.”

He made his way back to the SUV. Saeed stood against the driver’s side door, hands in his pockets, squinting at all the commotion with a contemplative knot between his eyes. He pushed off when Dimitri approached and moved to open the door.

“You sure seem to know where all the excitement is, boss,” he said with a faint edge to his tone.

Dimitri paused and peered at him. “Do you have a question?”

Saeed looked at him, really looked at him the way people examined something that they didn’t understand, but could sense deep down was dangerous.

He bit his lip and shook his head. “Nope.”

Dimitri got into backseat.

Saeed got in behind the wheel. “Where to, boss?”

“The hotel.”

There was a palpable silence in the cabin as they drove. Dimitri could feel it thickening as the kid went on pretending he didn’t want to know.

It was a slippery slope with some people. Some, like Ava and Penny, embraced the situations they were in and grew to fit the new order of things. But there were some who had a harder time accepting things weren’t as black and white as they were led to believe. Saeed would either ask and Dimitri would answer, or he would go on in his ignorance and Dimitri would let him.

He didn’t ask.

They arrived at the hotel and Saeed let him out of the SUV, and asked if Dimitri needed him to stick around.

It was then Dimitri realized he had no idea where the kid lived. How far was his drive every day?

“South,” he said when Dimitri asked.

“Christ,” Dimitri muttered, rubbing his eyes. “Are any of my employees from the north?”

Saeed shrugged. “I was in the south when you got into my cab.”

He ignored the lip. “Get a room here,” he told the boy. “I’ll have Penny arrange it. I need you close. Is that a problem?”

Saeed shook his head. “Nope, except I need to get Melvin. She gets upset if I don’t come home on time.”

He started to ask why his female bird’s name was Melvin, but opted that was the least strange thing about the kid.

“Get your things and come back.”

Saeed saluted him once before getting into the vehicle.

Dimitri made his way to the suite, hands in his pockets, lazily tracing the stiff edges of his keycard. He faltered at the door to find the corridor absent of the men he’d left stationed there. He let himself in and paused on the threshold.

The two men were in the suite, guns drawn when Dimitri walked in and shut the door behind him.

“Just me,” he said, hands up just in case.

They visibly relaxed and quickly straightened.

“Sorry, sir,” the one on the right said. “We weren’t expecting you for a few more hours.”

Dimitri waved the apology aside and glanced over the room. He caught Frank slip something under that morning’s crossword puzzle that looked remarkably like a 9mm before snapping the paper once and returning to his reading.

“Where’s—?”

“Hey!” Ava appeared at the top of the stairs, clad in a fluffy towel, her hair a sexy mess that made him think of how it had looked draped across his pillows only an hour before. “You’re back.”

He met her before she could reach the bottom. His hands rested on her hips and he pulled her to him.

“I don’t know how I feel about coming home to you in your robe, entertaining a group of men in uniform.”

Ava burst out laughing. Her arms hooked around his neck and she swayed all her weight into his chest. He held her tighter.

“You, Mr. Tasarov, have absolutely nothing to worry about.”

His hands slid up her back. “No?”

She shook her head even as she lowered it and rested her brow against his. “They wouldn’t know what to do with me.”

It was his turn to laugh, which was rewarded by the offering of her lips when he tugged her closer. He kissed her, slow and deliberate.

“I missed this,” he whispered against her mouth. “I missed you.”

She lifted her face just enough to peer into his eyes. “Keep me?”

A man in his position couldn’t afford the luxury of weakness. A man in his position knows when to keep those weak parts of himself tucked away for rare, private occasions. He’d been in the business long enough to know he wasn’t behaving the way a man in his position would and he didn’t give a fuck.

“I was an idiot for ever letting you go.”

That brought a smile to her face, one that danced in her eyes and mirrored in the slight tightening of her arms around him.

“That was your one and only fuck up card, Mr. Tasarov,” she told him. “Next time won’t be so easy.”

“There won’t be a next time.” He framed her face between his hands. “You’re stuck with me, Ava.”

“I can live with that.”

She kissed him. His hands hooked into her hair and he gave just enough of a tug to make her moan and part her lips. He swept in, tongue teasing as it flicked over hers. She tasted of toothpaste and coffee.

“I was about to take a shower,” she whispered just for his ears. “Want to conserve water and share?”

No man in his right mind would refuse a lady, even if he’d already had two.

“Leave or pay for admission,” was all the warning he gave the three in the room in between the tiny kisses he scattered along her neck.

He didn’t wait to see if they listened. He heard a click of a door closing but didn’t bother to check.

“Admission, eh?” she teased, undoing the knot on her robe. “To watch or to join?”

He lifted her up and carried her back into the dining room where Frank had abandoned his crossword and set her down on the table. He tugged her robe open and jerked the fabric off her shoulders and down her arms. Her breasts sprang into view, the peaks hard and pink against her creamy complexion. They jutted out, proud and taunting.

“Neither.” He jerked her closer to the edge and filled her thighs with his hips. “Not to watch. Not to join. Your body is mine.” He scattered kisses along the column of her neck. “Mine to see.” Along her shoulder line. “Mine to touch.” Down her collar bone. “Mine to fuck.” To her left breast. “Mine to build and destroy.”

He attacked her nipple, brutalizing the bud with his teeth and relishing in her husky moans. Her head dropped back and her hands burrowed into his hair. She dragged him back, breaking the suction of his lips. Her heavily lidded eyes met his over a wicked smirk. She wiggled back a notch and reclined on the heavy wood surface.

She grinned. “Prove it.”

Her knees parted wide.

He intended to. He was already thinking of all the ways to make her properly suffer in sweet torment, when the doors burst open. He had just enough time to snatch Ava off the table and shove her behind him, still naked when John Paul stormed in, red faced and fuming. He took one look at the discarded robe still on the table, then at Ava huddled close against Dimitri’s back, and his nostrils flared. His hand twitched at his side and Dimitri knew the only reason he wasn’t getting shot in the head was because Ava was standing too close.

“Is this why you wanted her here?” he snarled out through gritted teeth. “So you could…”

Dimitri put one hand up, the other reached gingerly for the robe. “Normally, people knock to avoid situations like this. We could have been naked.”

He pinched the robe between two fingers and dragged it to him. He never took his eyes off the man watching him like he wanted nothing more than to bash Dimitri’s skull in with a mallet. He passed it to Ava, who quickly slung it on.

“Dad?” Properly dressed, Ava stepped out to face the man across the room. “What are you doing here?”

John Paul’s thunderous expression never altered. “I’ve been trying to call you,” he said, eyes boring into Dimitri. “I got concerned when no one answered.”

Dimitri reached into his pocket for his phone and peered at the screen. Sure enough, he’d missed fifteen calls, all from the same number.

“I must not have heard it,” he mumbled a bit lamely.

“No, I don’t imagine you did. You were too busy—”

Pink flooded Ava’s cheeks. “How are you?”

Any other time, Dimitri would have laughed at her adorable attempts to add a sprinkling of normal to an awkward situation. But John Paul wasn’t in the laughing mood. He was scarcely containing the urge to lunge across and throttle Dimitri where he stood. It was all over his face and in the way his hands kept bunching and releasing.

“Dad.” Ava edged slowly around the table, one hand out stretched. “Are you hungry? The coffee’s still fresh. I could make you a cup.”

John Paul shook his head. “We,” he spat the word out like it was something foul, “have a meeting we need to get to. There’s been a development.”

Dimitri stiffened. “You found her?”

The other man hesitated, picking his words carefully. “In a sense.”

Saeed drove. It was just Dimitri and John Paul, but the cabin felt too small and airtight. He couldn’t think of a single good way to break the awkwardness without reminding the man that Ava was a grown woman. He even thought about mentioning that he intended to marry her, but something told him that would only get him shot. So, he allowed the silence to grow and fester. It was only a relief that Saeed seemed to be sensing it as well. The boy kept glancing into the mirror and occasionally shifting, like he couldn’t trust the pair not to start a knife fight in the backseat if he wasn’t watchful.

Dimitri couldn’t fathom why the man had insisted on taking his car, especially when John Paul’s own SUV was tailing just behind them like a great, black shark. But he’d waved Jarvis off when the man had opened the door for him and climbed into Dimitri’s vehicle.

At first, Dimitri thought he was going to warn him to stay away again or tell him how easy it would be to kill and dispose of him. But with every block they passed, John Paul seemed to grow pensive. Like his earlier anger at seeing Dimitri and Ava together had abated and was replaced with a new question. Whatever it was, he seemed to be mulling on it pretty hard.

Dimitri left him to it, not sure he really wanted to know. He focused on the passing scenery and the gnawing ache in his stomach that he was slowly beginning to recognize as guarded excitement. He kept telling himself Elena was caught. She was finally caught. Ava was safe. It was over. But John Paul’s lack of enthusiasm made him wary.

“You haven’t told her.”

Dimitri blinked, startled out of his thoughts by the other man’s non-question. He turned his head and glanced across the leather seat at the man responsible for his birth.

“What?”

John Paul never looked away from the window. His eyes were narrowed, his lips pursed. He seemed frustrated.

“You never told Ava about that night.” It was another non-question.

Dimitri didn’t need to ask which night he was referring to. “No.”

“Why?” John Paul turned his head to him then.

Dimitri thought about it a second. “Because she loves you,” he said at last. “And, because it’s not for me to tell her.”

John Paul said nothing. He went back to studying the glass and Dimitri met Saeed’s gaze in the mirror.

The boy said nothing and just as quickly lowered his attention back to the road, but not before Dimitri saw the question there.

They arrived at Arrow Holding Corporation and took the elevator together in the same penetrating silence. Marcus, Erik, and Theresa were already there, gathered around the onyx table. Only Marcus and Erik glanced up when they climbed out of the metal box. Theresa seemed too busy going over something on her phone.

“Where is she?” Dimitri asked, moving around to his chair.

Theresa set her phone down, folded her long, pale fingers in front of her and peered at him through narrowed eyes. “Who? Your mom or my assistant?”

Christ. They didn’t have time for this.

“Not now, Theresa—”

“I worked really hard to train her!” Her eyes sparked like blue flames. “You are an asshole! I want her back.”

“No,” Dimitri said simply. “She’s mine now. You’re not getting her. Now, move on.”

“What’s happening right now?” Marcus mumbled, glancing from one to the other.

Neither paid attention to him.

Theresa’s red lips peeled back over her clenched teeth. “I will get you for this, Tasarov.”

“You’re welcome to try,” Dimitri shot back. “But ask yourself if one assistant is worth my retaliation if you do.”

She seemed not to have anything to say to that. Her lips twitched, but remained firmly pressed tight. She sat back, gaze never leaving Dimitri’s.

He looked away, focus instead on his uncle. “Where is she?”

Erik hadn’t looked up from the bit of black glass in front of him. He seemed drawn, exhausted, like he hadn’t slept in days. He raised a hand and rubbed it absently over his face.

“She’s dead.”

The croak in the other man’s voice made Dimitri wonder if maybe he’d heard wrong. But there was no mistaking the grief in his uncle’s eyes, not even when he shut them and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“What do you mean dead?” Dimitri pressed. “Who killed her?”

Marcus was the one who answered. “They found her body in the remains of Ava’s apartment, but she’d been dead for more than a week.”

“In the apartment?” Dimitri clarified. “As in, she was there when it blew up?”

Marcus nodded. “She, uh…” He glanced sideways at Erik who had gone a sickly shade of gray and green. “She was strapped to the explosives.”

“Jesus.” Dimitri dropped back in his chair. “Ivan did this.” Then again, “Ivan did this?” He shook his head. “No, Ivan … he loved her. She was the only thing he did love. He wouldn’t—”

“When you train a dog to be nothing but vicious, you need to expect that one day, that dog will turn and bite your balls off,” John Paul murmured. “It was only a matter of time.”

It still made no sense to Dimitri. No matter how he turned it in his head, Ivan killing Elena and setting her body to get blown up was beyond the realm of his comprehension. But there were other questions, more pressing ones demanding an explanation.

“You said she’d been dead a week before the explosion?”

Marcus nodded. “More than. That’s what my guy heard from the coroner examining the remains.”

Erik pushed his chair back and moved away from the table. No one spoke as he wandered over to the window and stared out, his back a razor blade.

For that split second, Dimitri actually felt a spear of guilt go through him. Guilt that he felt nothing. Guilt that he could be so blasé about the situation when his uncle could barely keep himself together. She had been his mother. He should have felt something, a trace of sadness, but he felt relief, and not just a little. He could have fallen to his knees and wept sort of relief. The kind of relief cancer patients get when they’re told they’re clear of the disease. And he couldn’t fake being broken about it to spare his uncle’s feelings.

“Any idea how she was killed?” he asked, focusing on the situation at hand.

Marcus shook his head. “It was hard to tell.”

Meaning the body was torn to pieces, beyond recognition. Dimitri understood it. But he still couldn’t get his head around Ivan killing her. It made no plausible sense. He’d talked to Elena the afternoon he’d landed in Puerto Rico. That was the last time. They’d all assumed she’d gone into hiding after Ava told Dimitri what had happened.

“At least the rest makes sense,” he said to no one in particular. “The shooting at the restaurant, the apartment. I knew none of those things felt like Elena.”

“Ivan’s been working alone,” John Paul added. “But why?”

“Why Ava?” Dimitri piped in.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Theresa broke in, having had enough of not being noticed sulking. “He’s trying to get even with one of you. I have my money on you, Tasarov.”

There was no arguing with that. Ivan had a thousand reasons to hate Dimitri, a thousand reasons to want to hurt him. He wasn’t exactly his brother’s favorite person. The problem was that Dimitri had no way of knowing what to expect next until Ivan made his next move.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“I could get used to this.” Robby kicked off his sneakers and reclined on the cream colored sofa. He stuffed a throw pillow under his head and shut his eyes. “Now, I just need a serving wench to feed me grapes and I can cross this whole experience off my bucket list.”

Curled up in the arm chair, Ava shook her head in amusement. “I don’t even know where you’d get serving wenches.”

“Hooters.”

Ava laughed. “You’re so wrong.”

She eyed her friend a long moment, taking in his creased clothes, his unshaven jaw, the dark bags under his eyes, and wondered if he wasn’t sleeping. He didn’t even really sound like himself. From the moment she’d called him to come over, she’d sensed something was off. Something in his tone wasn’t Robby, but she just couldn’t put her finger on it.

“So…” She snatched up a pillow and curled it up against her chest. “How you been?”

Eyes still closed, Robby shrugged. “Good. Nothing new.”

She glanced over at where Ki sat with Frank at the dining room table, phone in hand. Every so often, his thumb would flick over the screen.

“How are things with Ki?” she asked softly.

“Still follows me into the bathroom.” Robby sighed. “Offered to let him hold it, but apparently he wasn’t interested. Such a fucking tease.”

“Anything else—?”

“Jesus, Ava, just fucking ask,” he mumbled, more exhausted than angry.

Ava relented. “You look like you’re not sleeping.”

“Probably because I’m not. Asshole over there won’t even let me take a fucking sleeping pill.”

Ki must have been immune to Robby’s outbursts, because he never glanced up.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” she hedged carefully.

“Why?” His mouth twisted into a vicious smile that made her think of a cartoon wolf before he swallowed the chicken. “Why do you think, Ava?” His eyes opened and he turned his head to her. “Maybe it has something to do with the fact that my fucking home was broken into and my fucking space was fucking violated and my best friend was fucking taken. Maybe,” he shoved upright, his eyes wild. “Maybe because I have a fucking stranger watching my every fucking move. Or maybe it’s because I need a fucking aspirin or something to take off the goddamn edge and I can’t even get that.”

He wasn’t shouting, but each word seemed to vibrate through the suite like thunder. His anger rolled off him, poisonous fumes filling the air, twisting around her like a noose.

“How many more fucking reasons do you need?”

“I’m sorry—”

“Fuck!” He lunged to his feet and stalked away from her. He stopped when there was a good distance before spinning to face her. “I don’t want your damn apologies, Ava. I don’t want your sympathies. I don’t want your fucking pity. I want you and your stepfather out of my fucking business—”

“Okay, just calm down and we’ll—”

“I don’t want to calm down!” Now he was shouting, screaming actually. “I don’t want you sitting there with your big eyes, staring at me like I’m some broken doll you can fucking fix. You can’t fix me. You can’t fix the shit you brought into my life, Ava. You did this! You ruined everything.”

Ava couldn’t speak. She sat numb and mute in her chair, watching as the color blistered beneath his skin and his eyes shone between madness and tears. He was panting, a wheezing sound that broke her heart, but she dared not move.

“You did this,” he said again, softer. “You brought those … monsters, into my house and they…” He broke off, his voice as broken as his expression as it crumbled before her eyes. “You did this.”

He sank to the floor, knees curling up to his face as he sobbed.

Ava didn’t move, even as every part of her wanted to run to him. She didn’t think he wanted her anywhere near him.

Tears spilled in hot trickles from her chin. She didn’t even have to blink to set them free. They just poured with no end in sight as her best friend cried into his hands.

She couldn’t be angry with him. It was her fault. She had brought him into her mess the moment she’d asked him to stitch up Dimitri the night of her birthday. It seemed like years ago when, in reality, it had only been a few weeks. But she had made him a part of her world without a single thought to what might happen.

Not that she’d known. How could she? She’d been pitched into madness just like him. It was unclear who’d had it worse.

“They took my residency.”

The words were said so quietly, she wasn’t sure he’d even spoken.

“What?”

He smeared tears and snot across the back of his hand. “The hospital put my overdose on file. It’s on my record. I’m out.”

“What?” Louder now, disbelief painting the word. “No, they can’t do that.”

He drew in a shaky breath. “Yeah, they can. The hospital can’t have an addict treating patients.”

“That’s bullshit!” Ava leaped to her feet. “This is a special circumstance.”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.” He dropped back on his butt. “I’m a liability.”

“No, I’ll talk to them.” She stalked forward and dropped down in front of him. “I’ll make them understand. I promise.”

“It’s over, Ava. Let it go.”

“But—”

“Let it go!” He shot to his feet. “I’ll find something else.”

The hotel doors opened then and Dimitri walked in, followed by Penny, and John Paul.

Dimitri took one look at Ava sitting on the floor and the tears on her face and charged at Robby. His hands closed in Robby’s t-shirt and he practically lifted him off the ground.

“What did you do?”

“Dimitri!” Ava scrambled to her feet. “He didn’t do anything. Put him down!”

“Me?” Robby shoved Dimitri off, ripping the collar of his own shirt in the process. “More like what did you do?” He didn’t wait for Dimitri’s response. “I keep thinking it over in my head and you are the reason all of this is happening. You’re the reason Ava was shot. You’re the reason those assholes shot me up full of that crap. You’re the reason I just lost everything I’ve been working my ass off for since I was thirteen.” He broke off, panting and red faced. “You did this. The second you walked into that party, Ava and me, you fucked us both over. This … all of this is on you!”

“Robby!”

But Robby had already shouldered his way through the group and out the doors.

Ava whirled around to where Ki was pushing to his feet. “Don’t lose him! Please, hurry.”

For a man of his size, Ki moved like a bullet. He was out the door before Ava could even see him move. She prayed he reached Robby before he did something stupid. She wasn’t sure what that could be, but people did desperate things when they felt trapped and she didn’t know what she’d do if she lost him.

A gentle hand settled on her arm, startling Ava out of her thoughts. She blinked and glanced over at Penny, who offered her a kind smile.

“Why don’t we get you out of that robe, hmm?”

Ava didn’t even ask into what. She let the woman guide her upstairs to the bedroom she’d shared with Dimitri the night before, uncaring that the bed was a mess, the sheets roped, the pillows skewed. It was a bed that had seen a long, violent night of hot, passionate sex. Ava told herself it didn’t matter. Even without the bed in disarray, the air was heavy with it.

Penny dutifully turned a blind eye to all of it. She padded into the bathroom and a moment later, water was rushing into the tub. Ava watched her from the threshold, oddly numb and weary as she patted around, setting towels out and pouring perfect measures of this and that into the water. She seemed very skilled at bath making. Ava couldn’t help wondering what else she was good at, and immediately felt like the worst sort of human being.

Penny turned to her, task complete, and offered her another of those warm smiles. “Why don’t you get in and I’ll find you something to wear.”

Ava didn’t even bother to ask from where. She stepped into the room, hand on the knot in her sash, but that was as far as she got before the tears came. They just gushed out of her in a torrent of grief and self-loathing.

Penny was there, gathering her up, holding her tight, murmuring words Ava couldn’t hear over the blood roaring between her ears. Her hands stroked through Ava’s hair, light, soothing caresses that felt so much like something a mother would do. Not her mother. Ava couldn’t even remember a time Charlotte had embraced her.

“It’s all right,” Penny was saying. “Everything is all right.”

“He’s right,” Ava croaked into her shoulder. “This is all my fault. I did this to him. I brought him into this stupid mess.”

“Shhh.” Penny led her to the tub ledge and set her gently down. “We can fix this.” She grabbed a wad of Kleenex out of a box on the marble counter and gently wiped at Ava’s face. “Just tell me what the problem is and I’ll make it go away, okay?”

Just like that, Ava thought, a little awed.

“I don’t think you can—”

Penny rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Believe me. You’d be amazed at some of the things I’ve managed to … fix. I’m very good at fixing things.” She smiled wide. “Go on. Tell me.”

She did. She told the tiny blonde with the soothing blue eyes and gentle smile everything. Penny said nothing the entire time. She occasionally nodded or made a soft humming sound, but she never interrupted.

When Ava finished, Penny pursed her lips. One corner of her mouth lifted in a contemplative manner and Ava was sure she’d say something like, hmm, that is a tough one. But she squared her thin shoulders and gave a curt bob of her head.

“Okay.”

Ava blinked. “What?”

Small hands bunched and fisted on Penny’s hips. “I’ll fix it. Just leave it to me.”

“Fix … how are you going to fix this? He’s lost his residency. You can’t bribe or blackmail the head of the hospital—”

Penny physically grimaced. “Oh, I don’t … I don’t bribe or blackmail.” She dug into her pocket for her phone. “I negotiate and reason.” She gave Ava a wink even as she dialed a series of numbers without looking at the screen. “I got this. Just go on and soak for a bit. You’ll feel better.”

Not waiting for an answer, she pressed the phone to her ear and left the bathroom. The door was shut quietly behind her.

The water was perfect. Just the right amount of hot and cold, with the perfect balance of lilacs and bubbles.

Ava sank into the froth all the way to her chin and listened to the hollow echo of sloshing water rebounding off the walls. Penny was right; soaking did feel nice. It was calming, like letting all her worries leak out of her pores and drown in the water. She would have happily curled against the ledge and slept if she wasn’t afraid of accidentally drowning herself.

She wasn’t sure how long she was in there, but when Penny returned, a small, black duffle in hand, the bubbles were gone. The water was cooling and her fingers were wrinkled little raisins.

Penny smiled. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Ava admitted, reaching for a towel.

Penny turned away as Ava rose. She busied herself setting the duffle on the counter and pulling articles of clothing out, clothing Ava recognized.

“Those are mine.”

Penny nodded. “Mr. Morel asked me to gather a few things from your bedroom at his place.” She glanced over. “I hope that’s all right?”

Ava stepped out of the water. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

Satisfied, she went back to setting out different outfits. “I wasn’t sure what you would like, so I grabbed a few different things, and underwear, of course.”

She selected a pair of jeans and a loosely knitted top that hung off one shoulder over a white camisole. She dragged them on.

“I also found this in your bathroom when I was gathering a few of your toiletries.” Penny unearthed Ava’s makeup kit.

“Oh!” She snatched the thing and hugged it to her chest. “I never thought I’d be so happy for lipstick.”

Penny laughed. “A girl needs her lipstick.”

They shared a grin before Penny stepped back.

“I’m going to wait outside while you finish up,” she said and shut the bathroom door behind her.

Alone in the bathroom, Ava found her toiletry bag and did a proper cleansing of her face, brushed her teeth with her own toothbrush, and applied a light stroke of makeup to chase away the puffy state of her eyes and the blotches of her face. She combed out her hair and left it down to air dry.

Once she was as put together as she was ever going to get, she stepped out to find Penny studying the bed, one hand balled loosely at her mouth as if she’d never seen one before.

She jumped when Ava cleared her throat.

“Sorry!” Penny blurted. “I was trying to figure out what sort of wood that is.” She gestured at the headboard. “Cherry, I think.”

Ava hadn’t paid much attention to it, but she nodded. “Seems like it.”

“Shall we?” Penny prompted when an awkward little silence twisted through the air.

Robby wasn’t back. Ava hadn’t thought he would be, but part of her had hoped. Dimitri and John Paul were at the dining room table, mugs of coffee between their hands. Frank was there as well and the trio seemed deep in conversation.

No one noticed when Ava tugged Penny aside.

“Penny, the thing with Robby…”

Penny nodded. “I’m just waiting for a call to confirm things, but I should be able to get him his residency back … with some conditions.”

“What kind of conditions?”

Penny opened her mouth, but her phone buzzed. She shot Ava an apologetic smile and moved away to answer it.

With nothing to do, Ava padded forward.

Dimitri sensed her first. His head turned to her even though she hadn’t made a sound. He shoved back his chair and extended a hand to her, which she took and allowed herself to be guided into his lap.

“Okay?” he murmured into her ear.

She nodded. “I’m sorry about—”

He shook his head. “He wasn’t wrong. I blame myself, but I will fix it. I promise.”

“Penny’s already talking to someone. She says she can get his residency back with conditions, or something.”

He nudged back a lock of damp hair behind her ear. “If that’s what she says, that’s what she’ll do. She’s like a genie.”

Ava chuckled. “She’s definitely some kind of amazing. I want to steal her from you.”

His warm fingers threaded through hers and he brought the back of her hand to his lips. “Take her. Whatever you want.”

She didn’t really want Penny. She wouldn’t know what to do with her, truthfully. But the fact that he would let her, made her kiss him. Her fingers brush the side of his face where a five o’clock shadow had begun to prickle her fingertips.

“Is it over?” she asked quietly.

The line his mouth formed answered even before John Paul did.

“Not yet.”

Ava peered at the other two at the table. “What happened? I thought Elena was caught.”

“Elena’s dead,” Dimitri told her.

“What?” She glanced from one to the other. “How? When?”

“She’s been dead since Puerto Rico,” Dimitri said. “It’s been Ivan coming after you.”

“But I don’t know Ivan,” she protested. “I mean, I didn’t know Elena either, but…” she broke off with a shake of her head. She focused on Dimitri. “Are you okay?”

He only gave a nod. She didn’t push. He wouldn’t tell her in front of everyone anyway.

“So, what now?” she asked. “Where’s Ivan?”

“We don’t know,” John Paul said. “We’re looking for him.”

Her shoulders sagged as the meaning behind that became clear; she was still under lock and guard until they found him. She didn’t say as much, but the idea made her want to face plant on the table.

Penny arrived then, phone still in hand. She offered the group a sheepish smile.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I have Judge Clausen on the phone regarding Robby’s conditions and he’d like to speak to you, sir.”

Ava rose without being asked and watched with bated breath as Dimitri accepted the phone and moved away from the table.

“It’ll be okay,” Penny assured her, catching Ava’s apprehensive frown.

She walked away when Ava could think of nothing to say.

Frank checked his watch and heaved himself out of the chair. He tucked it in and gathered up his crossword puzzle and magazine.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he told her with an inclination of his head.

Ava nodded and watched him head for the door.

Then it was just her and John Paul.

“You look like you could use some fresh air,” he said, studying her face. “Come.”

He climbed from his seat, circled around the table and guided her onto the terrace.

She hadn’t been out there. Part of her had been afraid Elena had some snipper waiting on a nearby roof, waiting to put one between Ava’s eyes. She still worried, even though the possibilities were limited considering how high up they were. Nevertheless, she stayed away from the ledge.

“How are you, Ava?” John Paul asked.

Ava shrugged. “Exhausted. I just want all of this to end.”

He nodded like that made perfect sense. “It will end. Soon. We’re doing everything we can.”

She ventured a step closer. “How did Elena die?”

It didn’t really matter, she told herself. The woman was dead. She was one less problem. But part of her still wanted to know.

“Ivan killed her.” John Paul glanced at her. “At least, that’s what we think.”

She thought about the stories Dimitri used to tell her of Ivan’s unwavering and blind adoration of their mother and found that impossible to believe. But what did she know about it? Maybe he did. Who really knew the workings of a madman’s mind?

“How are you?” she hazarded carefully. “I know there’s no love lost between you two, but…”

She didn’t know how to finish that. She wanted to say, but you had a son together so at some point … but she didn’t.

“My only regret is that I wasn’t the one who got to see her end,” he said in a tone one normally reserved when the last chocolate bar was snatched up by someone else. “However she died, it wasn’t slow or painful enough.”

Ava winced. “That’s a little … harsh, isn’t it?”

Golden eyes cut into her. “No.”

There was a tightness in his jaw that warned her not to push the matter. She opted to temporarily let it slide.

“Any word from Mom?” she asked instead, realizing it had been three days and Charlotte had still not made an attempt to see her.

John Paul cleared his throat, something he did frequently when he was preparing to lie for his wife, and it hit her just how tired that made her, even before his mouth opened.

“Dad…”

He sighed. His shoulders sagged. He turned away from her and walked over to the railings and folded his arms on the golden bar.

“I wasn’t entirely honest with you the last time we talked, Ava.” He paused until she’d joined him, her fears of getting shot overwhelmed by her concerns. “Your mom isn’t in France. I mean, she very well could be, but I truthfully don’t know where she is. I wanted to tell you, but you’d already been through so much and I thought it could wait.”

“What?” The word burst out of her, high and explosive. “What do you mean—?”

He put his hand up to calm her. “She’s fine. That much I am sure of. She’s upset with me and she does this when she thinks her absence will change my mind.” He drew in a gulping lungful of air that lifted his chest. “But it won’t. Not this time.”

“What happened?” she asked.

He hesitated. His head lifted until their gazes clashed. He stared into hers, apologetic.

“I asked her for a divorce.”

Ava’s jaw unhinged.

“Please don’t be upset,” John Paul hurried on, mistaking her stunned horror for anger. “I did my best to be supportive and a loving husband, but everything that has happened and her clear lack of moral compass, it was the breaking point for me. I can’t do it any longer. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” She threw her arms around him, taking him completely by surprise. “I have been wanting this for you for years!”

“What?”

The puzzlement in his tone had her drawing back to peer into his face, her own bright with a wide smile.

“I don’t know why you stayed with her. She’s a terrible human being and she never deserved you.”

“For you,” he said softly. “I stayed for you. I knew she would take you and I would never see you again if I let her walk away. And she knew it too. It was why she never let me adopt you and give you my name. So long as you were underage and she was your legal guardian, she knew she had me. Once you became an adult, the decision to stay with me was entirely up to you. By then, it was just easier to deal with it.”

“Dad…” She touched the side of his handsome face. “Do you honestly think I would have let her just take me away from you?”

He shrugged. “It was a risk I wasn’t willing to take.”

She pulled him to her again. “I’m sorry. You have had to deal with so much crap because of me.”

“You, mon cher, were never burden. You were a gift.”

She drew back and dabbed lightly at her eye with a bent knuckle, wiping away the tear clinging at the corner. She swallowed past the lump and offered him her best smile.

“But you’re free now, right? You can take off to the Bahamas and find yourself a hula dancer.”

John Paul burst out laughing, the kind of laughing that had his head flinging back with the force. It was a sound she hadn’t heard in so long and it made her wonder just how miserable he’d been the last sixteen years because of her.

“I think you mean Hawaii,” he said once he’d sobered.

Ava shrugged. “Get one from there, too.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Ah, my darling Ava.” He touched her arm lightly. “What would I do without you?”

“Well, you are never going to find out, so … what?” she asked when his smile faded.

His gaze slanted away from her towards the French doors. He studied their gleaming sheets of glass and trims of gold with a sigh.

“You know I would never intentionally hurt you, don’t you?”

The question made her blink. “Of course.”

His chin tipped towards her. “Everything I’ve ever done, it was because I love you and I have this deep, primal, parental need to protect you.”

An anxious gnawing had begun in the pit of her stomach. She rubbed at it, but the sensation didn’t calm.

“Yes?”

John Paul hesitated, and the longer he said nothing, but more anxious she became.

“Dad…?”

“I saw him that night,” he said at the same time she spoke. “I couldn’t sleep and I was walking the gardens, and I saw him climbing out of your window.”

“Who … oh!” She inwardly cursed. “Dad, I can—”

He put his hand up, stopping her.

“I panicked, initially. I thought he’d done something terrible to you. I was about to shoot him, but something stopped me. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but later, when I thought about it, I realized it was that I always knew. It wasn’t entirely a sense or a feeling, but there were nights I would hear things, talking, laughing … other things…” Neither met the other’s gaze. “I always thought it was your TV or me imagining things. But that night, it dawned on me that I had been completely oblivious to the goings on in my own house—”

“Dad—”

“Let me finish, Ava.”

She pressed her lips together and fell silent.

“I told him to stay away.” He said the words quickly, like the faster he ripped that band aid off, the faster the burden would be lifted off his chest. “I told him he was putting you in danger. I told him a lot of things. Most of it I can’t even remember now, but I am the reason he left you.”

She had always known something about Dimitri’s abrupt departure wasn’t right. She knew it wasn’t entirely because she’d wanted children. For everything that he was, Dimitri wasn’t a coward. He didn’t … he wouldn’t simply leave her without a word like that.

“I thought he was dead,” she whispered, more to herself than him. “For weeks I kept searching the papers, waiting for his body to be found.”

He had the decency to lower his gaze. “I know.”

She remembered him being there, always just in the background, watching her. She’d thought it was because of the way she’d been behaving. She thought it was concern because she wasn’t eating or sleeping.

“You let me just fall apart.”

“You were young,” he justified. “I thought you would grow out of it, move on. And you did. You went to Paris. You traveled. You started getting better.”

Only after the first video feed of the Devil. She’d seen the blurry, grainy silhouette, the man in the mask holding a rose, standing framed in a halo of blue light from some bay window, and she’d known—Dimitri was alive and he’d left her. What was she supposed to do? Sit at home and weep?

“You could have told me.”

He shook his head. “I was trying to protect you, Ava.”

Anger rocketed up her veins in serrated coils of fire and steel.

“Protect me? From what?” Her voice rose. “Dimitri was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I loved him. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. I wanted to have a family with him.”

John Paul physically recoiled. He tried to mask it by turning away, but it was too late.

“Why do you hate him? How could you hate him?” She was yelling now. It was loud and there was no wind to mask the words, but she didn’t care. “If you could just sit with him, just once, just for a second and talk to him, really talk to him, you would see how amazing he is, how much he loves me—”

“I know.”

Ava balked. “What?”

“I know, Ava.” He met her eyes, resigned. “I know he does. I know he did.”

“Then why…?”

“Because he can’t be trusted.” Those same eyes that always filled her with calm crackled with ice. “Because he is a monster.”

“He’s not!”

“He is!” he roared back. “It’s in his blood, Ava. It’s inside him. You can’t erase that kind of poison.”

“This is about Elena, isn’t it? You hate Dimitri, an innocent little boy who barely knew evil existed because of … what? Something stupid his mother did? What does that say about you?”

“It says I’m just as much of a monster.”

“What happened between you two?” she demanded. “I need to know. I need to understand how the man who raised me, a man I love more than life itself, a man who took a scared, lonely little girl and gave her more love than she knew what to do with, how he could be … this!”

John Paul said nothing. The wind whistled around them, blowing wisps of dark strands across his narrowed eyes, eyes that stared at the city skyline in the distance without blinking. The only hint that he’d even heard her was in the grinding of his molars.

“It’s never as simple as that, Ava,” he murmured so quietly, it was nearly snatched up by the breeze. “Some things are just never that simple.”

“What happened?”

His gaze lowered to the railing beneath his folded arms. “I knew Elena since I was a boy. Our fathers were in the Syndicate and we were forced to spend more than our share of time together. I never liked her.” His lips curled back over his teeth in disgust. “There was always something about her that made my insides crawl, a cruelty that couldn’t be masked no matter what she did. She reeked of it.

When we claimed our territories, I knew I had no choice but to be civil. I may not have liked her, but we were essentially partners. I accepted this new reality. I let my guard down. It was my own fault.”

She waited as he took a shaky breath. Something in his face made her want to stop him from telling the rest of the story. Whatever happened next had an anguished darkness creeping into the hollows of his cheeks and pooling in his eyes, and the sight of them wrenched her open.

But he was talking before she could tell him it was okay.

“It was a charity event. All the important people were present. It was mandatory I attend, so I did. Elena was there with her late husband—Ivan’s father. I don’t remember what happened next. I don’t even remember drinking very much, but I woke up with her…” He broke off. No. He choked. He choked on whatever he was about to say and turned away from her.

“Dad?” Ava reached for him, but he shook her away.

He raised a hand to his mouth. She caught the tremor in them and something in her shattered.

“She was on top of me. I…” He gasped for air. His shoulders caved with the jagged sound.

“Daddy…?”

“I couldn’t move. I was awake. I could see … I could feel everything, but I couldn’t…”

Ava tried not to make sound. She chewed into her cheek, tearing out a chunk of flesh, but still the pitiful, no, croaked out.

“I couldn’t stop her.”

Her hands flew up to her mouth, mashing back words, the tears threatening to break out of her. Her own memories of being helpless to Elena tangled with his and she knew how he must have felt, knew how terrified he must have been. But the reality of it was so much worse. It was the thing everyone feared, but no one talked about. That cold sensation women got when crossing a dark parking lot late at night. It was the crawling scuttle along the nap of a woman’s neck when she catches someone watching her that makes her uneasy. It’s that feeling of being violated and dirty at just the brush of an unwanted touch.

God, she didn’t want to hear anymore. Why had she asked? Why couldn’t she just leave it alone?

But John Paul was still talking.

“When it was over, she just sat there, me still inside her and smirked.

“See how good it is with a woman?” she said. “Maybe you don’t really like men. Maybe you just need a woman to make you fuck properly.” she moved, using my chest to push herself up and over me, again and again. “Your cock is still hard inside me,” she moaned, this filthy sound I can sometimes still hear.

She came on me and I could feel her.

I almost threw up. I wanted to cry.

She just laughed and patted my cheek. “Next time, don’t be such cold fish, yeah?”

Then, she left, and I just lay there, the room so fucking cold against my naked skin. I can still sometimes feel it at night. I wake up and I can’t move and it’s so cold.” He sucked in a ragged breath, like the chill had seeped into his very marrow. “I remember looking down at myself, at all the parts of me that still held the remains of my own body’s betrayal. I remember thinking that the second I could move again, I would set myself on fire. I would drown myself in bleach. I hated my skin and all the places she’d touched me.

And the whole time, her words kept repeating in my head, next time.” His chin lowered to his chest. “I have never felt so dirty, so … violated. I hated myself. I hated that I didn’t know what I was supposed to do next. I couldn’t tell anyone. Even if I did, who would believe me? Who would take me seriously? What happened to me doesn’t happen to men, especially not men in my position. Men don’t get raped. Men aren’t supposed to be weak. Men should want to get fucked. Some would even call what she did a favor. She was only trying to set me straight.”

Somewhere in the roaring in her head, Ava realized something she never once in sixteen years ever realized, and as soon as it dawned, she couldn’t believe she never saw it.

The separate bedrooms. The lack of sexual interest, the absence of a spark when he was with her mother. He’d always been loving and attentive, but there had always been something missing. She always thought it was Charlotte, and it probably partially was, but she’d just been the perfect scapegoat to hide who he really was. It suddenly made sense why he’d been so upset about the things Charlotte was saying about Robby, true or not.

Why hadn’t she seen it?

Maybe because it didn’t matter to her, she thought. He was still John Paul. He was still the same man who dropped everything to bake cookies with her. The same man who took her shopping for her prom dress and waited hours until she’d found the right one. He was her dad. Nothing else mattered.

She went to him. Her arms slid around his middle and she held him from behind, her cheek pressed in the place between his shoulder blades.

“I told no one,” he murmured, seemingly unaware of her. “I tried to forget it, like a bad nightmare. But every time I would see her, she’d grin at me like we shared a secret and my skin would crawl. The first time, a few weeks after it happened, I threw up. I left the meeting, saying I wasn’t feeling well, but it was her. She’d taken something from me that night. It took me years to get it back, but to this day, I couldn’t look at her without remembering.”

She closed her eyes and squeezed him gently, just enough to remind him she was still there, that he wasn’t alone.

“Then I found out she was pregnant and I knew right away that it was mine and I … God, help me, but I hated it. Hated seeing it growing inside her, filling and stretching her belly, this vile, disgusting thing that was created against my will. I had visions, terrible, horrific vision of…” he wheezed out a gasp and she tightened her hold, but he didn’t try to pull away. “I thought things, Ava, things you would never forgive me if I told you. Things no one should ever think about an innocent baby.”

He was trembling. Rocking so hard, her bones rattled with the sheer force of it.

“She brought him to me a few weeks after he’d been born, this tiny thing in blue. She looked at me, so proud of what we’d created.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” she said. “He has your eyes.”

I wanted to kill her. I wanted to punch my fist into her chest and tear out her heart. Instead, all I could do was tell her to stay away from me and keep her monster away from me. It wasn’t mine. I wanted no part of it. She laughed and told me I would change my mind.

I didn’t see him again for nine years when he showed up at my door, this boy who had my eyes and too many questions. I don’t know how he found me. I don’t know what he knew, but all I could see was his mother. All I could smell was her evil coating him, running through his veins.”

He pulled away from Ava and she let him. She stood frozen as he stumbled his way to a deck chair and dropped into it. His elbows pierced his knees and he clapped his hands over his mouth like that might stop the words from coming. His gaze fixed on something only he could see at her feet and never moved. Not even to blink.

“I turned him away. I said … such awful things, but I couldn’t…” Tears traced the worn lines of his face and disappeared behind his hands. “I couldn’t stand the sight of him.”

Ava could think of nothing to say, no words of comfort to give. She felt as hollow as a drum and as bottomless as a black hole.

This was the story she’d been begging him to tell her for years, the one thing he could never seem to talk about. Now she knew and she felt no better by the knowledge. She felt no understanding. All she felt was heartbreak. For him. For Dimitri. Two men she loved with all her heart ruined by the acts of a despicable woman. How was she supposed to fix this? How was she supposed to make it better? Where was Penny?

“You hate me.”

Ava started out of her own uselessness to find John Paul watching her with those eyes, those sweet, kind eyes that always lit up when they saw her, eyes that held so much love and warmth. Eyes that always made her feel so protected and safe.

“I could never hate you,” she whispered.

“I hate me.” The words were barely a movement of his mouth.

She sniffled. “Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe—”

He shook his head. “I won’t ask for his forgiveness. I don’t deserve it even if he gave it. Too much has happened, too much sad. Things I can never take back.”

“You don’t know Dimitri.” She wiped at her tears. “He’s got the most beautiful heart. He’s so much like you.”

He lifted his head, lowered his hands, and studied her. “Would you forgive your mother?”

That stopped her. She thought of the years of neglect, the snide, hurtful comments, the years of pretending she didn’t exist.

“No,” she whispered, ashamed of herself.

“Then why would he forgive me when I’ve done so much worse to him?”

“Because he’s not me,” she said. “Because he actually wants your love.”

“But I don’t love him.” He never looked away as he said it. “I never will. He will always be a reminder of what happened.”

A thought occurred to her then, one that finally brought sense to everything she could never figure out.

“Is that why you always told me he was dangerous, because you thought he would do the same to me?”

He lowered his gaze. “He’s his mother’s son. I couldn’t trust what he was capable of. I couldn’t trust him with you, not you, Ava.” His eyes shot up to her face, fierce and intense. “I would have killed every single last one of them if he ever…” His nostrils flared with his ragged breaths. “I wasn’t going to allow him to destroy you the way his mother destroyed me.”

She went to him and crouched down until they were eyelevel. She rested her hands on his knees, partially for balance.

“I have loved Dimitri Tasarov in some shape or form my entire life,” she murmured. “Since I was ten years old, he’s been my best friend. I don’t know what my life would have been like without him. I don’t want to know. You and him have made me the woman I am today and I love you both so much.”

His hand settled lovingly against the side of her face. His thumb smoothed away the tears that refused to stop falling. He peered into her eyes, so much sorrow in his.

“I would give you the world, mon cher.”

She shook her head. “I don’t need the world. I just want the two most important men in my life to get along.”

His shoulders lifted with his deep inhale. He continued to stroke her cheek while he searched her eyes. Finally, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to her brow.

“Je vais vous donner le monde, et ma bénédiction. Si tel est ce qui va vous rendre heureux.” He stroked her head and repeated himself in English. “I’ll give you the world, and my blessing. If this is what will make you happy.”

A fresh batch of emotions blurred her vision. Her bottom lip wavered once before she mashed her entire face into his chest.

“I love you,” she rasped into the front of his dress shirt.

He held her tight, lips against the top of her head. “Je t’aime aussi, ma petite chou.”

The soft scrape of shoes on concrete had her glancing over her shoulder at the familiar silhouette darkening the doorway. The sight of him had her heart leaping in her chest and then plummeting.

He knew. He’d heard everything.

It wasn’t on his face. There was nothing on his face. But she knew. She could feel his pain as physically as if it were her own.

“Dimitri…”

“I came to ask if you were hungry,” he said with an ease that hurt her soul.

“I’ll have something brought up.”

John Paul got to his feet. He helped Ava up to hers and then walked straight past his son and disappeared inside without a word.

“Dimitri,” she said again, her throat tight with words she didn’t know how to say.

He shook his head, unable to meet her gaze.

She went to him. Her arms circled his shoulders and he let her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered into the soft patter of his pulse.

“I always knew.”

She pulled back to peer into his face. “You knew?”

“Not … that, but that he would never see me as more than a monster.”

“But you’re not a monster,” she protested vehemently. “Why won’t you believe me? When have I ever lied to you?”

His palm rested on the cheek still warm from John Paul’s touch. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe you’re the only one who seems to think so?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t believe that.”

Gentle fingers slipped beneath her chin and forced her face up further, craning her neck. “Why do you have such blind faith in me, myshka? Haven’t I hurt you enough to prove I’m no good?”

“Because to love someone, really love someone, you need to have faith in them, even when they do stupid things.”

His entire body seemed to deflate a notch as he bowed his head until his brow touched hers. “I can’t give you the better man you deserve.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want a better man. I want you, all of you, the monster, the devil, the man, the lover, the friend. I want all the ugly, broken, scarred pieces of you, Dimitri, because they fit with all of mine.”

“Fuck, Ava!” His snarl was followed by the violent and bruising clamp of his mouth over hers.

He kissed her with the madness of a man possessed. His hands closed in her hair, tearing out roots as he gripped her to him. Her insides dipped in sweet pleasure as he devoured her.

“I love you,” he growled in between consumptions. “I fucking love you, Ava.”

She broke the kiss, her lungs burning for air.

“I … no.” She rummaged through the foggy mess of her mind until she found the right words. “Ya tebya lyub-lyu.”

She hoped she’d said it right. It had been years since she’d told anyone she loved them in Russian.

But it must have been right, because his face broke into a slow, wide grin that made her stomach flip. His lips captured hers again, gentler.

This time, he drew back, still grinning.

“Come,” he said, taking her hand. “Let’s get you fed.”

She followed him back into the hotel. Only John Paul and Penny were there, but they seemed content talking about the rise of taxes coming from the east.

“They already own half the casinos in the city.” Penny was muttering. She spotted Dimitri and quickly straightened. “Food has been ordered, sir. It should be up in twenty minutes. I’ve also booked Saeed a room in the hotel, one that allows pets, and I have instructed the clerk’s desk at the courthouse to fax those papers over to you at the office to avoid accidental information leakage.” She checked her watch. “If there’s nothing else, sir, Daniel needs me to take him to get a few scrap parts from the dump.”

Dimitri motioned her to go ahead.

Ava walked her to the door.

“Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”

Penny smiled at her. “It’s my pleasure. Let me know if you need anything else.”

She eyed the woman. “Any idea where Ivan is hiding?”

Penny laughed. “I wish.” She poked her glasses higher on the bridge of her nose. “But I have all my informants on the job.”

Ava nodded. “Thank you again.”

With a wave, Penny slipped out. One of the three men stationed outside broke away from the group and followed her.

Ava shut the door and turned to face the two across the room, standing in awkward silence that was almost painful to bear.

John Paul broke free first. He snatched up his blazer off the back of a nearby chair and swung it on.

“I have an early meeting in the morning,” he said. “But I’ll swing by afterwards, around ten, if that works?”

“Dad…”

He walked over to her and took her face between his hands. He kissed her cheek.

“Tomorrow.”

Reluctant, she nodded and stepped aside to let him pass.

A loud buzzing filled the room. They both looked back in time to watch Dimitri unearth his phone from his pants pocket and frown at the screen. The confusion never lifted, not even when he brought the device to his ear.

“Yeah?”

Seconds passed. The confusion dissolved into surprise. Then horror.

His gaze snapped up and across the distance straight at Ava.

Her heart sank. “What?”

Wordlessly, Dimitri lowered his arm and hit something on the screen.

A male voice plumed into the air, a cloud of toxic words that stole all the light and left a chill in the room. Even without a face, Ava recognized it.

“We will meet in four hours and we will end everything, yes?”

Ivan.

Memories of him arguing with the men on the cliff rushed over her. She must have staggered back, because John Paul had her by the arm and she couldn’t recall why.

“Where are you?” Dimitri demanded. “It’s over. Turn yourself in.”

A low, cackling sound erupted from the bit of plastic. “I come in, he dies. Do you want me to send pieces to your whore?”

Nothing he was saying made any sense or maybe the buzzing in her ears was too loud and she was missing things. She couldn’t be sure.

“Who?” Dimitri didn’t seem to know either.

There was a gurgling sound, a sickening crunch of something snapping, then an inhuman wail that sliced through Ava like a knife.

“Say your name,” Ivan taunted in an almost sing-song tone.

Someone was sobbing, a man. “Fuck you!”

Ava bolted forward even though there was nothing she could do.

“Robby!”

“Four hours,” the voice said.

Then the line went dead.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Sir, you can’t go,” Penny argued, looking nothing like herself in jeans and a t-shirt with a pair of hot kiss lips. But she’d rushed straight back from the dump and smelled of it. Not that anyone seemed to notice. “It’s a trap.”

It was a trap. Dimitri wasn’t stupid enough not to have recognized that. But what was he supposed to do? He couldn’t not go. He couldn’t let Ivan send pieces of Robby back to Ava.

Ava.

He glanced over at her. She hadn’t said anything since the phone had been disconnected. She stood, arms hugging her middle, a heart wrenching silhouette against the setting sun.

She hadn’t moved. She hadn’t asked him to save her friend. She hadn’t even looked at him.

“Penny’s right,” John Paul said. “Robby’s, in all likelihood, dead already.”

“This isn’t a surrender plea, sir,” Penny jumped in. “He’s not going to willingly come back with you. He knows there is no escape for him. The entire country is looking for him. You’ve cut off all means of escape. This is his final stand and whatever he has planned, you’re going to go down with him.”

These were all things he already knew. Ivan was cornered. He was a rat being slowly roasted in a steel box. He was either going to try and burrow his way out or kill himself.

“Sir, if I may.” Frank folded his long fingers together on the table and leaned forward. “We could have a tactical unit set up a perimeter around the structure. They can surveillance—”

Dimitri shook his head. “We don’t have time for that, and I know my brother. There is only one way Ivan’s going to end this and I won’t put innocent men in the crosshairs. It’s me or no one.”

“It’s suicide!” Penny cried. “We don’t even know if Robby is still alive. You could be walking in there—”

Dimitri turned to Ava. The only voice he hadn’t heard. The only answer he would listen to.

He went to her. He was careful when he reached to gently take her arms.

“Myshka.” He grazed the back of her head with his lips. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

Her spine shuddered along the length of his chest. Her shoulders stiffened.

“What can I say?” Her voice broke. “Ask you to stay and risk losing my best friend, or ask you to go and risk losing both of you? I can’t lose you. I can’t even think…” She crushed a small fist into the place between her breasts as though the pain was physical. “But if Robby’s alive…”

He kissed the side of her head when she broke off.

“Okay,” he murmured. “Okay.” He said again, mind solidified on his decision. He faced the others. “I’m going. If,” he said over the immediate roar of protests, “Robby is alive, I need to get him. I’ll worry about everything else after.”

“But, sir—”

“If you have a better idea, I’m all ears, but as it stands, Robby is in this mess, because of me.” He turned away from Penny’s pinched expression and focused on John Paul. “Have you heard from Ki?”

The other man shook his head. “I’ve tried his phone, but no answer.”

Dimitri nodded. “Keep trying.” His gaze went back to Penny. “Get a hold of every contact you have in the police. Tell them to evacuate all surrounding buildings. I don’t care what they tell people, but they need to set a wide perimeter and they have…” he checked his watch. “Three hours to do it.”

Some of the color washed from her cheeks. “How wide?”

Dimitri thought of his brother and the mark he would insist on leaving with his departure.

“At least thirty blocks.”

“Jesus.” Penny moistened her lips, catching herself. “They’ll want to send a bomb unit or a SWAT team—”

“No, no one is allowed anywhere near that area. Tell them that is a direct order. They are to keep their men as far out of the blast zone as possible.”

Penny fiddled with her phone, her expression torn between trying to remain professional and breaking down. She blinked rapidly behind her glasses.

“Sir, with that kind of radius, even if you manage to get Robby and you manage to leave…”

He didn’t let her finish. Her chin was beginning to quiver and she was trying so hard not to cry.

“Make the call.”

She turned away quickly and moved to the other end of the room.

He turned to Frank. “I will ask about Killian.”

Frank only nodded.

The only person left was the man at the other end of the table, the one Dimitri knew he should have at least some kind of thought towards … and he had nothing. He didn’t know how to apologize for something he had no part of. He didn’t know how to explain that the only thing he’d ever wanted was for at least one of his parents to acknowledge that he belonged somewhere. He didn’t know how to do anything, except meet his father’s eyes and say nothing, because it was too late, because they were strangers, because the blood they shared meant nothing.

They were both just two bad men who loved the same woman in different ways. That was their only saving grace. Even now when Dimitri might not come back, John Paul couldn’t muster a single word of anything. Not one word.

Dimitri turned away.

He walked back to Ava and turned her away from the growing dusk. She peered up at him, her face ravaged by tears. Her eyes were swollen and bloodshot. Her cheeks were pale under the crimson botches. Her shoulders trembled under his palms.

“Don’t…” was all she sobbed before she crumpled against his chest.

He didn’t know what it meant. Don’t die. Don’t leave Robby. Don’t go.

It didn’t matter. He needed to go. He needed to try. He’d never forgive himself if he let Robby die and did nothing. Neither would she.

“You’re not deciding,” he whispered into her ear. “I am. This is my choice, whatever happens.”

She cried harder. Her tears soaked into his shirt and burned his skin. Heat radiated off her in plumes so hot, he could feel himself beginning to sweat. Under his palms, her back heaved as though her very heart was literally breaking into a million pieces.

“I can’t lose you,” she choked between wheezes. “I can’t. Not again.”

“Ah, myshka, you’ve never lost me and you never will.”

She didn’t seem to hear him.

“Don’t die, please just don’t…” Her knuckles bleached white around the clumps of his shirt she clutched. “Don’t leave me.”

That was a promise he couldn’t make her. He wasn’t an optimist. There wasn’t a bone in his body that believed he would be returning and he wasn’t about to break his final promise to her.

“I love you,” was all he could tell her. “I will always love you.”

Leaving the hotel was the hardest thing Dimitri had ever had to do. Closing the door on Ava’s wails had nearly killed him, but he’d set his shoulders and marched to the elevators, a man on death row.

John Paul walked beside him, oddly ironic considering. Whenever he’d envisioned his own demise, he was not the man Dimitri saw at his side. But it was strangely comforting not being alone. He knew it would only be part of the way, but it was better than nothing.

They took the elevator down in a silence that was void of its usual tension. It was the kind of silence usually reserved for people on their deathbed. It was no comfort either way.

Saeed was already waiting below. Penny must have told him, because he looked at Dimitri and his jaw tensed.

He said nothing though when he opened the door.

They had twenty minutes to make a ten-minute drive.

Might as well get it over with, was his way of thinking. The sooner it was over, the, well, the sooner it was over.

Saeed drove painfully slow, which might have been mostly in Dimitri’s imagination. But he was definitely following the laws of traffic. Stopping at every light. Taking every signal. He even paused to let another car pass them.

Dimitri said nothing.

Next to him, John Paul was equally mute.

“Take care of her.” The words left him before he even knew he was thinking them.

“I will.”

Why was there nothing else? How could there be nothing between a father and son? How, even in that moment when they would never get that chance again, could there be nothing? It seemed so unfair, so cruel.

But they didn’t live in a world of fairness. He’d learned that long ago.

He thought of Millie, and Robby, and even Penny with her brilliant son. He thought of Saeed and his parakeet, Melvin. He thought of Erik, who didn’t even know what was happening, and Marcus.

He pulled out his phone and put each one of those people, with the exception of Millie, in a group text and wrote two words, thank you. He scheduled it to be sent after.

It wasn’t enough. There weren’t enough words in the world to properly convey how much he appreciated them. He didn’t have time. The warehouse was almost in view.

He put his phone away.

“Boss?”

Saeed met his gaze in the mirror.

“Here’s fine. Thank you.”

The SUV rolled to a stop. Dimitri unfastened his belt and reached for the handle. He hesitated, waiting. That one, final second, hoping.

Nothing.

He accepted it and climbed out.

Stones and grit crunched beneath his feet as he stepped up alongside Saeed’s window. The boy was staring stubbornly ahead, but he rolled down his window with a soft whir.

“Penny told you.” It wasn’t a question.

Saeed gave a tight bob of his head.

“Get as far from here as you can possibly go, understand?”

Another nod. Still not looking at him.

“Be safe, yeah?”

The muscle coiled tight in the boy’s jaw. His nostrils flared once. The rubber grip around the wheel squeaked under the fierce fist twisted around it.

“Yeah, boss.”

There was a tremor, faint, but Dimitri had to turn away.

He moved away from the vehicle. The clip of his own feet the only sound for miles. That whole sector had become a ghost town. Not even a stray cat.

He studied the red bricked buildings as he passed them. Most of them were tagged, gang symbols, expressions of art, and he couldn’t help but wonder where those kids were now. If they were safe. Were all the buildings empty? Did the authorities clear everyone away? Was thirty blocks enough?

He thought about Millie and realized he didn’t think about her nearly enough considering all she’d given him. She’d breezed into his life and breezed out as quickly as a summer storm.

He’d never told anyone about her and he couldn’t help but think that made him a bad person. But who would he have told?

Ava, maybe. But they hadn’t had a chance to have any sort of conversation. He hadn’t told her a lot of things, he realized.

He contemplated writing her a text, but she had no phone. He could send it to John Paul or even Erik. Maybe Penny. But the things he needed to tell her were things he couldn’t tell anyone else, not even now, because they weren’t all about him. Some were secrets he was guarding for others and he only trusted Ava.

He would tell her about Millie.

Ava would have loved her. She would have seen past the filth and grime, the sour stench of unwashed body and urine, because Millie’s personality was bigger than all that. She’d been a world of her own.

He would tell her about that stormy night when he’d been lying in that alleyway after being jumped by eight guys, clutching his side where the cold rain was bleeding with the hot gush of his own life seeping between his fingers.

He’d tell her how he’d looked up at the heavens and thought of her, of her smile and how all he wanted before he died was to see it again one last time.

He’d tell her how Millie had hobbled along out of nowhere, pushing her cart of drenched things and found him, how she’d left her things behind to hoist him into the buggy instead and take him to get patched up. He’d tell her how that woman who had nothing had taken him in without question.

She’d shown him a side of the city he—like everyone else—had ignored. She showed him the mothers clutching their children in damp, moldy boxes behind pizza shops. She’d shown him the young boys huddled and shivering in dark corners, doing things no one should be forced to. She showed him a darkness he was ashamed he’d allowed to happen. It was because of her the Devil existed.

Yes, Ava would have loved her.

Ava.

His Ava.

He was leaving her again. He was breaking his promise after all.

Fuck.

A scuffle behind him had him reaching inside his coat for the 9mm tucked against his ribs. He spun, weapon in hand, and froze.

John Paul stared back at him, unflinching.

“What…?” Dimitri shoved his gun back into its holster. “What are you doing here?”

John Paul continued towards him, slow, like they were taking a leisurely stroll through the park.

“Someone needs to get Robby out.”

Dimitri just stared, dumbfounded. Then he snapped.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” he roared. “There is no walking away from this.”

“You don’t know that.”

John Paul started forward.

Dimitri slammed an open palm into the man’s chest.

“Go fucking back.” Each word was chewed up and spat out. “You are not coming. Ava needs you. She can’t lose both of us.”

His hand was smacked aside.

“She won’t.”

He was walking and Dimitri had no choice but to scramble after him.

The warehouse was a concrete pillar of narrow windows and gray stone. There was a plaque over the high, cargo doors, but Dimitri didn’t wait to read it.

He glanced at the man next to him.

“There’s still time.”

John Paul nodded, his face set as he stared with single minded focus at the wood panels. “Then, let’s not waste it.”

Dimitri forced open the doors.

He expected an immediate explosion, a trip wire designed to go off the second they were disturbed. But the hinges squealed and doors parted to a cloud of dust and a flat, spacious chamber supported by fat, wooden beams and a single swaying lamp dangling over a slumped, bloody figure knotted to a chair.

“Robby!”

Dimitri started forward.

John Paul caught his arm. “Wait.”

It was only then he heard the slow, barely perceptible ticking. Two tickings. Three.

He scanned the puddles of black dripping from corners and pooling across the ground. There was no telling what they concealed or how much of it; the sounds were coming from everywhere.

“I count six,” John Paul said.

Dimitri counted more, but six was bad enough.

“Robby!” Dimitri said louder.

Robby flinched and jerked awake. His head snapped up. A garble of sound escaped the bit of rag twisted between his teeth.

His right eye was swollen shut. His cheek was bleeding from a shallow cut. More cuts, deeper cuts, littered his naked torso. The middle finger on his left hand was bent at an odd angle, but he’d live.

He caught sight of Dimitri and John Paul and his one good eye widened. He cried something and rocked his head wildly from side to side. He thrashed against the bindings, filling the stillness with the squeak of wood.

Dimitri started to tell him to keep quiet, but there was a groan of weight heaving off something with springs.

“You are going to stand there?” Ivan’s voice boomed through the room. “Come in. Sit.”

There was nowhere to sit, but they took several steps closer.

Ivan laughed, a deep, rumbling laugh that rolled like thunder in the darkness. “You bring your daddy, Dimitri? You need courage?”

“He’s only here to take Robby.” Dimitri scanned the shadows, searching for his brother. “You don’t need him. I’m the one you want, so come out and we’ll talk.”

Robby shrieked behind his gag, twisting and rocking violently enough to nearly send himself toppling backwards.

Dimitri ignored him and stepped deeper into the room. “Or are you the one who needs courage, Ivan? Because I’m right here and you’re in the shadows.” He edged a fraction back and lowered his voice so only John Paul could hear him. “Get Robby.”

John Paul didn’t move right away. He stood where he was, surveying their surroundings.

Dimitri left him to the task. He focused on his brother.

“What happened to Elena, Ivan? They found her body.”

He moved away from Robby, hoping to keep Ivan’s attention on him while John Paul got Robby freed.

“She changed her mind.” The voice was quieter and somewhere on Dimitri’s right. “Everything we did, all our planning … nothing.”

“What was the plan?”

It was a challenge keeping a calm, neutral tone when the smell of sulfur heightened the closer he drew to the edges of the light.

“Why am I here?” Anger bristled through him. “You said you wanted to talk.”

It was stupid goading a lunatic, but he was running out of options and he needed Ivan talking. He needed to give John Paul enough time to get as far as possible

Dirt scoffed beneath approaching heels. Dimitri braced himself as the shadows dissolved off Ivan’s giant frame. His wild mane of shiny, black hair seemed to glisten in the light, framing a face scarred badly from years of chemical splatters. It matched the rest of him, a tattered landscape of burnt flesh. Most of it a shiny pink against his natural tan. His hands were the worst, they looked like he’d been digging fries out of a bubbling deep fryer. Yet despite their damaged appearance, they could assemble and dismantle a bomb in under five seconds.

Ivan was a big man. Always had been. Even as children, Ivan had seemed massive. It wasn’t just height, but the sheer build of him, the straining muscles and bulging shoulders. He could have been a wrestler.

He towered over Dimitri, a good two heads in height with the cloud of power that radiated around him.

“You are forgetting who I am, mladshiy brat,” he snarled, one corner of his mouth twisted downward. “You forget what I can do to you.”

Dimitri snorted. “I’m not five anymore, bol’shoy brat,” he spat the word for big brother out like a curse. “I will not be so easy to catch now.”

Ivan laughed like his terror was some fond memory. “Remember how would you scream when we play poke the baby? I don’t even touch you with cigarette and you squeal … like piggy.”

Dimitri hummed, ignoring all the places on his body that tingled at the memory, the old scars still perfect round burns against his flesh.

“Good times.”

Ivan took a lumbering step closer, his smirk foul and cruel. “Or when we fit you in suitcase and push you down stairs.” He chortled. “Do you fit in suitcase now? We should see, yes?”

Dimitri stood his ground. He’d learned long ago that it wasn’t the act of violence that turned his brother on. It was the fear on his victim’s face. Dimitri had spent a great number of years with that look on his face.

“Is that all you wanted me here for? To remind me of what you can do?” He scoffed. “We could have done that over the phone.”

Ivan stopped, leaving an exact ten feet between them. He studied Dimitri with those cold, vicious eyes like he couldn’t quite put his finger on something.

“No,” he mused at last. “You’re not afraid like before. You are king now, yes? Kings don’t show fear.”

“What happened to Elena?” he asked again. “Why did you kill her?”

At the mention of their mother’s name, Ivan’s mouth warped into a hideous sneer. Yellow teeth bared.

“She become weak.” He spat weak like it was something foul in his mouth. “She wants to run, like coward. Wants to hide, like coward. Why? For what? For you? I don’t fear you. I will kill your whore and your father. I will kill everybody until there is nobody, but you. Then I will kill you.”

“Was that Elena’s plan?” he coaxed. “Why was she after Ava?”

“Ava.” Ivan growled her name like the mere mention of it fueled his rage. “Fucking whore.”

Dimitri steeled himself against the urge to ram his fist into the man’s throat.

“She started this.” Ivan’s nostrils flared. “Elena says we kill her. We kill him.” He jabbed a finger to where John Paul was still standing. “We take mainland. We take west. We take north. In end, we take city. My city. Then she not let me kill girl.

“Take her,” she tells me. “Take her where no one find her.”

I say, we kill her. Now. Put her body in pieces on his door. No. She won’t.

I take her and put her on boat and I’m done. She’s gone. We kill John Paul Morel and I take my kingdom. Yes?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “No. You bring stupid whore back. Elena panics. Says we run. We leave my city. We lose everything, because I don’t kill Ava like I wanted!” He was barely holding on. The rage was a palpable force that vibrated in the strands of his hair. His fists were mutilated hunks of ham balled at his sides. “She lose me my city!”

Dimitri wasn’t sure if he meant Ava or Elena, but he was talking and Dimitri wasn’t going to interrupt with questions.

“I kill her,” Ivan says simply. “Then I think I finish job. I kill whore and whore’s friend and whore’s father—”

Dimitri slugged him.

He hadn’t even felt his fingers curling or the urge singing up his arm, but it flew in a high arc and cracked into Ivan’s jaw. The snap of his teeth sang through the room. His head snapped back with a force that flung his entire weight back two full steps. Blood spattered in a beautiful arch against the dingy light.

“Ava’s not a whore,” Dimitri bit out, resisting the urge to rub his throbbing hand.

Ivan staggered, but he righted himself. He swiped the back of his fist across his bloody chin. He glanced down at the crimson stain … and laughed.

“Did I make you angry, Dimitri?” He lifted his eyes to Dimitri. “Did I insult your whore?” He cackled, his teeth bloodstained. “Did you think only you had taste of that pussy? Shaved, isn’t it? Bald and smooth like a baby.” He licked his lips. “I almost tasted for myself, almost put a real man’s cock in that tight cunt. Would have if I’d had more time.”

He was goading him. Dimitri knew it. Knew he was playing straight into Ivan’s hands, but the image, the raw, blistering thought of him anywhere near Ava plowed into him with a ferocity that had blood pounding in his ears. He couldn’t even control his breathing. Each one slammed out of him with a ravenous hunger that refused to be ignored.

He surged forward, fists clenched. He closed four full steps when Ivan jerked back. His cackle sparked across Dimitri’s nerves, but it was the hand he shot up between them that pulled Dimitri to a stop short of his goal.

He stared at the palm sized remote. Simple. Black with a single switch embedded against the ridged front. It seemed so tiny in Ivan’s giant grasp and yet it held the weight of everything on its square frame.

“Careful,” Ivan taunted. “Your whore’s friend is still here.”

Only an idiot would take his eyes off the man who could kill him with a single punch, but Dimitri shot a glance back over his shoulder, praying against all odds that John Paul was already gone and Robby’s chair would be empty.

Robby was still bound.

John Paul was still where he’d always been, unmoving.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Dimitri snarled, trying not to calculate the distance the man could have already put between them and the warehouse by now.

“I can’t,” was his response.

“What…?”

He turned his head to Robby, taking in the ropes around his wrists, across his chest, around his ankles. He sat in the center of a dull halo of light. Just him and the chair.

Then, he saw it, the long, thin cord attached to something bolted under the chair. It was barely visible through the thick layer of dust and it vanished once it reached the circle of light.

Ivan smirked when Dimitri faced him once more.

“What do you want, Ivan?” Dimitri spread his arms out on either side of him. “I’m here. You don’t need them.”

“But it is fun!” the other man boomed. “All your life, little Dimitri never understanding why his daddy never love him. Now, you can ask. Look. He’s here. You can know the truth.”

Dimitri shook his head. “I don’t need the truth. It doesn’t matter to me anymore. Actually,” he tilted his head to the side. “I do want to know one thing. Why did you kill Killian McClary?”

Ivan frowned. “What?”

“It was you, wasn’t it?”

Ivan scoffed, genuinely insulted. “My work is art. Beautiful. Who did it, was amateur. Not me.”

Dimitri hadn’t thought how he was going to let Frank know. He wondered if Ivan would get angry if he sent a quick text. But he figured John Paul could tell him once they sorted out what sort of trigger Robby was sitting on.

“What now?” he asked careful to keep his voice controlled. “I came like you asked. Now, let Robby and John Paul go.”

Ivan’s eyes narrowed in puzzlement. “You don’t want him to die? Everything he is doing to you, you could destroy him.”

Dimitri shook his head. “Then he wins.”

Ivan snorted. “Maybe you better man than me. I kill him. Cut him into little pieces and feed him to fishes.”

This wasn’t going anywhere. He didn’t know how long he could keep the other man talking and he needed Robby and John Paul out of there before the explosion.

“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!”.

Chapter Thirty

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.”

Charlotte’s smile wavered. “You don’t mean—”

“Stop it!” Her hand dropped away. “Stop acting like me being out of your life isn’t the thing you’ve been longing for since I was born. I’m offering you your freedom. Tell me what you want.”

All pretenses of the doting, helpless mother dissolved. Charlotte straightened, drawing back her shoulders elegantly. Her features went from docile to shrewd and calculating.

“I want the estate.”

“No, that house has been in my family for generations. It belongs to me.”

Charlotte blinked. “Your family? I’m your family.”

Ava never so much as batted an eyelash. “John Paul was my family. His family is my family. That house belongs to me.”

Red lips pinched. “Then I want my own place, in Paris. A beach house on the beach and a flat in the city.”

Ava shook her head, mostly out of disgust. “Fine.”

She started moving towards their parked car only to have Charlotte leap into her path, teetering slightly when her heels sank into the grass.

“And a bank account, something to keep me tied over comfortably for a little while.”

John Paul had already left Charlotte an account with more than enough funds to last six people four lifetimes. Ava knew, because she’d seen the will, as had Charlotte, the morning of the reading. John Paul had arranged it to take place before his funeral, stating he didn’t want his loved ones to worry about how to bury him properly. But it had all been there.

A bank account for Charlotte, his wife, in the amount that had even the lawyer adjusting his glasses. The rest, every property, business holding, every car, painting, spoon in the kitchen had been left to Ava. With the exception of a brand new Ducati motorbike left to Dimitri with a note that read, take better care of this one.

Dimitri, who hadn’t been expecting anything, had just sat there, staring at the note with a rigid tightness in his jaw. Ava had asked him about it, but he’d only shaken his head.

“Dad already left you a bank account,” Ava said.

Charlotte bristled. “I am accustomed to a certain type of living, Ava. What would people think if I suddenly couldn’t.”

Ava shook her head. “You’ve already gotten all of Dad’s money you’re going to get. I’ll look into a flat and a house, but after that, we’re through.”

“You ungrateful bitch!”

With her teeth bared, Charlotte seemed old and tired. The kind of woman who tried a little too hard to be young.

“Goodbye, Mother.”

She walked away with Charlotte’s shrieking profanities trailing after her.

Dimitri slipped his hand into hers. She gripped it tight.

Robby sat waiting on the front steps of the estate when Saeed pulled up into the driveway. His face was still a maze of bruises and cuts, but he smiled when they climbed out of the car.

He ambled over to her, limping slightly. He waved and the late rays of light caught the clip poking out through the wrapping on his left hand. The metal glinted.

“Hey.” He squinted down at her. “I wasn’t sure when you’d get back.”

He was still dressed in his funeral clothes, which made her think he’d come straight over after the service.

She hadn’t really seen or talked to him since the bombing, since their fight, since he’d been captured. They’d talked briefly during the reading of the will where John Paul had left him enough money to pay off his school loans and buy at least eight houses. They’d made plans to meet up later and talk things out, but she hadn’t expected it to be now when she was too mentally exhausted to have a decent conversation with anyone.

“You okay?” she asked.

He nodded. His hands began sliding to his pockets, but only one fit, the one not mummified. He stopped trying and let his hands drop down to his sides.

“I…” He pulled in a breath. “I honestly wasn’t planning on coming here, but I left the cemetery and kind of wound up on your doorstep.” He rubbed his good hand through his hair. “I know you probably want to rest. I was going to give you time, but I keep thinking about the things I said and every day that passes and we don’t talk, I feel like this huge hole is growing inside me and I…” He licked his lips. “I don’t want to lose you, Avs. You’re the only family I have and I’m fucking scared that you’ll never forgive me, and I don’t blame you. I said some seriously fucked up things. I didn’t mean them, but I said them and I’m so sorry.”

She knew he was, but even if he wasn’t, she didn’t blame him. He had every right to be angry. He had every right to hate her. His entire life had been thrown into the blender because of her. He’d become an addict, he’d watched his bodyguard get shot, was kidnapped, tortured, and nearly blown up, all because of her. Could she really blame him if he never talked to her again?

“I’ll forgive you, if you forgive me,” she whispered.

He swallowed audibly and gave a jerky nod. “Done.”

Ava chuckled. “Ice cream?”

“And beer. Lots of beer.”

“Deal.” She hooked her arm through his and led him towards the front door. “Then you can tell me about talking to the judge and what your conditions are to reinstate your residency.”

Dimitri was still in the foyer, shrugging out of his coat. The two men exchanged nods as she shut the door.

“How are you?” Dimitri asked.

“Sober,” Robby muttered. “Painfully sober.”

“We’re going to have ice cream and beer on the patio,” she told Dimitri.

His nose wrinkled. “That sounds disgusting.”

Robby sighed. “It is. You’ll throw up, but it’s oddly delicious at the same time.”

Dimitri snorted a chuckle and turned away to hook his coat up on the ornate coatrack.

“Hey, so I never thanked you,” Robby began, shifting awkwardly. “For that stuff you did for me … with the judge and getting my residency back.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I, uh … I was a total shit to both of you before. I know I don’t deserve any—”

“You’re family,” Dimitri interjected. “Family’s say stupid things.”

Robby nodded slowly. “Sometimes, they try to blow you up. I get it. Still. I was a fucking idiot.”

Ava tugged on the arm she still held. “Come on. Tell us about the judge.”

He shook his head. “I have to see some therapist or something a couple times a week for a little while. Once he gives me the green light, judge is going to talk to my attending doctor and the hospital director, and see about bringing me back on. It’s not official or anything, but…”

He grinned a little and Ava squeezed his hand.

“That’s still really good.” She relinquished her hold on him and started towards the kitchen, calling back over her shoulder, “I’ll grab the ice cream if you two can get us something to drink.”

In theory, it wasn’t a very hard task to grab a pint of Ben & Jerry from the freezer, a few bowls from the cupboard and make her way to the back patio. In reality, the moment she pulled open the fridge door, she forgot why she was there. She forgot the importance of conserving energy as she stood with the cold air biting through her simple, black dress. All she could see was the container of salmon sandwiches tucked away behind the tower of casserole dishes and cold salads. It was the same batch John Paul had ordered specifically for her the day she returned home. It was old and needed to be tossed away, but the sight of it was a steel fist in the gut. And it all came apart.

“Ava?”

Dimitri found her on the floor, in front of the open fridge door, clutching the container to her stomach and sobbing.

He lowered himself down behind her without a word and gathered her up into his lap. With his foot, he shut the door and just held her … and the sandwiches.

“I’m sorry.”

He shushed her gently, hand stroking her hair. “No, myshka.”

“He was your father, too.”

“But he was your dad,” he reminded her, not unkindly. “You knew him like I never did, and that’s okay.”

She sniffled, wiped her nose on the back of her hand. It was disgusting, but neither of them mentioned it.

“What happened that night, at the warehouse?”

“Ava…”

She raised her head off his shoulder. “Please? I need to know.”

Deep, penetrating sadness darkened his eyes, the kind that mirrored the gaping emptiness left inside her.

He swallowed. “He saved my life.” He stopped abruptly. His lips pressed together, tightening his jaw. He lowered his gaze, but not before she saw the sheen in his eyes. “He threw himself at Ivan so I could…”

His voice broke.

The container of sandwiches was set aside and she engulfed him in her arms. She mashed her face into his shoulders and held him, pretending not to notice the subtle tremor in his shoulders. She stroked his hair the way he’d done to her and kissed the side of his head, his temple, tasted the saltiness on his cheek, the corner of his mouth.

She kissed his lips, slow, gentle, needing to pull him back from the despair stiffening his shoulders.

“It’s okay,” she promised him quietly.

Somehow, that ended with her straddling him right there against the bottom part of the counter, the container of sandwiches forgotten as she sank him deep into her body.

“I love you,” he whispered after, when she slumped in his arms, panting.

She raised her head off his shoulder and captured his lips again, needing to taste the words, taste him.

“We’ll be okay,” she whispered against his mouth. “Promise me.”

He tightened his hold on her. “I promise.”

It was only when she was tugging her panties back on when she remembered Robby.

She grabbed the ice cream, told Dimitri to get the bowls, and sprinted in the direction of the back patio. She found her friend reclined on the lawn chair, eyes closed, chest rising and falling slowly.

She exhaled.

“About time,” he mumbled, eyelids still closed. “I almost finished the wine.”

She glanced at the bottle sitting on the glass table and raised an eyebrow. “You did finish it.”

Robby shrugged. “Your fault. Too busy getting laid in the kitchen. Pervert.”

Ava’s jaw dropped. “You saw us?”

“You promised me ice cream,” Robby slurred drowsily. “I came to find the ice cream I was promised. But I didn’t stay. I saw nothing.”

Ava shook her head. “Come on. Let’s find you a room upstairs.”

“I’m not sleeping with you,” he blurted just as Dimitri walked out, bowls and spoons in hand. “You can beg all you want, but I have … wine.”

Dimitri met Ava’s gaze and raised a brow.

“He finished the wine,” she explained. “Help me take him upstairs?”

He set his items on the table with the ice cream and the empty bottle, and walked over to the man mumbling to himself about the importance of drinking wisely.

“Come on.”

Dimitri slung one of Robby’s arms over his shoulder and heaved him out of the lawn chair.

“I never slept with her,” Robby babbled. “Like a sister, she is. You don’t sleep with your sister. You’ll have ugly babies with eight heads.”

Ava resisted the urge to face palm.

“Glad to hear it,” was Dimitri’s response as he walked Robby back into the house.

“I thought about it,” Robby went on. “When we first met. She’s hot.”

“Yes,” Dimitri agreed with an edge that made Ava grimace.

“Can you say that about your sister?”

“No.”

Robby’s head bobbed on his shoulder as he turned it to squint at Dimitri warily. “Aren’t you her—”

Dimitri jostled him roughly. “Shut up.”

“I won’t tell,” Robby promised. “I’m a doctor. I have to keep secrets, but your baby will have eight heads.”

Ava did face palm then.

They got Robby all the way to one of the guestrooms and tucked him into bed. At least, she did after Dimitri dumped him gracelessly on the mattress. She pulled off his shoes and tugged the sheets up around him.

With him out of the way, she left the room with her hands undoing the pins in her hair. She met Dimitri’s disgruntled gaze and laughed.

“He’s drunk,” she said.

The sour expression didn’t lift.

“Our baby will not have eight heads.”

She started to laugh again, but stopped. She stared at him with her hands still in her hair, trying to process what he was saying. But her brain function wasn’t as quick as it normally was.

“Are you saying…?”

His answer was to close the distance between them at a near stomp, lift her up into his arms, her legs around his hips, and march into her room.

Chapter Thirty-One

“It’s been empty long enough, hasn’t it?” Theresa tapped the gold top of her pen against the table, a relentless rapping that was giving Dimitri a headache. “A month is plenty of time to mourn.”

“Can we just focus on one topic at a time?” Erik massaged his temples with the tips of his fingers. “John Paul was one of us and some of us actually respected him.”

Red lips pursed. “It has nothing to do with respect. Need I remind this group what happened the last time a leader fell?”

“The position needs to be filled regardless,” Marcus agreed. “But I think we can agree that it will be difficult filling that chair. It needs to be thought out properly.”

“Fine.” Theresa straightened in her seat. “We will bench the topic … again.”

“I think we need to finish discussing the shipment of guns I have coming in next week,” Erik said smoothly. “I need assurance from the east that it will not get waylaid by authorities like last time.”

“Which had nothing to do with my crew,” Marcus protested. “We all agreed the Devil reported it because he’s a cocksucker.”

Theresa’s chair squeaked with her shifting weight as she leaned back. “That … man, has more bloody lives than a cat.” She clicked her nails on the table, the snap matching the fire in her eyes. “Stole over eight hundred grand from one of my businesses last week.” Her nostrils pinched with her sharp inhale. “I would like to get my claws in to him. Just once.”

It was one million seven hundred thousand, actually. She must not have been given word of the other eight grand he’d taken just a few days ago when she’d allowed an entire apartment complex full of low income families to fall apart. The money was going towards building them a home in a better neighborhood, for less than what they were paying her for a rundown piece of garbage with no running water and crack dealers on every street corner.

Dimitri partially wondered if he shouldn’t tell her. The people the money was going towards were in her territory. The money that was supposed to be going into stable housing was actually doing just that.

He decided not to. Theresa wouldn’t take that kindly.

“I have offered a million dollars for information about that asshole and not a word,” Erik muttered, lips a thin, white line. “Do you have any idea how much that shipment cost me?”

Dimitri did. He’d done the math, but Erik’s mistake was bringing the shipment into the city, which would have ended up in the hands of young thugs with a point to prove and blood on the streets. There had already been enough of that. Plus, for the amount it took Erik to move those guns, he could have put it towards the homes that were lost in the bombing. People were still crowded in shelters and living on the street and Erik had spent almost eight million on guns. That had been the actual trigger for Dimitri.

“The people like him,” Theresa muttered. “Even if they knew who he was, they won’t tell us.”

“He’ll fuck up,” Dimitri joined in. “Eventually, his luck will run out and we’ll be ready.”

“Let’s hope so. At this rate, we’ll all be broke.”

That was unlikely, but Dimitri didn’t say as much. He nodded with the rest, going with the scheme, pretending outrage—something he was getting fairly good at. It helped a lot that he knew their moves before they made them. It helped that he knew when to strike and when to avoid. He’d been very careful not to get caught, like he had with Chan Lee. That was a disaster he couldn’t face again.

He’d also taken to stealing from himself, which was a lot harder than it seemed. Not because he couldn’t part with the money, but he always had to be sure it was done in a way that seemed harder than it was. The efforts paid off when no one asked why he wasn’t getting his shit taken. It avoided detection and suspicion.

Being a vigilante was a lot harder than one would suspect, especially in a world of technology and him with zero computer skills. Criminals no longer kept their blocks of cash in some dusty backroom under tripwire. It was all digital. The transferring, the making and spending of money was all done with the sweep of a finger.

Stephen helped with that.

Dimitri had been forced to lure the boy into his web, threatening him with what would happen if the other territories ever found out it was him helping the Devil. Stephen had practically fainted initially, but once he realized he was like Alfred to Dimitri’s Batman, things had gone fairly smoothly.

The rest, the physical breaking and entering, Dimitri could do on his own. That was only for the shipment of things, weapons, drugs, and sometimes people. It was easier knowing what he was dealing with if he could see the product up close.

In all, the operation was going as smoothly as one would expect considering he was a criminal fighting against other criminals for the better of the city.

Theresa reached for her papers and shuffled through them. She found the ones she was looking for and was about to address whatever was on the docket next when the numbers above the elevator began to climb.

Marcus noticed it first and motioned for the others. The room went silent as the tiny ball of light stopped on their floor.

No one moved. But hands were inching into lapels for the weapons tucked out of sight. Dimitri’s own fingers coiled around the trigger of his 9mm as his vision sharpened on the doors.

They slid open with a rumble of gears.

The room seemed to hold its breath.

Then a tiny figure emerged, the click of her heels entering the room before she did, a stunning sight in a sleeveless, form fitting dress the exact shade of midnight accented by a thick, gold belt and gold pumps. Hair the glorious auburn of a sunset shimmered in fat curls down a slender back and pale shoulders. Green eyes painted a seductive, smoky gray turned over the group.

“I hope I’m not interrupting.”

Dimitri came out of his shock first. He shot out of his chair, his concern overruling his questions.

“Ava?” He started towards her, searching for signs of injury or that something was wrong. “What—?”

She stopped him with just one hand being barely lifted past her hip. She offered him a look that said everything was okay. She was fine, but he remained standing.

When she was sure he wouldn’t continue, she addressed the rest of the room.

“I apologize for the intrusion,” she said formally, her tone even and clipped. “I hope I’m not too late.”

“Late?” Theresa glanced at the others, as puzzled as they were. “What’s is this?” The question was directed at Dimitri. “This is a sacred location that you swore you would protect, not just divulge to any—”

“He didn’t tell me,” Ava interrupted. She started the slow walk across the spacious room, her heels cracking in a rhythmic pace across the marble. “I’ve known for a few years where this place was.”

Theresa looked skeptical. “How?”

Ava smirked like that was an adorable question. “My father and my lover are both part of the organization. I listen.”

Being called her lover had the pit of his stomach pitching, that tugging sensation that made him want to grab her and sink his teeth into her naked thighs. And she always said it in such a possessive manner, like she was daring the other person to challenge her.

But none of those thoughts helped him fathom what on earth she was doing there, or why she was circling the table.

She passed him and he felt the brush of her finger tips over his ass before she was gone and moving onward.

It hit him the moment she came to a stop at John Paul’s vacant chair. When she set her palms flat on the curve of its headrest, her nails an alluring red against the buttery black.

“Ava…”

She spared him a fleeting glance, a look that told him to stop worrying. She knew what she was doing. But he wasn’t so sure. She couldn’t possibly understand what she was implying.

Her gaze swept across the expanse and fixed on the only other woman in the room.

“My father is—was the thirteenth Morel in this chair,” she proclaimed, gliding her palms along its width. “It was passed down from father to son for generations. I know, because he told me so. That tradition is not going to change now.” She pulled out the chair and lowered herself into it. Her long legs crossed. Her fingers rested comfortably along the armrest, a regal queen on her throne. “I’m taking my rightful place as head of the mainlanders.” She raised an eyebrow as she continued. “That is how this works, isn’t it? A member can only inherit the seat or be voted into it, right?”

Theresa stole another glower at Dimitri like this was his fault.

“Stop looking at him.”

Ava’s sharp command startled everyone, Dimitri included, even though she never raised her voice. The authority in it sent a powerful shiver through him that made him painfully aware of the bulge forming in his pants and the fact that he was still standing. Thankfully, no one else seemed to be paying him any attention.

“As a strong business woman I would think you would understand how clever we can be without the aid of men. Now,” she leaned back, sexy as fuck, in Dimitri’s opinion. “I am John Paul’s daughter. I will fight you tooth and nail on that, and this chair. As sole heir to his estate and business holdings, it’s mine and that is my territory. Is that a problem?”

Theresa’s mouth opened. It shut. It was the first time any of them had ever seen her speechless.

“Great.” Ava smiled. “It’s settled.”

She stared from face to face, pausing at Dimitri to offer him that little smirk she normally reserved for moments she was about to do something that would send his eyes rolling into the back of his skull.

He was already hard enough to embarrass himself, but that look … it had his molar grinding together with the barely suppressed urge to fuck her right where she sat.

Her grin broadened knowingly.

Fucking woman.

“Now, that we’ve settled that.” She peered at the others. “What’s next on the docket?”

Dimitri lowered himself back into his seat. It was across from hers, across a table that had never seemed so massive than it did in that moment.

She didn’t glance at him again and when she did, it was neutral, professional. No one would have ever guessed she’d spent that morning being plowed in the ass against the shower tiles. The image had him biting the inside of his cheek. Her cool indifference when he knew what a dirty, foul-mouthed siren she could be was the worst sort of turn on, the painful kind, the kind that physically hurt his balls.

He didn’t hear a word of anything that was said throughout the entire meeting. He made a passable attempt to make a mental reminder to ask Marcus or Erik later. Much later, he thought as everyone rose out of their chairs almost an hour later, his eyes fixed firmly on the woman smoothing delicate hands over her skirt.

Theresa said something to her and Ava nodded, her curls bouncing lightly on her shoulders. The two shook hands. Then more handshaking between her and Marcus, then her and Erik.

Dimitri stayed back, casually at ease in his chair, one leg bent over the other. His elbow rested on the armrest, his hand balled loosely against his mouth.

Then it was just them. Him and the woman who exhaled loudly the moment the elevator doors closed behind the others.

“That was intense.” She laughed, hand pressed to her belly. “I was so nervous. Did I do okay?”

“You were perfect.”

She bit her lip, still grinning. “I thought they could see my hands shaking. I kept trying not to wipe them on my dress.” She blew out another breath. “And that Theresa woman … wow! Scary.”

“You were better.”

Her nose wrinkled. “You’re such a liar, but I love you for it.”

He ran a tongue over his bottom lip. “What made you decide to do this? You never mentioned wanting the mainland before.”

Her expression became serious, thoughtful. “I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit since the funeral. I kept wondering who would take over and would they be good enough? Would they be fair? Would they help the people or themselves? Then I wondered what John Paul would want, who he would pick, and I couldn’t think of anyone. So…” she gave a little shrug. “I thought, why not me? I’ve been part of this world since I was nine. Between you and John Paul, I was basically groomed for it. I know my territory better than anyone. I love the people and I know what John Paul would have wanted.”

Christ, he loved her.

“This is a conflict of interest now,” he reminded her. “You’re basically sleeping with the enemy.”

Her eyebrow lifted even as her eyes darkened. “Is that right? What do you suppose we should do about it?”

Dimitri’s answer was to push to his feet. He moved around the table, his strides slow and even. He watched as her lips parted and her breathing quickened.

By the time he’d reached her, her panties were already around her ankles and her skirt twisted around her hips. Her pussy winked at him, pink and wet.

He tore the flimsy bit of material over her shoes and stuffed them into his pocket. Then he had her hips, his hands biting as he forced her on the table, her legs wide around his hips.

She freed him, her small hands yanking apart his trousers and fishing him out. She stroked the painfully stiff length of his erection, making him groan and buck into her palm. The head leaked. He was already so fucking close, he almost stopped her.

But she pulled away and dropped back on her elbows. Her grin was mischievous as she peered up at him through dusky lashes.

“You know what we’re about to do, don’t you?” She rolled the hem of her skirt higher on her stomach so he had a clear view of her swollen clit and the puddle beneath her ass. “We’re on the most powerful table in the city.” She dropped back fully. Her hand went to her lips, pulling them apart and reaching in the center to insert a finger. She gasped, a sultry sound that made his toes curl in his shoes. He watched, cotton mouthed, as she pushed another finger past the tight ring of her soaking sex. “This is where every decision is made, where lives are decided, and you’re going to fuck me on it.”

Fucking right he was.

He tore her hand free and replaced her fingers with a bruising thrust of his cock. Her cry raked over the walls, down his back and tightened around his balls. The sweet shrill of it fueled him, drove him. He beat into her with an abandon that should have broken the fucking table. The thing groaned and rattled and he kept fucking his woman until she came screaming his name and clutching his ass. Her nails bit into the flexing muscles of his cheeks as her back bowed off the table.

He held on to his own release, hell bent on pumping every last tremor out of her first before filling her with everything he had.

Their combined fluids trickled across the glass in a hot, wet mess, and Ava sobbed, a violent shudder squeezing around his pulsing cock as she came a second time just from the sight of it. She fingered her convulsing clit, her eyes hot and hungry on his until the last second before collapsing back on the glass, wheezing.

“When’s the next meeting?” She closed her hand in his tie and yanked him over her for a deep, passionate tangle of tongues and wiggling hips. “I want to be naked on here next time and I want to ride you.”

“Fuck, Ava!”

His hands closed in her hair and he yanked her head back. He bore into her flushed face, into her eyes. God, he fucking loved this woman.

She smiled up at him. “Take me home, cowboy. I’m not done with you.”

He was fine with that. More than fine. He was already easing her gingerly back onto her feet when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

She laughed at him as he fumbled between pulling it out with one hand and trying to stuff his penis back into his pants with the other without smudging their juices all over his screen. He shot her a glower that went ignored as she fondled him, patting his sides for her panties. He slapped her hands away.

“Mine,” he told her and grinned when her laugh deepened.

“Such a pervert,” she said with a shake of her head. She grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him in for a hard kiss. “I love that about you.”

He was still smirking with his own smug arrogance when he pressed the phone to his ear.

“Yeah?”

There was a hollow sound of too much open space, the roar of crashing waves, a seagull’s agitated caw. Then a voice, unfamiliar at first.

“Hello Mr. Tasarov. This is Julian Armando.”

Dimitri stopped moving. His fingers tightened around the phone, all good feelings evaporating.

“Mr. Armando, hi.” He caught Ava’s startled gaze. He lowered the receiver and hit the speaker phone. “What can I do for you?”

“I am in the city for business,” the man said over the rush of wind, his voice filling the emptiness of the room. “I would like to meet with you and Ava, if you have a moment to spare.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Yes, there is a matter I wish to discuss with you both in private.”

At Ava’s shrug, Dimitri replied, “Yes, of course we can meet you. When?”

“I do not wish to impose. At your earliest convenience will be fine.”

They set a time for later that afternoon. Both parties agreed and the connection was severed.

Dimitri stowed his phone away and faced Ava. “You okay?”

The smooth column of her throat flexed with her rapid swallowing. “I think so. He seemed like a decent guy. I don’t think this will be a problem.”

He nodded, partially agreeing with her. The man he’d met in Puerto Rico had been decent. He’d been overly generous. There was a flaw in that that made Dimitri unease.

“Whatever it is, we will deal with it, yeah?”

Ava took his hand. “It’ll be okay.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Ava wasn’t entirely certain how was she was supposed to feel about meeting the man who’d bought her. As far as she knew, no one had paid Julian Armando back, did that mean she still belonged to him? Was that why he was coming to meet them? To tell them she was his and had to go with him?

The idea chilled her, but it wouldn’t happen. Never mind that Dimitri would never allow it, Ava wasn’t about to go anywhere with the guy. Nevertheless, the fear thickened the closer the hour drew to when they would meet Armando. The knot in her stomach tightened, making it impossible to hold her mascara wand steady.

“It’ll be okay,” Dimitri murmured coming up behind her, his hands warm, comforting stamps against her sides as he leaned in to kiss the back of her head. “Whatever he wants, I’ll take care of it.”

In the vanity, she studied his face, his eyes that still hurt to look into sometimes without thinking of the other man she’d loved. She never dreamed it could be possible to love someone half as much as she loved him. Some days, the worries, the nightmares were so fierce she was sure she’d go mad. But then she’d look up and their gazes would lock and that madness receded back into the vast ocean that had become her life. It calmed the waters. It chased away the overcast. It righted her world back to order.

He was her anchor.

He was that deep breath that slowed the chaos.

She didn’t know what she’d do without him, especially the last month.

It still hurt to think about John Paul. The last thirty days hadn’t numbed the pain. She wasn’t sure why she thought it would. Someone must have told her time was the thing she needed. Maybe more time than this. She wasn’t sure.

But each morning she woke up and went downstairs expecting him to be there. It was almost reflex to have her gaze dart to his chair, now empty except for the square of light from the windows. And no matter how many times she braced herself, the sight of it still socked her in the stomach.

She hadn’t gone in his office or bedroom. Both doors were shut. They would stay shut, probably forever. She would never be strong enough to venture into either. She wouldn’t be able to stand seeing an open file that he’d been working on, or a shirt that had been tossed on a chair, waiting to be picked up.

So, she left them. She let them collect dust. Not even the maids were allowed in there. She wanted nothing disturbed. Maybe a part of her still hoped he’d return and it would all be just like he’d left it.

Maybe she needed help.

The hospital had suggested a therapist, a woman by the name of Francine Wilder. They told Ava she was brilliant. The best in her field. She’d helped refugee women overcome their horrors and live normal, peaceful lives.

Ava needed that. Normal and peaceful.

But she hadn’t called Francine. It wasn’t pride. She just wasn’t ready. Plus, what was she supposed to tell her that wouldn’t get her locked away or heavily medicated? There was no report of her kidnapping. Nothing to suggest anything she said was remotely true. In all odds, she’d get labeled a pathological liar with attention issues, or some such rubbish.

She told no one, except Robby and Dimitri. They were her sounding board when she wanted to rant, her shoulder when she broke down, her strength and her endurance. They’d been through it all with her and neither of them judged her when she admitted with downcast eyes that a part of her was happy she’d escaped. That she’d survived. They didn’t call her horrible or selfish for not being able to save the others. They didn’t think less of her for not being able to protect Ilsa. They just held her and everything was okay.

That was the best sort of therapy, in her opinion.

At the thought of the little girl, Ava turned in Dimitri’s hold. She pressed her palms to his chest, over the strong patter of his heart and peered into his eyes.

“Have you heard anything from that lawyer in Germany?”

Dimitri shook his head. “They still won’t accept it.”

Her heart sank all over again. Her shoulders stooped.

It hadn’t been as hard as one would think to find the parents of a missing thirteen-year-old girl. With modern technology and money, it had only taken Ava a week to locate the Schulze family in Frankfurt, Germany, who had lost their daughter, Ilsa. The only problem was their lack of communication after her initial attempt.

She’d started with a phone call, thinking it might help ease them into a possible visit in the near future. The woman who had answered had sounded weary, slightly drugged maybe. Her words kept slurring, fading in and out as Ava tried to keep her focused.

“I’m Ava Emerson,” she tried to tell the woman. “I’m calling from Canada … about your daughter. Ilsa.”

The woman had said nothing for a long stretch of time.

“Ilsa isn’t here.”

“No, I know, but I knew her…”

She’d stopped there, because what could she really tell them? Their daughter is dead? Her tiny body brutalized and lost somewhere at sea? That Ava had survived, but their daughter hadn’t?

She’d written a speech, a wordy run on about how sorry she was and what an amazing girl Ilsa had been and how Ava had done her best to bring her home. But looking at it then, she realized how incredibly ridiculous it was. This woman didn’t want to hear that. She didn’t care how remarkable her daughter was. She already knew that. She wanted her daughter back and that was the one thing Ava couldn’t do. And she couldn’t say a word about having been on the boat with Ilsa. That was the thing Dimitri and Robby had both agreed on when she’d initially read them what she’d planned on saying.

“You tell them you were there and they’ll want you to meet the police and give them names,” Robby had pointed out. “It’s just too risky.”

Everything was too risky, but coming from her best friend, even she had to agree it would bring up questions she had no way of answering.

Ultimately, she’d just told the woman she had met Ilsa once and how the girl had changed her life. Then, as an afterthought, because it really was the only thing she could do, she’d offered them money.

The woman had broken into tears and told her the only thing she wanted was her daughter back. Then, she’d hung up and Ava was left staring at the receiver, feeling like she’d failed Ilsa yet again.

“Hey.” He brushed the side of her cheek before tucking his fingers beneath her chin and lifting her face to his. “You did all you can.”

It didn’t feel that way.

“Can he try again? Please? Just tell him to slip it into their mailbox or tell them they’d won a contest or something.”

The corner of Dimitri’s mouth twisted downwards, not in impatience, but pain for her. He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

“I’ll call him tomorrow.”

She kissed him lightly. “Thank you.”

He gave her a gentle squeeze before stepping back and taking her hand.

Together, they left the estate. Saeed waited for them by the SUV with Phil and Jefferson. She wasn’t sure if those were their first names or their last, but she liked them.

They’d been recommended by Frank after he’d resigned. Ava tried to get him to stay, but the man insisted he was too old for the job and wished her well.

She’d been sad to see him go. They hadn’t said much in the short time they’d been together, but they’d been through things and that formed a strange kind of bond. At least, she thought.

Nevertheless, Phil was a wonderful bodyguard. He wasn’t like the others. Not like Jefferson, who always looked like he could scare the paint off the walls if he glowered at it hard enough. But Dimitri liked him, so Ava had graciously allowed him to keep Jefferson and took Phil for herself.

He was handsome with his lean swimmer’s body and kind face. He could have passed for someone’s father with his dark hair salted gray and laugh lines crinkling around his eyes. They appeared a lot more on his face than any of the others Dimitri had hired.

The whole bodyguard idea still made her uncomfortable. Being followed around, protected, it was daunting, but Dimitri insisted she needed it and she partially agreed after everything.

Phil got into the SUV first and went right in the back.

“Ma’am.” Saeed inclined his head as he held the backdoor open.

She thanked him and accepted his hand as she climbed in. Dimitri followed and the door was shut behind them.

Jefferson took the passenger’s side seat.

The meeting place they’d agreed on was on the very corner where the bottom sliver of the north kissed the mainland. Shops, boutiques, cafés, and the occasional theater goer made up the majority of the traffic. The cobblestone streets and string of lights connecting the row of buildings reminded Ava of Paris. It reminded her of afternoons she’d spend people watching from the patio of some fancy bistro, sipping on a latte and thinking of where to go next.

She missed Paris, but not enough to live there again.

The restaurant Penny had chosen for the occasion—God bless that girl—was an elegant blend of middle east and French. The combination was spicy, but refined. Ava had gone there a couple of times with Dimitri and loved their curry duck and the posh way the waiters maneuvered the floor with their noses up and yet managed not to walk into each other.

It occurred to her that they could have had Julian meet them at the estate. It would have been simpler, but she recognized Dimitri’s insistence to make the meeting somewhere public, somewhere away from their home. Julian may have saved Ava’s life, but he was in the business of crime. And she had a vague recollection of the auctioneer recognizing him, despite her drug induced hue. They had known him. He was a regular in those places that sold young girls. Whatever he may have done for her, he was not innocent.

As dark and gorgeous as she remembered him, Julian Armando was already seated at their table when the maitre d led them through the main area. He rose, graceful and beautiful in his pinstripe suit, his dark hair combed back, his face cleanly shaven. His cane hung from the armrest of his chair, the ornate, gold grip glinting in the soft light.

He offered his hand to Dimitri. “Thank you for coming.” He extended the same hand to Ava. “I won’t take up very much of your time.”

Dimitri helped Ava into her chair before taking his own. Phil and Jefferson took a table nearby and began flipping idly through the menu.

“I hope everything is all right, Mr. Armando?”

“Julian, please, and I hope to make it all right … with your help.” Dark eyebrows lifted in question. “Would you like to order first? I haven’t eaten and the conversation can be had over a meal. Seeing as we’re already here.”

“I could eat,” Ava lied, offering him the smallest of smiles.

The sweet aroma of blended sauces, the tangy spices made Ava’s stomach whimper. She ordered her usual, ignoring the protest of her insides and waited for the man to get to the point.

“I want to thank you for coming,” Julian started once the menus had been cleared away and their orders placed. “I understand you’re both very busy.”

Dimitri shook his head. “We’re in your debt. It’s the least we can do.”

“No, you are not. I do not expect or want anything for what I did, but I would like your help. Your experience makes you a unique, powerful individual, Ava. I wish for you to utilize that.”

“Utilize how?” Dimitri interjected.

Ava set her hand over his on the table, her gaze staying trained on the man across from them. “What can I do for you, Julian?”

His answer was momentarily stalled by the arrival of their drinks. She’d ordered a Pinot Noir, but she didn’t touch it, wanting a clear head during their conversation.

Julian picked up his scotch. The ice rattled against the glass, but it was only moved from one side of the table to the other, untouched. He stared at it a long time before he spoke.

“Millions of men, women, and children are sold every year.” His dark eyes lifted and fixed on Ava, bright with a fire that edged his words, despite his attempts to keep them even. “Millions. Some never get seen again. Most are killed. Some during transportation. Some after they’re sold. Some get sold into prostitution, but others are put into factories and other forced labors. Children as young as five years old are sent into fields without water or shade for ten hour days to farm. People think it’s all about sex, but that only makes up twenty-eight percent of trafficking.”

Ava’s stomach curdled at his words, at the blunt slap of it. Suddenly a drink didn’t seem so bad.

“What can I do?” she asked, voice oddly hoarse.

Julian lowered his gaze again. “I don’t pretend to be a good man. I have done terrible things. I have hurt innocent people. I have taken things that do not belong to me. I have become very wealthy on the blood of others.” His eyes lifted through his lashes and met hers again. “I regret nothing. At least, I didn’t, until recently.”

She started to ask what happened when he paused to take a sip of his drink, but Dimitri squeezed her fingers, willing her to wait. She didn’t understand why until she saw the tremor in Julian’s hand when he set his glass down.

“Someone I loved dearly was taken from me the same way you were.” He shifted in his seat and rubbed the tips of four fingers over his mouth. “I have searched … everywhere … for two years…” He shook his head slowly, his eyes focused on something away from their table, something only he could see. But there was pain in them, deep, crippling sorrow that cut into her. “I have visited every auction house, every currier, every … for two years I have done everything. Even I have to accept…”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered when he broke off.

He blinked like he’d almost forgotten they were there. He straightened, tugging on the lapel of his blazer and reaching for his drink again.

“It is the way of things,” he said softly. “No one is ever really safe.”

“Do you think this person is in the city?” Dimitri asked once Julian had thrown back his drink.

Julian shook his head. “No, I don’t believe they’re even alive anymore, but I keep searching, hoping. It’s how I heard about you, Ava. I have been paying the curriers very well to inform me first of every new arrival, but news of a redhead associated with, not one, but two of the most powerful men in the world … I couldn’t allow you to go to auction.”

Ava frowned. Her mind snapped back to the room with the bright lights and the voices. She could have sworn…

“I wasn’t on auction?”

Julian shook his head again. “I had you put aside. Thankfully, you were the only redhead in the shipment.”

“That’s why I couldn’t find her,” Dimitri muttered, glowering at the man.

“I apologize,” Julian said, sounding like he meant it. “But you must understand that I was not the only one who was aware of Ava or her importance to you. I was, however, the only one who would return her without making you jump through hoops first.”

Dimitri didn’t seem any less annoyed by the fact, but he said nothing else about it.

“You still haven’t told us what it is I can do for you,” Ava prompted.

Their food arrived.

The steaming dishes were placed before their rightful owners. Their glasses were refilled, but only in Julian’s case. Then they were alone again.

No one touched their plates.

“I am putting together an organization to help those taken return home. It’s fully funded by me. I’ve successfully started offices in India, Singapore, England, Tokyo, and now here. Our goal is to stop the shipments before they leave, but also stop auctions from taking place and saving as many of these people as possible.”

Ava thought his words over carefully before responding. “That’s a wonderful idea. What can we do?”

“I want you to head the one I plan on building in your city.”

“No,” Dimitri said at once before Ava could even think the idea over. “I respect what you’re doing. It’s a noble and generous idea, but what you are asking will tear this entire city apart. It will get Ava killed. You are asking her to become the face of one of the biggest trades in the world, going up against men neither one of us can even imagine. She will be hunted. I won’t allow that.”

“What would you have done if you never found her? If she was still missing right now?”

A knot formed in Dimitri’s cheek, but he didn’t answer.

“That is how millions of families feel at this very moment. They will never see their loved ones again. I am trying to help them.”

“Then help them, but Ava won’t be a part of it, not the way you’re asking.”

As much as she wanted to get upset by Dimitri’s logic, she couldn’t. And it wasn’t the fear for herself that stopped her. It was the fear for her people. She was the leader of an entire territory, the third largest in the city. Lives depended on her and she couldn’t have a war with three of the other territories. Her people would get mascaraed.

“Dimitri’s right,” she said softly. “I’m afraid I can’t help the way you’re asking. But,” she added quickly when Julian opened his mouth, “I may have a way to help, because I will help.” She looked pointedly at Dimitri. “I will do everything in my power to stop this.”

“You can’t stop this,” Dimitri told her gently. “Buying and selling people has been going on for eons. It will never go away.”

She nodded slowly in agreement. “I know, but I can make it fucking hard to happen in my city.”

Dimitri sighed. She expected him to be angry, but he chuckled softly and brought the back of the hand he still held to his lips.

“You have my support.” His expression sobered. “But you will not do what he’s asking. I will not allow that.”

She squeezed his fingers. “I will be careful.”

He didn’t look convinced. He did look angry now when he turned his attention back to Julian.

“Anything happens to her, I don’t give a fuck who you are, I will burn your fucking life to the ground.”

That night, as they lay in bed, Ava turned to the man propped against the headboard, book in hand. She watched him in the soft glow of the lamp, the way his hair had become wild beneath his frustrated hands and the way he kept worrying at his thumb nails between his teeth, and smiled.

“Stop that.” She captured the hand, rescuing it.

He blinked away from the page he’d been reading and glanced at her. “Woman, shit is getting real. I need my thumb.”

Ava laughed, but didn’t give his hand back. She brought it to her lips.

“Come to bed.”

The book snapped closed without another prompting and was set aside on the nightstand. He burrowed under the sheets with her, his sinewy limbs gliding around her, pinning her naked frame to his.

She snuggled into him, into his heat and strength, and allowed the soft tempo of his heart to lull the ocean in her head.

“Talk to me,” he murmured into the top of her head.

“Just trying to sort out what I want to do.” Unable to lie still, she hoisted herself up and swung a leg over his hips. She straddled him, her palms braced against his chest. “I can’t not do something, Dimitri. I won’t. I need to … for Ilsa.” She bit her lip, her thoughts a mess. “You don’t understand what it was like in that boat. I know I’ve told you, but it was so much worse.”

Warm palms smoothed up and down her bent thighs. They worked up to her hips and settled.

“You can’t be the face of his organization, myshka. I will support whatever decision you make. I will back you. My territory will back you. I will protect you and your people. But even I won’t be able stop some of the people who will come after you when you put a stop to their money.”

He was right. She knew he was. Logically, it was dangerous, but doing nothing somehow seemed worse.

“What if I don’t show my face? What if I take a page from the Devil’s handbook?” She bit her lip and cocked her head to the side. Her fingers ghosted the hard expanse of his chest, following the lines and curves of his tattoos. “I can’t get in trouble if an anonymous source directed authorities to a possible shipment, right?”

Between her thighs, his cock hardened, but his gaze remained steady.

“That’s a dangerous game, myshka.”

“Only if I’m reckless and I won’t be reckless.” She circled the words inking the skin above his heart, words meant for her. “I can’t save the world. I know that, but I can protect the people in our city. I can keep them safe, can’t I? I need to try.”

He pushed up and she slid onto the mattress between his thighs. Her legs twisted around his waist. Her arms went around his neck as he flattened his palms against her back and pulled her close.

“If you ask really nicely, I’ll share my secrets,” he murmured inches from her lips.

That close, his erection was tucked right up against her mound, making it impossible to think straight.

“Please,” she moaned.

He reached between them and took himself in hand.

“That’s a start.” His eyes flashed. “Now, get on my cock like a good girl.”

Ava went with Phil to see Julian the next day. Saeed took her with Phil pressed close to her side. The entire way, no one spoke, which wasn’t entirely odd, but Saeed occasionally tried to make conversation and Phil liked pointing things out to her as they passed. But the severity of what she was about to do seemed to permeate the air. She didn’t think they knew, although she wasn’t sure what Dimitri might have told them, but they both appeared too alert. The tension made the cabin appear tiny.

“Ma’am,” Phil drew her attention to him with a quiet murmur. “When we arrive, please allow me to select your table.”

“What if Julian’s already at a table?”

“Then I will kindly ask him to relocate.”

“Phil…”

He put a hand up. “I insist, ma’am.”

“I will be parked across the street,” Saeed piped in. “One signal and I’ll break through the glass if I need to.”

Ava laughed. “You two are sweet, but I don’t think Julian’s going to set up a kidnapping trap in a café in the middle of the afternoon.”

“We have been given very direct orders, ma’am,” Saeed explained.

So, Dimitri had told them, not the extent of the situation, but clearly enough to have them on guard.

“Okay,” she relented. “If that’s what the boss said.”

The café was a tiny sandwich shop in the south. Ava had never been there, but Julian had given her the address and they pulled up in front with nearly ten minutes to spare.

Phil emerged first. He closed the button on his blazer, gaze casually scanning the sidewalk and surrounding area. Once he’d considered the area secure, he motioned her out and kept a firm lock on her elbow as he led her inside.

Ava wanted to laugh at the degree in which Dimitri felt it necessary to keep her safe. She wasn’t the first lady or the queen. Nobody wanted her dead anymore.

She hoped.

But she allowed him his fussing. It was endearing and made her feel cherished, even if at times she wanted to hit him with the morning paper.

Julian hadn’t arrived. Phil showed her to a table against the far, corner wall, away from the windows with her back in the corner. It was three feet from the swinging doors leading into the kitchen and a secondary escape if they needed it.

He took the table next to her just as Julian arrived. Alone.

She shot Phil a raised eyebrow that was ignored.

Julian crossed to her, leaning a bit heavily on his cane than usual. But he offered her his hand and sat in the chair opposite her.

“Thank you for meeting me,” she said.

He nodded. “I wanted to apologize for last night. I don’t think I explained things properly and I may have upset your … partner.”

Ava shook her head. “You have to understand how difficult it is for people like me and Dimitri to agree to things, no matter how deeply we want to. We have people who rely on us to protect them and your offer, as wonderful as it is, I can’t accept it the way you need me to.”

Julian inclined his head a fraction, processing the information slowly. “I understand.”

“But,” she pressed on quickly. “I meant what I said about wanting to help. I was hoping I could interest you in a different service.”

Julian’s eyes narrowed. “I’m listening.”

She’d talked the idea over with Dimitri, discussing every angle, every pitfall, every way it could go wrong. She felt confident that what she was doing was the right thing.

She reached into her purse and removed the card Penny had made up for her. There was just the one, which she’d thought Penny might find strange, but if she did, she hadn’t said as much, nor did she inquire about what Ava wanted on it. She had simply accepted the request and, two hours later, had returned with a heavy, cream colored card with elegant, gold font.

Ava loved it. She was considering getting her own cards made up that way.

She slid it across the table to Julian and took her hand back. Then she watched as he picked it up and read the ten digits with furrowed brows.

“I don’t understand.”

Ava struggled not to fidget. She kept his gaze even when hers wanted to flick away.

“The person on the other end of that number will help you and all the people you’re trying to save.” She got to her feet quickly. “But you never heard it from me.”

She walked out before Julian could prompt her into any further questions. Phil followed her, one hand firm on her lower back.

It wasn’t until she was in the SUV that she exhaled.

She’d never cut it as a spy, she realized. But she felt oddly exhilarated, excited. Motivated. She finally felt like she was doing something worthwhile. Not directly and no one would ever know it was her, but that was even better. All Julian had to do was call the number and she would anonymously feed him all the information he needed to stop as many human traffickers in her city as she could possibly get her hands on. She would have to be careful about it. No one could ever find out she was ratting out some of the world’s most dangerous people, but that was why she was now just a series of numbers to an undetectable, untraceable, unlisted number.

Her phone rang and she dug it out of her purse.

Dimitri’s grinning face stared up at her from the screen.

“How’d it go?” he asked when she answered.

“Done,” she said, unable to suppress the elation in her voice. “I feel good about this, Dimitri. This is what I need to do.”

He hummed quietly on the other end. “Come to the office. I want to show you something.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Penny fiddled with her glasses as she squinted at the paperwork Dimitri set before her. Her pale brows furrowed, a clear sign of her confusion and mild displeasure.

“Sir, with all due respect—”

“Penny.”

She huffed. “Sir, she’s the leader of the mainland. She’s … them, now.”

“No.” Dimitri rose, fastened the front of his blazer and fixed her with his gaze. “She’s Ava. There is no them and us. Not with her.”

“But, sir—”

He set his hands on her shoulders, marveling at how tiny she really was. “Stop worrying. You’re the one who keeps telling me I need to start doing something with this place, right? Well…”

Her lips pursed. “This is not what I meant.”

“I’m doing it,” he told her.

If possible, her expression only seemed to tighten in further displeasure. “For the record, I think this is a very bad idea.”

“Noted.”

She shook her head, but said nothing as he abandoned his office and started through the catacombs of an office he still couldn’t navigate his way around. The damn thing was built like a fucking maze and it drove him insane. He couldn’t wait to be rid of it.

“Elevators?” he snapped, his patience waning.

Penny stabbed a finger left. “Would you like me to have signs made up, sir?”

He ignored her lip.

Ava arrived with a soft whoosh of metal doors sliding open. She looked stunning in a soft, emerald dress that floated around her long legs. She stepped out, her eyes on him, always on him. He loved that.

“Myshka.” He offered her his hand.

She accepted it, but glanced at Penny. Her smile shifted from sweet and loving, to friendly.

“Hello Penny.”

The other woman inclined her head. “Ma’am.”

Ava groaned and turned an annoyed frown at him. “Did you tell everyone to call me that?”

Dimitri put his free hand up. “Not me.”

Her eyes narrowed in disbelief, but she didn’t press. “What did you want to show me?”

He let Penny led the way. Lord knew how the women knew her way around, but she guided them back to his office.

Ava had been there before a few times, but she studied the place as they stepped inside, possibly searching for whatever may have been changed. Nothing had been. It was still the same white with the giant oak desk, row of shelves and navy blue carpets. No personal touches. Nothing to really make it his.

“Thank you, Penny,” he told the blonde, who shot him one final look of disapproval and walked out.

Ava didn’t notice, thankfully.

He led her to the single sheet of glass overlooking the city and positioned her in front of him with her back to his chest.

“What do you think?”

Ava’s shoulder lifted beneath his hand in a shrug. “Beautiful. Why?”

“Think you could see yourself working with this view?”

He couldn’t see her face, but he could hear the note of apprehension in her voice when she spoke.

“Possibly … why?”

His hands slipped off her shoulders and he took a step back, then another, until he was leaning against the desk.

“I don’t want it.”

Ava turned on the needle point of her heels. “What?”

He motioned to the view. “I can’t work here. I don’t want to be here. Just sitting here makes me feel like I’m being strangled.”

She started towards him, slowly, apprehensively, the way someone would approach an injured animal.

“What’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “I don’t belong in an office, love. I can’t do the suit and tie business. I’m the Devil,” he whispered low enough just for her to hear. “I belong down there with my people.”

She searched his eyes, reading him the way only she could. “Okay,” she soothed, lifting a hand and touching the side of his face. “Well, that’s okay. No one expects—”

“They do.” He laughed a bit bitterly. “They all expect me to just jump into this,” he tugged on his blazer, “and come in here and sit at this desk and do something. That’s not me.”

She nodded slowly. “Okay, so what do you want?”

He set his hands on her waist and pulled her to him until she stood in the V of his legs. He looked deep into her beautiful eyes.

“I want you to start this with me.” He motioned absently at the office. “Whatever you want. I don’t care. I’ll back you. I’ll be partner with you. I’ll attend whatever meeting you want, but, please, for the love of God, please don’t make me sit behind this desk.”

Her laugh sang down his spine. She slipped her arms around his shoulders and drew her the rest of the way to her. Her brow touched his.

“But you look so sexy in a suit,” she teased him.

“Myshka…”

She kissed him lightly on the tip of his nose. “Fine. I’ll save you.” She pulled back a notch and tipped her head to the side. “Well, Mr. Tasarov, I’ll have to consider your offer carefully and have my people call your people.”

She broke off with a squealing giggle when he dug his fingers into her side.

“Don’t tease me, woman. This is serious.”

She was still giggling when Penny returned, files in hand.

“Sir,” she mumbled, placing the folder on the desk.

She started to turn away, but Ava called after her. She glanced back, eyebrows raised over the rim of her glasses.

“Ma’am?”

“What do you know about the fashion industry?”

There was something profoundly magical about watching the lights flicker to life throughout the city as the world slipped into darkness around it. It was the only good quality about being so up high, in Dimitri’s opinion. He watched as men and women got into cabs and buses and made their way home. He watched children get shooed inside for the night. He watched as the business section slumbered and the residence areas crackled to life. The transition was always so fluid, so graceful.

“Hey.” Ava stepped up beside him, a flute of champagne in hand. “So, I sent Penny home. Most of the paperwork is signed. We’ll do the rest in the morning.” She slipped an arm through his and rested her head on his shoulder. “There’s more we need to do, but we’ll deal with them gradually. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

He hummed.

“You sure you want to do this?” She tipped her face back to peer at him. “You’re about to become partner to a fashion magazine. Quite possibly what will be the biggest fashion magazines in the world, if I have anything to say about it.”

He smiled at her confidence. “I have no doubt, and I can live with that.”

She nodded. “Good. It’s going to be amazing, but I might actually have to steal Penny from you. For real this time.”

Dimitri laughed. He kissed the top of her head.

“She’s yours.”

It was her turn to hum. “Think she’ll be okay working with a mainlander building an empire in the north?”

“Got that, huh?”

She nodded, taking a sip of her drink. “Yup, not very subtle about her disapproval, is she? But I reminded her she was a southerner in the north, so … we’ll see.”

She sighed, a soft, content sound that had him slipping his arm around her and pulling her in close.

“Okay?”

“Yeah.” She snuggled into him. “Just can’t believe we’re here. Everything we’ve faced seems like a movie I watched once.”

“It’s not over.”

Her head jerked up off his chest. “What?”

He took the glass from her and set it on the desk. He drew her back to him. His palms smoothed up and down her back.

“Marry me.” He went on quickly before she could answer. “I want to add the husband to the partner, the monster, the devil, the man, the lover, the friend. I want to make up the last eight years I never should have let us lose. I want to be the father to our eight headed babies.” He grinned when she burst out laughing. “I want to be everything you need, Ava. I want to be the reason you can’t stop smiling, the reason you blush when you sit. I want to be the reason you feel safe and loved.”

She sobered and rose up on her toes to hook his neck with her arms. Her eyes continued to dance mischievously.

“I want to say yes. I’m very tempted,” she admitted with a sad little shake of her head. “But I can’t until you take me to put our locks on all the lock bridges around the world and travel across Europe and make love everywhere. Like you promised.”

He tugged her closer.

“Say yes and I’ll buy you the bridges.”

Her eyes narrowed teasingly. “Is this a negotiation then?”

His hands slid up and closed in her hair. He pulled her face up and kissed her.

“Marry me, woman.” He nipped at her bottom lip. “Make me the luckiest man on earth.”

She moaned softly. “So, this is about you now, is it?” Her hands struggled between them and his pants were undone. “Maybe you should convince me by christening my new office.”

He took her against the window, one leg bent around his hip as he drove into her, asking her again and again with every thrust to marry him. It wasn’t how he’d envisioned the proposal, but they’d both certainly remember it.

“Yes,” she whispered into his ear as he slipped free of her sated body and pulled her into his arms. “I’ll marry you.”

The End

Have You Tried…

TRANSCENDING DARKNESS

Crime Lord Interconnected Standalone

Book 1

One: Sign the contract.

Juliette Romero had a debt to pay, a debt that wasn’t even hers. But it was the only way to keep her family safe and all she had to do was sell her body and soul to the devil.

Killian McClary wasn’t called the Scarlet Wolf for nothing. He’d been the head of the McClary Organization since he was fifteen and had built a reputation for being a ruthless son of a bitch when it came to running the city’s underbelly, not to mention merciless when it came to punishing those who betray him. He didn’t believe in weaknesses. Only results. Juliette, with her shy smiles and hot little body was a weakness unlike any other and yet he was powerless to resist one more taste of her sweet flesh.

Two: Become his for a year.

When given the choice between her life or her body, what could Juliette possibly do, but submit to a man whose very name invoked fear in the hearts of others? She just never anticipated falling for his dark, hungry eyes and clever hands, or the way the beast in him made her feel oddly safe and cherished.

But what will happen when Killian’s dark past finally catches up to him and threatens the woman he can no longer imagine himself without? What will happen when both sides find themselves caught in a web of passion, lies and broken promises? Can Juliette tame the wolf or will her love for him devour them both?

Three: Don’t fall in love.

Boundaries will be crossed, loyalties will be tested and lives will be changed forever.

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About Airicka Phoenix

Airicka Phoenix lives in a world where unicorns, fairies and mermaids run amok through her home on a daily basis. When she's not chasing after pixies and rounding up imps, also known as her four children, she can be found conjuring imaginary friends to play with. Airicka is the prolific author of over eighteen novels for those who crave strong, female leads, sexy alpha heroes and out of control desires. She's a multi genre author who writes young adult, new adult and adult contemporary and paranormal romance.

For more about Airicka and the realm she rules with an iron fist--and tons of chocolate--visit her at: www.AirickaPhoenix.com

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