6. Dimitri
6
DIMITRI
“Her stepmother was the one who did it?” Alexis stares at me as if I've grown a second head.
“I know, it's horrific, but that's what she said.”
It is the next morning, and I’m exhausted, physically and mentally. I spent hours working over Dorian’s men. Interrogating them, beating the crap out of them. Some were more stoic than others, and we had to get creative. Eventually, they all talked. They always do. I now have a variety of addresses around the city and surrounding area to raid for the rest of the men in the organization.
They didn’t know Adriana personally, though. Only that she was purchased in exchange for a debt, but some did know of her stepmother, Hana Leka, who they said is related to Ari and Dorian. I spent some quality time with Dorian too, but he’s a tougher nut to crack. He’s at the deserted cabin where we take people to interrogate them. I might even get to use my favorite toy, a special torture device I save for the very worst people. Luckily for me, Adriana slept most of yesterday, which meant I didn’t have to deal with her at the same time as dealing with Dorian’s crew. Clearly exhausted from her ordeal, she slept through the night. I kept a guard on her door, not because I thought she’d run but because she awoke twice in the afternoon with nightmares, so I told her there was someone on her door who reported to me, and she could send for me at any time. The guard reported he heard nothing after that, and I assume she rested.
I’m having Dorian’s suite and the rooms next to it redecorated, and I’ve paid a fuck ton of money for them to finish it in a day. New furniture only, not new paint; that would smell for weeks. All the rank art and the garish shit is gone. I might only be staying there a short time, but I want it to be comfortable.
Alexis blows out a long breath. “Are we going to let that go? Let the woman get away with it?”
“Fuck no.” I need to find out as much as I can about Adriana’s stepmother and make her pay for what she did. “We need to find out why she was in so much debt to Dorian and his crew, and we need to figure out why he was willing to swap Adriana for the debt.”
“She’s hot,” Alexis observes. “And Dorian’s men said untouched, right?”
“Yes, which makes whatever the stepmother did even worse in some ways. She will fucking pay once I get the information I need.”
“And the girl?” Alexis keeps his tone mild, but there’s an underlying interest there. “Are you going to let her go?”
“Yes, of course. Once we’ve done this shit that Jacob wants. Why?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. You’ve bought her clothes, and you seem … distracted.”
He’s not wrong. I am distracted. I won’t admit it, though. He doesn’t need to know how I’m feeling. Hell, I don’t understand how I’m feeling myself. Littleblue has wormed her way under my skin. Somehow, in so little time, she’s burrowed her way in and has me thinking about her constantly. I’m going to ask her date of birth when she awakens, so I can have my men look into her background more. She has a British accent, but from what I understand from the brief intel we got from Dorian’s men, she lives here, in the States, now with her stepmother and father. I’ll question her further when she’s in the right state to hold up to it.
I tell myself there’s plenty to do in the meantime, but even when I’ve been directing the men and sorting out business, my mind keeps flicking back to that girl, in that room. Sad. Scared.
Alone .
She’s so fucking alone.
The doors to the large salon slide open, and I glance up.
Adriana steps outside into the sunlight, and she’s breathtaking .
Suddenly my exhaustion poofs out of existence as I watch her hungrily.
Skimming her curves is a simple shift dress, which she’s paired with sandals. Her hair waves over her shoulders, dry now, clean, and so thick and shiny I want to pet it. She isn’t wearing any makeup, yet she still looks more beautiful than most women who are expertly made up.
How did such a sexy young woman remain a virgin? Is her family deeply religious? Then again, they can’t be if her father remarried and her stepmother was willing to sell her to men who traffic women. Maybe it’s her decision to be celibate. Plenty of women do choose that.
Damn, what a waste , I think to myself.
She glances to the side and immediately looks down. Jinx is back after spending time at Virgil’s, and he’s lounging in a chair at the far end of the deck, staring at Adriana.
My gaze sweeps around the men. Yep, every damn one is staring at her.
Like a fucking lightbulb going off in my head, realization dawns. All she gets is men leering at her. Salivating over her like animals. No wonder she avoids them and avoids sex.
My gaze flicks back and passes by Jinx. He licks his lips like he’s looking at a rare steak.
Fury ignites my veins. How fucking dare he? That woman is mine to protect, and they all know as much. Him in particular after what happened before in the bedroom.
I stand and casually walk over to him. He’s stuffing a sandwich into his face, still staring at the woman under my protection.
Lightning fast, I slap it out of his hand. He stares in shock at the sandwich on the floor. Exploding from his seat he glares at me, face to face. “What the fuck?”
“Pick. It. Up.” I stare him down.
For a delicious moment I think he’s going to defy me and give me a reason to make him hurt.
The rage simmers still in his gaze, but I can see from his repeated swallowing that he’s seriously second guessing blowing up at me, now that the initial knee-jerk reaction is over.
“Boss?” He shakes his head but eventually lowers his gaze and bends to pick up the sandwich.
I pull him up by the neck of his shirt and lean in close so Littleblue can’t hear, as I whisper, “Look at her like that again, and I’ll pluck your eyes out and make them into a necklace as a warning not to fucking stare at what is mine. Understood?”
“Perfectly, boss.” His face is angry and red, but he nods and sits down, placing the mushed up sandwich remains on his plate.
“Adriana, come here.” She jerks her head around and walks to me. She glances at Jinx as if scared he’s going to do something.
I pull her to me and point around the men. “This lady is here as my fucking guest . If I catch any of you leering at her like perverts, I’ll have your eyes. Show some respect.”
“Yes, boss.” The murmur travels around the group.
“You all need to start being more serious. This isn’t a game. I don’t run things that way.”
“Due respect,” Jinx mutters. “We don’t all work for you , so maybe we weren’t aware of the rules and how seriously you take this. From now on, I’ll make sure I am aware.”
He’s being all placatory, but he doesn’t mean it because there’s the tiniest touch of condescension in his tone. His words carry a double edge. He’s reminding me that he works for Virgil and technically Virgil, according to old school rules, is higher on the rung than me.
Some of these men are my father’s direct employees, so they work for the Pakhan himself. Others work directly for the men at brigadier level, but either way, right now, they answer to me.
I don’t follow the old rules and hierarchies from the Bratva’s days in Russia, and neither does Jacob. If any of these men disobey me, they will face the consequences here and now, from me.
Jacob has me as his enforcer, but also his second and his heir. These men might not like it, but I’m the one he runs everything by first. I’m the one he trusts with the most confidential information.
Looking around at the men, I put as much power into my gaze as I can.
One by one, they murmur or nod, and satisfyingly, gazes are lowered from Adriana.
“Adriana,” Alexis says. “Would you like some tea?” He indicates the pot. Alexis is massively into his tea, like every good Russian.
Her eyes light up a little at his words, and she glances directly at him. He’s treating her like a human being, not a piece of meat, and she rewards him with her gorgeous gaze and a smile.
I’ll thank Alexis later for his small but important gesture.
She’s the only woman on this deck, and she’s the most striking I’ve ever seen, so that must put her in an uncomfortable position.
There were no other girlfriends amongst Dorian’s men. Our intel on that score was wrong. When we talked to the two women who we presumed were the girlfriends of two of Dorian’s right-hand men, they told us they were paid. Nothing but hired women. No point keeping them here. That won’t give us any more of a reputation boost on the streets. So we kept the yacht, and we are taking their houses and cars one by one. Most of all, we kept Adriana because she is worth a million dollars to Dorian.
Yuri approaches and waves at me to go talk with him.
“Sit with Alexis,” I say to Adriana. “Drink some tea.”
She nods and does as I say.
I smile to myself, liking the way she seems to naturally look to me for guidance. I walk over to Yuri.
“We’re all set.” Yuri stares ahead as he talks, watching the blue waters of the bay and the tiny white sails dotting it. “The yacht is fully cleaned, and the main suite has been redecorated. You can move in there with her if you want. There’s a sofa bed, you know … so you can keep her with you but maintain your morals .” His mouth twitches, and I resist the urge to punch it.
“What’s the update in regards to finding Ari, the piece of shit. He wasn’t on this boat, but he had to be in on this. He would have helped organize it.”
He leads me farther away from the group.
“That’s the thing, boss.” He wipes his jaw with one big paw. “Ari seems to have gone to ground, and while the men are telling us where their colleagues are, no one is ratting out Ari. We’ve found something else out.”
“Oh?”
He glances at Adriana again, and I’m not going to like this; I know it in my gut.
He rubs his forehead as if he’s getting a headache. “Well, the stepmother is related to Ari and Dorian.”
I nod. Intel, I already have. “Well, we found out Dorian had a cousin, Hana, right, who owed him money. A nice, tidy million. It has since been cleared, so ya know, two and two and all that.”
This all fits with what Adriana said about who sold her.
“This Hana recently remarried, to an American citizen who lived in the United Kingdom for many years, after he married a British woman. They had one daughter, Adriana.”
I swallow and nod.
“She’s twenty-two and a recent graduate in English literature. She has quite a bit of debt herself. Student loans, overdrafts, and some credit card debt.”
I glance at her again. “Go on.”
He shrugs. “That’s about it. She moved back here a while ago and moved in with her dad and stepmom. There’s a kid, Cade; he’s Hana’s little boy. That’s it. All the news that’s fit to print.”
I smile at him quoting LA Confidential . He’s obsessed with the film.
The thing I can’t get is why Hana owed her cousins all that money? “Why do you think Hana owes them so much?”
Yuri lets loose a low growl. “I mean, it’s not hard to guess. She gambles. Or she got into debt, and they re-financed it at dreadful rates. Or…”
“Or?” I know what I’m thinking, but I want to know if he is on the same page.
“Well, what if she was involved somehow? Like in their business, and she fucked up or something?”
It’s crossed my mind too. It puts Adriana being sold into a different light.
“Do you think there is anyway Adriana could be with them willingly? Is she lying?” He bites his lip. “Like maybe, she thought being Dorian’s girlfriend would be good for her or something and agreed to it?”
“No.” I shake my head. I saw the fear in her eyes. “Her story checks out in every other way.”
“There’s more,” he says.
“Go on.”
“It seems the whirlwind marriage between her father and the stepmom might have been because the stepmom is pregnant. There were two visits to an ob-gyn.”
I sigh. “Okay. This just gets more fucked.”
“Yeah, maybe that’s why she did this. It’s still terrible, but if she’s having a baby, and they were threatening her, maybe Hana saw no other way out. We don’t know how or why she had so much debt yet. It seems it started legitimately from what we have found so far, credit cards and the rest, but then increased and my bet is she began to take on debt from loan sharks and then the family.”
“Why would Dorian buy Adriana when she’s now part of his family?” I’m thinking out loud now. “I mean, he’s purchased his own … what is she? Second cousin? By law if not blood.” Jesus, that’s so incredibly screwed up.
He shrugs. “They aren’t blood related, and if he’s going to sell her—which was the plan—then...”
My stomach dips at the thought of her being sold to someone like cattle. “Where did this come from?”
He laughs. “A kid who was helping Dorian connect with these guys who run auctions. Shit himself, literally, when I worked him over. Dorian was going to sell her on to the auction.”
It makes sense, ties in with what his men were saying when we were interrogating them when we first boarded the yacht, and explains why he was willing to pay a million dollars for her.
“Can girls fetch millions at auction?” I ask Yuri. I genuinely don’t know. It’s not a world we run in.
“Seems so. If they’re virgins, from a good home, and taken against their will too, it all adds to the premium.”
He scrubs a hand over his face. He’s been working with Dorian’s phone and tablet and looking through messages and emails. “I read through some of the messages in regards to these auctions.” He shakes his head. “Fucking messed up shit, man. Like really screwy. Anything you want can be bought there. I mean anything . I’m not even going to tell you the shit I read because if I do, then it’s gonna live rent free in your head the way it is in mine, and no one needs that.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Kids?”
“Yes. Animals. Old men and women. Fucked. Up. Shit . The men who run it will pay a lot of money for twenty something virgins. Particularly ones who look like they fell down from heaven and straight onto a lingerie runway.”
He’s not wrong in his description of Adriana.
She’s innocence and sin. Beauty and decadence. Dark hair and light skin. She’s all contrasts and juxtaposition, and it makes her fascinating. I could look at her for hours and hours.
Yuri clears his throat.
“There’s more?”
“The men who run this will not take kindly to one of their prize items going missing. From what I’ve seen, they make Ari and Dorian look like the amateurs they are. I don’t know who they are; I only got onto their dark website because of the info on Dorian’s phone. Their identities are well hidden.” He scratches his cheek. “Boss, I know it goes against everything we stand for, but we weren’t the ones to sell her.” Yuri glances her way, then back to me. “Are you sure you don’t just want me to deliver her to them? ’Cause, I’ve gotta tell you, she’s going to bring a shit ton of trouble down on our heads.”
“I’m sorry,” I say mildly. “I thought I heard you saying that I should sell an innocent woman there for a moment. But I had a blow to the head a few years ago, and it must be messing with my fucking mind because no way did you say that, right?”
“She is going to bring us trouble. You, your father, and the whole organization. We don’t do that sort of shit, but this isn’t that. This is us getting caught up in events already set in motion. I will do whatever you say, and you know that, Dimitri. You’re my brother in this. I just wanted you to know that she’s a loaded bomb. She could blow us all up.”
I look over at Adriana again. “The auction is when?”
“Three weeks from now.”
“I have time to think.”
“Yes, but come the due date, they’re going to want what they paid for. This isn’t a crime group. It’s so much bigger, if some of the names that were in the private group Dorian messaged are real.”
“How much bigger?”
“Government level in some nations, royalty level in others. It’s fucked up shit, and some of the people involved could summon an entire national army if they so wished. The worst of it is we can only find so much out. They are well firewalled.”
My head is hurting and the tinnitus is screaming. Fuck my life, and fuck Jacob for asking me to do this. For the first time in a long time, I feel something other than gratitude for the man. If I hadn’t seen Littleblue, then she’d be on her way to that auction in a few weeks, and I’d be none the wiser. I have seen her, though.
I’ve looked into her eyes.
If I send her there, I might as well look into them again and pull the trigger. I know she’d prefer that. Most women would.
“I’m going to think about this.” I’m not, because there’s nothing to think about. She’s not going to those fuckers, but no one needs to know that yet. “Listen, keep this between me, you, and Alexis. I will need to talk with Jacob, but I want to get all the intel first. I want to know exactly who we are dealing with here.”
He nods. “Yes, Dimitri. Of course.”
“Tell the men to make sure they keep every single tablet, phone, and iPad, and I want them all scoured for every morsel of information we can find. Let’s take the big stateroom at the back of the boat and use it as the war room. Get some of our men on it. We need to know who and what we’re dealing with. If there’s a bigger threat out there, I don’t want to be sitting like a proverbial fucking duck.”
“Of course. Right on it.”
He strides off, and I stare out at the ocean. Then I place a call, and it is answered immediately.
“Burner,” I say.
My stepdad hangs up and calls back in a moment, an unknown caller number flashing up. I take out my spare phone and return the call.
“Son, what can I do for you? Riley tells me all is going well so far.”
“Yes, so far, but there is an issue. The initial intel about these fuckers. Who did it come from?”
“A few sources, but mostly Athens. Why?”
“I need a hacker. Someone good. I have a feeling we might have inadvertently walked into a trap.”
He pauses for a beat. “Shit. How bad?”
“Bad, maybe. There’s a woman here, and she’s supposed to be passed on for an auction in a few weeks. Apparently, the people who run the auction will most definitely want their pound of flesh, or in this case, their million dollars’ worth of flesh.”
“How many women did you say?”
“One.”
He coughs. “A million dollars for one woman? Is she Helen of fucking Troy?”
I laugh at that but then sober. “She is very beautiful,” I say truthfully. “And Dorian let her stepmother off almost a million dollars of debt in exchange for her, so I’m sure he’s expecting her to fetch close to that amount.”
“Jesus fucking Christ. There’s always something. I’ll contact our woman,” he says, referencing our usual hacker.
“No,” I interject. “I need the best. Will the Greeks help? I heard they have someone who is one of the best in the world.”
“You know Stamatis Kantos?”
“Yes.”
“Call his son-in-law, Damen. I’ll be in touch with Stamatis now and will prepare them for your call. Give me five, then ring him.”
I pace as I almost count the seconds out. A number flashes on my screen sent by text, from the burner to the burner. I click on it and press the green dial button. After two rings, a deep voice answers.
“Damen speaking.”
“Yasas,” I use the polite Greek for hello. “ Efharisto pous milisses masi mou .”
I’ve just thanked him for speaking with me.
He chuckles. “You mangled that a bit,” he says in English. “But, you’re welcome. So talk to me.”
I explain to him that we have the boat, the women are freed, our brigadier’s daughter is back home, the men are dead except for Dorian, and we have addresses on most of the others, although some will have gone into hiding and will be harder to find.
“All as expected,” he says. “This sort of thing takes time. We weren’t expecting you guys to complete this in a day or so.”
“I’m calling because I’ve found a woman here, and we’ve discovered that she was going to be auctioned for a fuck-ton of money. The people who run the auction are powerful beyond belief, allegedly, and will want their investment. Now, I either give her to them, or I need information on who they are so I can fight them, because right now, I’m blind.”
“Yeah, I really don’t recommend giving her to them. I’m reporting back to the Corfu contingent on this, and unless you want Andrius, that Andrius —as in The Ghost—after you, do not sell that woman to the auctioneers.”
“I have no fucking intention of doing so, but I need help because I have no idea who these bastards are. The auction takes place in three weeks, and that’s about all we know. If I send you the information I can get from Dorian’s devices, along with the woman’s details, can you see what you can find out?”
“Of course; send everything my way. I’ll text you a secure email. Make sure you’re not on Google, for fuck’s sake, when you send it. I’ll tell you how to get it to me without leaving a great big trace.”
“Great. Thanks.”
“Speak soon.”
He hangs up without any further niceties, and I stare out at the water as the boat gently bobs. I glance over at Adriana. I don’t want to tell her about the auction yet. I will have to at some point, but the men who are expecting her to be delivered aren’t expecting her for weeks yet. I have Dorian’s phones, and the phones and tablets of all the men who were on board, and most are dead, so they won’t be contacting this mysterious auction group. Ari could call those running the auction, but really, it’s not in his interest to do so. He’s twisting in the wind, his manpower severely diminished, and his organization in tatters, with the head of it captive in my tender care. It means he’s vulnerable and liable to be shitting himself. These men will be as likely to kill him for fucking up as anything else. I’m pretty confident he’s not going to be calling them anytime soon to say he’s lost their girl.
It buys us time.
Christ, I need to get off this fucking yacht. My skin feels too tight, and the air is close, despite the breeze over the waters of the bay. I make a sudden decision.
I call Alexis over.
“I need some space. I’m going to the mainland. Come with me and pick three men to join us, fully armed. I’m taking Adriana and going back to the house to get changed, and then I’m taking her on a drive. I need to clear my head.” Alexis nods.
I turn to Yuri. “When I get back here, I want all the men still on this boat, except for five armed guards, gone. This is just going to be me, you, Alexis, and our guards. However, I want a second boat, next to us, with thirty men on board. Get it done fast. Let Jacob know what we need. We’re turning this boat into a war room. We need to find out what the fuck is going on and where we stand in all this.”
“Of course, boss. I’ll clear them all out.” Yuri waves his hand at Jinx and the others.
I left the military, but it looks like I’m heading back into battle for this woman. A woman who I barely know but am itching to spend more time with.
A woman I want in my bed with a fever I haven't felt in years.
A woman I already know I won’t let go.
When Jinx was staring at her as if he wanted to eat her alive, one primal, elemental thought was thrumming through me.
Powerful, ancient, and biological on the most basic level.
A terrifying and dangerous thought, considering all I’ve just learned.
She is mine, and I will kill anyone who stands in my way.