BEAU2Y (Beauty Part 2): Blaire's World Read online

With a gruff grunt, Bear waved off my words.

  “Je m’en fous de qui tu baise.” I don’t care who you fuck. “But the rumors I have heard . . . they are, curious.”

  Not willing to discuss Beauty in any way, shape or form, I glared at the infamous Bear.

  “With all due respect, I think you should stop partaking in girlish gossip, Bear. If you called me out here to simply swap fuck stories you have wasted my time.”

  I didn’t lose my temper, but instead remained outwardly calm while allowing Bear to see the fury behind my eyes. Beauty was off topic, and if Bear turned out to be a threat to her, I’d kill him, war be damned. Grinding on his back teeth, the mulish Frenchman before me was silent for a moment.

  “Last time I was in America, I was invited to stay with Senator Edward Kleeman.”

  Politics didn’t interest me, most especially those of a country outside of my own. The senator’s name was unfamiliar.

  “He is a wealthy man with interesting connections.” Bear scrunched his nose. “He is also conceited and thinks he’s somebody he’s not. Wants to play the game but never will, he’s too . . . weak.” Meaning this Edward fancied himself a player in the human trafficking world, but he didn’t have respect. Respect went a long way with big players. “I first met him at an auction, and at the time I needed assistance getting a shipment out of the U.S. Kleeman was able to help me.”

  By auction, Bear meant a slave auction, where unwilling women were sold off to the highest bidder. Which meant the shipment Bear was likely trying to get out of the country was living flesh and bone. I had no idea why he was telling me all this, but Bear was known for theatrics, he liked the drama and thrived off conspiracy and intrigue. He had information for me, and it was information he could have told me outright, but that wasn’t his style.

  “It was after that meeting that Kleeman invited me to stay at one of his homes while I was doing business in America. He had many beautiful women at the home, cleaning, cooking, gardening, sucking my cock.” Bear chuckled, and I tried not to allow that mental image into my mind. “One day, I stumbled across a female in the kitchen. I hadn’t seen her before, she was young, beautiful.” His gaze drifted off into the distance as if remembering the girl and trying to picture her in his head. The look on his face was one I had never seen before, especially where females were concerned. “She was so soft, and fair, like an angel, but her eyes they danced with fire, like the devil, magnifique. I wanted to add her to my collection. Kleeman refused to sell, and trust me, I offered an obscene amount of money for that pussy. From what I was able to find out, she was the senator’s dirty little secret, a bitch birthed by some whore he was fucking. He did not care for her, and she was kept a secret from the world. When I demanded to know why he wouldn’t sell me some pussy he didn’t even care about, he confessed she was promised to someone else, intact.”

  No matter how many times I listened while men spoke of easy, unwilling pussy, it would forever make my blood boil. In my world, the Los Zetas world, it wasn’t unheard of. Sex sells. Virgin sex, the magical unicorn, that perverted fucks like Bear were willing to pay a nauseating amount of money for. Reaching for my gun and putting a bullet in this man would be a justice served as far as I was concerned. A headache was beginning to bloom from my temples, the riddle in Bear’s story beginning to fuck with my mind. Raul had tracked down Ruby’s family, and they weren’t from money, nor were they politicians, so who the hell was he talking about?

  “When I departed the senator’s company, it was a long time before I heard from him again, years even. He came to me, in Paris. He was out of control, furious . . .” Bear chuckled. “He lost the girl, taken right from under his nose. He asked me to help him find her, and I very generously offered my services, on the condition that once she was found, she was mine. He refused.”

  “What does this have to do with Ruby?” I finally asked, irritated at the roundabout tale I had just endured which told me absolutely nothing.

  “Ruby?” the man shrugged. Drawing a cigarette from a packet in his pocket, he lit it up before me, the wrinkles around his eyes squeezing tight as he gifted me a smug grin. “I do not know this girl, Ruby. The girl from my story, mon amie, is named, Lucy.”

  5

  BEAUTY

  Keeping my eyes open had become a futile effort, so I let them slide shut as my body slumped listlessly against the car door. My limbs felt numb, my head too heavy. Something was wrong. This feeling wasn’t foreign, not at all. It was disturbingly familiar. From the foggy depths of my swirling mind, I realized the car had come to a stop. When my door popped open, my body slipped from the seat and to the rough ground outside. Unforgiving hands tried to drag me to my feet, and at this point I knew something bad was about to happen. Something I’d promised myself would never happen again. With that thought my heart lurched and my eyes blinked open. The men trying to lift my body weren’t familiar, and the spike of adrenaline that jerked through my veins made me physically convulse.

  “What the fuck?”

  The stranger’s tone had a familiar inflection to it. American. For some reason, I expected them to be foreign, like Algis. It was the lone, peculiar thought I had before I began to fight. My fists flew clumsily toward blurry assailants, my feet kicking aimlessly, my teeth gnawing for purchase as I growled and screeched. I wouldn’t be taken again, not breathing anyway. My body wasn’t my own though, it had been corrupted by whatever drug was pumping through my blood. I was easily restrained and slammed against the cold metal of the car, my head ricocheting off the hard surface. A face appeared before me, up close and personal. Traitor.

  “Stop fighting,” he growled, his beady eyes narrowed as spittle sprayed my face. All bets were off now, Hart’s order not to kill him out the window. This fucker was mine!

  “He’s going to feed you to the pigs,” I hissed, my words slurred. Hart had confessed one of his favorite methods of making a body disappear was feeding it to pigs. Apparently there were plenty of abattoirs who were only too happy to fill their piggies stomachs with human remains. You had to shave the bodies first though and remove their teeth. Pigs couldn’t digest those parts. My gaze dropped to Viktor’s mouth, and I imagined removing his teeth. He would need to be alive for that, I wanted him to feel the little, white nubs ripped from their gums.

  “You are a distraction, once his head is clear, he will thank me.”

  Laughter burst free from my mouth and I giggled hysterically. How had Hart come to allow this man into his inner circle? It seemed neither of them knew the other very well. Rolling my neck, my head slumped to one side and I squinted as I tried to keep the bastards face in focus.

  “Are we talking about the same Hart Cordell, hmmm?” I wondered out loud, imitating Hart’s accent and habitual hum. Viktor’s frown deepened. Steadying myself, I leaned forward as much as I could while his hands continued to press my spine against the car. “Don’t worry, mudak. . .” Even subdued by the drugs, I still managed to perfectly pronounce the word that was Russian for asshole. Raul had taught me that one. “He won’t kill you.” The haughty look on Viktor’s face seemed to say of course not. “Nope, that pleasure will be all mine, and do you know what I’m going to do to you?”

  Before he could even part his lips to answer, I continued.

  “I’m going to peel the skin from your face, then I’m going to wear it while I dance around your decaying body.”

  “You’re fucking crazy,” Viktor murmured, his lip curling in distaste.

  I grinned, because fuck yes, I was crazy, and I wore every ounce of my insanity with pride. There was a certain beauty in being mad.

  “Thank you.”

  His jaw twitched.

  “Enjoy your flight home, Lucy.”

  As soon as her name left his lips, I went wild. I snarled and writhed like a caged animal. How dare he use her name, he wasn’t worthy of the beguiling magnificence that was Lucy. When the sharp sting of a needle in my bicep caught my attention, I screamed my throat raw as
the world around me slowly sank into a black abyss.

  ***

  Everything was still, and yet it wasn’t. A dip in the air made my stomach flip, and then we were still again. Another dip, then a tremor. Where was I? Noise penetrated my tangled thoughts, and a monotonous hum filled my ears. The world around me shook, then stilled. Forcing my lids open, the dimly lit room slowly came into focus. Lying on a bed, I kept still trying to make sense of the noise and movement. The whirring sound was muffled, but wherever it came from must have been obscenely loud. And the occasional shaking and downward plunge felt . . . weightless. Was I on a plane? Enjoy your flight home, Lucy. Viktor’s final words slapped me into consciousness. Lurching upright my stomach flipped again, this time in a way that made bile crawl up my throat. Breathing deeply I took in my surroundings. The room was small, but luxurious in a way that told me it was most likely a private jet. I was certain there weren’t bedrooms for commercial flights. On the bedside table sat a bottle of water, the liquid vibrating with the motion of the plane. The door to the room was shut, and I appeared to be alone, but I was still nervous about reaching for the water. It could be drugged, but the dry, bitter taste in my mouth superseded self-preservation. The twist top on the water had not been tampered with, so that gave me some reassurance as I gulped back almost the entire bottle. Slowly the lethargy in my limbs began to fade, and the throbbing in my head dulled to an annoying background noise. Enjoy your flight home, Lucy. Was I being taken to Lucy’s home? Why? Where was Lucy’s home? Did she have people there who cared for her? Would they care for me? They couldn’t possibly. I was all tarnished, rusted metal whereas Lucy was pure, shining gold. We couldn’t be more different. They couldn’t care for me, they wouldn’t love me, I just knew it. But Hart cared. He liked my flawed surface. He made me feel safe, he made me feel strong. Right now I wasn’t feeling so strong. I was feeling weak and backed into a corner.

  “Hart,” I whispered, my voice quivering with emotion. “I need you, I need you, I need you . . .” Panic threatened to steal me away as my eyes darted everywhere in search of an escape. There’s really none available when you’re stuck aboard a jet. My hand rose to my throat, and I found the thin gold chain Hart had gifted me. My thumb rubbed soothing circles over the little heart pendant, and I tried my best to keep calm.

  “What would Hart do?” I wondered out loud. “Kill the fuckers, then probably fly the plane home and land somewhere safe.” Hart seemed to know so much, it didn’t seem too farfetched to think he could fly the plane. I couldn’t fly the plane, nor did I have a weapon. I was still groggy, and I had no idea how many men were outside the door. Feeling somewhat desperate, I climbed carefully from the bed and began to search the room for a weapon. The drawers in the bedside tables were empty, the wardrobe was bare, and the bed went all the way to the floor, so there was no gap beneath it to store anything. Nothing. There was a rattle at the door behind me before it sprung open. Spinning to face my enemy, I bent my knees and snarled at the stranger. A carefully blank face stared right back, the man’s body at ease, no sign of tension or fear to be found. His face had an almost square shape to it, the jawline wide. A receding hair line sat above cold, dark eyes, lips flat and emotionless. His nose was strangely flattened over the bridge, and crooked, as though it had been broken once or twice. Even though he was likely a good thirty years older than me, he was fit, the wide set to his shoulders and flat abdomen told me that much. He felt vaguely familiar, but no matter who much I searched my mind I couldn’t find him in it. Those callous eyes dismissed me completely when he glanced toward the bed and noted the empty bottle of water. It was then I noticed a second bottle of water in one of his meaty hands. He threw it to the bed, looked me over from head to toe, then turned his back on me, closing the door as he left the room. I didn’t move, waiting for him to charge back through the doorway and attack me. I stood there for a long time before finally conceding that he wasn’t coming back. Having a weapon became my single-minded focus as I rechecked the room more thoroughly. Pulling the drawers clear from the cabinets, I looked over every inch of the empty internal housing before moving on to the hinges on the wardrobe. Thinking maybe I could use the door itself as a weapon, I fiddled with the flat screws, my nails chipping away as I tried to loosen them. Flinging the comforter and sheets from the bed, I pushed the mattress to one side, and finding nothing I huffed in frustration. Tugging on the ends of my disheveled hair, I leaned against the wall and sunk to my backside. Trapped. So, fucking, trapped. Slapping my forehead, I screeched under my breath.

  “Trapped, trapped, trapped. . .”

  From the corner of my eye, I spied the new bottle of water lying on the carpeted floor. With nothing else to do, I reached for it and drank that bottle dry too. Then I allowed my head to thump back against the wall. Where was Hart? Did he know I was missing yet? Viktor would be his first point of call, and he’d kill him. I kind of hoped he didn’t, I wanted to kill him, that bastard’s life was mine to take. There had never been a person Hart couldn’t find. It might take him a few days, maybe weeks or worst case scenario, months, but I’d survive. I’d endured worse, captive in the bowls of hell. This time though I refused to play the submissive, battered girl. I’d fight and claw myself out of this new hell if I had to.

  6

  HART

  My hands shook. Holding them out before me, I watched them tremble with rage. These hands had never failed me. They’d taken lives, spilled blood, left men battered and bruised, but they’d never, failed, me . . . until now. She was gone, my Beauty. Lost like a whisper on the wind, taken from me, from right under my fucking nose. Roaring with the injustice of it all, I continued to tear apart my hotel room. The furniture was ruined, the holes in the walls a tale of the rage I had shed upon finding out Beauty was gone, and still my fury spilled over, demanding an outlet.

  Gone.

  Taken.

  Missing.

  My breath, my heart, my life, no longer here to keep me anchored to sanity. Soon, the world would be painted red in my effort to find her. And find her I would, but first, I needed to let the monster out. He was raging too, inside me, demanding retribution and blood. Viktor was also missing. Raul couldn’t find a whiff of him anywhere. Could Viktor have betrayed me? I’d never doubted his loyalty before, and now? Now I was twisted with thoughts of his betrayal.

  “He wouldn’t,” I growled, my voice barely recognizable.

  “He is loyal to you,” Raul agreed from somewhere behind me. “But,” he continued, pulling my attention his way, “he is not loyal to Beauty.”

  “Beauty is me!”

  Raul nodded. “Sí, she is you, but Viktor is old fashioned. He believes a woman should be seen and not heard. Beauty liked to be heard.”

  My Beauty should be heard and seen. She was far too exquisite to be locked away. Was she locked away now? Captive once again? To whom? Had they hurt her? Her mind would never survive it.

  “Bear said Kleeman’s men found a girl right here in Russia, but rumors suggest it was the wrong girl. She was young, too young, it was not his Lucy. Bear said Kleeman has grown more desperate to get Lucy back, his mind is slipping and his anger growing. If his men brought the wrong girl to him, he would demand that transgression fixed,” Raul said, doing what he did best. Distract me. He was redirecting my attention in a more positive way and helping me figure out this mess.

  “They took Ruby by mistake. She looks like Lucy, blonde hair, blue eyes, Algimas ordered her as a replacement for his favorite toy. Ruby was to take Lucy’s place,” I thought aloud.

  “They followed Ruby’s trail from Lithuania to Russia thinking she was Lucy. They didn’t know Lucy was free. But you’ve had her by your side for months, you’ve taken her to meetings, people have seen her with you, and she is quite distinctive, petite, fair hair, blue eyes.”

  “People are talking about my new woman, Bear suggested as much.”

  “Exactly, word is spreading.”

  “They came back for Luc
y. They took my Beauty.”

  “Si,” Raul agreed.

  Like a film my mind played out the scenario, fitting all the scenes together.

  “She would be on a plane to the U.S by now, it’s been several hours since I left her at Papa’s Place.”

  Raul was already on his phone organizing a flight. Looking over my destruction, my gaze found Beauty’s leather-bound book of Hart Crane poetry thrown carelessly to the floor. Picking it up, I ran my fingers over the cover. She’d been gone less than a day and already I could feel my world falling apart. I’d kill anyone who touched her, their pain would feed my fury.

  “The jet will be ready in half an hour, we need to get going.”

  Raul’s voice broke through the haze of anger and desperation. Taking a long, deep breath, I forced my monster into submission. He’d have his revenge soon enough.

  ***

  Click, click, click, click, click . . . the incessant clicking of Raul’s fingers on the keyboard was giving my temper a shove in the wrong direction. I needed to keep my cool, though I was only hanging on to it by the tips of my nails. Two days ago we’d arrived in America, flying into Washington D.C., and immediately made our way to Georgetown, which was where one of Edward Kleeman’s properties could be found. We were greeted by an aging housekeeper, grey hair coiled into a perfect bun who looked about ready to shit herself upon finding me and Raul on her doorstop. She was of course unwilling to tell us anything regarding Kleeman’s whereabouts, and I’d been prepared to torture it out of her when Raul intervened, using his ever-present charm to discover Edward was on personal leave and wouldn’t be back in DC for the next month. There was no way she was going to disclose any information about where he might be, but at the time we’d foolishly assumed he’d be easy to track down. The senator had three properties under his name, one in Washington D.C., another in Connecticut, and a third in Virginia. The latter had family using the residence at the moment, the other two homes were empty. That was where we hit our proverbial wall. The trail went cold. We were certain the senator would have other properties that he would disguise well. For a man with such a distasteful pastime, he needed discretion. I’d already left four messages with Bear trying to get the address of the home he’d visited while in America. The Frenchman was ignoring my calls. His debt to me had been repaid, he wouldn’t help beyond the little information he’d already given me.