by Ruby Laska
XTRAORDINARY
RUBY LASKA
Copyright © 2015 by Ruby Laska.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Xtraordinary / Ruby Laska. — 1st ed.
ISBN 978-1-940501-18-5
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
Ricardo de Santos stared moodily out over all of St. Petersburg spread out far below the five-star hotel room in which he’d spent the last week—or more precisely, where he’d grabbed a few hours of sleep each night. The morning glinted off the golden dome of St. Isaac’s Cathedral while the bustling Nevsky Prospekt came to life. The citizens of this beautiful old city were going about their business, unaware of the illicit negotiation that had taken place only miles away that would result in the disappearance of several pieces of priceless art from the dusty warehouse where they had been stored since the 1930s.
Last night Ricardo had dined with one of the wealthiest men in all of Europe, who’d offered him not only a feast of Russian delicacies and vodka infused with linden flowers, but a bevy of beautiful women who discreetly mingled with the small party and made it clear that they were available for further entertainment in private.
Ricardo’s heart wasn’t in any of it.
Later today he would head to the airport, where a private jet waited. He would be plied with food and drink again, this time at an elevation of 40,000 feet, and tonight, he would sleep in Lima, Peru. The decisions he made and the actions he took in the next twenty-four hours would have a momentous impact not just on several pieces of priceless, irreplaceable art, but also on the lives of those whose hands the paintings had passed through.
Several of them might not survive to see another dawn.
Ricardo knew that most human beings would never experience the luxury in which he found himself, or the company through which he traveled. And yet none of the thoughts crowding his mind moved him a fraction as much as a single memory of dark hair cascading across a pillow in a little hidden cottage almost five thousand miles away in California.
He’d spent only a few nights with Chelsea Ryder, and yet he’d thought of little else since he slipped out in the middle of that last night, nearly two months ago. The first time he laid eyes on her, he’d sensed that she was the woman who would instinctively follow him where both of them needed to go, on a road littered with silken scarves and knotted ropes and many other instruments of the control and pain that she needed to receive as badly as he needed to give to her. Though he’d taken her further than he had any other woman, Ricardo knew that he had barely scratched the surface of the explosive bond between them.
But a man like him could make no promises and no commitments. Though Ricardo wanted to be with her again more than he had wanted anything in his thirty-five years, it was a gift he could never give. It would have been better for both of them if they’d never met. Too late, he’d mastered his self-control—impossible when he was in her presence—and though it had nearly killed him, he had refrained from contacting her in the weeks since they parted.
If things went badly at the meeting scheduled for tomorrow, Ricardo could end up bleeding to death on the cursed earth of the Huaycan shantytowns.
But if he died before seeing her again, she would be the last image in his fading sight, and her name the last thing on his lips.
CHAPTER TWO
Chelsea Ryder slowed as she passed the little alleyway tucked between shabby buildings on the very edge of the arts district of downtown Los Angeles. Her noontime errands had left her hungry and in need of a pick-me-up, but she hadn’t been to the almost-hidden café wedged between buildings in the alley since Ricardo de Santos had brought her here.
At his memory, Chelsea felt a familiar rush of conflicting emotions and sensations. Anger tugged the corners of her mouth down. Mortification rushed blood to her cheeks, no doubt turning them pink.
And longing…longing was the most complicated emotion of all, weakening her knees and sending a surge of sexual energy through her body, causing nerve endings from her scalp to her toes to quiver with need.
Chelsea really, really needed to get laid.
God damn him. On a whim fueled by her frustration, Chelsea turned on the heel of her motorcycle boot and stomped down the alley, swinging her purchases in their canvas shopping bags.
An old man was watering baskets of flowers hanging from the eave. Seeing Chelsea, his weathered face broke into a huge grin, his sparkling eyes nearly disappearing in a nest of wrinkles. “Lapochka!” he exclaimed. “Where you have been?”
“Oh, I—busy, I guess,” Chelsea stammered as he pulled out a metal chair with a flourish, seating her at a marble topped table decorated with a glass lemonade bottle containing several colorful blossoms. “Work, and, uh, you know.”
“Ricardo he is traveling,” the old man said sadly. His name was Boris Solonik, and he and his son operated the little café. But their association with Ricardo went deeper, Chelsea suspected; like so much about the man occupying her mind, the details were hazy. “We are all him missing, eh?”
He clutched his hand to his heart in such a theatrical gesture that Chelsea couldn’t help laughing, despite her embarrassment. Let the old man think there was something between her and Ricardo other than a few sordid flings if he wanted. What did it hurt?
“I wonder if you have any of those delicious cookies today?” she asked sweetly. “And maybe an iced coffee?”
“It is come right up, dear,” Boris said with a wink, ducking back inside the restaurant.
Chelsea dug out her phone and thumbed over the list of contacts. Benedict? Caleb? Maybe that trainer from the gym, the one whose gaze always seemed to linger longer than necessary on her ass when she was working out on the weight machines. She’d added the workout to her daily runs as an attempt to deal with her frustration over Ricardo’s hasty exit—but maybe it was time for another kind of salve. The kind that would end up with the two of them, sweating and spent, in his bed.
As her fingertip hovered over his number, she noticed another name, one she hadn’t spoken to in a long time. Jade Bliss had given her a business card at one of Meredith Tipton’s gala openings six months back, asking Chelsea to keep her in mind now that she was going legit. Jade had served two years of a five-year sentence for art forgery at Pleasant Valley State Prison before being released as a model prisoner. There were also rumors of her helping out with an investigation that had gone unsolved for years…and Chelsea suspected those rumors were true.
Now Jade was working as a private investigator…unofficially, as convicted felons were f
rowned upon by the California Business and Professions Code. This career move had triggered a lot of speculation among her former associates, some of whom had been burned by her astonishing forgeries. Some swore they’d never trust her. Others—including Chelsea—were more apt to forgive, given the rumors of Jade’s difficult past. Besides, she was one of the few people in the art world who could claim knowledge of both sides of the coin. She’d been a forger, an inmate, and now an investigator—her black book was no doubt one of a kind.
Her card listed her title as “consultant,” and her clientele so far were mostly former acquaintances looking for discretion and cheap rates. But while the bulk of her cases so far were fraud and cheating-spouse hunts, Chelsea suspected that Jade took on the occasional provenance job when the people who hired her wanted it handled…delicately. The art trade had a lot more shades of gray than most people ever realized…and Jade was uniquely qualified to navigate those waters.
Chelsea blew out a breath, sending strands of her blond hair fluttering in the summer heat. She could take the safe path, as she had for many years, as she struggled to build a life for herself out of the chaos of the past.
Or she could take a chance.
She dialed Jade’s number.
CHAPTER THREE
Ricardo stood over the rapidly cooling corpse sprawled in the center of the decrepit warehouse in the Huaycan district of Lima, scowling. The man—what was left of him, given that the pinky and ring fingers were missing from both hands—bore evidence of torture, his chest and limbs covered with burns that had probably come from an electric prod. He had obviously suffered before he died—and before he could pay Ricardo nine hundred thousand US dollars in exchange for the carefully wrapped package in the messenger bag slung over his shoulder.
As he was checking the man’s pockets—a useless gesture, as whoever had killed him wouldn’t be as careless as to leave any cash behind—he heard the clatter of footsteps ringing down the metal warehouse stairs. Someone had come in from the roof, which wasn’t a bad idea, if you didn’t know about the tunnel that had survived the earthquake that had leveled much of Lima in 1940.
Ricardo had better sources, which was little comfort at the moment. The tunnel had gotten him in undetected, but it wouldn’t get him out of an unfair fight.
He was straightening when two men burst into the room. The taller of the two had large, protruding ears, earning him the nickname Ushki. Ricardo had never seen the shorter, bulkier man before, but he’d seen plenty of men like him: thick neck, thicker biceps, and telltale bulges from shoulder and leg holsters. And a vacant expression, except for the brutality hiding behind his eyes.
But it wasn’t the thug that Ricardo was worried about. He knew too much about the other man to make the mistake of underestimating him.
“Hello, Yusup,” he said in Chechen, even though Yusup spoke mostly Russian. “How nice of you to drop by.”
“Ricardo, my brother. As you can see, there was a change of plans.”
“Indeed.” He kept his tone carefully neutral.
“Yes. The bjachi lost confidence in Anwar, unfortunately.”
“Anwar appears to have paid dearly. What was the nature of his offense?”
Yusup chuckled and shook his head. “Oh, I would hate to bore you with such details, especially as it’s all been taken care of now. I’m only sorry I was not here to greet you when you arrived, but I hadn’t wanted to interrupt the master at his work.” He gestured at the dead man with his chin.
He thinks it would take a master to do this, Ricardo thought contemptuously, taking a last glance at the desecration of the man lying on the floor, when any butcher could do as well.
“Of course,” he said smoothly, his expression betraying nothing.
“It is only a pity it had to come to this,” Yusup said. “We are grateful to you for bringing the package, of course, but you are probably tired of these overnight flights.”
Ricardo forced a smile. “How could I tire of the Challenger? I sleep better in the air than I do in my own bed.”
He knew he’d scored a direct hit. Yusup had served briefly as a pilot in the Russian Armed Forces before his career took a turn for the deadly, and he was extremely proud of his fleet of private jets, of which the Bombardier Challenger CL-600 was the crown jewel. “Ah, you appreciate her,” he said approvingly. “When things settle down, I shall take you up myself. We’ll fly to Grozny, eh, what do you say? Visit the winter lodge at Veduchi?”
“When things settle down,” Ricardo agreed, matching Yusup’s oily smile with one of his own. “Now, however, I think we had better search for more broken links in our gilded chain.”
Yusup threw back his head and laughed. “Ah, Ricardo! You have the gift of words, yes? You could talk the feathers off a duck. All right. I’ll take the package and let Mohmad know that he should have the Challenger ready to take off in the hour.”
As Ricardo handed over his bag and said his goodbyes, leaving the corpse for Yusup’s associate to clean up, he reflected that if only he’d been here an hour earlier it might be Yusup’s blood on the floor rather than Anwar’s.
CHAPTER FOUR
Chelsea stepped out of the shower, her aching muscles soothed by the hot spray, and toweled off. The punishing session at the gym hadn’t completely settled her uneasy swirl of emotions, but it had helped. Maybe tonight she’d be able to sleep without the turbulent, erotic dreams that woke her in the wee hours, then receded before she could remember the details. Every one featured a brooding, dark man who could never be mistaken for anyone but Ricardo…and she desperately wished she could remember what her dream lover had been doing, even if it was only her subconscious at work.
She slathered on the body lotion that had been a gift from the Fairy Godfathers, the two men who’d virtually raised her after her father had died and she’d run away from her abusive stepfather at the age of fourteen. Chelsea had spent her teen years living in the back room of Donny and Rufus’s salon, but she’d been too busy teaching herself about art to focus on the hair and skincare services that were her benefactors’ bread and butter. Now, even though she would be thirty next year, Donny and Rufus were still trying to turn her into a well-groomed lady.
Until Chelsea met Ricardo, she’d been content with her somewhat sloppy, edgy look. As a gallery owner in a sketchy part of town, she could get away with the biker boots, thrift-shop jeans, and street-fair shirts. None of her lovers seemed to mind her unkempt mop of dirty blond hair, and the scant assortment of cosmetics in her bathroom cabinet were adequate for the occasional night out.
But when Ricardo sent a beautiful beribboned box containing an evening gown and satin heels before their second date, she had gone to the Fairy Godfathers for help. Thrilled that their little girl was finally embracing her feminine side, Donny had highlighted and cut her hair, and Rufus had prescribed a regimen of expensive creams and serums. They’d steered her to an aesthetician, who now scrupulously maintained Chelsea’s waxing and facials, and gifted her with a bounty of makeup in its own luxurious case.
Donny and Rufus had thrown open the door to a world Chelsea had never dreamed she’d be entitled to inhabit. But that was the effect Ricardo had had on her in their short acquaintance: it was as if he held up a magic mirror that reflected a side of her she’d never known existed. Part of it was that she’d never dared to believe that she had a right to true beauty, a right to sparkle and shine like other women.
But there was something else Ricardo had brought out in her: a dark, sensuous, even shocking vein of need that their nights together had uncovered, and which they had only begun to explore. That, she figured, was what was behind her disturbing dreams.
As she smoothed the mango-scented lotion on her arms and legs, Chelsea’s hands stroked farther and farther up her thighs, until her fingertips lightly grazed her slick, smooth mound. Each Brazilian wax after the first had been less painful, and she was now accustomed to the lack of hair, the sensation of fabric brushing direct
ly against her most sensitive areas.
Slowly, tentatively, warmed by the steam trapped in the tiny bathroom, she thrummed her fingers against her clit, then rubbed them up and down her pussy lips, releasing the moisture pooling there. Every night she woke from her feverish dreams, she touched herself, arching against her own hand, desperate for release. And she found it, after a fashion—if you could call the shuddering desperate spasm of sensation release.
But it wasn’t. Not when it was followed the next morning by an aching need that couldn’t be sated, that haunted her through her days, while she was closing out invoices or reviewing catalogs or meeting with clients and artists. Damn him—Ricardo’s memory followed her even though he had left her behind.
She slumped against the cold tiled wall of her bathroom, her toes almost bumping against the vanity in the miniscule room, and parted her legs, exploring the dewy folds of her pussy with her fingertips. As evening entertainment went, it was better than going through the mail or seeing what was on Netflix. Maybe she’d even have a beer when she was done, see if the Dodgers game was on TV—
A knocking at her front door interrupted her explorations, and she hastily reached for her towel.
Her landlord was too cheap to fix the intercom on the old apartment building, and her fellow tenants weren’t exactly meticulous about security. Someone must have let her visitor in, or else they slipped in after the door was left ajar. Chelsea hurriedly wrapped the towel around herself and went to the door.
She peered through the peephole, but the dimly-lit hall was empty. She opened the door a couple inches, planning to leave the chain in place, but to her surprise the door swung open the rest of the way. The chain dangled in two pieces. When she examined the links more closely, she saw that the metal had been cut, the edges jagged and sharp.
Only then did she notice the scrap of paper that had been shoved underneath the door. On a torn, plain white sheet, a short message had been scrawled in bold marker:
