Dimitri (The Italian Cartel Book 1)

by Shandi Boyes

  “W-w-what?”

  She heard what I said. She’s just testing me as much as her big green eyes are testing the durability in the thread of the towel wrapped around my waist.

  After jutting out my left leg to hide the crease my cock is causing to my towel, I growl out in a menacing tone, “Take. It. Off.”

  My switch-up in footing doesn’t do me any favors. There could be a truck parked between us, and Roxanne would still spot my raging boner. I’m so fucking hard, my cock is seconds from uncinching the knot holding my towel to my waist. My thickness has nothing to do with Roxanne’s hand inching toward the hem of my shirt, and everything to do with the little wildcat rising in her eyes. She’s noticed my body’s reaction to my request for her to get undressed, and she’s milking it for all its worth.

  Do you blame her?

  I could tell her until I’m blue in the face that I don’t want her, but my cock will always say otherwise.

  Roxanne’s breasts lift high on her chest when she pulls my shirt over her head. Alice was right, the symmetry of her breasts and hips are perfect. They’re meaty enough to be appealing but small enough they won’t be weighed down by gravity any time soon. Her nipples are more a reddish-brown than the bright pink natural redheads usually have, but there’s no denying her heritage. The slightest slither of hair hidden by the shadows between her legs leaves no doubt the vibrancy of her hair days ago didn’t come from a bottle.

  “Leave it,” I demand when the whoosh of my shirt to the floor is closely chased by her bobbing down to gather up the hideous dressing gown she uses to hide more than to keep warm. “You need to shower. You smell…” I almost say like Rocco, but I can’t force the lie out of my mouth. She smells like I was balls deep inside of her when I released my load onto her chest instead of in her delicious-smelling cunt like I really wanted to.

  Mistaking my delay as an insult, Roxanne rolls her eyes before she sidesteps me to head to the shower. I try to let her go, to act unaffected by both her closeness and her disappointment, but before I can stop myself, my hand darts out to seize her wrist.

  She freezes in an instant, her chest falling and rising in rhythm to mine when the alcohol steeped through my veins speaks on my behalf, “You smell like me.”

  Goosebumps break across her skin when I drag my nose down the throb in her throat. A growl rumbles in my chest when our intermingled scents linger in my nostrils. She smells so fucking intoxicating, it’s taking everything I have not to double her scent.

  Roxanne strains her eyes to look at me without moving her head when I say, “No one will ever believe you’re a virgin if you smell like me. I’m tainted. Dirty. I smell of pure evil.” I shift on my feet to face her front on. “If I want any chance of getting my daughter back, I need you to smell nothing like me.”

  Confusion is the first emotion to register in her eyes. It’s quickly followed by determination. She doesn’t know my plan, but she’s willing to follow it.

  Her silent pledge of assistance has me deviating my ruse in an instant.

  As my cock flexes, I scrub my thumb over her ruddy lips. She wasn’t lying when she said the tension between us is so blistering, no one could ever deny it. It crackles in the air, thickening my cock to the point it’s painful.

  Her needy breaths fan my lips with minty freshness when my hand lowers to the budded peaks on her chest. Her nipples are as erect as my cock, painfully strained with undeniable desire.

  Unable to fight a battle I’m never going to win for a second longer, I brush the back of my hand down her budded nipple. When its tightness firms from my briefest touch, a growl rumbles in my chest. She’s so responsive to my touch, even more than I’ve wondered too many times to count the past year.

  When I brush my hand down her nipple for the second time, her thighs shudder like she’s on the brink of ecstasy. One flick on her clit, and I’m certain she will be done.

  As the heady scent of a hungry cunt clutches my senses, I return my eyes to Roxanne’s face. She stares straight at me, soundlessly begging for me to loosen the restraints I’ve lived with the past almost two years.

  After the shit twenty-four hours I’ve had, I’d give anything to forget my life for an hour. To push Roxanne onto the mattress and test the authenticity of her virginity. To taste her. To smell my skin against hers. To claim her like my fucked-up head tried to last night.

  I want her in a way I’ve never wanted a woman, but in a way I can’t have her.

  At least not until Fien is home. Not until she’s safe.

  Roxanne’s needy breaths switch to a groan when I glue my hands to my side. If she thinks this is easy for me, she has no fucking clue how I operate. Excluding my search for Fien, I’ve never fought so hard in my life.

  Something so simple shouldn’t cause such a catalyst of emotions, but the thought of never touching her feels worse than death. I’ve been drowning since the moment I studied Fien’s lifeless, upside-down face, now I’m being strangled as well.

  Upon hearing my unvoiced rejection, Roxanne scuttles into the shower as fast as her quivering legs can carry her. She has barely left my side for a second when the itch to kill skates through my veins. I’m angrier now than I was when I agreed for a handful of my father’s clients to visit my compound unvetted. His request means I’m walking into tonight’s festivities blind. I have a list of aliases and their favorite kinks, but no indication of how they fit into the industry I’ve been trying to get my foot in the door of. All I know is that they prefer them young and unbloodied—just like Roxanne.

  While working my jaw side to side to weaken its strain, I head to the closet to get dressed. Tonight’s festivities will run similarly to my previous event, but the women were hand-selected by my father. Roxanne was his first choice. The rest are a random variety of women. He didn’t do that for no reason. He’s testing the authenticity of my ruse, aware not every man will set aside lifelong dislikes for money. We’re not all like him. Sometimes we value people more than possessions.

  Partway to the walk-in closet, a stack of papers on my desk draws my focus. They’re the sketches Roxanne showed me earlier. They are still separated into two piles. One stack is much higher than the other. They’re the group of people still in attendance after Roxanne left with a flood of tears rolling down her cheeks.

  Too curious to discount, I head to my desk instead of the closet. My mind was spiraling too much earlier to give Roxanne’s drawings the consideration they deserved.

  My cock hardens when I lift the first sketch off my desk. Roxanne’s attention to detail is phenomenal. Just like her nudes, only the grain of the cheap pencils she used gives away the fact they’re drawings. You could almost accuse her of tracing the images from photographs. I know she didn’t, though, because none of these faces register as familiar, and I’ve scanned the images from that night over a dozen times the past twenty months.

  “Smith, how long will it take to do a facial recognition scan for around two dozen people?”

  “Photographs or sketches?” The fact he asks that tells me he’s watching me. He better have logged into the feed after Roxanne entered the bathroom, or we’ll have more than words.

  I try to keep my annoyance on the down-low, but it still echoes in my tone when I say, “I need to know who these people are.” I twist the sketch of a man with long-ass sideburns and a chipped front tooth around to face the camera in the corner of the room.

  Even with the screen of my phone being as black as night, Smith’s reply comes through the speakers with precise clearness. “Have someone bring them down. I’ll get a start on them while waiting for the rest of Megan’s info to come through.”

  Fuck! With everything going on, I completely forgot I sent him down that rabbit warren several hours ago.

  While heading to the closet to get dressed in a pair of black trousers and a pinstriped dress shirt, I ask, “What have you unearthed so far?”

  Smith’s disappointed groan tightens my jaw. “Her case is a fucking
mess. There’s no body—”

  “That’s not unusual. There’s never a body.”

  A smirk tugs at my lips when he replies, “You’re preaching to the choir, but tell me one time a murder investigation is open and closed on the same day with no DNA, no witness, and no missing person report from a relative or friend?” He doesn’t wait for me to reply. “Something is off with this case. Megan rarely used a credit card before her death.” The way he spits out ‘death’ means he’s as disbelieving of her homicide as I am. “But there were sprinklings of her in other electronic means… bus tickets, online music purchases, an annual subscription for Rock Punk magazine.”

  “Did she cancel her subscription?”

  I can’t see Smith, but I picture him shaking his head when a whoosh sounds down the line. “That’s the thing. Her subscription was renewed last month.”

  “Last month?” I double-check, certain the blood rushing to my lower extremities has affected my hearing. “Megan has been dead for over a year.”

  “Mm-hmm. Don’t you know all dead people keep their rock obsession current?”

  After a beat, I say, “Keep me updated on anything that comes in, however I don’t see us getting the answers we need from a computer. For now, shift your focus to the men arriving tonight and Roxanne’s sketches.”

  “All right.” His chair clicking into place sounds down the line. “I’ve got everything ready to go, but I must warn you, Dimi, this won’t be as easy as you’re hoping. Facial recognition isn’t like it is in the movies. It takes time.”

  “I can be patient.” When Smith’s snicker rolls down the line, my hands ball into tight fists. “I can.” His chuckles reveal he has no clue how much restraint I just exuded. It keeps him off my hit list—for the night. “I’ve waited this long for answers, so what are a couple more days?”

  Before he can remind me that every second I’m away from my daughter feels like a year in hell, I toss my cell phone onto a stack of drawers next to the walk-in closet before slamming the door shut, blocking out anything he has to say.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Dimitri

  “Fuck me.”

  For the first time tonight, Rocco isn’t swearing at me. His focus isn’t even on me. He’s staring at someone across the room with an unhinged jaw and bulging eyes.

  My jaw doesn’t know which way to swing when I discover who has caught his attention. If it wants to tighten with fury, I’ll need to collect it from the floor first.

  Like Cinderella arriving at a mafia ball, Roxanne floats into the parlor at exactly eight. The modest hem of a pale blue dress swishes against her thighs when she twists to face the group of thirty or so men watching her every move. Although her bangs remain fanned across her forehead, the rest of her hair has been pulled back into a high ponytail. Her makeup is basically non-existent. Only the slightest sheen of lip gloss glistens on her mouth. She looks nothing like the sex-pot I left hungry and impish forty minutes ago, and everything like the naïve virgin my guests highly crave.

  With my suspicion high, I drift my narrowed eyes to Rocco. “What did you tell her?”

  When Rocco returns my watch, my blood pressure goes through the roof. His eyes are massively dilated, ensuring there’s only one jaw about to swing—to the left when my fist lands on it with a crack. “I didn’t tell her shit.”

  “Then why is she dressed like that? Why does she look like every dirty man’s wet dream?” My interrogation ends when my exchange with Roxanne before she entered the bathroom rolls through my head. I told her to smell the opposite to me, to smell pure. If that wasn’t a flashing red beacon warning her to the shitstorm I was about to thrust her in, I don’t know how much more obvious I could have been.

  If she knows my ruse, why is she here? Shouldn’t she be responding to my attempt to sell her with the fury I instilled on her father when he tried to do the same? Or at the very least, be as mad as hell?

  I take a staggering step back when the truth smacks me hard in the gut. She isn’t parading her virginity for me or her. She’s pimping herself out for a child she’s never met—my child. She’s doing it for Fien.

  Before I can get over my shock that the lady responsible for my daughter’s captivity is doing everything in her power to free her, Roxanne stops to stand next to me. Although she seems put together, her nerves are noticeable. The furious shake of her hands is indicative enough, much less the rattle of her vocal cords when she asks Rocco if the drink he’s nursing has alcohol in it.

  Rocco lifts his chin. “Vodka. Do you want—”

  Roxanne cuts off his offer to fetch her a drink by stealing the one in his hand. She downs it as if getting smashed is something she does every weekend before requesting another.

  When she throws down a second double nip like it’s water, I remove the glass from her hand before placing it on the mantlepiece behind us. I understand she needs some liquid courage, but her life will never be the same if she ends up with one of these men in a room while she’s drunk. They won’t spank her and walk away. They take everything she has on offer—even the stuff she isn’t willing to give.

  The fact she’s putting her life on the line for my daughter ensures I’d never let that happen. I’d massacre every man in this room before I’d let her be hurt under my watch. When you are on my side, you’re on my side for life. Roxanne’s efforts tonight expose whose team she’s on.

  “Point me in the right direction.” It dawns on me that Roxanne isn’t talking to me when her eyes float across the men gawking at her like she’s a movie star. It isn’t just the occasional nod she does that gives it away. It’s overhearing Smith advising her which guests he’s got hooks into that makes it obvious.

  Once she has a rundown of the room, Roxanne locks her wide eyes with mine. “Anything identifiable, right?”

  It takes everything I have to jerk up my chin, and even then, it’s a soft, weaselly lift. Throwing her to the wolves and standing back to watch the show feels fucking wrong, but when you’re desperate, you must take desperate measures.

  “All right. Wish me luck.” Not waiting for further instructions, she glides across the room with slow, wary strides. Her chin isn’t held high like the women paid to keep the guests entertained. She tucks it into her chest while fiddling with the material of her dress.

  Her shy act awards her even more attention than her beautiful face. Men are drawn to her like moths to a flame, their interest so notable, my father’s underhanded comment that she’d fetch a record-breaking price seems logical. Her ruse is the ultimate display of how easily men can be manipulated. They’re practically fighting to secure her attention, completely oblivious to the fact she’s hoping to take them all down. Not even I feel safe from slaughter.

  “Follow them,” I say to Rocco when a man with slicked-back hair and a heavy set of wrinkles guides Roxanne toward the library at the side of the parlor for a one-on-one compatibility chat. From the whispers of the group tonight, he needs a new wife after his was strangled during a sex act. He thought she was holding back on how much she could take. He was proven wrong when his multiple attempts to resuscitate her were fruitless.

  My pulse thuds in my chin when Rocco asks, “If he gets out of line?”

  Deliberating the consequences of my actions usually takes longer than half a nanosecond. This time around, it doesn’t. “Take him out.”

  I’ll be out on my ass if I kill any of my father’s wealthiest associates, but just the slimebag’s hand on the small of Roxanne’s back has me thirsty for a bloodbath. This isn’t an itch I can scratch without someone dying. If that someone ends up being me, at least my daughter will have a reason to be proud.

  Up until now, I haven’t given her much to work with.

  Although Rocco is still pissed I forced Roxanne’s involvement in this industry, his annoyance isn’t as noticeable when he enters the library on Roxanne’s heel. He had no clue my ruse would pan out the way it did. In all honesty, neither did I. I wouldn’t have hidden
my plans from Roxanne if I had any inkling she’d go along with them.

  I wait for Roxanne and Rocco to disappear from view before shifting on my feet to face a camera in the corner of the room. I don’t say anything. I don’t need to. Smith’s squawks reveal he can feel my wrath. “She didn’t want to go in blind. I should have told you she came to me—”

  “Yes, you should have.”

  He continues talking as if I didn’t interrupt him. “But she asked me not to.”

  “Who do you work for, Smith?” When a stretch of silence teems between, I ask my question again, with more fury this time around. “Who the fuck do you work for, Smith?”

  He says the last name I expected to hear. “Fien. I’m here for Fien.” He wets his lips before adding, “And so is Rocco, Clover, and Roxanne, so how about you appreciate the help instead of seeking reasons for it. I know you were raised to believe different, Dimi, but not everyone is out to play you.” The heavy drone of him giving his keyboard a thrashing sounds down the line before he says, “Don’t mind me, I’ve got sicko pedophile identities to unearth.”

  Stealing my chance to reply, not that I have anything to say, he disconnects our connection.

  Even though I deserved Smith’s anger hours ago, it cut deeper than I care to admit. It’s been fucking with my psyche as much as seeing Roxanne work the crowd. She’s been in and out of rooms all night, her suiters so eager to get her alone, some offered cash incentives just for five minutes of her time, others offered to pay her college tuition in full on top of their prospective bids.

  Although I am as edgy as fuck, her one-on-one meetings have given Smith crystal clear images of the men’s faces to run through the nationwide database. It’s been a long, drawn-out process, and I’m feeling every second of it. Most of the men have been respectful of the rules they agreed to abide by when they arrived, however a handful have been testing the boundaries.

  Take the man Roxanne is talking to now. If it were anyone but me watching Roxanne’s every move, they wouldn’t notice his sneaky touches of her elbow or his gentle strokes down her inner arm. He doesn’t go for the obvious areas Rocco and Smith deem unacceptable. He’s touching her like he intimately knows her, caressing her as no one ever has. He’s being tender to the point of being a gentleman, and it’s pissing me off to no end.