Cruel Paradise (Beautifully Cruel Book 2)

When Declan drops me off in front of my apartment, I wait for the SUV to drive out of sight before heading back down the street to flag a taxi. The sun is rising by the time I make it to the hotel. I check in, head to the room, and leave a voicemail for Fin and Max on a number designated for emergencies only.

Then, dead tired, I drop facedown onto the king-sized bed and go to sleep. I don’t dream. I don’t move. I fall off a cliff into grateful oblivion.

When I wake, the sun is setting in a spectacular golden light show over the Charles River. I take a shower, order a steak and a bottle of red wine from room service, and get dressed again in the same clothes I’ve been wearing from before I broke into the Irish mob king’s diaper warehouse and my whole world was turned upside down.

When the hotel phone on the desk rings, I answer with the name I checked in under. “Katniss Everdeen speaking.”

“It’s me.”

Sighing in relief, I sink into the desk chair and take a big swig of the wine. “Max. Thank god. Are you guys okay?”

“We’re fine. How was the date?”

“Ha ha.”

“I’m only asking because you sounded so hot and bothered in your message. We figured you and the crazy beautiful evil gangster got down to more than canoodling.”

“Why don’t you sound the least bit concerned that I could be dead right now?”

“You picked up the phone, dummy. Clearly, you’re not dead.”

“You know what I’m saying. He could’ve killed me!”

“Listen. When a man looks at a woman the way Liam Black looked at you, the only thing she’s in danger of is a punctured lung from his raging boner.”

Dear god. The inhumanity. I say drily, “Thanks for your prayers, Mother Teresa.”

“Tell the truth. He likes you.”

I chug the wine angrily.

Meanwhile, Max is laughing. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. He doesn’t want to hurt you, he wants to play footsie with you under the table with his giant feet. Which reminds me, did you get a look at the size of those puppies? I noticed them in the bar. The things are enormous. If all his body parts are that large, he probably could kill you with his boner.”

“This isn’t funny, Max. He could have done very bad things to me.”

“But he didn’t. You’re safe. Not only did he keep his word he wouldn’t harm you, he let you go…again.” She pauses. “What do you think that means?”

“That he likes playing games.”

“Maybe. Or maybe that he’s got a soul under all that smoking hot badassery.”

I snort. “A soul? Let’s not get carried away. He is who he is, after all.”

Except he told me to call him by a different name than the one everyone else calls him, and he’s done the opposite of everything I’ve expected him to do up to this point, so I really have no idea who he is at all. Or what he is, except a notorious gangster.

“I didn’t say who, lass. I said what.”

Whatever the hell he meant by that is just one more question to add to the growing pile.

Max says, “So when are you seeing him again?”

I reach into my pocket and run my finger along the edge of his little white card. “Hopefully, never. Change of subject: you ditched your burner phones, right?”

“Yes, we got rid of the burner phones.”

“Good. And you’re at your alternate safe spots? You weren’t followed? No one knows where to find you?”

Max answers with exaggerated patience. “That is correct, Sister Neurosis of the Immaculate Order of High Anxiety.”

“You act like I’m being unreasonable.”

After a weighted pause, Max says, “Did it ever occur to you that all this stuff we do to try to make amends for being who we are is a total waste of time? That if we really wanted to make a difference in the world, all it would take would be for each of us to put a bullet in our fathers’ brains?”

I blink in surprise. “Wow. The conversation has taken a dark turn.”

Her voice grows hard. “We could save countless lives by doing that, Jules. We could end so much suffering. But instead, we’re playing at being these underdog heroes who do the wrong thing for the right reasons. Or the right thing for the wrong reasons, I don’t fucking know.”

“Max—”

“My dad is one of the worst drug traffickers in the northern hemisphere. Fin’s dad sells weapons to whichever global anarchist or authoritarian hungry for power who’ll pay the most. Yours makes Michael Corleone look like a crybaby.”

I listen to her breathe hard for a moment before saying, “What’s your point?”

“When the three of us met at school when we were thirteen, that was fate. It was fate that we made a pact to help people instead of turning into what our genes and our childhoods had in store for us. It was fate that out of all the people in the entire world, you chose Liam Black to target for a job.”

“Or maybe it was sheer stupidity.”

She ignores me. “And it was fate that he let you go not once, but twice.”

I crinkle my brow in confusion. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“You influenced him.”

She lets it sink in for a moment before continuing. “He didn’t hurt you. He wasn’t even angry about what you’d done. He followed you, and made smoldery bedroom eyes at you, and gave you his word you’d be safe with him, and kept his word by not using you in one of the million different ways a man like him could use a woman.”

This time her pause is longer. “Imagine if our mothers could’ve had any influence over our fathers. Imagine how much different so many people’s lives might have been.”

“Question: what have you been smoking?”

“Nothing.”

“Really? Because it sounds like you’re suggesting I should attempt to have some kind of influence over Killian Black’s evil empire.”

“I am. Wait—who’s Killian?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose between my fingers and close my eyes. “Smoldery isn’t a word.”

Max’s voice drips sarcasm. “Oh, look, another random change of subject. Could it be because you don’t want to explain to the smarter of your two best friends that you’re hiding something about the hot criminal you keep pretending not to like?”

“I don’t like him,” I say between clenched teeth.

“Sure. And I’m Brad Pitt.”

“Nice to meet you, Brad. You’re so much more irritating in person.”

“I’m going to say something now. You’re not gonna like it.”

“Keeping in line with the general theme of the conversation.”

“If you can influence him to stop him from doing something bad, even one thing, you have an obligation to do it.”

I open my eyes and stare at the wall. “You’re right. I didn’t like it.”

We sit in tense silence for a while, unbroken only by the distant sounds of traffic drifting up from the street below. Then, trying to sound reasonable, Max says, “I’m not suggesting you should sleep with him.”

“Good, because my vagina is all out of the magic pixie dust that makes bad men do good things.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit.”

“Oh, for god’s sake. Moving on. Have you seen anything on the news about the gunfight? I’ve been passed out since this morning.”

“Gunfight? What gunfight?”

“The one I was in after I left you guys at the Poison Pen.”

Silence.

“The one where like ten dead bodies were littering Birchland Avenue?”

“I’ve read two papers front to back today, I’ve watched the news, and I’ve been on the internet. There’s been nothing about a gunfight.”

Is he that powerful that he can keep a massacre off the news? I don’t think my father could even manage that.

“Hello? Anybody home?”

“Still here. Just thinking.”

“I know. I can smell the struggle. So this gunfight you were in. Spill.”

“Um. Some guys tried to kill us. Me. Well, I’m not exactly sure which one of us they were after, but Ki—Liam said he thought it was me. He said they were enemies of my father, which I didn’t think to clarify what exactly he meant by that because at the time he was carrying me. Which. You know. Is disorienting.”

In Max’s pause, I feel her astonishment. “Are you saying he knows who you are?”

“He does.”

Her voice rises to a shout. “And he still let you go?”

I see her point. I was the golden egg dropped onto his lap, a prize opportunity for him to stick it to a rival mob king, and he didn’t take it.

Why?

I chew my lip, unsure how to respond.

She takes pity on me and goes in another direction. “How did he find out who you are?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say. But he’s got an uncanny ability to do stuff like that. I think he might have friends in high places. Like government type high places. He said he ran a background check on me. He knew all kinds of weird stuff, like how I hadn’t been serious with someone in years.”

“That wouldn’t show up on a regular background check.”

“I know, that’s what I’m saying. And guess how he found us after we left the warehouse.”

“How?”

“He hacked an air force satellite.”

After a moment of thinking, Max says, “If he knew someone high level in the government, he wouldn’t have had to go to the trouble of hacking a satellite to find us. He could’ve just made a call and said, hey, buddy, here’s the time and coordinates I need, can you get an image of these chicks stealing stuff from me so I can follow them home and discover their identities.”

“Hmm. True.”

“Which means—if he really did hack a satellite and that wasn’t just BS—he’s got some mad skills for your garden-variety gangster.”

“Maybe he was like a programmer for Google before he went bad.”

“That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

I groan. “I know. I’m grasping at straws. I’m so confused about this entire situation that my eyes are crossed.”

“You’re making yourself confused. It’s actually very simple.”

I mutter, “I can’t wait to hear this.”

“He wants you. You want to help other people. Make him helping people a condition of getting you.”

“You just said you weren’t suggesting I sleep with him!”

“I was lying. You should definitely sleep with him. My god, Jules, look at the man. He’s masculine beauty personified. I could climax just by seeing him naked.”

I say flatly, “You’re a terrible friend.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Okay, fine. Make it a one-time thing, then. Tell him you’ll have sex with him if…” She trails off, thinking. “If he donates a million dollars to the Red Cross.”

“He’s a billionaire, and you’re pimping me out for only a million bucks? That’s all I’m worth to you?”

I hear the shrug in her voice. “Hey, I’d do him for free.”

“Have at it, then! I’ll give you his phone number!”

“He doesn’t want me, Jules. He wants you.” She pauses. “You have his phone number?”

“He gave it to me.” Her silence sounds accusing, so I add defensively, “In case I needed anything.”

As soon as she starts to laugh, I realize that was the wrong thing to say.

“Oh ho! So you’ve got the Big Bad Wolf on speed dial in case you need something! The plot thickens!”

My sigh is weary. “You make me want to stab myself in the eye.”

“You know what he’s hoping you need is his big, fat—”

I say loudly, “I have to go now. The ledge outside my window is calling.”

“Don’t be such a prude. A roll in the sack with that man would make your entire life worth living.”

“I really hope this is a dream and I wake up in a few minutes to a reality where my best friend isn’t trying to barter my cooch to a notorious mobster in some kind of insane humanitarian mission gone horribly wrong.”

Her tone turns thoughtful. “You know what? That’s a good idea. Give me his number and I’ll call him to set up your next date.”

I pour myself another large glass of wine and start to drink. Meanwhile, Max is still talking.

“I could lay down the ground rules. Act like your manager.”

“The word you’re looking for is madam. And we’re not making any deals to save the world with a man who once threw a waiter off the roof of the Capital Grille for spilling a drop of his wine.”

“That’s an urban legend. Probably.”

“Look, just keep your head down until I can figure out what our next move is, okay?”

Max hoots. “Oh, you’re gonna figure this out? The girl who’s supposed to be a thief but can’t even pick a lock or hotwire a vehicle?”

“Excuse me, but I’m not the one who forgot to disable the cameras at the warehouse across the street from the diaper factory.”

Into her horrified pause, I say, “Yeah. Our friend, Mr. Black, mentioned that. So you’re no Hans Gruber, either, babe.”

“Hey, Hans Gruber was a bad guy!”

“Sorry. He was the only famous thief I could think of.”

“Because you’ve seen Die Hard about a thousand times, no doubt.”

“Oh, we’re going there? Should we talk about how many times you’ve watched The Fast and the Furious?”

From there, the conversation devolves into an argument about our respective bad taste in cinema. We bicker like old men until a knock on my hotel room door distracts me.

“Hold on. Someone’s at the door.”

“Are you expecting anyone?”

Already standing, I stop short. Suddenly, the closed door looks very ominous. “No.”

“Look through the peephole to see who it is.”

“I have to put the phone down. The cord doesn’t reach.”

“I’ll be here. Go for it.”

I set the receiver on the desk then creep toward the door on tiptoe. I flatten myself against it and look through.

An older man in a concierge uniform stands at the door, holding a brown paper bag. He has white hair, a cheerful smile, and a gold name tag on his lapel that reads “Ernesto.”

Ernesto doesn’t look like he’s here to kill me, but you never know. Squirrels are super cute, but they can carry the plague.

I call out, “Yes?”

“A delivery for Miss Everdeen.” He holds up the bag, smiling wider.

“Will you please take it out and show me what it is?”

His smile falters, but he obliges. From the bag he pulls out something wrapped in purple tissue paper. It’s oddly shaped, with a point one end.

“Um…can you unwrap it, please?”

Ernesto looks as if he’s beginning to regret not leaving the package at the door and running away when he had the chance. He tears off the tissue paper from the pointy end of the object, exposing what looks like a horn.

A golden horn, covered in sparkly glitter.

I yank open the door, grab the object from the startled concierge, and rip off the remaining tissue paper.

Staring in astonishment at the stuffed animal in my hands, I breathe, “Son of a bitch.”

“The gentleman who left the package also included a note.” He jiggles the brown bag.

I take the bag from him and go back inside the room, too dazed to feel bad that I didn’t give him a tip.

When I pick up the phone again, Max demands, “So? Who was it?”

“Not who. What.”

“I don’t get it.”

Inside joke. “It was the concierge. He had a package for me.”

“Like a welcome basket?”

“No. Like a gift someone left for me at his desk.”

“A gift? That hotel is your safe spot! Who’d you tell you were there?”

“No one. I wasn’t followed here, either. I’m sure of it.”

“What’s the gift?”

I stare in disbelief at the stuffed animal in my hands. At its golden glitter horn and its flowing rainbow mane and tail. At its four hooves encrusted with tiny rhinestone crystals.

“I want you to trust me.”

“And I want a unicorn pony. So here we are.”

Recalling my conversation with Killian, I start softly laughing. “It’s a unicorn pony.”

After a beat, Max says, “Is that code for dildo or something?”

I prop the receiver between my ear and shoulder and marvel at the unicorn, turning it over in my hands. “No, gutter brain. It’s a stuffed animal.”

“Who the hell is sending you stuffed animals? More importantly, why?”

“Wait, there’s a note.”

I pull a square white envelope from the brown bag, open it, and remove the card inside. I read aloud, “Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene.”

There’s no signature, nothing else but the quote, but there doesn’t have to be. A small, impressed voice deep inside me whispers Wow, he’s something, this guy but I quickly squash it.

After a moment of silence, Max says, “That’s Shakespeare.”

“Yep. It’s the first line of Romeo and Juliet.”

She shouts, “Is that fucking unicorn pony from the Big Bad Wolf?”

“It is.”

Her gasp is low and thrilled. “And he’s sending you quotes from the most romantic love story ever written? Oh god. My heart.”

“Don’t sound so swoony, idiot! Romeo and Juliet isn’t a romance, it’s a tragedy! Six people die over the course of four days because of two stupid teenagers!”

Max isn’t moved by my logic. “But you get the symbolism of that particular quote, right?”

I roll my eyes to the ceiling. “If I didn’t, I’m sure you’re about to enlighten me.”

“You’re Juliet—well, obviously—and he’s Romeo. Two star-crossed lovers from feuding families, brought together by fate—”

I interrupt crossly, “Destined to die through a series of ridiculous miscommunications and bad timing.”

“—bound by true love—”

“Puh-lease. Insta love is not true love. Romeo was pining over some other chick the night he first saw Juliet and decided she was his soul mate. Talk about fickle.”

“—and ultimately ending the age-old vendetta between their families—”

“Because they died. They died! How are you not getting this?”

“This is a sign, Jules,” she counters, sounding adamant. “Forget about the death part. He’s sending you an olive branch.”

“More like a warning.”

“He’s saying he knows who you are. He knows who he is. He knows what the stakes are. And he still wants you!”

“You have really gone off the deep end, my friend.”

“When did you become so anti-love, anyway?”

After a moment, I say quietly, “When my mother was killed by the car bomb meant for the mobster she married.”

Max’s sigh is heavy. “Oh fuck. I’m sorry. Me and my big mouth.”

“Don’t worry about it. Ancient history.” I throw the stuffed unicorn across the room. It bounces off the carpet, tumbling to a stop to gaze at me with hurt blue eyes.

“So…what are we going to do about this? He knows you’re at that hotel. He might know Fin and my phone numbers, and possibly our safe spot locations, too, since he’s got spooky good people finding skills. He knows our apartment address. He probably knows where we all work. And we can’t hide forever.”

I know what she’s suggesting. I know she’s right, too. But boy, I don’t want to do it.

I want this thing—whatever it is—between me and the Big Bad Wolf to be over before it’s begun.

Grudgingly, I pull the small white card from my pocket and stare at his number.

Stupid Romeo. I’d like to smash in your face. I tell Max, “Fine. I’ll call him. Satisfied?”

“Don’t forget to thank him for the gift.”

I hang up before I throw anything else across the room and dial Killian’s number.