Chapter Three
Leaving the strip club by the side door, Beast stuck his ear piece in. “Barbie.”
“I’m here,” Barbie answered. “Did you find her?”
“Damn, Beast” Tex cut in. “Didn’t know you had moves like that.”
Beast frowned. “You’re one nosy son of a bitch, you know that?”
Tex chuckled. “But you adore me.”
“You two can make love later,” Mouth said, laughter in his voice. “Right now we need more information.”
“Agreed,” Beast said. “But I can’t be in two places at once. Barbie, go to the Gieren Nach and keep an eye on them. Dress to impress.”
“Fashion is my jam, you know that,” Barbie said.
Beast chuckled. “Once they leave, Mouth, take over. I’ll relieve you the second I can. If I can’t I’ll have to send Zero.”
“Roger that,” Mouth said.
There were a couple of clicks indicating his teammates had gone off to follow his instructions. He cleared his throat. “Tex.”
“Dude was asked to help with some training at your headquarters,” Tex said. “If you’re running low on manpower I can have him chip in. I’m sure he won’t mind.”
“Wait, Dude is here?”
“Came in twenty minutes ago.”
“Don’t make the call for now.” Beast glanced around to ensure he was still alone. “Let us figure out if there really is an issue first. No sense sounding all the alarms just yet.”
Tex agreed and after the conversation was over, Beast pulled his helmet on while shoving his thumb against the sensor to start the engine. After checking his blind spots, he pulled out of the alley and onto the street.
At Beast’s apartment, he changed then sat across from Rei “Zero” Hakama who had been busy going through the dossier on Miracle. Beast leaned over and took the first few pages Zero had already finished. As he skimmed through them, Beast still couldn’t understand how her parents could name their child Miracle. A part of him could see the reason—they were happy to have had a little girl as beautiful as Miracle. But he could also imagine the issue in the school yard when she was a kid.
Beast made an annoyed sound in his throat and put the pages back into the folder Zero had been holding.
“She moved a long way from home,” Zero said.
“It’s not permanent. She’s doing research for her dissertation.”
“She’s a brain,” Zero said, a smile tracing his lips. “That is such a change from the women I come across these days.”
“I hear that. But those guys didn’t go after her because of her brain. They went after her for a whole other reason.”
“I know.” Zero turned his attention back to the folder. “I mean, if all they wanted was to rob her. They would’ve taken off when they saw her pull into that lot. These guys stuck around. Who knows what would have happened had she not called Tex.”
That thought unsettled Beast more than he cared to admit. “You hungry?”
“I could eat.” Zero didn’t look up from the notes Tex had sent.
Beast rose and made his way into the kitchen. His mind whirled a million miles a second, trying to run through different scenarios of what could have happened.
“Beast, it says here she’s been asking questions on Heinrik Loft.”
“Oh yeah?” Beast sprinkled some pork chops with ground pepper and seat salt. “Who’s he?”
“He was a kid Adolf Hitler kind of adopted.” Zero entered the kitchen. “He was about, fourteen in 1942. Which would make him about—in his late eighties now?”
“I’ve never heard of him.” Beast set the pork chops on an oiled cookie sheet and set it into the preheated oven. When he closed the door, he set the timer then faced Zero.
“Not many have. It’s not like they taught us anything about him in school. His name was mentioned a few times but just to read over and move on. Most people here have forgotten about him since he was a kid then and when the war ended he just kind of vanished.”
“So he could still be alive.”
“Yeah,” Zero replied.
“Well, we look into all possibilities.”
While they waited for dinner to cook, the two delved into more research. By the time the food was ready, they were right back to where they started—being as clear as mud.
The two ate in relative silence. They tried once more to figure out why Miracle was attacked while sipping on beers but in the end, they were still nowhere close to deciding if there was any real danger.
Soon, Zero called it a night and left the apartment. But Beast couldn’t sleep. He checked in with Mouth and Barbie about how Miracle and her friend were doing then crawled into bed. It was useless. He should’ve known the sandman would be a jerk. He finally gave up and wandered back into the living room where her information sat on the center table.
Around two in the morning, his phone rang. He glanced at the screen to see Fleur flashing at him. He smiled, and answered it.
“Miracle, is something wrong?” he asked.
She gasped softly, her breathing hitching in her throat. “No. Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted—well, I just wanted…”
“You wanted?” Beast set the photo of her he’d been staring at down on the table with the rest of the paperwork and eased from the sofa to wander to the balcony. “Did you want me to tuck you in, Fleur?”
He could see her frowning inside his head. She made an irritated sound on the other end of the line and he laughed.
“That’s a dumb thing to say.” She muttered.
“You haven’t denied it.”
“And how precisely would you—you know what? Never mind. I just wanted...” She sighed in what seemed to be frustration.
“You have to tell me what you want, Fleur. If you can’t say it, you can’t have it.”
A soft whimper left her lips and he smiled. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Miracle was calling to ask him for a little phone fun. Though the thought of sliding over her body in bed, taking her hard and fast to ride her until she’s climaxed enough times to fall asleep was tempting, Beast bit his tongue.
“I couldn’t sleep and I figured I could talk to you.”
“Okay.” Beast settled into his seat. “What did you want to talk about?”
“Do you really think I’m in trouble?”
“Well, I won’t speculate until I figure who owns that car. Miracle, why did you call me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Listen, I know this isn’t the ideal situation,” Beast said, entering the room and closing the door behind him. He pulled the curtains in place then flopped back onto the sofa. “But we’ll do what we can to get you out of here safely.”
“Liane too?”
“Liane—I was…” Beast stopped himself. “Yes. Liane too.”
“Should I keep calling you Beast?” Miracle asked. “It would be nice to know your real name.”
Beast hesitated but then remembered the phone was secure. He smiled. “Alric. My name is Alric Gerhart.”
“Alric—not what I expected.”
“Oh?” Beast asked. “What did you expect? Bob?”
Miracle laughed, a smoky sound that left him trembling.
“Good night, Beast,” she said.
“Goodnight, Fleur.” His voice cracked but he waited until he heard dial tone before he hung up.
Sweet dreams.
It had been nice speaking to Beast on the phone. And afterward, Miracle spent a few minutes thinking of the heat in his tone and the wetness between her legs. She wouldn’t feel guilty for that. Beast was a sexy man and a woman would have to be dead to not be turned on by him. Then again, they didn’t see him half naked and gyrating or feel his tight abs ripple under their palms. Put all of that together and Miracle wanted to explode.
She fell asleep with a smile. The next morning, she was thrust back into reality when the magnitude of what had truly happened returned.
She paced her bedroom wondering if she should stay in that day. There wasn’t really anything she needed that couldn’t wait until after her get together with Beast. But why should she hide away? Sure, Miracle appreciated the fact that she might be in danger but what was she supposed to do? Live the rest of her life in her apartment?
No, she wasn’t about to be a shut in.
She’d just pulled on her jeans when her laptop beeped and Melody’s face popped up.
“Jesus!” Miracle exclaimed. “I could have been naked, you know?”
Melody Keegan laughed. “I told him that. That’s why Tex had me call first. How are you, Miracle?”
“I’ve been better. You’re glowing.”
Melody laughed. “How can I not be? I have a sexy as hell man, who loves me and friends who are fantastic—a pain in the butt sometimes, but fantastic.”
“One day I want all that.”
“And you will. I hear Beast isn’t exactly bad looking.”
“Hey!” Tex said, sticking his head into view. “None of that.”
Melody and Miracle laughed. Melody blew her a kiss, dropped one to the side of Tex’s head and rose from the chair. After she was gone, Tex’s eyes became serious.
“Listen, I’ve been doing some diggin’,” Tex said. “I haven’t called Beast yet but I’m goin’ to have to.”
Feeling the air suck out of the room, Miracle picked up her laptop and moved to the bed. She curled her legs under her and focused on Tex’s handsome face. “Okay. I’m sitting. Let’s have it.”
“I found out you’ve been asking questions on Heinrik Loft. I went back and did some diggin’. After World War 2 ended, he went underground for a while. Surfaced when he was twenty-one and tried reviving Hitler’s old ideals. It didn’t pan out and so he fell off the grid again. In Germany, he has a group that is still loyal to him. They operate in silence and are quite deadly.”
“Is he alive?”
“If he is I haven’t been able to find anything on him. No credit card, phone bills, bank accounts, tax returns—nada. But, they don’t call me the computer whisperer for nothin’. It’s gonna take me a bit. But I’ll find him.”
“So they really are after me.”
“I’m afraid so, my beauty. But don’t worry. I know Beast and his team and they are some of the best. Plus, Dude is in that neck of the woods.”
“Faulkner is here?”
“Yeah. M.J, I’m not gonna lie to you. These guys are dangerous. I don’t want you to take any unnecessary risks.”
“What am I supposed to do then? Just wither away in this apartment? I can’t go back home because then I would have failed my dissertation and...”
“Miracle, you’re a billionaire—why is this so important right now—in this very moment in time?”
“You wouldn’t understand. Thanks for your help but I have to go.”
“Miracle!”
But she closed the laptop with a quick flip of a wrist and left the bedroom. Though Liane asked her what was happening, she said nothing of what happened in the last few minutes. The last thing she wanted was another damn lecture. There were so many things running around in her head as she left Liane in the apartment and made her way down to her car. When she reached it, Miracle was stunned to see the damage to the side was no longer there. Glancing around, she pulled out her cell and called Beast.
“Miracle. What’s up?”
“Did you fix my car?” She asked, opening the door and sliding into the leather seat.
“Mouth, fixed your car,” Beast replied.
“You have to thank him for me,” Miracle said. “But you didn’t have to do that.”
“You are familiar with how this little family works, correct?” Beast asked. “We do for each other.”
Miracle smiled. Cookie, one of Tex’s friends, had told her the same thing on the day they laid Curtis to rest. She thanked him again.
“Where are you going, Fleur?”
“I had a life before all this bullshit, remember?” Miracle said. “I’m going to pick up a few things.” She wouldn’t tell him she was going to buy pepper spray, since it might be illegal in Germany.
Beast laughed. “Lingerie?”
“I didn’t think a man with the name Beast would want lingerie. I figured you’d just want easy access.”
“Lingerie is always a good thing, Miracle—they sound beautiful being ripped from the body.”
Miracle bit back a whimper and pressed her legs together. “I have to go!” She hung up quickly and dropped the phone on the passenger seat. Shaking it off, she drove from the parking space and headed into the center of the city. She’d always planned on getting some new jeans and underwear. If she went about her life as usual, all she had to do was be careful.
At the mall, she stopped for a coffee then got into getting the things she needed. Usually, she’d spend hours, window shopping and the like. But knowing some strange organization was out to get her, quickened her steps and the length of her transactions.
She’d just stepped out of the final store when she was bounced on both sides. Arms grabbed her shoulders and something hard was shoved into her side.
“No screaming,” a man’s gruff voice warned. “Any sound and you’re dead.”