Chapter Seven
Before Miracle even opened her eyes, pain throbbed through her. Moving her leg was a bad idea for the hurt that caused, Miracle could have sworn she was hit by a car. It took a few more seconds for her to remember where she was and what had happened. They wanted a picture—and she had no idea what they were talking about. Throughout her research on Heinrik she had yet to find one usable picture of the kid.
“Think happy thoughts.” Miracle managed through gritted teeth. “Think happy thoughts. Be positive. You have SEALs and GSG 9-CIRO on your side. Walls mean nothing to them and Tex can find anything and anyone. Everything will work out.”
Her little pep talk didn’t work. Tears still stung her eyes threatening to fall.
“Who am I kidding? I don’t even know where the hell I am.”
Miracle sighed and shifted again, biting into her sore bottom lip against the pain. She closed her eyes again, deciding to try a new tactic.
“There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.” She muttered. After a pause, Miracle opened one eye to look around.
Nope—still in hell.
Well, you can’t believe everything you read.
After all she’d been through in the last couple of weeks, Miracle was willing to go on a little faith—even if it was blind, deaf and dumb faith.
After they’d taken her from Beast’s place, they’d worked her over. But she couldn’t tell them what she didn’t know. Grunting, she wrapped her right arm against her left side and pushed into sitting position. The room was dark and smelled like mold and cat pee. Remembering what her brother had taught her, she closed her eyes for a moment and listened. There had to be something to give her an idea of where she was. Then again, she didn’t get out much since arriving in Germany. It had all been about the library and interviews, digging through dusty, old books and archives.
She gave up on that and instantly her mind went to wondering if Beast was looking for her. Just the thought of his name brought her back to him, the way he smelled, the size of his body, the heat that filled his eyes when he looked at her. How did it all come to this?
All Miracle wanted was to pass her dissertation. She wanted to make something of herself rather than sit around and live off the blood money in her bank account. That’s what it was, right? Blood money? Her parents had to both die for her to get it. After she got her credentials, she could have become a teacher and work a little money for herself—make her own way. That had been important to her.
Instead she was stuck in a situation that could get both her and the people she cared for killed.
The sound of a lock being thrown drew her from her thoughts and she eased back into the wall. A large man entered and grabbed her by the hair. He hauled her from the room and Miracle didn’t resist, gritting her teeth against the pain. He tossed her into the center of a room where she skidded across the damp, rough floor. She crashed into the wall hard, grunting as the movements jarred her ribs.
Yup. I’m pretty sure one or more of these are cracked.
A beat of water hit her in the face. Her first instinct was to inhale and since she couldn’t stop her body from listening, Miracle turned her face away. The water hit her neck hard, forcing her into the hard surface behind her as a voice barked orders through a speaker.
“Where is the picture?” he demanded. “You can save yourself a lot of pain if you just tell me.”
Miracle coughed and sputtered but remained quiet. There were only so many times she could say something before she just gave up. She wasn’t sure how long the torture continued before they stopped and the large man dragged her back to her prison and hurled her in. Just before that, however, she pulled his cell phone from his pocket and shoved it down her shirt. As she fell, Miracle twisted her body so she would fall against her back.
Though she protected the phone and her ribs, all she could do was curl soundlessly on the floor, her eyes wide. It hurt so bad she couldn’t even scream. She allowed her body to calm down before she pulled the cell out and activated the screen. It wasn’t password protected which was strange but good for her. The first thing she did was ensure it was on silence. It ringing as she was trying to hide it wouldn’t have been a good thing. She tried remembering Beast’s number but she hadn’t bother getting used to the numbers. So, Miracle did the only thing she could. She tried calling Tex but couldn’t get through. She gritted her teeth and eased to her feet and moved close to the grilled window. She texted him instead.
Tex it’s Mira...
Miracle thought better and deleted it. Just in case the text was intercepted, using her name was a bad idea. Instead, she sent a simple text.
Fleur. SOS.
After ten minutes, no reply.
Fleur. SOS.
Another fifteen minutes past and she was about to send another message when the phone vibrated in her palm. She glanced down at the screen to see a text message from a blocked number.
Texas is listening.
Miracle wanted to cheer then. She wanted to do backflips but refrained from both. There was a sound on the other side of the door so she reached up, through the grills and set the phone, still on, on the ledge outside. Hopefully it didn’t rain or the battery didn’t die. Tex wouldn’t be able to track it if either of those things happened.
The moment she was sitting on the floor again, the door opened and a different man grabbed her.
Beast got it.
Now he knew how Tex felt when Melody was in danger. The helplessness, the sadness, the absolute rage that surged through him was indescribable. Sure, they hadn’t declared their intentions of feelings for one another. It had been too soon but Beast should have known better. In his line of work, he should’ve known regular timing meant nothing. Tomorrow was never promised when someone carried a gun for a living. So when someone like Miracle entered his life—he should’ve embraced it. He should’ve made love to her when he had the chance, held her all night, felt her heart beat against him.
Those were all regrets—and he swore a long time ago he’d never have any.
“Where are you ma petit Fleur?” Beast whispered. “Why can’t I find you?”
He gripped the railing. Hunfried had suddenly disappeared. Which meant Beast was in charge of CIRO until he could be found—
Or I put a bullet between his eyes.
But the man was nowhere to be found. No one in his family knew where he’d gone off to but they didn’t seem worried. Honestly, Beast didn’t think they cared if he was alive or had fallen off the edge of the earth.
When it came to Hunfried’s friends, CIRO had tried being discreet but after asking nicely and not getting any results, Barbie suggested knocking in some heads. Beast was more than happy with that idea. Brute force wasn’t always the answer, but to find Miracle and bring her home alive, he wasn’t above stooping to that level.
After having to use his fists a few times, they got more information that Tex was busy digging through. In the mean time, CIRO was sitting around at GSG 9 headquarters, twiddling their damn thumbs.
“We are going to find her.” Mouth’s voice was soft behind him. “We’ve never left a man behind yet and we’re not about to start now.”
Beast turned and patted his friend’s shoulder. “All my life, they’ve told me that when you care for someone and that person is in danger, you should be able to feel it—to feel that person. Why can’t I feel her? Don’t I care enough?”
“Don’t do that.” Mouth stood beside him. “Don’t ever do that. There is no magic to any of this. You’re not telepathic and there’s no such thing as telekinesis. And because there is no such thing, you have us. And we’re fantastic at what we do. Now, let’s—”
“Beast!” Pitbull came running out onto the balcony.
Beast swirled around. He couldn’t remember ever seeing Pitbull so animated—so excited. “What’s up?”
“Do you know someone by the name, Floor?” Pitbull asked.
“What?” Mouth and Beast chorused.
“That’s what Tex said. Floor.” Pitbull glanced down at the piece of paper.
“Lemme see that.” Beast took it and looked down.
Fleur.
“You mean, Fleur!” Beast exclaimed. “Fleur, Pit. It’s French for flower. It’s what I call Miracle.”
“You two have nicknames now?” Pitbull quirked a brow.
“We’ll talk about that later.” Beast barged inside to find Barbie still on the line with Tex. He took the phone from her. “Tex.”
“Yeah, brother?”
“How did you get this?” Beast asked.
“I got a text message that said Fleur SOS. I assumed it was Miracle reachin’ out and tracked the cell.”
“So you know where she is?”
Movement caught his attention and Beast glanced behind him to see Dude, Barbie, Mouth, Zero, and Pitbull were already suiting up.
“You underestimate me, Beast. You hurt my feelin’s.”
Beast smiled. “You sent it to the guys?”
“Oh yeah. Now, go get your woman.”
“She’s not my—”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Tex drawled. “We can fight about that later. I’ll send the floor plan of the place. Keep in mind the floor plan is like a million years old so there could be some updates that hasn’t been posted. I’ll also be on the comm.”
“Heinrik, Hunfried?” Beast asked.
“Still lookin’. There’s been no activities on his credit cards since yesterday and nothing on his cell phone. But there are cameras everywhere. I’ll find him.”
Beast hung up and grabbed his vest. Once he was strapped in, he shoved his Glock into the holster on his hip and all of them piled out for the transport. Zero took over for the regular driver while Pitbull slid underneath the truck to remove the tracking device. Hunfield was the ringleader of all of this and Beast didn’t know who else within the ranks was involved in the cover-up. If CIRO couldn’t be tracked, his team would be safe.
“Okay, so this building right here is the highest point and I would have a great view of ground zero,” Barbie said, tapping away at the tablet. “But I don’t know how much I’ll be able to cover you. According to this plan that building was built back in the war days—it’s like a concrete monstrosity. Once you go in, I won’t have eyes on you.”
“Let me see that,” Dude said. “Interesting. I could set up some C4 with blasting caps here and here—wait for you guys to find Miracle, then blow it. That should give you eyes on the inside.”
“Hmm,” Zero mused from the driver’s seat. “That is a good idea but we don’t know if any part of it is load bearing.”
“Well, I need eyes inside,” Barbie said. “Like I said, this place was built during World War 2 so it’s like a fucking fortress. It’s either the wall goes or I go in with you.”
“You’re going to have to go in with us.” Beast decided. “I have a feeling we’ll need all the help we can get.”
“Got it,” Barbie said.
“We can enter through here,” Beast said, taping his tablet. He knew whatever he touched would light upon the other team members’ tablets. “Dude, you and Barbie head to the wall. Zero and I will take lead. Mouth, you and Pitbull will get our six. Whoever finds Miracle first, radios in a location and heads to the nearest exit with her. Now, this is going to be hard since we don’t know what room she’s in, so we can’t set an extraction point. If we don’t find her, we exit here. And we meet back where we parked. Any questions?”
“By the way,” Dude said. “I’m not supposed to be heading out on ops while I’m here...”
“Ops?” Pitbull asked. “What Op?”
The others laughed.
“We’re not trying to start an international incident,” Mouth said. “Trust me. You’re not here.”
Beast exhaled and checked the time. They were six minutes out.”
“Six minutes,” Zero called from the front seat. “We go in on foot from Aaubast. We can use the trees to hide the truck from the road.”
“Roger that.” Beast agreed. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out an earpiece and stuck it into his right ear. He squeezed the back of it. “Tex.”
“At your service, brother,” the comforting voice of the computer genius said.