Big Bad Beast

CHAPTER 8

Dee was busy trying to think of ways she could ditch Ric. Not that she didn’t appreciate his trying to help, but she didn’t need a babysitter and she wasn’t in the mood to share a cab to Rory’s hotel so that Ric could complain about her needing a place of her own. She had one, she just never went there. She always meant to but then something came up and by the time she got around to heading home, it was just easier to head to the hotel or Bobby Ray’s place.

Thinking she had a good excuse, Dee began to lie but stopped when she saw it. It sat in its own little spot, all by itself, freshly washed and detailed by the staff kept down here, Dee was betting. But worth it, she had to admit. So worth it. Because if there was one thing Dee didn’t believe in scrimping on, it was an automobile. And good Lord, but Ulrich Van Holtz had the best automobiles.

Now, it was true, she leaned toward American muscle. Cars from the sixties and seventies that, with the right engine, could hit speeds that would have troopers on her ass for days. But unlike her cousins, Dee had no problem with small foreign cars that just reeked of speed and sex. And that was the one thing she really liked about Van Holtz. The man knew how to pick his cars. Most of the time, they weren’t even on the market yet in the States. Instead, he had them shipped over from Italy, Germany, and Asia.

Today he’d gone for a Mercedes-Benz so new that it wasn’t even on the market in Europe yet. She knew because she’d read the article about its upcoming European release in one of Sissy Mae’s magazines.

While Ric tried to force his hockey bag into that tiny trunk, Dee dragged her fingers over the rear fender and moved around the vehicle to the passenger door.

How Ric managed to get the American version of a German car not yet available in Germany, Dee didn’t know. She didn’t ask. To be honest, she didn’t care. Because the mystery made it even sexier.

“You like?” he asked. “Just picked it up.”

“Nice.”

He grinned and unlocked the doors by remote. Dee slid into the leather seat and her entire body tingled from the contact. Now this was luxury. These Manhattan females with their obsession for shoes and bags and designer clothes that were out of style a nanosecond after they were sold could keep all their fancy crap. Instead, Dee would take this, thank you very much.

Dee buckled her seatbelt and, without thinking, gave Ric the address of the apartment she never went to. In fact, she was so busy touching and admiring the man’s car that she didn’t even know they were moving until they stopped in front of her building.

“This is where you live?”

Busy opening and closing the glove box, Dee snapped her head up, quickly taking in her surroundings and the scum that were eyeing Ric’s car—and probably Ric—from the various alleys and dark corners of the neighborhood.

What had she been thinking? Why didn’t she tell him to take her to the hotel? Especially since her apartment had no damn furniture in it! And to be honest, the whole street was nothing but a gangland horror show, filled with junkies, pimps, and murderers. A place where Dee-Ann could get information when she needed it without worrying about asking nicely or that the cops would show up should things get ugly. Although one could hear sirens going off all night long, cops and emergency personnel rarely came to this part of town until the sun came up and any bodies lying on the ground could be clearly seen.

Scrambling to get Ric out of here, Dee said, “Well, thanks and—”

“I’ll walk up with you.”

“No!” Dee cleared her throat. “What I mean to say is . . . not necessary. Besides, you can’t leave your car here anyway.”

“I can’t leave my car here, but I’m supposed to leave you here? And that makes sense because . . .”

Stubborn. As stubborn as a mule. Even worse, Ric’s technique was to keep questioning her until he either wore her down or the entire street descended on them in a mass attack.

No, what Dee needed to do was get this over with quickly.

“Come on then,” she snapped and got out of the car.

She stood on the street and glared down one end of the block to the other. She saw bodies step back into the darkness, not wanting to be seen by her. No one wanted to be seen by Dee. She didn’t know why specifically, but she didn’t mind. Not around here.

Together they quickly walked up the stairs of the building, Dee finding herself more and more embarrassed as they stepped over trash and filth and a couple of piles that were breathing and smelled like ninety-proof liquor. Trying to be rich or look like she was rich was not something Dee-Ann ever thought about. Normally, what people thought of her or how they saw her, didn’t matter much. But, for the first time that she could remember, Dee was embarrassed. Terribly embarrassed that Ulrich Van Holtz of the mighty Van Holtz Pack was seeing a Smith—any Smith—living like this.

Lord, she hoped her momma never found out about this. That She-wolf would have a fit! Where Dee-Ann and her daddy usually couldn’t care less what people thought, they did care an awful lot what Darla Lewis thought.

Finally at her door, Dee quickly unlocked it. “Thanks,” she said and stepped inside. She turned to close the door behind her but Van Holtz had already walked in. Normally as polite as any Southerner Dee had grown up with, Van Holtz would never do such a thing. But when it came to Dee-Ann, he seemed to be less about polite and more about getting his own damn way.

“Oh, Dee-Ann.”

She could hear the horror in his voice and she forced herself not to cringe. “Look, I ain’t got time to put in fancy furniture and clean up. It’s not like I’ve had much time these last few months.”

“Dee-Ann, a couple of crates does not true furniture make.” He hit the switch for the lights—lights that didn’t come on. “Is the Group not paying you enough?”

Dee cringed. This was getting worse by the second. “Of course, they are. You are. I just haven’t been back here for a while and I haven’t had time to set up the apartment bills to be automatically paid online. It’s not a big deal. I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

“It’s roasting in here. The middle of summer. No electricity, no AC. You’ll overheat.”

“I’ll pant.”

“You’ll be like a dog locked in some idiot’s car.” He took several steps farther in. “And you’re still living out of your bags?” He faced her, his eyes naturally reflecting the light coming from a streetlamp outside her apartment window, which had no curtains or blinds. “How long have you had this place?”

Months, but she wasn’t about to admit that. “It’ll be fine.”

She walked past him to her window. Her eyes narrowed and she opened the window, leaned out, and gave one of her vicious snarling-barks at the males circling around Van Holtz’s car. They took off running and Dee turned around to find Ric . . . cleaning her floor?

“What in hell are you doin’?”

“You’re not staying here. I am not letting you stay here.”

He wasn’t cleaning her floor, he was shoving the few clothes she had here back into her duffle bag. Dee rolled her eyes in an attempt to hide her mortification at this current situation.

“That’s real sweet of you, Ric,” although she had to work hard not to sound bitter, “but I don’t need you to . . . what are you looking at?”

Still crouched on the floor next to her bag, he was staring off in a dark corner near her barely used closet. Standing, he walked over, spun around, and came right back, picking up her duffle bag.

“We’re out of here.”

“What is it?”

“Vermin. You have vermin.” He looked at her duffle bag, flung it to the floor. “I’ll buy you new clothes.”

“Darlin’, this is New York City. There’s vermin everywhere. They were just circling your car.”

“I’m not talking human vermin, Dee-Ann. I can handle human vermin. This kind of vermin . . . I can’t handle.”

Surprised a wolf would openly act so freaked out about a goddamn rat, Dee-Ann walked over to her closet to show Van Holtz how a Smith handled a little ol’ vermin problem.

Ric stood by the door, foot tapping impatiently, his entire body coiled and ready to make a crazed sprint out the window and to the safety of the unsafe street below. But, as much as he might want to, he would never leave Dee-Ann alone to face that . . . that thing she had living in her closet.

It was a known fact around the world that there were two things the Van Holtzes hated universally, whether it was the American Van Holtzes, the German, the Italian—whatever. And those universally hated things? Roaches and rats, the bane of any restaurant’s existence.

For the Van Holtz Pack the hatred went far deeper than that. It wasn’t unexpected that one of their restaurants would be shut down for weeks if there was any sign of vermin. Even the health department’s more scummy inspectors, willing to take a payoff to overlook things, didn’t bother to try to elicit bribes from any Van Holtz. What was the point when the whole group reacted to any sign of mold, fungus, or vermin with an intense violence rivaled only by actual house cats? In fact, a few Van Holtzes, including Ric, were known to hire feline line cooks just so they could deal with any rodent problems. But there could be no playing with the vermin, as some felines liked to do—especially those mountain lions and leopards—they were there to kill, kill, kill. One of Ric’s favorite grill men was an Ecuadorian cheetah who went after vermin with an almost psychotic glee. When he finally left the restaurant to run his own kitchen—Ric cried a little.

Sighing dramatically, Dee ambled across the room to see the horror that lay in wait. He knew what she was going to do. Or what she’d try to do—show Ric what a big wuss he was being. Well, let her try, he thought, seconds before she fled back to his side, panting, eyes wide in fear.

“It hissed at me,” she said, her voice a tad higher than he’d ever heard it before.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“Are rats supposed to hiss?”

“It’s not a farm rat, Dee. It’s a Manhattan rat.”

“It’s the size of my cousin’s dog!”

“And has a nest it’s protecting, so I suggest we just get the hell—”

It came skidding out into the middle of the room, all long and ripped like it had been on steroids for years. It hissed at the pair again, beady eyes red and pulsating with rage. And, going on instinct alone rather than rational thought, the two wolves made a crazed run for it, right out the door and into the hall, Ric slamming the door shut behind them. They stood with their backs against it, their shoulders pressed together, both of them panting, even shaking a little.

On the other side, that thing slammed its entire body against the wood, small claws viciously digging. The pair jumped and Dee, the She-wolf who had faced the meanest predators in this country and others, grabbed Ric’s hand and yanked him away and down the stairs, jumping over trash and drunks until they reached his car, which he was glad to see was still there.

He unlocked the doors with his remote and yanked the driver’s side door open. That’s when Ric looked up, sensing they were being watched. He’d give anything to see some terrifying human standing there, maybe with a high-powered rifle, ready to shoot them both dead. But it wasn’t some terrifying human.

“Dee . . .”

Slowly, Dee looked over her shoulder and up. The rat—a female with babes to protect—stood on the sill of that open window, glaring down at them with those beady rat eyes. Then it hissed again, showing a mouthful of fangs.

They both scrambled into the car.

“Go!” Dee yelled. “Go, go, go!”

He did, starting the car, and tearing out of that spot, grateful that the German car gods had created his car so that it went from zero to sixty in six seconds flat.

Ric didn’t stop driving until he was forced to by traffic and a red light several blocks away.

Still panting, he gripped the wheel. “You’re never going back there,” he told her, unconcerned that he was ordering her around about her personal life, a line he rarely ever crossed with anyone. Yet he simply didn’t care. “That rat and her family own that apartment now. We’ll find you something else. Something nicer.”

Dropping back against the seat, Dee nodded and said, “Okay.” And left it at that.

The light changed and Ric headed back to his place, where there was furniture, electricity, and absolutely, unequivocally, no vermin.