Under My Heel Read online

  Michael turned the paper sideways to try and browbeat the lines into a semblance of understanding.

  That effort was useless.

  He went searching through more of the papers and a couple of those had more marks in the sides. He wasn’t able to glean a name, but he was able to learn one bit of information.

  The American Pack Council had a Forsaken mole in their midst.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Key Biscayne, Fl. - USA

  Lance was relaxing on the patio outside Bethany Anne’s main house in Key Biscayne. He was sipping on a beer when the patio door opened and Patricia stepped out with a white wine in her hand.

  Lance smiled towards the woman, she had been everything he had needed and more. He pushed out the chair next to him in invitation and she smiled in response and sat down, placing her wine on the table.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” She asked him.

  “I can’t believe it’s done.” The sun was going down and it would get unseasonably cold this evening. For both Patricia and Lance, it wasn’t uncomfortable at all. They had spent most of their life in Colorado and were well acquainted with ‘cold’ weather. Miami didn’t have anything close to cold in its temperature range.

  She took a sip from her wine, it was a nice Riesling. The contents of her glass had a nice floral aroma and sharp taste. If she went back in, she would see if the fridge had a cheese that would go with it. “The base?” She often knew exactly what Lance was thinking after so many years working together.

  “Yes.” He said no more.

  “What’s bothering you?”

  He glanced over at the woman beside him and sighed. “There isn’t any hiding stuff from you, is there?”

  She communed with her wine for a second, “Of course you can. I didn’t realize the owner of this beautiful house, the CEO of the corporation was your own daughter.” The sunset light was playing in her wine, mesmerizing colors swirling around.

  Lance smiled. “Hah! That’s probably the only thing I was able to hide from you and ’Thank God’ it was only for a day. It helped that you thought she was dead and so didn’t consider her an option.” Lance turned back to look out over the water.

  Patricia looked up, “You’re probably right. I’m being too hard on myself. My lack of perfection was starting to grate on my nerves for a minute. I appreciate you reminding me that you only succeeded because you were working for the undead.” Patricia sucked her breath in, sometimes she forgot to close her damn mouth around this man.

  Fortunately, Lance took it as the joke she intended, “That’s right! I guess you could say that I have worked for the Undead in both versions of the meaning.” Lance rubbed his hands together, “I can’t wait to spring that on old futz and guts.”

  Patricia’s face wore her expression of confusion elegantly, “Who?” Before Lance could respond, she made her best guess, “Frank?”

  Lance continued looking out over the water, but pointed his hand in her direction, “That’s why I needed you so bad. I don’t even have to explain the little things.”

  She resolved to circle back around to Frank later. “Why are you surprised we got the base back and what has you so melancholic over it?”

  “Surprised because I figured it would be another couple of years, melancholic because I’m the asshole corporate raider that helped close it down. I would never, in my life, have thought that I would be the cause of good men and women in the service needing to move from that location.”

  Patricia understood what was causing Lance’s unease. He blamed himself for the base closing the military connection and going private. “We have open calls for those who want to leave the Army and help with the new base, changes and security, to stay in the area. From my conversation this morning, it looks like we are going to be resourced pretty well. Both on security and on the engineering side.”

  Lance looked over at Patricia and raised an eyebrow.

  “Probably 100% of our short term needs and 70% of our long term needs on security are going to be staying with us.”

  Hot damn, Lance thought, the eyebrow worked!

  He asked, “How did you get that many to move private?”

  “There seemed to be a rumor going around about the new corporation. Apparently they are moving their corporate headquarters, and highly valuable research and development. It appears that they have a ‘military history’.”

  “You didn’t!”

  Patricia looked at her fingernails, admiring the nail job she had done just this morning. She let Lance sit for another few seconds before answering, “You’re right, I didn’t.”

  Lance grumped and turned back towards the view.

  “Kevin did.”

  Lance swung his head back towards her, shock on his face. “Kevin knows? You told Kevin?”

  Patricia looked dead into Lance’s eyes. Sometimes she wished she could use a bat, this man’s skull was that dense to the obvious. “No. I didn’t tell Kevin. However, Kevin is a little quicker on the uptake than you. He knows I wouldn’t quit my job and move to Florida for just anyone so I assume he is making a very educated guess.”

  Lance was working on her statement. He knew there were two discussions going on, but he couldn’t connect the first because the comment about Kevin kept his attention. Well, hell, he would come back to it.

  He turned back again. Maybe taking over his old base wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

  Key Biscayne, FL - USA

  Bethany Anne, Gabrielle and Ashur arrived back in her suite. This time, Ashur ignored her shoes and walked to the door ready to get out. Gabrielle did the honors and Ashur took off ahead of them, down the stairs. Bethany Anne figured he might need to get outside.

  Gabrielle waved over her shoulder as she walked ahead of Bethany Anne, “I’m heading next door. I’ll send John and Eric over.” Gabrielle was out the front door before Bethany Anne had made it down the steps. She could hear her dad and Patricia in the back. It sounded like they were possibly having a personal moment, so she turned around and headed back upstairs. No need to spray any gasoline on that little fire right now. Bethany Anne hadn’t decided whether she was going to get personally involved in that relationship or not.

  Ecaterina and Nathan’s dance had been fun to watch, and even more fun to poke and prod at every once in a while. Bethany Anne wasn’t sure whether to have fun at her father’s expense, always tempting, or find a moment to slap her father upside his overly caveman-thick skull. Unfortunately, she shouldn’t tell him that Patricia ‘wouldn’t wait forever’ because to date, she already had.

  As she walked back into her room she heard her phone go off. She walked over to her nightstand to pick it up. Ecaterina would kill her if she realized that she had left it behind.

  As she answered the phone, she could smell that Ecaterina had already picked up her phone. Looks like she was in for a ‘discussion’ in Ecaterina’s unsympathetic Romanian accent. Bethany Anne had a hard time feeling ‘talked at’ when the person talking to you sounded sexy as shit.

  “Hey Michael.” Bethany Anne sat on her bed. The back patio was not an option. She didn’t want to intrude on what might become a personal moment. She considered her other options for a location to hold this conversation. She stood back up to get a jacket and go out. Damn shame Shelly wasn’t around.

  “Hello Bethany Anne, how are you?” Michael was like that. He was ever the polite person with her, no matter how much she tried to poke the bear. His aloofness making it hard to settle into any sort of relationship. She was no longer the woman who needed his help. With TOM’s information, she often understood more about what was going on with their abilities than Michael did.

  She considered how she could poke him one more time, and keep poking him to see what would get reactions out of the man.

  “I’m not late, that’s how I am.” There, take that. Next time you come rushing to rescue the damsel who-wasn’t-in-distress be on time.

  “That’s nice. I didn’t realize that sti
ll occurred since your change.”

  Gott Verdammt. That mother-fucker just dinged her and got a point in. Fucking prick!

  Shit, she had no retort for that statement. He was getting better, time to up her game. Can’t have a thousand-year-old walking aristocrat thinking he’s got game.

  Then again, she had seen him without a shirt, so he had at least some game. Not that she would ever admit that to Michael, his overgrown ego would explode.

  “Lots of things you don’t know about me since my change. Come to think about it, you didn’t know me well before my change either. But, enough about my mysteriousness. Whatcha’ got?”

  Damn, Michael thought, he was sure he was going to get under her skin with that comment. Time to figure out how to ‘up his game’ as Stephen would say. “I’ve been going through Anton’s records and I found some notes that suggest he has a contact on the American Pack Council.”

  Bethany Anne’s face clouded up, “Seriously?”

  “Yes.”

  Bethany Anne grabbed her purse and headed out the door of her suite. She heard the front door start to open, so her shadows had arrived. She boosted her speed to meet John as he opened the door. She quickly fit between the half-open door and John, his face moving from startled to resigned as his boss left him behind.

  He closed the door behind her.

  Bethany Anne walked over to one of the SUV’s and jumped in the back.

  John called out, “Where are we going?”

  Bethany Anne answered Michael, “I wish that asshole was still alive so I could kick his nuts hard enough he would suffocate.”

  Eric looked over at John and mouthed, “Anton?” John shrugged his shoulders and nodded that was his guess as well.

  Bethany Anne answered John’s question, “Take me to someplace that sells Bugatti’s. I feel a need for speed.”

  Eric took out his phone. “Hot damn, car shopping!”

  John wasn’t too happy, “Those cars have four seats, right?”

  Eric shrugged, “Beats the fuck out of me, if they have two seats then Miss Moneybags… Oww!” Eric spun around in his seat after his ear blazed with a sharp, intense pain. Bethany Anne was sitting in the back seat, looking out her window ignoring the byplay of her guards up front. Eric turned back around while rubbing his sore earlobe. “Then our beloved leader, Bethany Anne, will need to purchase two so her ever-dependable and long-suffering…” Eric slammed his hand back over his ear, but nothing happened, “Guards will be able to keep up.”

  John smiled, he decided he could support that argument. “Then hurry up with the directions, we are wasting valuable daylight my good man.”

  Michael continued the conversation from his side. He had heard everything including the infinitesimal amount of sound when Bethany Anne flicked her guard’s ear. He was trying to understand why she allowed what seemed like disrespect from her guards. He couldn’t, however, deny that all of them would put their own life on the line to save hers. Maybe he had a few things to learn, yet. “Yes, well Ecaterina and Killian made short work of him. His death was too quick for what he deserved.”

  “I thought you were ambivalent about Anton? I know you have a hard-on for David…”

  “I do NOT have a ‘hard-on’ for David.”

  Bethany Anne snickered, point for her.

  “Sorry.” No she wasn’t. “Turn of phrase. I mean I know you want David’s death to be significant, but I thought you didn’t care about Anton’s as much.”

  Dammit, that was a point, he was sure she got a point in there. She often got him by using vernacular he wasn’t used to hearing. When he pulled out a phrase from the 1980’s it took her three minutes to stop laughing. He had almost hung up except that would have given her extra bonus something or other. “I’ve been having to deal with, and clean up, Anton’s mess for the last few weeks. I have a fresh appreciation for his evil.”

  Bethany Anne grew somber… “Thank you, Michael. I do appreciate you taking on this effort.” Her genuineness was felt by Michael thousands of miles away as if he was there in the car with her.

  Just like that, Michael’s irritations with Bethany Anne evaporated. “It is mine to clean up. I still owe you, for you having to deal with everything while I was… indisposed.”

  Bethany Anne was aware Michael had a problem with admitting how weak he had been while in David’s captivity. He still didn’t like it, when he had to refer to his time in the vessel. He never would admit to Bethany Anne how he had become trapped. When she cornered Stephen one time, he hadn’t known either.

  “The past is just the past, Michael. What do you think we need to do about the American Pack Council?”

  “Kill them all?”

  Gott Verdammt! Bethany Anne was ready to give Michael both barrels about how killing everyone wasn’t the only option, when she heard the silent chuckle escape his lips.

  She bit back her first words and changed them, “You ass-riding scrotum king!” This time, Michael didn’t try to hold back his chuckles. Nor the laughter when she kept calling him names. “You flipping slut-sucking experimental nipple dictator!” She stopped calling him names when she realized he had put his hand over the phone and was howling with laughter.

  Eric was busy, typing furiously on his phone. John looked over at him, “Duplicate?” Eric pressed the return key, “Hell no, how the … uh, stuff does she come up with so many?”

  She waited, and waited, and fucking waited. Mind you, what seemed like forever was probably only fifteen seconds. Michael wasn’t usually comfortable letting loose very much. She could almost imagine him daintily wiping one tear away from his eye.

  When he returned to the phone call, he was as much the ever reserved ass-munch he had been when she first met him, “So, if that isn’t an option, what would you suggest?”

  She was tempted to tell him ‘kill them all’ as a joke, but he might take that as permission. “Call Gerry and setup a meeting for the council, leave the reason for the meeting vague and show up to find out who the guilty party is. Then keep the punishment to a minimum. I’m not really fond of just using death as the only punishment for all crimes. Kind of sucks when minor littering is death, jaywalking is death, running a yellow light is death…”

  Michael sniffed, “Perhaps, but it makes the punishment phase very easy.”

  “A little lazy, but I understand.” Bethany Anne noticed they were on the South Dixie Highway and she was hungry. She leaned forward and cupped the phone, more for appearances than stopping the vampire on the other line from hearing anything. “Hey, pause the Bugatti run. I needs me some Joe’s dogs.”

  John smiled. Bethany Anne had been buying Joes ever since they first met her and she had convinced the proprietor to swing by and feed Dan’s group. If by ‘convince’ you meant dropping twenty-five large ones on him. Now, his place was on the main road into Miami proper from her house and damn near every time she went near the place she would have them swing through.

  Eric knew that once they finished stuffing their faces, Bethany Anne would probably be out of the ‘need for speed’ feeling. “So close.” He muttered under his breath.

  Michael considered her response. “Ok, do you want me to come up there for this?”

  Bethany Anne returned to her conversation with Michael. “Not sure, I’ll talk with Gerry and Nathan and see what we need to do. If you show up, we are liable to have people jumping out of the windows.” Michael kept quiet, she could be right.

  They said their good-byes as John pulled up. The red food trailer didn’t presently have anyone in line. Before he could come to a complete stop, Bethany Anne was out of the SUV and heading to the window.