“Since when do you have guests around?” asked Caleb.
“I don’t have guests. He has a tutor. You’ve seen them?”
“Yep. Do you know who she is?”
“Haven’t got a clue.”
“She looks older than high school age.”
The warning was clear. It wouldn’t be the first time a cop has tried to pose as something to get into his home, and he wasn’t going to allow it, not today or any other day. He’d find out everything he needed.
“I take it you’ll deal with it, and with Dwayne, if she turns out to be a cop.”
“I don’t think she’s a cop.”
“Can you be sure?”
He just knew she wasn’t a cop.
“Are you here to question me or to conduct business?”
Caleb threw the keys down on the desk from one of their brothels. “I had to get rid of Howie. He was abusing the women. I won’t have that.”
Picking up the keys, Beast turned them over in his hands. The brothels were one part of the business his father owned that he really wished he could get rid of. He didn’t like it.
They brought in a shit ton of cash, but he didn’t like making his money from women who lay on their backs, spreading their legs.
“This is your problem. You deal with it. I don’t want to hear about it again until you’ve found a suitable replacement.”
Caleb left, and Beast got to work. He’d returned from one of his warehouses where his men had found a rat trying to escape the city. No one ratted on a Carson and got away with it. No one.
Time passed, and as it grew dark, he turned the lamp on over his desk, working through his files, making phone calls, and doing everything he needed to do.
“She’s gone,” Dwayne said. “I took her to where she works.”
He stared up at his nephew, leaning back in his chair. He nodded at Dwayne to put the light on.
“Before you start freaking out and doing that shouting thing you like to do, I’d like to say she’s not a cop, or anything dodgy, okay? She’s just a girl at high school.”
Beast locked his fingers together, staring at him.
“I know you weren’t around last year, but did you hear the story of the guy who killed his wife and shot his daughter?”
Beast was more than aware of it. He’d been the one to supply the lunatic with a gun. Information he kept to himself.
“I’m aware of it.”
“She’s the daughter that got shot.”
“Excuse me?” He didn’t like that. He’d made sure his men covered all traces of where the gun was purchased. Mr. Miller hadn’t had a license, but he’d had the money to pay for what he could provide.
“She wasn’t in school for a month. For two weeks her dad kept her locked up with her mother in the basement. The story is everywhere. He’d gotten paranoid or something, and had decided to take it out on mother and daughter. He killed her mother and shot her. That’s the story around high school anyway. People are a little freaked out by her though.”
“Why?”
“Because she still attends school. She’s still a star pupil. She tutors, works at the local diner, and is normal. After shit like that wouldn’t you go a bit crazy?”
When he’d first got Dwayne back, the little fucker had been a nightmare to deal with. It hadn’t taken long for Beast to put him straight. Threats, regardless of if they were idle or not, worked.
“That will be all.”
“I need her to tutor me. If you want, we can use the main library in town.”
“That’s fine. You can be here. Where does she live?”
“What?”
“Her parents are both dead. After he killed his wife and shot his daughter, he shot himself in the head. Who does she live with?”
“I think her aunt or something.”
He watched Dwayne go. The moment he was gone, Beast picked up his cell phone, dialing a number. “I want every single little detail you can find on Hope Miller, extending it to her parents as well. Everything.”
Chapter Two
Listening to her book, Hope glanced around to make sure no one was around to hear her moan. It had been a week since she’d begun to tutor Dwayne, and she had a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach, but she put that down to walking from the diner in the dark. She probably shouldn’t be listening to her current romance book, but she didn’t have much time to read the “drivel,” as her aunt called it.
Romance was her weakness. She put it down to two weeks of being chained up thinking she was going to die a virgin and not experience love. She still believed she was going to die a virgin.
No guys had ever asked her out, but that was okay. She could live with that. So long as she had her books, at least she could pretend, for however long it took her to listen to one story, to believe she was the heroine in the book. The one that got the guy, even if he was an ass, and she loved it when they groveled in books.