How Beauty Loved the Beast

chapter Twelve



Jolie woke up to a world that was pitch black and smelled of dead things. But she was warm. And Hauk was with her. She’d been in so much pain. Now it was gone.

She stroked up the ridges of his chest, feeling his skin through the cotton, reassuring herself it was, indeed, her boyfriend she held. “Hauk?” More touch to reassure her. “I know this sounds idiotic, but please wake up and tell me we’re not dead. Because if this is death, it sucks.”

Her phone was in her pocket. She pulled it out, hoping to get some light. Surely death didn’t include her phone. But the screen was broken and the back was crunched in.

“Mmmm...” Hauk said.

She crawled on top of him. “Wake up. Where are we?”

His arms tightened around her. One hand skimmed over her back then reached above her, as if feeling for the ceiling. He sat up, keeping one hand protectively wrapped around her head. “Are you okay?” he asked, concern filling his voice.

“Yeah. I feel fine. So again, I gotta ask, you don’t think we’re, like, dead, right? Because I distinctly remember having a hole in my stomach.”

His face buried against her shoulder, and he squeezed her so tightly she thought she might break. “Don’t. Do that. Again,” he growled.

“No self-impaling? Check. Not on purpose, anyway. I pinky swear.”

His arms loosened. “We’re not dead. Odin fixed you. I don’t know how. And I have no idea where we’re at. I blacked out. Feel the ground for a wall.”

“Odin fixed me? I’m not going to ask.” He started to release her, and her heart beat faster in fear. “Can we stay together?” She flinched at how weak that sounded, unaccustomed to needing comfort. “Never mind. I’m cool.” But she was far from cool. She was downright terrified.

He chuckled hollowly. “I’m sure you’re fine, sweetheart, but I’d feel better if you’d keep in contact.”

Her shoulders loosened as she returned a manic laugh. “Okay. If it’ll make you feel better.”

Together they inched forward until they reached the marble smoothness of a wall. Kneeling hip to hip, their hands traveled up until he grunted. “I know where we are.”

Beneath her fingers, the wall gave way and dipped down, like the inside of a drawer.

Hauk’s voice was a strained calm. “Babe, let’s turn around.”

She slid her hands down inside the wall until she touched brittle fabric and something like leather and bone. It dusted beneath her fingers.

They were in a crypt. Her hands were on a corpse.

Screeching, she jerked them up. Her fingers slammed into fabric and stiff muscle. Dead things everywhere. She screamed and lurched back as cold fear squeezed her.

Hauk caught her. His strong arms wrapped around her as her teeth chattered in terror of the dark, the dead and her own near dying. She hated to be afraid. Prided herself on never being fearful. But tears coursed down her cheeks as she shivered and cowered.

“It’s okay,” he whispered soothingly, his lips right against her scalp.

“No. It’s not.” He felt so good against her. So good and so soothing. She didn’t want to need him, but the more time they spent together, the more impossible it felt to contemplate a life apart from his. “There’s a second body in there,” she said between gulping breaths.

“Yeah. We’re in the crypt I used to hide the Hands. The good news is the door is unlocked. Once we find it. And it’s tall enough in here for me to stand.”

She was lifted off the ground, and he cradled her like a child as he moved carefully forward in the dark. “No. Hauk, I can stand. I’m okay.” But that might be a lie. She trembled everywhere.

“Just let me get the door, sweetheart. It’s okay.” Another cautious step forward. “I f*ckin’ hate graveyards. Pointless waste of grass. I can’t imagine you like ’em any better.”

He stopped, and the door creaked open, pouring morning light into the crypt. She shut her eyes against the sudden brightness. She’d passed out before lunch yesterday. Nearly a whole day had gone unaccounted for.

Despite her mortification, she clung tighter to Hauk as he carried her out of the tomb. She had to think of something—anything—to say other than yelling her fear. “What do you mean, waste of grass? You don’t want a headstone? Something pithy? You know, way way in the future.”

“Nah. I don’t need a grave.” He spoke with an unsettling intensity, like he’d thought about this. Although she supposed with the risks he’d taken in life, he might have. “I don’t want to be buried. I want to be burned. I don’t need a marker. My actions are my legacy. Not some chunk of rock.”

She opened her eyes to study his disturbingly earnest face. “I don’t need to know that. If you make me mourn you, I will never forgive you.”

“Same here.” He pressed his forehead against hers and sighed. “I need to tell you something. I don’t know what Odin did last night. You were bleeding out, and I let him take over. I don’t know how he fixed you.”

As disturbing as that was, Jolie was glad to be alive. “I like my insides inside. You did the right thing.” She gave him a quick squeeze. “You can put me down now.”

A bear hug of a squeeze, and he set her down slowly, as if reluctant to let her go.

The morning was just beginning, and the gentle noise of birdsong and sparse pre-work traffic filled the chilly graveyard. Hauk closed the crypt behind them. Without another word they headed for his motorcycle to see what was left. The pieces were gone, but the pavement was scorched black where the explosion had occurred. Hauk grabbed her again as he stared at the charring with a greenish expression.

Jolie gulped. “My car it is.”

They trudged around the outside of the fence to the other entrance, where Jolie’s GT-R waited, covered in morning dew. She pulled out her key fob.

Hauk scooped it out of her hand. “Wait.”

She frowned, ready to be anywhere but here. “Why?”

His eyes were guarded as he said, “I just want to check something.” He ducked his head beneath the car and inspected the undercarriage.

“You think there’s a bomb here too?” That had to be Hauk at his most overprotective. Surely her father’s organization wouldn’t plant a bomb on her car.

“Since that bomb went off in the factory,” he said, his voice mumbled by the metal between them, “I decided to spend some of my recovery time studying them. I’m no expert or anything, but... Damn.”

She paled. “What?”

A minute later he came out from under the car, holding an electronic box with wires.

“No. My dad wouldn’t.” She and her father had their differences—a lot of big ones—but to want her dead? He couldn’t hate her that much. Could he?

“Your dad’s not calling all the shots.” He put the bomb on the grass, popped the hood and stuck his head in. “He’s in Houston. You pulled a successful run while I was out of commission. I’m not the only problem they’re ‘dealing’ with.”

Jolie’s chest, which had started to unclench, squeezed up again. “Are you looking for a second one?”

“Yeah. Sometimes there’s an obvious one for people to pull and get all relaxed so they don’t find the real one. I don’t see anything, but I’ll take the car for a quick drive to make sure. Unlikely, but we’re playing this safe.” He opened her car door.

“Wait, you’re taking it for a drive? To see if a bomb goes off? No. No, that’s not the plan.” She hustled around the car and opened the passenger door. “If you drive, I’m in, too.”

He propped his elbow on the roof of her car and cocked his head. “What purpose would that serve?”

“The purpose of me not standing here freaking the hell out waiting for you to explode.”

“It’s unlikely there’s a problem. I’ve checked all the places I’ve read about.”

“You said you weren’t an expert.”

He motioned at the car. “Hence the driving.”

She raised her chin. “Then we do it together.” She got into the passenger seat.

Hauk kneeled in the doorframe without getting in. “You will get out of this car and let me do this.”

“No.”

“You will get out or I will physically remove you.”

She shot him an incredulous look. Hauk never did that. Not to her.

His eyes were clear, his voice level. “Call me whatever kind of misogynistic caveman a*shole you want. I don’t care. You’re not riding in the car. In the unlikely event there is a second bomb, there is no sense in both of us going up. So get out, or I will take you out.”

He sounded utterly serious. She balked at being bossed around. Especially on this. “Then I can drive it while you wait.”

“No.” The word came out with a predatory growl. “Get out of the car.”

Without a doubt, she knew she was getting out of that car one way or another. Angry and flustered, she made her stiff joints exit the vehicle. He got in, and any gratefulness she might have felt for his protectiveness vanished.

Heart in her throat, she moved off a few paces as the grisly image of an explosion consumed her imagination. She fluttered her eyelashes, pushing back more frightened tears.

The car started...and nothing happened. She took a tiny breath as the car pulled forward, Hauk grim at the wheel as he sped up and rounded a corner out of sight.

For two heart-pounding minutes, she waited for the sound of combustion. The birdsong, comforting earlier, held an ominous note, and the wind’s susurrus through branches of new leaves seemed a miserable omen.

She hated him for making her wait, making her fear.

The car came back into sight. She held her breath as the car stopped in front of her, shut off. Nothing happened.

Clumsily, she made her way back to it. Hauk opened the driver’s door and stepped out. By his expression, hard but worried, she knew he was fully aware how much she despised him at the moment. Without a word, she took his place in the driver’s seat. Her door slam was loud in the quiet street. He came around to the other side and got in.

“Don’t ever make me do that again,” she said.

She didn’t look, but she could feel his eyes on her as he said gently, “You know I will if I have to. I’d rather you hate me than watch you die.”

Why did he think she felt any differently? She couldn’t respond without screaming at him, so she didn’t try, just stomped the gas.

* * *

The study in Jolie’s condo was filled with her grandfather’s treasures—movie posters, memorabilia from his famous friends, his one Academy Award and, most precious to him, his nameplate as executive producer of Rosebud Media. She had some of his furniture and things incorporated into the rest of her home, but this room was the shrine to his memory. She didn’t typically have much use for an office; her laptop went everywhere. But it was a perfect space for more formal occasions, like now, when she needed the weight of money and status behind her.

Much to Hauk’s displeasure, she’d dropped him off at an entrance to the Underlight and came home. More like kicked him out, yelling that he’d made her get out of the car and she might not be as strong as he was, but he’d damn well better do the same.

She’d also kept the bomb. He’d assured her it couldn’t activate now that it was detached from her car, but he’d wanted to bring it to Tally and LaRoche. She’d promised to bring it to them later.

After that, he’d gotten out of the car. Sorrowful resignation had cut sharply across his face, as if he thought they were over. She’d been so pissed she hadn’t had it in her to correct his wrong notion. She was angry and needed some space, but they were fine.

The real problem was she was scared, deeply so, for quite possibly the first time in her life. There was something she needed to find out, and she didn’t want anyone there for it—not even Hauk. She’d sent a text as she rode up the elevator and now waited in front of a thirty-inch monitor, video chat open, ready to talk.

After a moment, her father’s face appeared. “You rang?” he asked, his tone ironic.

Reginald Benoit had aged well. Salt and pepper hair, suit jacket trim over straight shoulders, a little work around the eyes and mouth to tighten without looking “done.” The green eyes she’d inherited still stared back at her with incisive clarity.

She put the bomb on the desk in front of the camera.

His gaze shifted down and back up, unconcerned. “What is that?”

“It’s the thing somebody put under my car this morning, Dad.”

To her relief, his eyes widened just a bit and the corners of his mouth tipped down. He hadn’t known. He shook his head as his expression hardened. “Jolie, the choices you are making are dangerous. I’ve told you time and again that you need to change your lifestyle or risk serious consequences.”

“It was your people who planted it.”

He hummed an angry sound she knew too well. “I heard about that little stunt you pulled at the chemical plant.”

“Did you also hear how Grant Barnett offered to let me go if I put out?”

Another slight show of surprise, but this one he hid almost immediately. “We’re not angels. I’ve never claimed to be. But we have a purpose. You and that felon you hang out with, and the anarchists you associate with, are a purposeless menace.”

When she was younger she hadn’t seen how angry he was at anyone but her. Now she got the impression Grant Barrett was in for a nasty surprise. “That ‘felon’ is my boyfriend. Still inviting me to family functions with a plus one?”

“The burnt-to-a-crisp one? You’ve got to be joking.” The disdain in his tone and disgust in his eyes set Jolie’s teeth on edge.

“He’s a good man that one of your people tattooed with the Atropos sign without his permission. The things he’s in trouble for were done while stopping your men from activating it. He saved my life twice in the last twenty-four hours from bombs your people planted. I am alive because of him. If that matters to you even a little, then you should be grateful. You may not be able to see past the scars to what an incredible man he is, but I can.”

Her father averted his eyes, lips pursed. When he returned his attention to her, some of the veneer was gone. He stared through the screen with no trace of his usual disdain. Instead of something serious, though, he surprised her with, “Your birthday’s this weekend. No one’s at the Santorini villa right now. Why don’t I send the jet to Austin Saturday morning, and you and your—” he grumbled the next word, “—boyfriend can take a trip. Bring friends. Or if you’re not interested in Greece, you can pick the locale. It’s your birthday present from your mother and me. You may have lost the good sense God and quality genes gave you, but we still wish you a happy twenty-fifth year.”

The sudden change of subject threw her off. He was always good at that. “The jet? For my birthday? You hadn’t mentioned...” It sounded like a lot of fun—and a big relief—to just get away for a while. But things in the Underlight were escalating so fast, it was a bad time to leave them bereft of the people she’d most likely bring: Hauk, Mercy and herself.

Wait a minute.

She studied her father’s face for signs of deception, but every line spoke of sincerity. “I already have a party planned. Would a different weekend work?”

He shrugged. “I can’t guarantee it’ll be available. You know how busy I am.”

She barely held back an eye roll. “Yeah.” Her father’s complete absence from home growing up had been a point of contention between them her whole life. “I’ll think about it.”

He nodded. “You do that. Think hard. Have your party somewhere more fun. Your new friends will, I’m sure, love it.” He left off, “because the ninety-nine percent can’t jet off around the world to party without our help,” but like so much of her father’s communication, it was there unspoken. The softness left his features as his no-nonsense face returned. “I assume we’re done here. Let me know about the jet. I’ll have someone sweep your car for further additions, so stay in the condo for the next couple of hours.”

Jolie straightened her spine and pulled all the gravitas a daughter of Reginald Benoit could muster. “No.”

A manicured eyebrow lifted. “No?” To her surprise, the business-shark mien broke enough for a proud smile. “Neutral third party. That’s my final offer. Take it or not, I’m sending a technician.”

This time she did roll her eyes. “Fine. But I’ve got things to do, so you have half an hour.” And having a neutral third party check over her car sounded like an excellent idea.

She signed off, full of relief that her father had no idea about the bomb.