Page 77 of Beau and the Beast

The man stood just inside the doorway, forearm across his belly as if to protect himself, to make himself smaller.

Had a dog bitten him when he was young, Wolfram wondered. Had some experience with animals left the man irrevocably scarred?

The thought had never occurred to Wolfram until now. He’d always simply assumed that Geoffrey was frightened ofhim, Wolfram, the monster specifically. But hadn’t Beau proven that it wasn’t a given that Wolfram should be universally feared and reviled?

Maybe some accident, some misfortune was responsible for the revulsion Geoffrey experienced. The thought lifted something heavy and ancient off of Wolfram’s chest.

“Sit down, Geoffrey,” Wolfram said gently. “Have a drink with me.”

Geoffrey nodded and crossed to the table, selecting a cushion. Wolfram poured them both a few fingers of brandy and then pushed a glass to him.

“Have you always had so many flowers in here?” Geoffrey asked, taking a too-big gulp of the liquor.

“Not always. No.”

Geoffrey gave up on small talk and Wolfram didn’t have anything to say in the silence. Slowly, though, the alcohol did its job and Geoffrey’s pulse returned to normal.

“Yesterday, Violet asked me to look into Noah Blake—Beau’s brother,” Geoffrey said, finally.

Wolfram nodded. Violet had told him about the conversation she’d had with Beau, about his requests.

“Did you find something troubling?” Wolfram asked. “Is he alright?”

“Well, other than the fact that he routinely bites off more than he can chew in terms of the people he decides to fuck with, I found some stuff that I know is gonna make Beau upset.”

Wolfram’s heart thudded in his chest. Had he inadvertently hurt Beau’s brother by selfishly keeping him locked in the penthouse? He gestured for Geoffrey to go on.

“They don’t have shit for money,” Geoffrey said. “As in, Noah hasn’t paid their rent yet this month—or anything else. No bank transactions from either of their accounts and plenty of goddamn bills to pay.”

“How do you know he’s alright? If he hasn’t used a card on anything then—“

Geoffrey raised his hand to stop Wolfram. “He’s definitely alive and kicking. I’ve been keeping tabs on him with three security cameras—one in the lobby of their apartment and two street cams. He goes in and out a few times a day, buys a can of soda or a slice of pizza. He must have a little cash. Hell, he even came back with another dude and a bunch of groceries the other day, so he’s eating.”

He sipped the brandy, apparently no longer feeling the need to gulp it in order to make sharing a space with Wolfram tolerable.

“I checked the apartment records just to make sure he hadn’t paid rent in cash or something, but no dice. Hasn’t paid. Same with utilities and a credit account they share. Looking at the transaction record, it seems like Beau was the one who handled all that, and most of their income used to come from The New Whitby Ledger. So I’d wager this deadbeat hasn’t even thought about the fact that they have a ton of bills due andhe’sthe one who’s gotta pay them.”

Thatwasbad news. Beau would be stupendously unhappy if his brother got evicted during his stay at the penthouse.

“We’ll pay their bills,” Wolfram said.

Geoffrey nodded. “I had a feeling you were going to say that.”

“Can you make the money untraceable—or run it through MGEF somehow?”

Geoffrey scoffed. “Of course I can. I can make a shielded deposit into their account and then use Beau’s log-in credentials to make it look like he’s the one who paid all the bills, just like normal. I just wanted to get the go-ahead from you before I started moving funds around.”

“How much do they owe?”

“About $2,100, all said and done.”

Wolfram shook his head. That amount of money was like a drop in the bucket for him, for the whole staff. It could’ve practically been pennies. They moved amounts around far greater than that routinely for the different organizations they helped with MGEF.

“$2,100 was all that was in between those brothers and being homeless?” Wolfram asked, barely able to fathom it.

“Fucked up, isn’t it?” Geoffrey said. “Kind of puts our old jobs into perspective.”

The man frowned at Wolfram and then looked down into the glass he was holding.

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