Three Mates for Judith (2 page)

* * * *

Nelson Meyer and his identical twin brother, Nahum, were in charge of security at the panther pack headquarters in Richmond, Ohio. Up until a week ago, it hadn’t been a very demanding job. The warehouse occupied an entire block and was surrounded by a high wire security fence. Each panther had a code to punch in whenever they entered or left the building, so whoever was on duty always knew who was inside the building and whether they were in a communal room or one of the apartments.

Someone famous had once said, “A week is a long time in politics.” Well, a week had proven to be a long time for their pack as well. Since then, someone had chased the van with their Alpha and his brothers in it. At first they’d been certain the criminals doing the chasing were after the woman the Alpha planned to mate or, even more likely, her younger brother.

But instead, some spook from a nameless government agency had found out from the two criminals the Alpha’s father had captured that Lewis Lutterworth, another criminal known among the gangs in town as The Fixer, had put a price on Amory’s head. Amory, their Alpha.

Lutterworth had known that the panthers would pay almost any price to ransom their Alpha back. What he was about to find out was that the panthers would much prefer to remove the danger than risk the capture of their Alpha. Lutterworth was dangerous, and the panthers were determined to capture him in such a way that he’d be in jail for the foreseeable future, possibly his entire life.

This plan was especially attractive to Nelson because Lutterworth had enticed his own daughter into danger, had her caught, and told two men who worked for him to kill her. Nelson couldn’t understand how any man could order a hit on his own daughter. He’d always assumed even criminals loved their families and were kind to their pets. He was sure there was a special pace in hell for men like Lutterworth who wished harm on their own family.

Right now, Judith Lutterworth was safely hidden, with her mom, who Lutterworth also planned to have murdered, up on the pack lands in the UP. But Cherise, the mom, wasn’t happy about being away from her friends, and Judith, the daughter, had made it clear she wanted to be back in town before the weather turned really cold.

Judith had only been back in town one day before Zebulun and Amory had convinced Cherise the only truly safe place for them was on the packlands. The pack had escorted them there, and it was up to Zebulun now to convince them to stay out of danger.

All of which had Nelson scratching his head. How the fuck were they supposed to organize all this? Keep the Alpha safe at all times. Keep the Lutterworth women safe at all times. And somehow catch The Fixer and hand him over to the authorities. Just trying to balance all these tasks was giving Nelson a headache.

Although the headache wasn’t the worst of it. His balls were aching as well. One look at Judith had him wanting her in the most carnal way imaginable. He and Nahum had been on guard duty at the time. She’d been standing beside LC, glaring at Amory, trying to convince the pack she could look after herself. He smiled now at the memory. Unfortunately, it didn’t matter how much he wanted her, he wasn’t going to get her. He was no match for the daughter of a wealthy woman. Besides, panthers liked to share their women, and he had to consider both his brothers—Nahum, his twin, and Naftali, his older brother who was in charge of the office administration here at the panther headquarters.

“Can’t you sit still? I can just hear Miss Smorgan saying to you, “Have you got ants in your pants, young man?” Nahum had the crabby old witch’s tone perfect, even after all these years.

Poor Miss Smorgan had barely recovered from teaching the Reilly triplets in her first grade class when he and Nahum had been assigned to her grade. Although, in her defense, she’d been able to distinguish between them far faster than a lot of the other teachers they’d had over the years.

“That poor woman. No, I haven’t gotten any ants in my pants, but it bothers me that I don’t have a solution for how to protect the Alpha and the Lutterworth women either, other than to lock them all up on their pack lands way up north.”

“Yeah, well, it turns out neither Cherise nor Judith is all that fond of winter, so that’s not going to work. The only solution is to catch The Fixer and get him behind bars as soon as possible.”

“I know. I know. But saying it is a hell of a lot easier than doing it.”

“Come up to the roof and let’s go for a run. That might shake loose some ideas in our brains,” suggested Nahum.

Nelson liked that idea. Sometimes running as panthers did shake up his brain and help him think. He went and banged on Naftali’s bedroom door.

“What?”

“We’re going for a run. Come and join us.”

There was a grunt and then the slap of Naftali’s feet hitting the ground and their brother appeared. He left his door open, and Nelson could see the chessboard on his bed.

He laughed. Elsie, the woman who was going to mate their Alpha and his brothers, was a very good chess player, and the entire pack was busy honing their chess-playing skills in the hopes of beating her. Well, except for him. He’d never been much good at the game. But a lot of people were, and it appeared Naftali was one of them.

Their apartment was on the third floor, so they ran up the two flights of stairs to the roof, stripped out of their clothes at a bench right by the elevator meant for that very use, and then transformed and headed for the running track. It was an all-weather track, deliberately designed to make use of most of the available area of the rooftop. There were long straight stretches for the sides, twists and turns, chicanes and obstacles to jump. They ran around once as a warm up together, and then Nelson launched himself at full speed down one of the straights. Immediately, both his brothers raced after him.

Nelson ducked and weaved among the bushes, sprinted through a straight section of track, and then cut through an area of shrubbery to avoid the chicanes and run fast along the next straight pathway. But his brothers had run this track just as often as him and were well aware of all the tricks. Naftali shouldered him out of the way and zipped past him, but Nahum cut one of the corners off and took the lead.

Their third time around the track was at such a dizzying speed they were all skidding at the corners and almost fell in a domino effect at one place. By the fourth time around, they’d slowed down again and took it at a less dangerous speed. Without needing to talk, they left the track and flopped onto a patch of grass, still in their panther forms.

Nelson relaxed. The exercise was good for them. Just walking around wasn’t enough exercise for a panther. He needed to run flat-out sometimes.

He shifted back into human form and pulled on his jeans. “The only solution is to set a trap for Lutterworth and catch him in something so bad he’ll be locked up permanently.”

‘I agree. But how can we do that?” asked Naftali.

“We need to bait the trap,” he said slowly.

“Not with one of the women. We can’t risk their lives,” said Naftali so fast that Nelson wondered if his brother liked Judith as much as he did. He and his brothers had always been close and good friends, but they didn’t always think alike at all. He must be imagining it. Naftali must just be concerned for their safety. As he was.

“But we can’t risk our Alpha either. Putting him in danger isn’t possible. Our duty is to protect him,” said Nahum.

“Yeah, I know.” They weren’t any closer to a solution than they’d been when they began.

“It’s like a chess match. We could appear to have someone in danger, but really they’re still protected. There’s a chess move—”

“Skip the chess talk, Naftali. Stick to panther talk,” said Nelson.

Nahum laughed at him. “Elsie says that chess teaches logic and clear thinking. If you played chess, maybe you’d have solved this problem already.”

“So tell me how,” Nelson challenged his brothers.

“We set up something where it looks like the Alpha is going to be wide open to danger, but really, we’re all there hiding ready to rescue him and catch Lutterworth,” Nahum said slowly.

“Yes, but how?”

“With something Lutterworth would like to steal. One of his ‘collectibles’,” said Naftali triumphantly.

Nelson sat and thought for a while. “Actually, that might even work.”

* * * *

As the oldest brother and head of the family, Naftali Meyer knew it was up to him to find a collectible item that Amory could appear to have come into possession of, and which Lutterworth was certain to want. Next, he needed to find a way to ensure Amory was safe. All the panthers would be more than happy to protect their Alpha. The hard part would be preventing Amory from sticking his neck into the noose all by himself.

Naftali’s first thought was a chess set, but Amory had already returned one of those. One of their own men had found it when searching a gang member’s home for a stolen government contractor’s cell phone. So that idea was out.

But no matter how many hours Naftali put into trying to think of exactly the right item, nothing fit. The problem was The Fixer usually ordered his gangs to steal items to a buyer’s request. And there was no buyer right now. Naftali needed a buyer who wanted something that Amory already had, which was hopeless. Amory didn’t collect anything.

“I need another, better idea.”

Naftali and his brothers were slumped in front of the TV, which was pretty much what they did every night Nelson and Nahum weren’t on guard duty, and he wasn’t sitting at the table trying to sort out some scheduling problem on his laptop. His brothers endlessly teased him that everyone else used an iPad or tablet these days, but he liked his laptop. Although, when it died, he’d be forced to upgrade.

He rubbed his hands though his hair, reached for the remote, and turned the TV off.

“Hey, I was watching that.”

“Me, too.”

“What show were you watching?” he quizzed the twins.

There was deathly silence.

“Exactly. Your bodies are on the sofa, but your minds could be anywhere. We need to think of something Amory has or could get that Lutterworth would have a client for.”

“You mean like those half-finished Cezanne paintings someone found in their attic? Get real,” said Nelson.

“I have been thinking. I’ve been thinking so much my brain hurts. But there’s nothing that would work,” said Nahum.

Naftali nodded and rubbed his head again then realized what he was doing and put his hands in his pockets. “Okay, so maybe we need to think of something different. How else—or what else—would make Lutterworth think it was worthwhile trying to capture and ransom the Alpha? And, remember, it has to be at a place and in a way he can seem to be in danger, when really we’re there to protect him.”

“You don’t want much, do you?” grumbled Nahum.

Naftali ignored him. Time was passing, and they really needed to get a move on. In the back of his mind was the danger to Judith and Cherise Lutterworth. Judith had made it perfectly plain she didn’t want to stay up on the pack lands all winter. Fall was here already, and time was running out for them to ensure the women and their Alpha were safe. And they’d never be safe until The Fixer had been removed from the picture for good. But legally. Killing him and ending up in jail themselves wasn’t a viable solution.

It especially wasn’t the outcome he wanted. The little he’d seen of Judith Lutterworth he’d found very interesting indeed. Apparently she’d been quite fearful when the Alpha and his brothers had rescued her from the men who had kidnapped her, but in Naftali’s mind, that just proved she was a sensible person. She’d quite quickly adjusted to the situation and made friends with the half-sister she’d never known about before.

Neither of them had been told about the other, and Cherise, Judith’s mother, didn’t even know her husband had two other children, including a son he’d fathered when he was supposed to be reconciling with her.

It all just proved Lutterworth was scum. Naftali needed to get rid of him. To make him fall for one of his own illegal games and get himself caught and caught properly. Without Naftali ending up in jail. Because only when Lutterworth was dealt with could Naftali suggest they get to know Judith better.

“When we went running the other week, I remembered the Alpha saying he was planning a run for the whole pack. I was pleased because we haven’t run as a pack for ages,” said Nelson.

Naftali nodded. He was about to ask what the fuck Nelson was getting at but decided it’d be better to let his brother get to the point in his own time. Maybe he was thinking as he spoke. Naftali did that sometimes.

“We really need to run as a pack, but to do that, we have to get a long way out of town. It’s hard to find somewhere to go here. It was easy on the pack lands. All the land there was ours.”

Once again Naftali held on to his patience and let Nelson take his time.

“We could find a place to go, like in the national park somewhere, have a cookout, run and so on. Then everyone goes home except the Alpha and maybe one or two others. He wants to be alone, but Lutterworth’s not stupid. He knows we’d never leave him completely alone. So maybe two other people, Nahum and me. But there are others of us hidden nearby, and when Lutterworth and his men attack, we catch them.”