“What the fuck is a narwhal?” Max had asked, staring up at the posted menu.
“Kind of the unicorn of the sea. I’ve just never heard it’s edible.”
“It is to polar bears,” Shen had explained and, at that point, Stevie was done. Hearing “It’s edible to polar bears” was simply too much for her at this moment in her life. And, in the end, they ended up getting normal, ground beef burgers. Except, of course, for the size of those burgers.
Stevie wasn’t positive, but she thought the largest-sized burger was bigger than one of the Dunn triplets’ heads. Even Shen didn’t get the largest size. He got the “medium” instead and that looked like it could possibly choke an elephant.
Still, despite the weird food situation, it was a pleasant lunch. Max and Shen chatted about the derby team they’d briefly visited. Especially once Max found out that her cousin Livy Kowalski occasionally played on the Manhattan team, the Assault and Battery Park Babes. Max’s sudden interest in a sport that she hadn’t even known existed a few weeks ago had Stevie a little concerned, but she couldn’t be bothered. What her sister did with her other relatives was low on Stevie’s lists of things to worry about.
Stevie, however, spent her time discovering that Oriana wasn’t nearly as dumb as her brother had accused her of being. In fact, they both had a love of robotics and artificial intelligence, and Oriana’s hobby was advanced engineering.
“We should work on a project sometime,” Oriana suggested, pushing her tray of empty paper plates away. “There’s an engineering lab I’m allowed to use anytime I’m in the city.”
“That sounds great, but I promised Charlie I wouldn’t involve myself in AI anymore.”
“Why?”
Stevie took a sip of her giant soda before admitting, “There was an incident.”
“It was with the US Army,” Max abruptly chimed in, turning toward Oriana, her grin wide. “In fact, it was a minor international incident that almost became a major international—”
“Hey!” Stevie barked. “Gag order. Remember?”
“I don’t remember that.”
“I don’t know why. They put a gun to your head. Literally,” Stevie reminded her sister. “Not to get you to sign, but because they felt threatened by you.”
Max gazed off, eyes narrowing as she tried to remember. “Nope,” she finally said. “You’re going to have to be way more specific.”
Shen, still working on his french fried bamboo sticks, gawked at Max and asked, “How many times have you had a gun to your head?”
“So many,” Stevie and Max replied together.
Oriana’s phone vibrated and she lifted it off the table, studying it. “What the fuck?” she growled.
“What?” Kyle asked.
“It’s from Aunt Irene again. She says the wild dogs are pissed about the house and they are throwing us out. She said we should get over there to talk to them right now . . . and bring Dr. Stasiuk-MacKilligan.” Oriana blinked. “Who?”
Stevie raised her hand a bit. “Uh . . . that’s me.”
“Oh. Oh! So that makes sense.”
“Well, it’s not gonna happen,” Max cut in, shaking her head. “She could be setting you up to get murdered. She hates you.”
“Irene Conridge does hate me,” Stevie confirmed. “She probably is trying to kill me.”
Laughing, Kyle disagreed. “I can say a lot about Aunt Irene, but I can assure you that she’d never do anything like . . .” He looked down at his hands and, after a few moments, finally admitted, “Yeah, she could be trying to kill you.”
“We could just ask her?” Oriana suggested.
“Ask her if she’s plotting to kill my sister? That really seems logical to you? That’s stupid. What we should do is hack into her computer and find out if she’s planning something. Like moving a large quantity of money into Swiss bank accounts. The hitmen I know keep their money in Swiss bank accounts.”
“Hitmen?” Stevie asked. “That’s so outdated. It’s hitpeople now. Or assassin.”
“Assassin is so snobby. That’s like people who say ‘wet works.’”
“I’m sorry,” Shen finally cut in. “You all think Irene Conridge is planning to kill Stevie?”
“Of course not,” Stevie felt the need to correct. “She’d never do it herself. She’d hire someone.”
“Hence the use of assassin,” Max interjected.
“Okay.” Shen pushed back his chair, stood. “I am well aware that I am the most rational of this group. I’ve been informed of this by both Charlie and Toni. So, this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to go over there.”
“So my sister can be shot from a rooftop like JFK?” Max demanded.
“That wouldn’t happen,” Shen replied. “Because that’s stupid. Not only that, but I’ve found that if Irene Conridge does really hate you, she wants you to live a long time so she can use that time to make you miserable.”
Kyle nodded. “He has a point.”
“So, let’s just go and talk to the wild dogs. Get that fixed, and then we can find out what Dr. Conridge wants. Although, why she wouldn’t just ask Stevie over if she wanted to see her—”
“Because she knows that if she asked me over, I’d burn the house down with her in it.”
“Let’s just go,” Shen said on a long sigh as he stepped away from the table and picked up his tray.
* * *
“Hey! Wait up!” a voice called out and Shen turned to see Coop running toward them. He liked Coop. A lot. He wasn’t like the rest of the Jean-Louis Parkers. He was really friendly and didn’t hold anyone’s lack of Russian literature knowledge against them.
He was also tall, handsome, and one of those breeds that didn’t look freakishly large when in their human form. He was also the one Berg called “music guy.”
And Stevie used to be music girl. They understood each other on that prodigy level that Shen would never get.
So what did that all mean to Shen at the moment? That he suddenly hated Cooper Jean-Louis Parker. A lot.
“What do you want?” Shen asked. Or maybe he barked that at him. He probably barked.
Coop noticed, too, his eyes going a little wide, his head rearing back a bit in surprise. “Um . . . thought I’d catch a ride with you guys.” He held up his phone. “Oriana said you were heading to the house to see the wild dogs.” He grinned and Shen wanted to punch his lips off. “Well, you’ll be happy to hear, I’ve got a way with the wild dogs. They really like me. So I’m sure I can help.”
Unwilling to reply, Shen looked at Stevie. She was the one who wanted to go over there and try to reason with the canines.
Logically, he knew this. Yet he was still annoyed when she said, “Sure. Sounds great.”
The group started off again, moving toward the elevator, and Coop moved up next to him.
“Everything okay, Shen?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I don’t know. You seem tense. I’ve never seen you tense. Even when you want to kick Kyle’s ass, you never seem tense about it.” He glanced at the back of his siblings’ heads. “Is it the two of them together? They don’t usually hang together, so I’m sure I can stop it. I can only imagine how obnoxious they can be as a working pair.”
That’s when it hit Shen. He was jealous of the handsome Coop. With his strong, chiseled jaw but without the round head that goes with being a giant panda. He was jealous of Coop because of Stevie. He saw the male as a threat to his interest in a female. There was a part of him at this very moment that wanted to challenge the piano player to a good old-fashioned animal fight. He wanted to take the male on to prove to Stevie MacKilligan he was worthy of her.
That he was a worthy mate. Good God! What was happening to him?
“Shen?”
“Huh?” He realized he hadn’t answered Coop’s question and now the man looked really worried. “Oh, it’s nothing. Nothing. Just some stuff on my mind.”
“Anything I can help with?”
Christ, he was being a friend. A good friend. And Shen wanted to tear his face off.
They stood in front of the bank of elevators, waiting for one of the doors to open. Shen placed his hand on Coop’s shoulder.
“Thanks. But I’m cool. Just a long couple of days.”
He chuckled. “I can imagine.”
“Hey,” Stevie said to Coop. “Did you hear Markinov was planning a concert in Romania? When did he crawl back out of the woodwork?”
“I can’t believe anyone would ever work with him again. He’s the absolute . . . ow. Ow! Ow! Ow!”
“Shen!”
Shen blinked, looked at Stevie. “What?”
“Let him go!”
Unsure what she was talking about, Shen looked at Coop and quickly realized he’d gripped the man’s shoulder so tightly with his hand that he’d brought the famous musician to his knees.
“Oh, shit!” Shen released him and quickly leaned down to help Coop up. “Sorry. Sorry about that. I . . . was thinking about something. Got lost in my thoughts.”
The worst part of it all was Oriana. She stood behind everyone else, a smirk on her face, one eyebrow raised. And in that moment . . . Shen hated her too.
chapter TWELVE
They stood in front of the big wood door, all of them staring . . . and wincing.
“How many children do they have in there?” Stevie finally asked. “It sounds like they’re running an orphanage.”
“I’ve never gotten the real count,” Oriana admitted. “But they do have a lot. From what I understand, that’s normal for wild dog packs.”
“So is dragging their asses across the carpet,” Max stated, reaching around Shen and pushing the doorbell, “but that doesn’t make it right.”
The front door opened and a pretty teenage girl with long blond hair and big brown eyes gazed at them for several seconds. Then she turned her head and yelled, “Ma! Jackals at the door!”
Surprised by the yell, Stevie took an instinctive step back and moved into Shen.
“You okay?” he asked, his voice low, one hand pressed against her lower back.
“That’s a very loud child.”
“I know,” Kyle sighed. “And they’re all like that.”
Screaming children ran past the open doorway and another set of screaming children ran the opposite way.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Coop asked.
“It’s my fault. I’ll deal with it.”
A blond woman appeared. She looked a lot like the teenager, so Stevie didn’t think she was going out on a limb guessing this was the girl’s mother.
“Why are annoying jackal pups here?” the woman asked, her Russian accent thick.
“Nothing better to do?” Oriana asked.
“We’re here to steal your souls?” Kyle suggested with a smile.
With an eye roll, the woman began to close the door.
“No, no,” Stevie said, putting her hand against the door before it could close all the way. “I need to see . . .”
“Jessica Ann Ward,” Coop told her.
“Yes. Jessica Ann Ward. Wait . . .” Stevie looked back at Coop. “Why do I know that name?”
Coop shrugged. “I have no—”
“Oh! I remember!” Stevie smiled but then, she really did remember how she knew that name and she felt her smile fade. Along with her hopes. “Uh-oh.”
“What?” Shen asked.
The Russian woman pointed a damning finger at Stevie. “I remember you.” She spit on the ground near Stevie’s feet and slammed the door shut.
Crinkling up her nose, mortified, Stevie faced her friends. “We should go.”
“What did you do?” Oriana asked, laughing.
“It’s kind of a long—”
The front door opened again and Jessica Ann Ward stood there, glaring at Stevie.
“You.”
Stevie immediately raised her hands, palms out. “I can explain!”
“I’m calling the FBI!” Ward shot back.
She turned to march into the house, but Stevie followed, desperate for her to listen. “Please don’t do that!”
“Fuck off!”
Ward continued down the hallway and Stevie stayed right behind her.
“If you’ll just let me explain.”
“There is nothing to explain. Nothing you can say that I want to hear.”
Stevie followed Ward into the kitchen just as the wild dog picked up her phone from the long wood table where several other wild dogs were sitting on benches.
“I think I still have Agent Hall’s number,” she warned with a smirk.
“Please don’t call him,” Stevie begged, horrified. “If you would just give me a minute—”
“What did you do?”
Stevie winced, refusing to even look at her sister.
“I asked you a question, Stevie.”
“Can we talk about this later?”
“No. We can talk about this right fucking now. What’s going on?”
Finally, Stevie looked at her sister and instantly Max barked, “This is Dad’s fault, isn’t it?”
“Please stop screeching.”
“I was not screeching. Now, what did that motherfucker get you into?”
“She stole my son’s violin.”
Max’s head reared back a bit; a confused frown crossed her face. “A violin? Why?”
Stevie—and her sister knew this—could have any instrument she could ever want. All she had to do was ask and maybe perform for a dignitary or two with said instrument. So there was no reason in the world for her to steal a violin. Any violin. But there were some instruments that were worth their weight in gold and—
“It was a Stradivarius.”
Stevie winced, watching her sister’s confused frown turn into a glower of anger.
“That motherfucker!” Max exploded. “I’ll kill him! I’m going to kill him!”
And Stevie did the only thing she could think of at that moment to stop her sister from doing something really stupid. She dove headfirst at her, dropping them both to the ground.
* * *
Nope. Shen never expected Stevie to tackle her own sister. And she hit Max hard too. Took her down like a linebacker sacking a quarterback.
It was such a surprising move that even the wild dogs were stunned into silence . . . and very little managed to silence wild dogs.
Shen reached for Stevie, but he couldn’t get a solid grip because the two women kept moving. One on top, then the other. One punching her sister in the face, then the other punching the first in the stomach. It wasn’t a cute “girl fight” either. Nor was it an attempt for either one to get control of the other.
This was an all-out brawl.
Max got to her feet. She had Stevie by the hair and she brought her up with her. Then she threw her across the room and into the stove. Pots and pans hit the floor. Thankfully, the oven and the burners were not being used.
Shen was shocked by the move. Although Max was crazy with everyone else, she never went too far with her baby sister. For her and Charlie it was always about protecting Stevie. But at this moment . . . it was like she was fighting a stranger.
Stevie snarled and rolled off the oven and dropped to the floor. When she straightened up, she bared her fangs at her sister and Kyle suddenly grabbed Shen’s shoulder. Probably thinking Stevie was going to shift and wreck the entire wild dog house, but only after crushing everyone in the kitchen with her shifter weight.
But Stevie didn’t shift. True, she bared her fangs and her eyes changed to a bright, bright gold. But then she charged across the room and threw herself at her sister.
Shen did his job first. He got Kyle and Oriana out of the way of the two flying women. He put them into the hallway.
“Run if you have to,” he told them before wading back into the fight. He pushed Coop aside, not sure the musician could really wrangle two battling predators.
He reached for Max. Had her around the waist. But Stevie ya
nked her free without much effort and flipped her up and over, slamming Max’s back against the big wood table. Most of the wild dogs made a run for it, except Jess and her second-in-charge Sabina. Not surprising. Jess was the Alpha female of the Kuznetsov Pack and was mated to the Alpha male of the New York Smith Pack. You didn’t go into that life with a weak spirit.
Max reached up and grabbed Stevie’s hair, pulling her head and shoulders forward. She raised her legs and wrapped them around her baby sister’s neck. Then she flipped over, leaving her sister now on the table. And that’s when Max sat down, pressing her butt against her sister’s face. Not for some weird sexual reason either. She did it to suffocate her!
Growling, Max ground her butt against her sister while Stevie’s arms swung wildly, legs kicking. She couldn’t breathe and her sister knew it!
“What the fuck is going on here?” a low male voice bellowed.
Jess Ward’s adopted son stood in the kitchen, a violin and bow hanging from one hand, and Coop standing behind him. The two were friends, so Coop had probably known where in the enormous house to find him. Thank God.
John DeSerio was an orphaned wolf that the wild dogs had taken in to their family when he was a teen. It had turned out he was also a brilliant violinist and his career had just started to take off under the tutelage of Kyle’s mother, Jackie.
Yet no one answered him as Max continued to smother her sister.
Finally, John stormed over to the two women and reached for Max. She bared her fangs and her claws, let out a nasty hiss. John replied with a growl that had the hairs on the back of Shen’s neck snapping to attention. John reached past the slashing claws and grabbed Max by the back of her neck with his one free hand, then yanked her off her sister.
Stevie instantly sat up, gasping for air, eyes wide in panic. Shen went to her side, stroked her back.
She glared at her sister and screamed, “She farted on my face!”
Jess’s lip curled in disgust as she eyed the honey badger in her wild dog kitchen. “Ewww. That’s just nasty!”
* * *
Stevie allowed Shen to lead her out into the wild dog’s backyard. There were lots of pups out there, but they were mostly silent. Staring at her. They appeared terrified.
In a Badger Way Page 16
