Kyle briefly closed his eyes. “Look, I know you commoners—”
“Seriously, dude?”
“—think everything is about sex. But that’s not what I’m talking about here and you know it. Your sister has power. True power. She can open doors for me that will take my work far into the future. My genius needs to be seen and loved and talked about for thousands of generations to come. Your sister can make that happen.”
“You actually believe the words you’re saying, don’t you?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Shen had begun to tell the kid why he shouldn’t believe anything he said when someone grabbed his hand and began dragging him away from the bar. He turned and saw that it was Blayne. Poor, battered Blayne.
She dragged him through the crowd and down a back hallway until they reached a room. She pushed him inside and he found Gwen O’Neill sitting on a table, grinning at him.
Gwen was a pretty half-Chinese, half-Irish tigon from Philadelphia. Shen had always found Gwen fascinating because she had been on the local shifter roller derby team for years, but her seriously long nails were goddamn immaculate! How did she keep her nails like that? They were real, too, not acrylic. He’d asked!
“Love the nails, Gwenie.”
She held up both hands, wiggled her fingers; her nails red and white with swirls of blue glitter. “Thanks!”
“The color is in honor of . . .”
“We saw a Phillies game last week.”
“Ahhh.”
“Tell her,” Blayne ordered. “Tell Gwenie the truth.”
Shen frowned. “The truth about what?”
Blayne stepped into him, pointing one finger in his face. “You know what, panda. Tell her!”
* * *
Charlie heard a knock and opened the door. Her Aunt Bernice nodded at her. “You girls leaving soon?” she asked.
“Should we leave soon?” Charlie wanted to know. “Would they prefer we leave the back way? Or should we just burrow under the building so they don’t have to see our faces?”
Bernice squinted in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“They want us to leave, right? The family?”
“No. I just assumed you were leaving because you disappeared half an hour ago and we haven’t seen you since. Plus, Creepy Roy is getting . . . creepy. And handsy.”
“I’ll handle it!” Max announced, running out in nothing but a bear-sized T-shirt they’d found in a metal cabinet filled with bar paraphernalia.
“Stevie, don’t let her—”
“I’m on it!” Stevie said, running after Max.
“Anyway,” Bernice said with a small shake of her head, “your Uncle Will wants to see you before you leave.”
“To kill me?”
“Oh, no. If he wanted to kill you, he would just come in here and kill you. Besides, if he wants to kill anyone, it’s your father.”
“Why do you always call him my father when he’s really your brother?”
“Are we going to have that discussion again? He’s your problem now. I put in my time. Hard time. I got him through high school alive. My job is done.”
Charlie nodded. “Fair enough.”
“So come on,” Bernice said with a jerk of her head.
Her aunt walked off and Charlie followed her, but she stopped outside the partially open door to one of the rooms. The room Charlie and Stevie had stumbled into earlier. This time, however, Shen was inside with the two women.
The tall black female—who, for some unknown reason was wearing skates—had her finger pointed in Shen’s face while her Asian friend was smirking but quiet.
“Tell her, Shen. Tell her about the freakish size of that woman when she shifts!”
Charlie’s head lowered, but her eyes remained locked on the two women.
“She was huge,” Shen admitted, surprising Charlie. She’d thought he was more trustworthy than, say, Dutch. “Giant.”
“Yes!” Stevie’s chew toy chimed in. “Giant! She was giant.”
“Like Godzilla.”
“Yes! Well, wait . . . no,” Stevie’s chew toy corrected. “Not as big as Godzilla. But definitely big. Unusually, abnormally big. Right, Shen?”
“Right. Absolutely.”
“Told ya, Gwenie!” she said, facing her friend.
But as soon as she turned her back on Shen, he raised both his hands, holding them a foot or two apart.
The one called Gwenie snorted a laugh and dropped her head. The chew toy spun around but Shen had already lowered his hands.
“What?” he asked when she glowered at him.
“Tell her the truth!”
“I did,” Shen insisted. “She was giant. Like Godzilla.”
“No! Not like Godzilla!”
“Like Mothra.”
“So she had wings,” Gwenie tossed in.
“Yes!” Shen quickly agreed. “She had wings! And two, tiny Malaysian women who sang her to life!”
“That is not what happened!” Chew Toy insisted.
He frowned. “It’s not? Oh, wait. Were the women Filipino?”
“Shen!”
Charlie was no longer worried that her sister’s true shifter-self was being outed by some walking chew toy, and that’s all she cared about. That her baby sister was safe. Even if it meant taking out those who didn’t necessarily deserve it.
Relieved that she didn’t have to make any murderous plans for her evening, Charlie went in search of her Uncle Will.
* * *
Will MacKilligan had just lit his cigarette when two of his younger boys—the meatier ones—dragged Will’s half-brother from the street and into the alley beside the bear-owned pub.
“Where’s me money, Freddy?” he asked right away, not wanting to spend anymore time than he had to with the man he called “The Idiot.”
“I already told you I don’t have it . . . anymore.”
“That’s not good enough. You’d better get it back for me. And you’d better do it soon.”
“Or what?”
Two of Will’s other sons began to work Freddy over. Blows to the gut, kidneys, and spleen. Blows that wouldn’t take a honey badger down, but would make him hurt.
Will waved his hand and his sons immediately stopped.
“I’ll say it again. Get me money. Or I’ll give your daughters exactly what they’ve always wanted . . . you dead.”
“You know who has your money.”
“You gave it to them!” Will barked back. “Those two slits are running around with me hundred million and you’ve got the nerve to show your face at Uncle Pete’s funeral. It’s like you wanna die.”
“Because it’s not my fault!”
Will growled and that’s when his eldest son stepped in.
Dougie was the smartest of Will’s boys. He knew well how to play the game but he was always smooth. Using the charm. Even with Freddy. He didn’t explode at him the way Will wanted to. He just stepped in close, a cigarette between his middle and forefingers, his free hand stuffed in the jacket pocket of his Italian suit.
He leaned over, so he could look right into Freddy’s eyes.
“We’re not discussing this with you, Uncle,” Dougie said calmly. Always calm, that one. “We’re telling you what you need to do. Or the New York coppers . . . they’ll be finding pieces of you all up and down the Eastern seaboard. So if you wanna keep breathing, get us back our da’s money. Understand. . . Uncle?”
The side door opened and Freddy’s eldest girl stepped out. She looked right at her father, being held between two of Will’s burly sons, blood and bruises on his face.
Freddy grinned when he saw her . . . until she turned away from him and faced Will.
“My sisters and I are about to leave, but Aunt Bernice said you wanted to talk to me?”
“Yeah, I do.” He headed back inside, and Charlie followed, not even glancing again at her battered old man.
He led her into a room with a washer and a few grizzlies in it.<
br />
“Get out,” Will ordered.
“Who the hell do you think you—”
Will bared his fangs and hissed while the grizzlies huffed at him and bared their fangs in return.
Charlie pressed her hand against Will’s chest. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” she said to the bears. “Could you give us just a few minutes? I have to speak with my uncle and we just need some place private. If that’s okay.”
“Well, since you’ve been so nice,” one of the older bears replied, “we’ll give you a few minutes alone.”
“Thank you so much,” she said with that charming smile.
The bears started to walk out, but the youngest stopped and said to Charlie, “There’s a girl running around screaming, ‘Bear!’ every time she sees one of us. It’s beginning to upset my uncles.”
“Yeah, that’s my baby sister. She’s got a bear issue. But as soon I’m done here, we’re out.”
“Okay. Great.”
“And I’m very sorry if she insulted anyone. She was just trying to manage her fear.”
“No big deal,” the grizzly insisted. “Really.”
Charlie closed the door. “See what nice gets you?”
“But I prefer rude and violent.”
* * *
“Why is your sister wet and wearing a T-shirt?”
Stevie shrugged at Shen’s question. “It’s complicated.”
“In other words, I don’t want to know?”
“Exactly.”
Stevie rested her arms on the bar.
“Want a drink?” Shen asked her.
“No.” She glanced around the bar and, making sure everyone was busy not noticing her, she leaned into Shen and whispered, “I have to figure out how to get my sisters to that damn wild dog thing.”
“Is that really your only option here?”
“Do you have six figures lying around to loan us to repair the living room I damaged?”
“No.”
“Then yes, that’s my only option.”
“What’s your only option?” Max asked.
She was standing right by Stevie, but a few seconds before she’d been across the room.
“Nothing,” Stevie lied with a smile.
Max leaned around her and said, “Shen, what’s her only option?”
“You know what I’m not going to do?” Shen announced. “Get between sisters. I have two. I got between them once, and when I woke up from my coma, I decided I’d never do that again. With any sisters.”
“You were in a coma?” Stevie asked.
“My mother said I was unconscious for less than thirty seconds, but it felt like a coma.”
“Just tell me,” Max pushed.
“No.”
“Tell me.”
“Never!” Stevie raised her hand, her forefinger pointed at the sky. “I will go to my grave never telling you anything!”
Max, always annoyed when Stevie became “stupidly dramatic,” balled her hand into a fist and Stevie waited for the first blow, but her sister just stood there, gazing straight ahead; barely breathing.
“Max?” Stevie asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Someone is touching my ass.”
Stevie leaned around her sister and that’s when she saw Creepy Roy on the other side of Max, his even creepier hand disappearing under her T-shirt.
“Hold my beer,” Stevie ordered Shen.
“What are you going to—Stevie! No!”
* * *
“You want us to what?” Charlie asked her uncle.
“Was I unclear?”
“You want us to open a bar?”
“A MacKilligan bar.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Charlie tossed out, now pacing the room.
“That seems a bit rude.”
“I know you’re just being an asshole.”
“How do you come to that?”
“Because you know we’re not part of this family, but you’re going to try to use us to launder your fucking gangster money. Fuck you and the Erin go bragh you rode in on!”
“That’s Irish, ya little twat!”
“Do I look like I know the difference?”
Will took in a breath, gave himself a moment. Which surprised Charlie. From what she’d heard over the years, he wasn’t one to curb his rage and hatred.
“I know the family hasn’t exactly endeared itself to you and your sisters. And I mostly blame your father for that.”
“So do I,” she admitted.
“But this is an opportunity for us to bridge the gap between the Scots and the Yanks.”
“Then use Bernice. She’s got a lot of daughters.”
“Thieves! Every last one of ’em.”
“That is true.”
“I can’t trust them. But I know I can trust you and your sisters.”
“To launder your money? Forget it. We’re not risking going to prison for you.”
“We don’t need you to launder money. We’ve got that covered, thank you very much.”
“Then what do you want us for?”
Will grinned. “Snakes.”
“Snakes?”
Now he wiggled his eyebrows. “Snakes.”
* * *
Shen pulled hard, attempting to drag Stevie off Creepy Roy’s back. But she wouldn’t let him go. Gripping his shoulder with one hand, she just kept punching him in the back of the neck while Max continued to slam the man’s forehead into the bar.
What annoyed Shen, though, was that no one was helping him. Berg and Dag wanted to, but they wouldn’t get close to Stevie when she was like this. They didn’t want to freak her out. Britta refused to because she’d seen what Roy had done, and the only thing that stopped her from breaking him in two was that Max and Stevie had gotten to him first.
But the honey badgers . . . they weren’t doing anything. Nothing. Roy was family but not one of them stepped in to help. They weren’t cheering either. Or reacting in any way that Shen would consider normal. Just staring. Like an entire group of sociopaths!
“Let him go!” he ordered, but Stevie ignored him.
There was one very good thing, though. Stevie was angry, but she wasn’t panicking. Even though there was a group of grizzlies watching the drama from the corner of the bar. And if Stevie wasn’t panicking, he wasn’t worried she’d shift. And that was a good thing, right?
When he tried to heave Stevie off once again, he saw Charlie exit from the back hallway, her Uncle Will right beside her. They were talking—calmly, he was happy to notice—but as soon as she realized what was happening, Charlie walked away from her uncle and over to Shen.
“What’s going on?”
“Creepy Roy here touched your sister inappropriately.”
“Which one?” she asked, shockingly calm.
“Max. He says he was just joking, though,” Shen added with a disgusted sigh. He hated guys like Roy. Always had.
Charlie gave a short nod. “Okay.”
Shen was so surprised, he almost released Stevie. “Okay? That’s all you have to say?”
“Uh-huh.”
She stepped away, heading back toward her Uncle Will, and Shen wondered what her uncle had to say to her that was so important she would ignore what was going on right in front of her. But then she neared her uncle . . . and passed him, disappearing into the back hallway again.
A minute or two later, she returned. Walking confidently, casually, across the floor. When she stood directly behind Roy, she crouched down and Shen leaned over a bit to get a better look.
Charlie wrapped a cord she’d found somewhere around his ankles. His legs were spread apart, but she looped the cord in such a way that when she stood up and yanked, his legs shut tight. Then she wrenched him off the bar, snatching him away from Max’s grip.
Roy’s head slammed into the end of the bar and onto one of the stools.
Shen snatched Stevie off the badger’s back before he hit the floor. Charlie spun around, placing the length of the cord over her shoulder.
/> “Max!” Charlie barked. “Door!”
Max ran across the bar top, jumped off, and quickly opened the front door.
“You know what really pisses me off?” Charlie asked as she dragged her yelling cousin behind her. “I mean, besides when assholes such as yourself believe they can put their hands on women without their consent.” Roy unleashed his claws and jammed them into the wood flooring of the bar. It caused Charlie to pause, but with one strong tug, Roy was moving again, his claws leaving a deep trail across the floor.
“It’s when some of you MacKilligans think,” Charlie continued, “you can get away with bullshit when it comes to me and my sisters. You think that I’ll let you get away with bullshit. After all these years, some of you still think that. Still believe that.”
She reached the door and dropped the cord. Leaning down, she grabbed her cousin by the back of his jacket and lifted him off the ground. She jerked him around so he was in front of the door, but she spun his body so he faced her.
And that’s when he punched her in the jaw.
The thing was, Shen didn’t think Roy meant to do it. He’d been tossed around and his arm had just been . . . swinging. Unfortunately, it had swung at Charlie.
Even scarier . . . despite the fact that Roy had punched Stevie’s sister really hard, snapping Charlie’s head to the side, she didn’t stumble, she didn’t cry out, she didn’t do anything but stand there a moment.
Berg and Dag jerked away from the wall they’d been leaning on, but their sister caught their arms, held them back. She knew better. Shen knew better.
Especially when Charlie slowly turned her head and looked at Roy. Just looked at him.
“Uh-oh,” Stevie whispered. She was in Shen’s arms and she seemed very happy to be there. Very relieved.
Eyes wide, mouth open, Roy brought his hands up, palms out, and begged, “I didn’t mean to! I swear! I swear!”
But it was too late. Shen knew that even though Charlie’s expression never changed. He was sure, in most instances, Charlie would have forgiven the punch. But she’d never forgive that he’d touched her sister’s ass.
Charlie’s head moved and Shen realized she was locating a sound. Listening for something. Her ears even twitched a bit. Then, her expression still not changing, she leaned back and, to his amazement, brought both her legs up in one, fluid movement, and rammed them forward into Roy’s chest.
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