“My God, Brittany, what happened?”
“She attacked me!”
Vic and Shen looked around the room, but didn’t see anyone else.
“Who attacked you?”
She yanked the towel from his hand and pointed at the cabinets. “Her!”
Now really confused, Vic walked to the cabinets over his stainless-steel refrigerator and opened one of the wood doors. Opened it and stared.
A naked Livy Kowalski, comfortably curled up inside his cabinet, held out an open jar and softly asked, “African honey?”
Vic wanted to be angry. She’d broken into his home, eaten his honey, and attacked his neighbor. And yet . . .
Closing the cabinet door, Vic faced a raging Brittany.
“Brittany,” he began, “I am so sorry. This is all my fault.”
“Your fault?”
“Well, I don’t allow her out of that cabinet without my permission.” Vic forced himself to keep his focus on a now-horrified Brittany because of Shen and what he was sure was his reaction, but Shen was smart enough to turn away from them all.
“Your permission?” Brittany growled. “You keep a woman in your food cabinets?”
“It would be cruel to make her stay under the sink. She’s not that small.”
“Do you really expect me to believe that, Victor Barinov?”
Uh-oh. She was seeing through his lie, which meant he’d never get rid of her. Yeah, yeah, Brittany was really pretty and probably gave a guy a wild ride in bed. But Vic wasn’t nineteen anymore. He really hated waking up in the morning with a woman he had nothing to say to. And he had absolutely nothing to say to Brittany.
But before Vic could either spill his guts—“I have no idea why a honey badger is in my cabinet!”—or lie more—“And she’s my cousin! That’s double wrong!”—his older sister suddenly stormed into his kitchen, Vic’s six-year-old nephew hanging off her hip.
“Well, I’ve left him!” Irina, called Ira by the family, announced to the room.
“Again?” Shen asked.
Which got him the quick Ira-response of, “Shut it, Shen.”
Vic focused on his sister. “She doesn’t believe me.”
Ira blinked. “Who doesn’t believe you?”
“Brittany.”
Ira and Brittany sized each other up as only She-predators could. Like Vic, Ira was half bear, but the Siberian tigress side of her didn’t much like this other cat in territory Ira felt the need to protect, at least until Vic found a mate of his own.
“Doesn’t believe you about what?” Ira asked.
“About my little Livy.”
His sister glanced around, her eyes settling on the cabinet. The first time Vic had found out that Livy was breaking into his house was when his sister had opened a cabinet and found the honey badger sound asleep, her fingers and face still sticky from the honey she’d devoured. Although Ira hadn’t reacted nearly as violently as Brittany. Instead, she’d quietly closed the cabinet, tiptoed out of the room, and told Vic, “There’s a naked woman in your cabinet . . . and she’s eaten all the honey.”
After a moment of silence, Ira suddenly announced, “Well, not everyone is comfortable with that sort of relationship in this society.” She smiled at Brittany. “But Livy does have her benefits. When he’s out of town, she comes over to do my laundry and clean my house. But I insist she put on clothes first! I have a child to think of.”
Brittany threw up her hands. “I’m leaving!” she announced, her expression disgusted. “And I’m taking my cake with—”
When her words abruptly ended, Vic and his sister looked down. Shen was sitting at the kitchen table and had a handful of cake, his mouth covered in the buttercream frosting.
He swallowed and said, “Really good cake. And I’m not even a lemon guy.”
Maybe if Shen had cut the cake, Brittany would have still taken it. But seeing that his hands had been in it . . .
Definitely something bears could overlook, but not a feline. And Brittany was all feline.
Spinning on her heel, she stormed out, slamming the front door behind her.
After a moment of silence, Ira asked, “So Livy’s naked in your cabinets again?”
Vic shrugged. “Yeah.”
Livy was reaching for another jar of honey when the cabinet doors opened. She winced at the bright light from the kitchen windows.
“What are you doing?” Vic demanded. “Why do you keep breaking into my house?”
“As much as I protect you from these pathetic females, you’d think you’d appreciate my presence.”
“I don’t.” He frowned. “And why are you always naked when I find you?” Vic folded his arms over his chest. “Tell me you didn’t eat your way into my house again.”
“Of course not.” Livy licked honey off her thumb. “I burrowed my way into your house. There’s a difference.”
“Dammit, Livy!”
Vic went in search of the hole Livy had created as his sister placed her son on the ground and tapped his butt. “Go watch TV, Igor.”
“But I want to see naked Livy!”
“Igor . . .”
The little boy ran off before his mother could get really terse, and Ira Barinov walked over to the cabinet. She was shorter than her brother by nearly a foot but that still made her over six feet tall. Ira held her arms up. “Come on, cranky badger.”
“But I’m comfortable.”
“You already have him freaking out about holes. You don’t want him to think too much about your naked ass rubbing against the cabinets storing his food.”
Livy knew Ira was right. Vic was quite mellow most of the time, but sometimes he could get surprisingly obsessive over the strangest things. And once he locked on, he just never let go. She really didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that, so Livy waved Ira’s arms away. “I can get down on my own.”
“Not without your claws, and you already left scratches in the wood where you climbed in. Let’s not make it worse.”
Deciding not to argue, Livy placed her hands on Ira’s massive shoulders and let the hybrid lower her to the floor. She ignored the pat on her head that followed.
“So what brings you to my brother’s territory?” Ira asked.
Livy walked around the kitchen island and grabbed the clothes she’d left there the night before.
“I thought he was out of town.”
Ira chuckled. “Not why did you choose his house. I just assumed you couldn’t find an open window anywhere in the City. I’m talking about why did you feel the need to burrow into his honey cabinets.”
“Oh, nothing. Just my entire life is falling apart.”
“It couldn’t fall apart at your own place?”
Livy heard no vicious tone in her words. It was just a question. So she answered while grabbing her clothes, “I couldn’t stay at the apartment. Not with her there.”
Ira leaned against the counter, and pulled a bowl of fruit close. “Who?” she asked after choosing a few grapes and popping them into her mouth.
“My cousin.”
“If you didn’t want her there, why did you invite her?”
Livy pulled her head through her sweatshirt. “I didn’t invite her.”
“Oh.” Ira shrugged. “Then throw her out.”
“It won’t matter. She’ll just come back.” Livy finger-combed her hair off her face. “We always come back.”
“Like a chronic illness,” Shen offered around a mouthful of cake. And when Livy and Ira stared at him, he shrugged and added, “It felt like you needed an analogy there. At the end.” The women kept staring, so he suddenly dug his laptop out of the bag resting against his chair. “Forget it.”
Livy pulled the straps of her backpack over her shoulders. “Well, I’m out of here.”
“You’re leaving?” Ira asked.
“Since your brother’s home now—”
“Oh, come on. Stay. We have cake.” She glared at Shen. “Stop eating the cake!”
&n
bsp; “I’m hungry!”
“I appreciate the invite, but once your brother finds that hole—”
“Dammit, Livy!”
Livy pointed at where the yelling had just come from. “Yup. I’m out.” She went to walk around the island, but Ira reached across and grabbed Livy’s arm.
“Stay. Please. We can chat!”
Livy couldn’t help but frown. “Chat?”
“She’s looking for a girlfriend,” Shen explained, his gaze locked on his laptop screen. Two big fingers quickly moved across the keyboard.
“I’m not really girlfriend material.”
“Have you ever thought a pair of shoes were cute?”
Livy shrugged. “Yeah. I guess, but—”
“Good enough!”
Ira yanked Livy over to the table, removed her backpack, and forced her into a chair. “I’ll make breakfast!”
Vic walked back into the kitchen. “You keep putting holes in my house,” he rightfully accused.
“I don’t want criminals to see any broken windows when I’m not here. The holes are harder to spot.”
“Now isn’t that nice of her?” Ira asked, her head in the refrigerator. “Oooh. There’s bacon.”
“Stop siding with her.” Vic sat down opposite Livy.
“If you don’t want her breaking into your house, then give her a key.”
“I offered.”
“I don’t like keys. It implies . . .” Livy thought a moment. “Permanence.”
“I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m asking you not to break into my home.”
“Yeah,” Livy replied. “I know.”
Vic did not understand this woman because she didn’t seem to understand the most basic things. Like how it made more sense to take the keys he’d had specially made for her rather than burrowing expensive and not easily repaired holes into his house so that she had a place to crash for the night. Vic had finally had to hire a shifter contractor to take care of the hole problem because he’d run out of lies to tell the full-human one he normally used. And the shifter contractors? They overcharged! Thieves! All of them! Especially the bears.
Yet the strangest thing about it all? Vic strongly felt that if he’d asked Livy very seriously not to come back into his home, she wouldn’t. Out of some Livy-only-understands-it sense of honor. But he couldn’t bring himself to do that—he just didn’t know why.
Livy’s phone went off and she pulled the device from her back pocket. But one look at the screen had her dropping her head to his thick wood table—hard. The sound was so loud, Ira turned away from the stove, where she was busy putting bacon in one of the pans he never had time to use.
The phone stopped ringing, but then started up again a few seconds later. Livy lifted her head, took several deep breaths, and answered.
“Yeah?” Livy’s mouth set in a hard line. Strange. It wasn’t like she smiled much, but her mouth was usually quite relaxed . . . wait. Why did he know that? How often was he staring at this woman’s mouth? “Yeah. She’s there. Yeah, I did leave her alone. She’s not a child.” Livy paused, dark eyes narrowing. “Because the little twat is not my problem,” she snapped into the phone.
Livy winced and the yelling from the other end of the phone reached Vic. Most of it at this point was in Mandarin, but Vic could tell by the tone and what he knew of the language—which was enough to successfully get around China when necessary—that Livy was getting her ass reamed . . . by her mother.
“You are a spoiled child! Undeserving of the Yang or Kowalski name if you can’t do one thing for your family!”
“Melly is—”
“Your cousin! And an important part of this family! You are so selfish!”
“Fine! I’ll—”
“No, no! I wouldn’t think of asking the princess to lower herself to help her family. I would never dare to tread on her oh-so-important artistic life! I sent your cousins over to watch out for Melly. And they went. Because they understand family! Unlike you!”
Livy sighed and said in English, “Whatever, Ma.”
There was a long pause. Dangerously long. Then Vic heard her mother scream, “I no longer have a daughter! My daughter’s dead to me!”
But at the hysterical words, Livy only crossed her eyes. Vic sensed this was not the first time those two sentences had been hurled at her.
The screaming on the other end stopped and Livy lowered the phone. Vic assumed her mother had hung up.
“I have to say, I didn’t understand the words,” Shen observed, “but the tone I recognize from when my grandmother and mother go at it.”
Bringing eggs and milk over to the island, Ira asked Shen, “You don’t know Mandarin?”
“As I’ve been telling you since I was in college with your brother . . . I am sixth-generation Chinese American. The most Mandarin I know is from the Chinese restaurant down the street. So you can keep your Russian racism to yourself.”
“Excuse me,” Ira snapped back. “That was not Russian racism. That was good ol’ American racism, thank you very much. And we’re damn proud of it.”
“It took her years to hone,” Vic muttered.
“Sure did!” She grinned. “I’m gettin’ pretty good at it, too.”
Ira placed the eggs and milk on the counter, but quickly noticed her brother’s frown. “What’s wrong?”
“Is any of that fresh?” Because Vic hadn’t bought groceries in months.
“I brought them last night,” Livy admitted.
Stunned, Vic gazed at Livy. “You did?”
“I didn’t think you’d be home for a while. I wanted to make sure I had enough to eat.”
Vic studied Livy for a moment.
“What?” she pushed, when he didn’t say anything.
“You never crash for more than a night. You’re really avoiding this cousin of yours, aren’t you?” he guessed.
“I get around her . . . and all hell breaks loose. She’s crazy. I don’t mean cute, endearing crazy or even annoying, pain-in-the-ass crazy. She’s just nuts.”
“Is that why your mother is insisting she stay with you? So you can take care of her?”
Livy snorted. “Hell, no. My mother hates Melly,” Livy said flatly. “The whole family hates Melly.”
Eggs forgotten, Ira walked around the island and rested her butt on it, arms crossed over her chest. “They do?”
Livy dropped her phone on the table, which explained why her phone wasn’t in a sexy or cutesy case like most women had for their smartphones, but was in some sturdy rubber that could take a real beating. Because she probably beat the hell out of the thing.
“Melly,” she began, “is . . .” Livy thought a moment before announcing, “Crazy. I don’t mean shifter crazy. I mean motherfucking crazy. She was in jail . . . no.” Livy shook her head. “She was just paroled from prison. No one in the damn family wants to deal with her, but we all do.”
Vic said, “I don’t understand . . . if your family can’t stand her . . . why is your mother forcing you to take care of her?”
“Because . . . she’s got skills. And my family will always exploit skills. No matter how annoying you may be.”
“Skills? What skills?”
“Well . . . Melly can look at a painting, like a Monet or a Renoir or a Bernardo Zenale—’cause she really liked him—for, like, two hours—and in three days give you a perfect replica. Aged perfectly and everything. There are at least two of her Monets, and a François Clouet in the Louvre.” She paused. “But you don’t know that because we could all go to jail, yada yada yada, blah blah blah.”
The silence after that was long and painful, until Vic’s sister pushed the plate of nearly finished dessert across the table to Livy and asked, “Cake?”
Livy stood. “Thanks for breakfast,” she told Ira after she’d finished eating. “It was good.”
“It was bacon,” Ira joked. “Who can ever go wrong with bacon?”
“You going home?” Vic asked.
“Guess
I should. At least to make sure my apartment’s still there.”
“Maybe it won’t be that bad.” And Livy appreciated him trying to make her feel better. It actually gave her a brief moment of hope—until it was dashed by Shen.
“Uh . . . Livy?” He glanced up from the laptop he’d been working on even while they ate breakfast.
“What?”
“I was searching around . . . about your cousin . . . because, ya know . . .” The panda shrugged. “Crazy girls usually mean hot sex and I wanted to see what she looked like.”
Ira sneered. “All these years, Shen, and you still disgust me.”
Shen ignored his friend’s sister and pointed at his computer screen. “Is this her?”
Livy walked around until she stood behind Shen and the Barinov siblings stood behind her. Then, together, they all watched the horror unfold.
It was especially horrifying when Melly, while guzzling back another glass of vodka and orange juice, admitted to the PC camera Livy used for online meetings, “You know what? I totally am not supposed to be drinking right now. I think the judge said that.” Melly thought for a moment, her eyes gazing up at the ceiling. “Yep! Totally not supposed to be drinking. I think it’s part of my probation or whatever.” She shrugged. “Well, like, who’s going to find out? Am I right, girls?” That’s when Melly leaned back and Livy could see her other female cousins that Livy’s mother had sent over to “take care of Melly” in the background, including Jocelyn—who Livy thought knew better! And the whole group of them were already drunk and out of control.
Fists in the air, the She-badgers began chanting, “Chug, Melly! Chug! Chug! Chug!” And Melly did.
“Is this live?” Livy asked.
“No. It was posted a few hours ago.”
“Right.” Livy nodded, knew what she had to do. “Okay. Thanks for breakfast.”
“Where are you going?” Vic asked.
“Back to the apartment. I’ve got people to kill.”
Vic shook his head. “Anyone else, Livy, and I’d assume they were just being overly dramatic. But you . . . I’m pretty sure you’re going to kill them.”
“Yeah. I’ll get away with it, too. By the time I’m done, it’ll be like they never existed.”