Bite Me

  When the batter was pretty well mixed, Livy released Igor’s hand so he could continue on for a little bit longer. As he did, a wide grin on his cute face, he glanced over his shoulder and crowed, “Look, Uncle Vic! I’m cooking!”

  “I can see that.”

  Vic stood in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, as he leaned against the frame and watched them. How long he’d been standing there, Livy didn’t know. Nor did she ask.

  Still wearing his black sweatpants, Vic had also pulled on a plain white T-shirt that appeared kind of old and worn. It was also a little tight, so that Livy could make out Vic’s muscular arms and chest pretty well. And she had to admit . . . those muscles were damn impressive.

  “You ready for tonight?” he asked Livy.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s tonight?” Igor asked.

  “None of your bus—”

  Livy cut Vic off with, “I get to do what I learned when I was your age.”

  “Make batter?”

  “Pick locks.”

  Vic immediately pushed himself away from the door frame and clapped his hands together. “Okay! Let’s get you in the shower, kid.”

  As Vic was reaching for his nephew, Livy heard keys in the back door and a few seconds later, an enormous grizzly came storming into the kitchen.

  Vic stared at the bear for a moment before saying, “Hi, Dan.”

  “I’m here for my wife,” the grizzly announced . . . loudly. He pointed at Igor. “Go get your mother, son. I’m taking her home!”

  “Okay, Dad!”

  Livy removed the bowl from Igor’s lap, and the boy jumped off the table and ran off to find his mother.

  Once the boy was gone, Dan whispered, “How did that sound, Vic? Pretty tough?”

  Gawking at his brother-in-law, Vic slowly nodded his head. “Uh . . . yeah. Sure. Tough.”

  “Great.” He looked at Livy. “Hey, Livy.”

  “Hi, Dan.”

  “Were you in the cabinets again?”

  “Pretty much.”

  The bear leaned over a bit. “Are you making pancakes?”

  “And bacon. Plus my honey–maple syrup mix. The ultimate in delicious decadence.”

  “Oh man. That sounds really good.”

  “You’re welcome to stay,” Vic offered.

  “Yeah, but I should really drag your sister home by her hair.” He blew out a breath, glanced up at the ceiling. “But I really want pancakes with that syrup.”

  “Then tell her she has to stay,” Livy suggested. “Until you’re done eating.”

  “Oh. Good idea. Thanks, Livy!” The bear grinned at her and walked off to order his wife to stay until he finished his breakfast.

  Livy looked at Vic. “Are they happy like that?” she asked.

  “Very.”

  She shrugged and walked to the stove. “Then that’s all that matters.”

  Shen parked the windowless black van two blocks away from their target and turned off the engine. He looked back at them and announced, “I’ll go recon the area.”

  The driver’s door closed behind him and Livy asked, “He’s going to recon the area?”

  Vic shrugged. “He never really left the geek room, as I called it. He and his geek coworkers used technology and their obsessive natures to track down targets, and the rest of us took it from there. It’s a relationship that’s worked well for me in the past.”

  Livy, dressed in skintight black clothes, replied, “Huh.”

  Vic watched her slip on black gloves and cover her black-and-white hair with a black knit cap.

  “You got everything you need?” he asked.

  “What do I need?”

  “Livy . . .”

  She chuckled. “I’ve got everything.”

  “Good. Now she’s supposed to be out of the apartment the entire night, but—”

  “Would you stop worrying? I know what I’m doing. I learned to do this while I was in the womb.”

  “And it’s my job to worry. That’s what I do.”

  Livy tucked her hair under the cap. “And you’re surprisingly good at it.”

  “I’m just asking that you be careful.”

  “I will. Promise.”

  The van door opened and Shen said, “It’s clear, Livy.”

  “Thanks.”

  Livy slipped a tiny black backpack on and stepped out of the van. “I’ll be back,” she said, before she disappeared into the darkness.

  Shen got into the van, closed the door, and sat down on the floor. He pulled out his laptop and began accessing their target’s security system.

  Smiling, Shen pulled out one of his cut bamboo stalks and began his infernal chewing while he worked.

  “So,” he said around the stalk, his eyes locked on his computer screen, “she looks mighty good in that little outfit, doesn’t she?”

  “Shut up.” And Vic forced himself not to throttle the panda laughing at him.

  Livy slipped into the alley beside the building. As soon as she did, she felt . . . at home. In the darkness, moving through the shadows. It was in her blood. Both sides of her family, for centuries, were thieves. Honey badger thieves. Their targets ranged from art to silver, gold, banks, and crown jewels. What the family didn’t tolerate were tacky home invasions of any kind, targeting the poor, or stealing from their own family. A Kowalski never stole from another Kowalski. A Yang never stole from another Yang. Not without repercussions. And honey badger repercussions could be . . . painful.

  The funny thing was, Livy had done all she could to pull herself away from this part of her life. She was an artist, a phrase that offended her mother on a visceral level. “We’re not artists,” she’d drunkenly snarled during a Thanksgiving dinner many years ago, “we steal from artists. You never get that right.”

  But her mother’s constant pushing and her father’s indifference just made Livy more resolute. She was an artist, a photographer. At least that was what she’d always thought . . . until she’d run out of ideas, creativity . . . desire. When it came to art, desire was a big part of it. Not sexual desire, but the desire to create, to produce, to explore the world around oneself. Without the desire . . . an artist had nothing.

  And right now, Livy had nothing.

  So she fell back on what she knew: breaking and entering.

  Although, for Livy, breaking and entering wasn’t the challenge it was for most. She didn’t need fancy equipment to get at a target. All she needed was an idea of a building’s layout and the cover of darkness, both of which she currently had.

  So, using her claws, Livy began climbing the building’s wall, sure that Shen had already dealt with the security cameras surrounding the area.

  She moved quietly and quickly as she was trained to do. It wasn’t an easy climb, but at least she didn’t have to go all the way up to the penthouse floor this way. She could do it, but it would be a drag and an excessive amount of work.

  Finally, Livy reached the air duct near the twenty-third floor. Holding on with one claw and the balls of her feet, she used her free hand and a small screwdriver to remove the bottom screws from the metal screen. Once done, she lifted it and pulled her body inside. The space was small but Livy could maneuver her way through almost any space. Yes. Even with her broad shoulders. Of course, sometimes she was forced to dislocate her shoulder, which she hated doing. It was not pleasant and just because she was a honey badger didn’t mean she was into pain. Because she wasn’t.

  Dislocation unnecessary, Livy quickly made her way down the air ducts and into the back stairwell until she was at the emergency door that led up one flight of stairs to Allison Whitlan’s apartment. Livy eased that door open and crept up the stairs until she reached another emergency door. She checked for alarm wires, found them, and disabled them. Then she went in, through a small hallway until she reached a service entrance.

  According to Vic’s contacts, tonight was the staff’s night off, and the mistress of the house was at some charity event with other
rich people like herself. But Livy still listened at the door for a moment before getting out her tools and picking the lock.

  She waited another breath before opening the door and taking a step inside the dark hallway. She waited again, heard nothing; so she slowly closed the door, and began moving through the apartment.

  The place was enormous. Had to cost several million. A place where Livy would love to crash some night when she needed a new temporary burrow.

  Livy checked her watch. She had time, so she moved through the apartment carefully, looking for any signs that the woman was in touch with her father. With the infamous Frankie “The Rat” Whitlan. A man Livy could not care less about. But how could she turn Barinov down when he’d filled her office with all those baskets?

  Livy stopped in front of a Picasso. She leaned in, studied the signature. Nodded. It was a real one. Not a Kowalski replica that most art experts would be hard pressed to prove wasn’t a real Picasso.

  Livy checked the bedrooms first. The apartment had nine. She took the most time in the woman’s office. She found tons of information about Allison Whitlan’s finances and her charity work, plus lots of handwritten notes on Post-its, but nothing that screamed, “My daddy, Frankie Whitlan, is at the corner of Fifth and Broadway!”

  Checking her watch again, Livy realized she was running out of time, so she did a quick sweep of all the bathrooms, and then the giant kitchen.

  Livy’s last stop was the TV room and the living room. She did the living room first, sweeping through quickly, before walking toward the exit to head to the TV room.

  Livy stepped into the hallway, but stopped, blinking slowly, her mind processing.

  After nearly a minute, she slowly backed up into the living room, stopped again. Waited another moment, took a breath, and turned.

  Livy stared, studied what she saw, her mouth slowly dropping open, her heart racing hard.

  Then, after several minutes of studying the stuffed animal carcass standing hideously beside Allison Whitlan’s fireplace, Livy said a word she hadn’t said since she was a toddler . . .

  “Daddy?”

  CHAPTER 8

  Vic checked his watch again. Now he was getting worried.

  “Where the hell is she?”

  “We should have wired her,” Shen said, his focus still on his laptop.

  “I tried. She said no.”

  “Your girlfriend is not big on communication, is she?”

  “We both know Livy is not my girlfriend.”

  “She’s constantly in your house, making you breakfast, and eating honey while naked. And you don’t slap said honey out of her hand like you do with me. What else would you call her?”

  “My friend whom I find considerably less annoying than you. And you don’t eat honey.”

  Vic opened the van door and stepped out. “I’m not liking this.”

  “We’d hear sirens if she’d been caught. Just relax. Your girlfriend knows what she’s doing.”

  Vic glared at Shen. He thought about knocking that bamboo stalk out of his mouth but knew it wouldn’t really help the situation.

  Glancing at his watch, Vic debated his next move . . . but that was when he realized he didn’t have a next move. He had nothing. This was all Livy. All she’d wanted from them, all she’d allowed, was Shen handling the security cameras, getting her the intelligence on the building, and the two men accompanying her to the target site. Other than that . . . she’d had no use for them.

  And, Vic realized as he saw a limo he was guessing had Allison Whitlan in it turn the corner to park at the front of the building, he was now going to pay for this stupidity when Livy was busted and ended up doing hard time for . . .

  His increasingly panicked thoughts faded off when he saw Livy come out of the dark alley and head toward him.

  Sighing in relief, Vic smiled and stepped farther out on the sidewalk. But as Livy neared him, Vic’s smile faded. It wasn’t just the expression on her face, which was . . . disturbing. It was her entire body. He’d never seen her so stiff before. Normally, Livy moved like a very loose lumberjack. She didn’t amble like Dee-Ann. It was a street-savvy walk. Like she could handle anything that came her way.

  Yet now . . . now she looked like she’d kill the first person who said anything to her. Man, woman, or child. Like she was just waiting for that one thing to set her off.

  When she was close enough so that he didn’t need to yell, Vic asked, “Livy? What happened?”

  “Later,” she said, walking right by him and to the van. She grabbed the big backpack she brought everywhere.

  “Livy?”

  “Later.”

  Then she and her backpack were gone, and Vic had absolutely no idea what the hell had just happened.

  “What’s going on?” Shen asked from the van.

  He looked at the panda and threw his hands up. “I have no idea.”

  Chuntao Yang, who’d renamed herself Joan when her family first moved to America, woke up early. Her sisters and an aunt needed to catch a flight to Belgium in the afternoon. They had to prep for a job in Italy. It was always risky when they worked that close to the Vatican, but the payoff would be outstanding.

  Still, they had to plan carefully no matter what country they were working in. Joan had no desire to go to prison. Her kind, honey badgers, filled prisons all over the world, which meant she’d end up spending most of her time fighting. So she’d rather stay out of prison and enjoy her life.

  Joan put on her favorite red dress—she looked wonderful in red—matching Jimmy Choo red heels, just enough gold jewelry to highlight her attributes, and her red cashmere coat.

  Satisfied with what she saw in the mirror—and when wasn’t she satisfied?—Joan headed down the stairs toward the kitchen, where her sisters and aunt were making breakfast and preparing for their afternoon trip.

  Once she got to the bottom step, Joan placed her travel cases on the floor and dropped her coat over the banister. Fluffing her hair, she walked down the hallway, her mind turning, planning for this next job.

  Joan loved her work. Loved how it took her out of her problems. Everything in her life narrowed into planning and executing The Job. So much so that when The Job was complete, her problems had usually gone with it. Or at least the worst was over.

  And the way things had been going lately . . . well, Joan was really looking forward to this particular job. More than she could say.

  As she neared the kitchen, Joan could hear her sisters and aunt chatting in English and Mandarin. For years, Joan refused to speak her native language because she wanted to be able to blend in as much as any Asian woman could blend in America. It had worked to some degree. She could speak English, French, Russian, German, Italian, and Spanish flawlessly, her accent in all those languages near perfect. But when she got angry enough, the Mandarin came out of her with or without her consent. Of course, only her family and her ex-husband ever seemed to get her that angry. No one else was worth the trouble.

  Joan was about to step into the kitchen when she stopped, her daughter’s scent surprising her.

  Slowly, Joan turned, and yes, her daughter stood behind her, just a few feet away. Unsure what she was doing at their safe house in Chicago, Joan was about to ask. But Olivia cut her off.

  “Who did we bury, Ma?” she asked.

  Joan blinked. “What?”

  “Who did we bury in Dad’s grave?”

  Without looking behind her, Joan knew from the sudden silence that her sisters and aunt were listening to every word. Not that she blamed them.

  “Who did we bury?” Joan asked. “Well . . . your father, of course.”

  Livy shook her head. And Joan now realized that her daughter was angry. Not just angry . . . livid. And because her daughter was a lot like Joan herself, that was a very rare sight.

  “It can’t be Dad.”

  “It can’t?” Joan asked, trying to sound bored. “Why not?”

  “Because I just saw him.”

  J
oan felt her heart pound in her chest while she fought her anger at him for not contacting her in all this time. “He’s alive?”

  Her daughter stared at her for a moment. A long moment that told Joan something was very wrong.

  “Livy?”

  “No. He’s not alive. He was stuffed and placed next to some bitch’s fireplace for all her friends to gawk at while eating hors d’oeuvres and drinking champagne.”

  Livy’s words tore through Joan, her heart no longer pounding from excitement but despair and anger.

  “So it can’t be Dad in that grave. Now I’ll ask you again, and then I’m going to start flipping the fuck out . . . who did we bury in that Washington graveyard?”

  As soon as Livy cursed, she knew she’d hear it from her aunts and great-aunt. They might be honey badgers but the whole respecting-the-elders thing was big among her brethren. So as soon as that “fuck” left her mouth, her aunts were on her, yelling at her in Mandarin and shaking fingers at her while her great-aunt Li-Li helped her mother into the kitchen to sit at the large table and held her hand.

  Livy, in no mood for any of this, pushed past her finger-wagging, yelling aunts and stalked into the kitchen after her mother.

  “Answer me.”

  Livy’s aunts followed, but before they could get in the middle of this, she spun on them, bared her fangs, and hissed a warning.

  “Stop it,” Joan said. “All of you.”

  “I’ll get you some tea,” Li-Li said before going to the stove, briefly stopping to give Livy a hard “Li-Li glare,” as it was called among the Yangs. Then she scratched the big, brutal scar on her old neck and continued on to make the tea.

  Livy ignored her relatives and pulled out a chair, catty-corner from her mother, and dropped into it.

  “Sit down,” her mother ordered her sisters.

  They did as they were told, but Livy’s aunt Kew stopped to poke Livy in the shoulder while snarling, “You were always a horrible daughter.”