Wolf With Benefits

  “You’re family, darlin’. What did you expect him to do? Charge you a bazillion dollars?”

  “Yes. I did.”

  She took in a deep breath, eyes closing. “Man, that chicken smells amazing.”

  “My momma’s award-winning fried chicken. And you’ll hear that award-winning part more than you want to.”

  “It smells like she has a reason to be proud.”

  “I hope she gave us enough to have cold chicken tomorrow. Nothing is better than her next-day fried chicken with a couple of cold beers.”

  Grinning, Toni stepped closer to Ricky. “How about her couple-hours-later fried chicken?”

  Ricky returned her grin and wrapped his arm around her waist, tugging her closer. “That might be the best way to eat it.”

  He leaned in and Toni could already taste him on her lips, feel his hands on her body. Until ...

  “Dinner ready?”

  Snarling, Toni spun on her best friend. “Livy!”

  “What? I’m hungry.”

  “You’re not staying here.”

  “You were serious about that?”

  Toni started to head over to her friend, but Ricky kept his grip on her, pulled her back to his side.

  “Dee-Ann’s looking for you,” he told Livy.

  “Dee-Ann who?”

  He scratched his head. “Smith.”

  “Oh. Why?”

  “No idea.”

  “And did you attack Laura Jane Smith?” Toni asked.

  Livy gazed at Toni. “Who?”

  “The She-wolf you attacked a few days ago?”

  “You’ll have to be more specific than that.”

  “I think my brother was involved,” Ricky said.

  Livy thought a moment. Nodded. “Oh. Yeah. Okay. I think I know who you mean.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  Toni growled a little, then asked, “Why did you attack her?”

  Livy had to think on that for a second, as if she attacked so many people during the day, she couldn’t just recall them easily. “It was time for his appointment with me and she was in my way. Plus,” she added, “I didn’t like her face. So I slapped it around.”

  Ricky studied the woman closely. “So, Livy . . . what are you?”

  He expected her usual, “None of your business response,” but this time she was as direct with her answer as she was direct with her beat downs.

  “Honey badger.”

  “Ahhhh.” He nodded. “Explains everything.”

  Then Ricky had to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” Toni asked.

  “Laura Jane pissed off a honey badger,” he said, unable to hide his smile. “It really doesn’t get any better than that.”

  Toni put her arm around his shoulder. “It really doesn’t.”

  Dee-Ann disconnected the call and walked into her house.

  Irene had been right about one thing. This break-in to the Jean-Louis Parker house hadn’t been . . . minor, but that was all she knew. That there was activity among her full-human brethren. Stone-cold killers like herself who did specialized work for the government. These were not people to fuck with. But if they wanted someone dead, they would have moved by now. So death wasn’t what they wanted. It was something else.

  And she was going to find out what it was and end it. Because Dee-Ann got a little cranky when pups and cubs were involved. That had always been the line she never crossed when she was in the Marines and definitely not now. Even if it was hyena pups, deadly from birth, she waited until they were at least in their early twenties before she considered taking them on.

  Dee walked into her living room.

  “I—” was the only word Dee heard before she’d pulled her .45, spun, dropped down to one knee, and locked on her target.

  “—heard you were looking for me,” the honey badger finished without missing a beat.

  With fearless black eyes, Olivia Kowalski stared at Dee. She wasn’t challenging her. She wasn’t backing away.

  Fearless. Yeah. That was exactly it. And just what Dee-Ann needed.

  Dee-Ann stood up, put her gun back in the holster. “I need to hire you.”

  “I don’t kill on order.”

  “I don’t need you to kill, darlin’. I need you to follow the family business.”

  “I don’t do that anymore.”

  “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. You’ll get paid. Well.”

  “Why don’t you do it?”

  Dee-Ann shrugged. “Not my area of expertise,” she admitted. “When I get into someone’s house it’s for one reason and one reason only.”

  “Is this about what’s going on at Toni’s house?”

  “No. This is another case. I’m dealing with Toni’s first. But once I’m done with that, I’ll need your help. And you won’t just be helping me out. This is important work, darlin’. Something you can be proud of . . . for once.”

  Kowalski walked toward the exit. “I’ll think about it.”

  Dee waited until the front door closed and she knew the badger was gone. She pulled out her cell phone and speed-dialed Malone.

  “What up?”

  “Kowalski’s in.”

  “She is?”

  Dee shrugged again. “She will be.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Toni rolled over in her bed and stretched.

  “Morning,” she heard Vic Barinov say.

  Yanking the sheet up to her chin, Toni sat up in bed and yelled out, “Ricky!”

  Ricky walked out of the bathroom, fresh from a shower, a towel around his waist, shaving cream on one side of his face, and a razor in his hand. Honestly, if Toni hadn’t been so freaked out to find Barinov skulking around her bedroom, she would have enjoyed the delicious view. The man looked damn good.

  “What the holy hell, Vic?”

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. We have a problem, though.”

  “A problem?”

  Barinov looked at Toni. “It’s the twins.”

  Livy watched her best friend pace back and forth in the ballroom while the EMT guys did what they had to do. She knew that Toni wouldn’t handle this well. Nope. Not well at all.

  “What were you thinking?” Toni bellowed. “I just don’t understand!” She leaned down so that she could shake her finger right in the faces of Zoe and Zia. “You were bad. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad!”

  The EMTs were shifters from a shifter hospital, and when one of them said, “Brace yourselves,” Livy instinctively cringed even before she heard them snap that lion male’s bone back into place.

  Paul rushed into the ballroom with his pet dog by his side. “Why is there an ambulance out . . . oh.” He briefly watched the EMTs secure Jeff Stewart to a gurney built with bears in mind.

  As they wheeled him out, he screamed at Ricky Reed, “I expect disability for this, Reed! You understand me? Tell Llewellyn I want disability!”

  Paul walked up to Livy. “What the hell happened?”

  “I’m not sure,” Livy admitted. “I heard him scream and came running in to find him on the floor with a broken leg and the girls sitting there eating Danish.”

  “Tell me that’s raspberry on their face.”

  “It’s not blood.”

  “That’s something.” Paul let out a breath. “Did you ask Stewart?”

  “I did. He wouldn’t tell me anything, just kept saying ‘This goddamn job isn’t worth it.’ Over and over again.”

  Toni walked away from her sisters, past Ricky Lee, and over to Livy and Paul.

  “I seriously can’t leave for a night!” she complained.

  “The girls didn’t do anything physical to him. I think they just messed with his head. He did the rest to himself.”

  Paul walked toward his twin daughters. “Toni, I’ll handle this. You go to work.”

  “But, Dad—”

  “No buts. I can handle my own children.”

  “Fine.” She kissed her father on the cheek, crouched
down, kissed her sisters, then shook her finger at them again. “Bad, bad, bad!”

  Livy followed Ricky and Toni out into the hall. As they walked, Ricky said, “I’ll get on the phone with Rory and find someone to replace Stewart.”

  “Someone better,” Toni snarled. “No more lion males if they can’t handle a couple of bratty three-year-olds.”

  Bratty three-year-olds the twins might be, but that didn’t mean they were any less dangerous. But Livy wasn’t about to say that to her best friend. Not when she was this angry.

  They reached the front door and Toni faced Ricky. “I know your brother handled this job, but I want you to evaluate all the personnel involved directly with my siblings. You understand them, Reece doesn’t.”

  “Done.”

  Smart wolf. He knew better than to argue with Toni when it was about her siblings. Because there would be no winning that fight. Only lonely nights.

  “Good.” Toni grabbed the doorknob and yanked the door open. Her limo driver reared back.

  “Oh,” he said. “I was just coming to—”

  “Just go already!” she yelled at him.

  “What are you screaming at me for?” the feline demanded. “I didn’t do anything!”

  “Shut up and drive, you idiot!”

  Bickering, the pair stormed out of the house. Ricky looked at Livy, sighed, shook his head, and followed.

  Livy did not follow. She knew better.

  It took Ricky nearly half a day to get his brother on the phone. Rory had been in client meetings and other than texting him to “stop bothering me,” he’d been pretty quiet. But now that Ricky had him on the phone, he was forcing Rory to go through each team member he’d brought onto the Jean-Louis Parker job and which kid that team member was attached to. His brother wasn’t happy about this—he never liked it when anyone questioned him but especially when it was Reece or Ricky. But with Stewart stuck in the hospital in the throes of an ugly fever while his leg healed, Rory knew he had no choice.

  So far, though, Ricky was fine with the team Rory had assembled to watch the kids—he wasn’t about to blame any male, even a feline, for being freaked out by the Jean-Louis Parker twins. Then Rory told him who he’d put with Freddy.

  Sitting in Toni’s office, which was filled with flowers from individual players—especially the ones of Russian and Mongolian descent who would now have a chance to visit distant relatives at team cost—and other Eastern Europe shifter hockey teams who’d clearly heard about Toni through Zubachev, Ricky told his brother flatly, “No.”

  “What do you mean ‘no’?”

  “I mean no. I don’t want Roy with Freddy.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s lazy.”

  “Dude, come on. How much effort is needed to watch a seven-year-old?”

  “I don’t want Roy on this.”

  “Who then?”

  Ricky thought a moment. “What about Miranda?”

  “Miranda? Is she remotely good with kids?”

  “I don’t care. And I can promise you Freddy’s sister won’t care. It’s about whether he’ll be safe, and Freddy has a lot of outside classes. So put her on it.”

  “Okay. Okay. Lord, you are gettin’ snarly. Startin’ to sound like Daddy.”

  “Only because you’re irritating the shit out of me.”

  “I said okay! I’ll take care of it. But Miranda’s in Queens today on another job. I can pull her, but it’ll take a bit to get her back to the city, so Roy will have to stick with the kid while he’s at school.”

  Ricky looked at his watch. “Yeah. All right.” He’d replace Roy himself but the coyote would wait until Ricky could get there.

  “Have her meet us at the Parker house.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” Then his brother chuckled. “Parker house. Aren’t those rolls?”

  Yep. The Reed family secret—Rory was kind of goofy.

  “Does your hot, new girlfriend smell like rolls, too?”

  Ricky looked over at his “hot, new girlfriend.”

  “Rory?” Ricky said to his big brother.

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Momma’s in town.”

  “Wait. What?”

  “Bye!” Ricky disconnected the call and then turned his phone off.

  “What’s going on?” Toni asked. She was focused on her computer monitor, her hands flying across the keyboard, and he didn’t think she’d been paying attention.

  “Just freaking my brother out.”

  “You mentioned Freddy. What’s going on with Freddy?” Damn, the woman was good.

  “I’m going to go pick up Freddy from school today.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “You don’t trust me with your brother?”

  “I don’t trust that he won’t talk you into letting him drown himself in a chocolate sundae as big as your head.” She smirked. “He’s quite persuasive, my baby brother.”

  “And I wonder where he learned that from?”

  “Quiet, you.”

  Freddy Jean-Louis Parker hated school. He hated professors. They always got so mean when he corrected them. How was it his fault when they got it wrong? How was it his fault that they didn’t know as much as they thought they did?

  It wasn’t! It wasn’t his fault! And it wasn’t fair to yell at him! He didn’t do anything wrong. And even when he did do wrong things, his parents didn’t yell at him. Even Toni didn’t yell at him and Toni yelled at pretty much everybody. She did slap those matches out of his hand that time, but he didn’t blame her for that. But then she calmed him down. Toni always calmed him down. She was real good at that.

  Freddy walked out of the class, the man named “Roy” behind him. Freddy wasn’t so sure about Roy. He kept sighing and seemed really bored. How could anyone be bored by nuclear and particle physics? True, the professor wasn’t as knowledgeable as he thought he was, and that made him a little boring, but the field itself was fascinating! Whenever things got bad for Freddy, whenever he got real tense about something, he focused on the world of science and things got better. Toni and his therapist, Dr. Mathews, had taught him that. Because when things were better, Freddy was less inclined to . . . do things he shouldn’t.

  Walking down the hall, Freddy felt really small. Everyone around him was so big . . . and old. But what Toni always told Freddy was that these people might be physically big, but Freddy had something none of these people had besides being smart—he had his family. Even when they were physically apart, even when they were arguing, even when they threatened each other with copyright and trademark lawsuits, they were still family. They would always be family.

  Because of that, Freddy kept his head high and walked through that crowd of people with Roy right behind him. They got outside and Roy’s phone rang.

  “Yeah? Yeah. Okay. Hold up, kid.”

  Freddy stopped on the third step and looked back at Roy.

  “We need to wait here. Ricky Lee’s coming to pick you up.”

  Freddy smiled. “Okay!” He liked Ricky Lee. A lot. He was funny and nice and made Toni laugh. Their dad had started calling him “that bastard wolf ” lately, but Freddy wasn’t fooled. He knew his dad liked Ricky Lee, too. He just didn’t want to admit it.

  Roy glanced down at Freddy. “Do you need me to hold that backpack for ya, kid?”

  Freddy shook his head and gripped the straps. “No, thank you.”

  “Okay. But let me know if it gets too heavy.”

  Roy looked around; saw a pack of girls nearby. Grinning, he stepped over, introduced himself, and started talking. Bored, Freddy started to move away.

  “Hey,” Roy said, catching Freddy mid-step. “Do not wander off.”

  “Okay.”

  But Roy was still talking to those girls and Freddy was still bored. He got tired of just standing there, so he moved over to the building wall and leaned back against it.

  As he waited, he saw students from the class he’d just been in, as well as the professor. Not wanting to d
eal with them again right now, he eased around the wall until he could peek at them from the other side.

  Those students had laughed when Freddy had corrected the teacher. Then they’d stared at him when they found out he was right. Stared at him like he was a freak.

  He wasn’t a freak! Toni said he was smart and amazing! And Toni was never wrong. Not ever!

  He hated school.

  “Hi,” a female voice said from behind him. Freddy looked over his shoulder. She was old. Like Toni’s age old. But real pretty with dark hair and bright eyes. She was dressed real nice, too. And she had a pretty smile.

  “Hi,” Freddy said back.

  “Could you help me?”

  Freddy faced her. “Help you?”

  “I lost my puppy and I was hoping that—”

  “Stranger danger!” Freddy screamed, just like Toni had always taught him. Well, he didn’t remember the exact words she’d taught him to say, but the screaming should be enough. “Stranger danger!”

  The woman’s pretty face changed. First she looked shocked, then she was angry and she reached for him. So, still screaming, Freddy started swinging his arms and kicking his feet.

  The woman squealed when he got her right in the knee, and that’s when he took off running around the building. And the entire time he screamed, “Stranger danger! Stranger danger!”

  He was looking for Roy, but Freddy saw Toni running right for him. He knew he’d be safe with her, and he dived into her arms. She lifted him up, and Freddy wrapped his arms around her neck and his legs around her waist, holding on tight.

  “What happened?” Toni demanded, shaking him just a bit. “What happened?”

  Freddy pointed at the corner of the building. “A woman. She tried to grab me.”

  Toni held him tighter while Ricky Lee and Roy took off running. Another man, he said his name was Vic and he was there to protect Freddy’s sister, stood by them. He looked mean and ready to hurt people. The big students started moving away from them, giving them space.

  “Are you all right?” Vic asked. Freddy realized the man wasn’t mean. Not like that lady had been mean. He was concerned. Freddy’s dad got that way sometimes. Like when Cherise panicked when a possum jumped out at her from behind a tree at their house and knocked herself out cold by running into another tree. The rest of them were laughing, but Daddy had looked upset and yelled at her and everyone else. Freddy finally figured out it was because he was worried about her. Worried Cherise had hurt herself bad. That was how Vic looked right now.