Выбрать главу

“True.”

Ric patted Lock’s shoulder. “Do me a favor. Go run some drills with him until the team gets here. Keep him busy and out of my hair.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Lock put on his helmet and gazed down the length of the ice as if Ric had just asked him to face an entire army of samurais completely alone.

While his friend skated into battle, Ric left the rink and went into the team’s locker room.

“Hey, Bert,” he said to the black bear tying up his skates, and the only other player there.

“Hey.”

Ric walked past him and to Novikov’s locker. He played with the new lock the hybrid had just purchased, opening this one as easily as he’d opened the others. Once inside his locker, Ric proceeded to move around all his meticulously laid out items, including shampoo, soap, razor, bandages. He took his time, enjoying what he was doing as much as he enjoyed making a really good crème brûlée. Once he felt he’d done enough, he closed up and engaged the lock.

Bert watched him until he was finished, then remarked, “You’ve got kind of a mean streak, Van Holtz.”

“Only a little one.”

“True.” Bert got to his feet. “You could have pissed in his locker instead and we both know he would have spent hours cleaning it up.”

“Don’t tempt, Bert. Don’t tempt.”

Van buried his face in his hands and sighed—loudly.

He’d come to loathe these meetings with the Board, the representatives of every major Pack, Pride, and Clan, as well as some reps for the non-social breeds. The meetings were long and tedious but he wasn’t ready to step down from his position for no other reason than he didn’t trust any of these people to do what had to be done. The grizzly and black bears with their philosophical debates. The polars with their inability to take anything seriously. The lions with their blatant boredom. The tigers and leopards with their constant plotting. The foxes with their sticky fingers and the wild dogs with their patience-rendering goofiness. And then there were the wolves. His own kind. Even the damn boardroom table was merely another area for them to fight over territory. He’d become so fed up with the constant snarling and snapping that he’d actually outlawed it during meetings. It was the only way to get through these things in a somewhat timely manner.

“Is there anything else?” he asked over the current argument. And what were they all arguing about? Where to hold the next Board meeting. The Magnus Pack was down for Arizona so they could attend a thousand-mile ride with a bunch of other lowlife bikers. The Löwes wanted to meet in Germany, probably for the multi-band rock concert that happened every year. The Llewellyns wanted to go to the French Riviera, and several of the grizzlies, polars, and a couple of tigers wanted to go to Siberia—because that would be fun.

“Yeah,” Anne Hutton, a middle-aged tigress from Boston who made most of her money by laundering gangster cash, said. “What’s going on with all that half-breed shit in New York? And why are we giving so much money to the Group? Your Group?”

“It’s hybrid, you fucking idiot,” said the always delicate Alpha Female of the Magnus Pack, Sara Morrighan. She reminded Van of a dog that had been kept in a cage twenty-four-seven for the first half of its life until someone had let it out in the backyard to go completely wild. “Half-breed is rude.”

“Shut up, Fido, no one’s talking to you,” Hutton shot back.

“Don’t you have a hairball to cough up?”

“All right,” Van cut in. “That’s enough.” He held his hand out and his assistant placed the file he’d brought with him. “And why we’re putting so much money toward this situation is simple.” He pulled out the stack of photos and tossed them across the glossy table. Some glanced, but quickly looked away. Others leaned forward to take a longer look. Some didn’t look at all.

“There are so many,” Morrighan whispered.

“Too many.” Van gestured to the photos. “And we can’t let this go on.”

Slinging her arm over the back of her chair, Hutton said what Ric was sure many of the others were thinking. “They’re mutts. Are we really going to go through all this effort for mutts?”

Van saw Morrighan’s left eye twitch the tiniest bit. The only sign she’d show just before she went completely postal and attempted to kill everyone in the room. Holding his hand up to stop her, he said, “They start with them, but they’ll end with us. We protect all of us. You. Them. All of us.” He grabbed one of the pictures: a lovely shot of a young female dog-tiger hybrid torn in half with her insides spread out across the dirt floor she’d died on. “This is Trisha Barnes. She worked full-time as a waitress in a diner and went to nursing school in the evening. One night she was snatched off the street and used as a bait dog for the screaming entertainment of a myriad of scumbags.” He picked up another photo. He knew the victim in each one. Had studied the information about each, knew how they’d died, how they’d suffered. And he’d done all that just for this reason. For what was happening right here—at this moment. “This is Michael Franks. A mechanic. Had a wife and four pups. His injuries were so bad, we were forced to put him down on-site.” And another picture. “And this is—”

“All right. All right.” Hutton cut in, waving her hand dismissively. “I get your point. God, you’re such a drama wolf.”

“But now that Katzenhaft is involved,” Matilda Llewellyn suddenly volunteered, “perhaps they can take the lead—and the financial hit.” Matilda was one of those ancient shifters who just wouldn’t die. She-lions had a tendency to live a long time anyway and Matilda seemed to be ready to outlast everyone if she could manage it. Van was afraid that she could manage it quite nicely at the rate she was going.

“Katzenhaft is involved now?” Melinda Löwe sat up straight. “Katzenhaft doesn’t get involved in anything to do with hybrids.”

“Apparently their philosophy has changed—as has ours. And perhaps you should talk to your niece Victoria, since she runs KZS.”

Melinda, who’d known him for what felt like centuries, rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Van. This is KZS we’re talking about. Even the Prides don’t have control over them.”

“That’s probably why they get things done,” Clarice Dupris of the Dupris hyena Clan muttered loud enough for everyone to hear.

Seeing where this would quickly be heading, Van stood. “Meeting adjourned. Because I’m rather sick of all of you right now.”

With shrugs and eye rolls, the predators he was forced to work with for the good of his kind, got up and headed out for the lunch he had set up in one of his Pack’s restaurants on the top floor of this Chicago hotel. Really, Van would rather get to his jet and head home to his wife, kids, and kitchen, but he’d make it through lunch. That was the great thing about predators—little talking while they ate, and they all ate quickly. In another hour, he would be heading home.

Thinking about that, he motioned to his assistant and began to pull the papers together when Matilda made her slow way to his side with the help of a cane and one of her young great nieces.

“So young Niles,” she greeted, flashing those fangs that could no longer retract. That’s how old she was. It was like she was turning into a very large and lean cat full time. It was weird. Even for fellow shifters . . . it was weird. “How’s it going with that She-wolf? Egbert Smith’s daughter.”

“She’s working out well.” Matilda always had problems with the hiring of Eggie Smith and then Eggie Smith’s daughter. Van didn’t know why, nor did he care. What Matilda always failed to understand was that sometimes one needed killers when they were protecting more than a few dollars in the bank or some jewels in a safe. And Eggie and Dee-Ann Smith were both born killers.