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.”