chapter TWENTY-FIVE
Berg had barely stopped the truck before Charlie was out of it and crossing the street to her rental house. She opened her front gate and stepped through, and Berg’s dog ran around the side of the house to greet her. She petted him, but kept moving.
She walked into the house with the dog right behind her. She closed the door but had only taken a few steps when she heard a knock on it. She went back and found Berg standing there, appearing a bit disgruntled.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, in no mood. “Get in here.”
“You closed the door in my face.”
She headed toward the kitchen. “Not on purpose.”
“That does not make me feel better. Especially when you made sure the dog got in.”
Her sisters sat at the kitchen table. Max had her feet up, a magazine in her lap. Stevie was bent over a notebook, writing, her hand moving fast over the paper. She had a laptop open next to her work, but when she got really excited, she loved writing by hand.
Dutch was also there, his arms on the table, crossed. His head resting on his arms. He appeared to be sleeping. He could sleep anywhere, during anything, according to Max.
Not knowing how to start the conversation, Charlie tossed the Vanity Fair magazine in the middle of the table.
Max was the only one who reacted. She grabbed the magazine and quickly found the Post-it marked page. She held up the picture of the twin billionaires. “You want me to start dressing like this?”
“Yes. Including the gold belly chain.”
She chuckled and studied the picture. “Who are they?” she finally asked.
Berg rested against the doorframe, arms crossed. He watched her but didn’t say anything, which she appreciated. This was family business and one night of sex did not automatically make him family.
“Those billionaire twins are, apparently, our aunts.”
Max frowned, confused. Stevie’s head snapped up, eyes wide. And even Dutch stirred from his slumber, yawning and staring at the picture. He nodded. “Your aunts are hot.”
“And have been trying to kill us.”
Charlie went through the story quickly. Everything she’d learned from Hannah. As she spoke, she could feel her anger growing. Her father. Her idiot father.
True, he wasn’t responsible for the angry twins, but he’d colluded with them. He’d gone against his own family for them. And he probably had no idea who they were. No idea whatsoever that the Guerra twins were actually his half-sisters. That they were only using him to get even with a family they hated for their own reasons.
Once again, his stupidity had put her in a situation where she had to do something she really didn’t want to do.
When she was finished, she waited for her sisters to react. To tell her what they thought, what they might want to do.
Stevie dropped back in her chair and said simply, “Those bitches.”
But Max jumped up and came around the table to stand next to Charlie. She placed the magazine on the table and then proceeded to . . . pose? Yes, pose like the twins. It was . . . ridiculous.
“Dude”—Dutch shook his head—“no. Just . . . no.”
“What? We can be as sexy as these two.”
“No,” Dutch said sadly. “No, you really can’t.” He reached across the table and grabbed the magazine. “How do you pronounce their last name?” he asked Charlie.
“Do I look Italian to you?”
“Wear-a,” Stevie said, going back to her notebook. Charlie noticed it wasn’t one of the college-ruled or graph paper notebooks she usually worked in, but a music notebook. Charlie couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her sister do anything related to writing music. It had been absolute years.
“Wear a what?” Dutch asked.
Stevie lifted just her eyes to Dutch. “Wear-aaaaa. That’s how you pronounce it.”
He pointed at the magazine. “But there’s a G.”
Fed up, Stevie snatched the magazine from him and threw it across the room. “Don’t annoy me.”
Charlie realized that Max was still standing beside her . . . still posing.
Her sisters weren’t going to let their father fuck up their day yet again. Only Charlie ever did that. But not today. Not after her great night.
“We should get to work,” she announced.
“On my modeling career?” Max asked. Still posing.
“Stalking our cousin the bride.” She shoved Max, who flew toward Berg. He stepped aside and Max continued through the doorway.
“Not cool!”
Actually . . . Charlie thought it was very cool. Her new boyfriend could handle being around her family. For a MacKilligan girl . . . that was a win.
* * *
Britta disconnected the call just as Berg walked into the house.
“There’s a job in California for a couple of days,” she said, as he searched the side tables. “If you’re interested—”
“I’m not. Where are your car keys?”
“Which car?”
“The SUV. And why do you have keys in multiple places?”
“It’s in my bag and I’m not having this argument with you yet again.” He picked up her small, black backpack, quickly located the SUV keys, and was gone.
She was about to yell at Dag, still asleep upstairs, to see if he wanted to go to California for a few days when Berg came back in the house and dropped into a chair across from the couch she was sitting on. He was smiling and seemed . . . satisfied.
“I thought you were going out,” she said.
“I never said I was going out.”
“Then why did you need my car?”
“Charlie and her sisters needed a car to go into the city.”
Britta sat up, pointing a finger at her brother. “You gave those lunatics my car?”
“I need my car.” He thought a moment, then added. “And they’re not lunatics. They’re . . .”
“They’re . . . what?”
“Honey badgers. Mostly.”
Britta was moments from yelling at her brother, but she heard someone come creeping down the stairs. The cat shifter her brother had picked up the night before was wearing the clothes she’d been wearing when Britta saw her coming into their house with Dag.
She silently watched the puma walk by, heading toward the door. The twat smiled at Berg but didn’t even acknowledge Britta, and it was her house too.
So Britta did what any sister would do, “I really wish you’d stop bringing your whores here, Dag!” she yelled at the cat’s back
The cat stopped at the living room doorway, back muscles flexing. But after a few seconds, she headed out; the front door slammed shut.
Grinning, she looked at Berg. “What?” she asked when he shook his head at her.
“Do not do that when Charlie spends the night.”
“I wouldn’t do that to Charlie,” she admitted, “because Charlie would rip my face off. Because she’s a lunatic. Which is why I can’t believe you gave her my car!”
“Lent. I lent her your car. She’ll bring it back.”
“Covered in bullet holes?”
Her brother shrugged. “There’s every possibility.”
* * *
They drove the Dunns’ SUV into the city and parked in the structure across the street from the Kingston Arms.
“You find Carrie and keep an eye on her. I want to know exactly what she’s up to.”
Max nodded. “Okay. Dutch will be meeting up with us later.”
“Why?”
“Honestly? I think he’s having fun.”
“I know I am!” Stevie suddenly piped in, her grin wide. “I feel like a spy.”
“Whatever.” Charlie motioned at her sisters. “Stay on Carrie. I’ll talk to Bernice.” She sighed. “I guess she needs to know about her crazy half-sisters too.”
“What makes you think she doesn’t know already?” Max asked, so casually that Charlie began to worry. “Okay. Forget I said that. Forget I said anything.”
Max sounded so concerned that Charlie asked, “What are you talking about?”
She ran her fingers over Charlie’s forehead. “You’ve got the ‘I’m freaking out’ frown lines.”
“Did you take your meds today?” Stevie abruptly asked Charlie. “I’ve got some Xanax in my bag.”
“Why do you have—” Charlie took a step back—mentally and physically. “Nope. I’m not doing this. Do what I tell you to do, and I’ll deal with Bernice. Okay? Great.”
Charlie walked away, but Max’s voice followed after her. “For someone who just got laid—”
Charlie turned fast, her arm raised, her fingers pointing like a gun. It felt good to see Max dodge behind the closest car, a move Charlie had trained her to do right after their mother had died. But she was worried that Stevie just stood there, staring, until Max grabbed her arm and yanked her behind the car, too.
“Hopeless!” Charlie yelled, heading off again. “So very fucking hopeless!”
“We love you, too!” Max yelled back.
* * *
Max was shocked to see their cousin up before noon. Even with her wedding day fast approaching, they never thought Carrie would drag her ass out of bed and face the day. Not when she had her mother and bridesmaids handling most of the bullshit duties. But there she was . . . clearly sneaking out of her hotel room.
Knowing her cousins, Max assumed the others had gotten high on the hotel offerings of snake poison–infused vodka and promptly passed out in a big pile of honey badger females, allowing Carrie to sneak away simply by stepping over her passed-out relatives.
Carrie eased the door closed and took a quick look around before running toward the elevators.
Max stepped back and pressed herself against the wall before her cousin passed the hallway she was hiding in with Stevie.
Once their cousin passed and they heard the ding of the elevator, they went after her, catching the next elevator. Max assumed that her cousin was going to the first floor. The fiancé was somewhere in the hotel with all his dude-bro groomsmen but Max doubted that’s where Carrie was headed.
She stepped out of the elevator and went up on her toes, trying to see over the crowd of people in the perpetually busy hotel.
“There,” Stevie said, pointing. They ran after their cousin, catching sight of her as she hurried outside and caught a cab.
Max stepped off the curb and raised her hand to hail her own cab. Stevie laughed behind her. “This is so cool. We’re in hot pursuit!”
A cab stopped and Max pulled the door open with one hand and shoved her sister inside with the other.
“Dork,” she muttered before ordering the driver to, “Follow that cab!” A statement that got almost hysterical laughter from her ridiculous baby sister.