chapter TWENTY-TWO
Berg and Charlie hung out at the Rude Coffeehouse—as they now called it—until Max returned without Dutch and led them to an elevator that went express to the top floor of the hotel.
As the elevator moved, Charlie reminded her sister, “Don’t forget to grab Stevie before you leave. Otherwise, she’ll be sitting in that coffee shop all night. You know how she gets when she starts working.”
“Stop worrying. I’m on it.”
“And we have to check in with Bernice tomorrow. Give her a heads-up about what Carrie’s up to.”
“Okay.”
“But don’t tell her anything tonight. I’ll deal with it.”
“Okay.”
“And have you heard again from Will?”
“Oh, my God!” Max exploded yet again. “Would you just fucking relax!”
“Well, no need to yell at me.”
“This is why you’re going to get an ulcer.”
The doors opened and they stepped into a large restaurant. A classy restaurant. All Charlie could see were designer dresses, designer bags, and expensive jewelry.
She immediately looked down at what she wore. “Dude, we can’t eat here.”
“Calm down.”
“I look like I just rolled up from a pickup basketball game at a local park.”
Max hissed at Charlie through her teeth, one hand slashing through the air. Usually that was Charlie’s move when she wanted Max to stop harassing someone.
Mortified, Charlie followed her sister through the thick crowd of people. Berg walked behind them. The entire place was packed. Every table filled. And mostly filled with shifters. Big tables in the middle of the room had whole wolf packs and lion prides. The groups roaring and snarling at their enemies as they ate.
A hostess smiled at Max when she pushed her way through the other shifters waiting to be seated.
“All set?” the woman asked.
“Yes. Here they are.”
The woman grabbed two menus and a wine list. She motioned to them with a wave of her hand and started off. But Charlie couldn’t get her feet to work. She had on a pair of her Converse sneakers. Bright purple! Jeans. A T-shirt with “I don’t hear Mansplainin’” written on it. And tucked under that T-shirt . . . a Glock 9mm.
Not exactly a fancy-eatin’ outfit.
Max pushed her from behind when Charlie didn’t move. She was about to punch her sister, but Berg grabbed her hand and together they followed the hostess. She cut through the restaurant and Charlie assumed she was taking them to a table near the kitchen. Buried deep in the back. But they went past the kitchen, the soda machines, the bar, and kept on until they were going down a long hallway.
The hostess stopped in front of a door and opened it, gesturing with a sweep of her arm.
Charlie went in first and realized it was a private dining room.
An intimate space with a table already set for two people and wingback leather chairs. Big windows looked out over Manhattan, and the wood paneling made the room feel warm and intimate.
Berg came in after her. “This is awesome.”
They sat down at the table and the hostess handed each of them a menu; a waiter stood beside her.
“This is Carl, your waiter for the evening. And Mr. Alexander wanted me to tell you both that tonight’s meal is on him. Choose whatever you like from the menu and enjoy your evening.”
“Whatever we want, huh?” Charlie smirked at Berg before telling the waiter, “I guess I’ll have the most expensive thing on here.”
“So, the surf and turf?”
“Sounds great.”
“That’s our whale blubber and zebra steaks—rare—with our world-famous peppercorn sauce.”
Charlie’s smirk turned to disgust and she again looked at Berg, who was studying his own menu. “Whale blubber?”
“The polars love that shit,” Berg muttered.
“And zebra?”
“Lions. Although I’ve heard if it’s cooked right . . . it’s quite delicious.”
“Ech.” She shuddered. “No.”
Charlie began to study her own menu, but all she saw was stuff she did not want. Bearded seals. Gazelle. Antelope. Beluga walrus. Giraffe.
“Giraffe?” she asked Berg.
“I heard it’s gamey.” Berg looked at the waiter and said, “I’ll have the honey salmon with extra honey and the honey potatoes and the honey asparagus.”
“Of course, sir.”
The waiter turned to Charlie. “Would you like more time?”
“Can I just get a steak?”
“Of course. “
Relived, she smiled. “Great.”
“What kind of steak? Bison, gazelle, elephant, crocodile, rhino—”
“Can I just get cow? Please.”
“Absolutely. And sides?”
“Uhhhh.” To be honest, she was afraid to look at the menu again. Who knew what they might offer as sides!
“May I suggest our potatoes au gratin?”
“It’s just potatoes, right?
The waiter smiled. “Just potatoes and cheese.”
“Weird cheese?”
“No, ma’am. French.”
“That sounds perfect.”
“And to drink?”
“Beer,” Charlie and Berg said together.
The waiter pulled a two-sided laminated sheet out of his apron and held it out for Charlie and Berg to see.
“We have beer on tap as well as beer from around the world—”
“Oh, my God!”
“Two Heinekens please,” Berg said quickly. “Bottled. Dark.”
“Of course. I’ll be right back with your drinks.”
The waiter finally left, taking the menus with him, and Charlie let her head drop back. But she heard Berg laughing and she had to join him.
“Sweet, long-legged giraffes?” she asked. “And aren’t rhinos endangered?”
“Out in the wild. We have our own . . . uh . . . ranches. For restaurants like this one. You’ve never been to a Van Holtz steakhouse?”
Charlie’s eyes narrowed. “Van Holtz? Aren’t they the guys who—”
“Yeah. We met them earlier. From the Group. Their Pack also owns and runs the biggest steakhouse chain in the States and Europe.”
“But full-humans don’t see that menu, do they?”
“No. Of course not. Those animal rights people would be all over their asses.”
“Because they offer rhino!”
“Not wild. Shifters do not offer wild rhino or wild giraffes or anything that might remotely be struggling for survival on this planet. If you want wild, you have to go out hunting.”
When Charlie frowned, he added, “As what you are . . . which means you could possibly get shot by human hunters. Something that has actually happened.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Wish I was, but nope. There are quite a few of our kind, trapped in their animal form, stuffed, in some big game hunter’s living room.”
“That does not sound pleasant.”
“There are also full-humans who know about us and take pleasure in hunting us down. The Group, Katzenhaus, and the BPC, just a few years back, tore apart a ring of hunters that specialized in shifters. Hunters are still out there, of course, but this particular gang of very rich assholes were . . . prolific.”
“God, my grandfather really shielded me.”
He rested his arms on the table and focused directly on her. “Why?”
“Well . . . my sisters and I had already been through a lot when we came to live with him and I guess he didn’t want to freak us out.”
“You mean what happened to your mom?”
“Yeah. We were . . . kinda there . . . when it went down. My father owed money . . . my mom didn’t have the money . . .” She rubbed the back of her neck, desperate to change the subject. “Have you hunted as bear?”
“Yeah. But I grew up in Washington State, and we often vacationed in Alaska. We did the salmon run one year . . . but we got our asses kicked by the full-blood bears, so . . . yeah . . . we probably won’t do that again.”
The waiter returned with a busboy in tow. Beer was placed in front of them, water glasses filled, and warm bread, butter, and honey provided.
While they worked, the door to the room was left open and Charlie turned her head, pretty sure she’d seen something out of the corner of her eye. As she watched, something giggling ran by in the other direction. Charlie smiled when she realized it was a child. And hot on her heels was what she guessed was the child’s giant-sized father.
The kid was fast, too, considering she didn’t look much older than three or four. But she kept going, laughing the entire time. Shooting one way, then the other, until she was finally scooped up into her father’s big arms right outside their open door.
With the girl hanging over his shoulder, the giant turned and blinked in surprise at Berg.
“Hey, Britta.”
Berg closed his eyes, rubbed his forehead with one hand. “It’s Berg. I’m Berg.”
“If you say so.” The giant walked into the room. Was his hair white . . . and gold? “You,” he said, pointing at Charlie. “You punched out that lion at the practice rink yesterday.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you know how to skate?”
Charlie didn’t even bother to look at Berg anymore to make sure she was hearing what she thought she was hearing. “No.”
“Do you wanna learn?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure.”
“What about your sister? Not the sickly one. The other one. With the blue hair.”
“Go. Away.”
“Fine.” He waved at Berg. “See ya at practice, Britta.”
Berg started to correct him again, but shook his head. “Why bother?”
“I ask myself that all the time.”
* * *
They’d brought Mairi MacKilligan to the private airstrip that his clients owned. Their jet was on the tarmac and both women were inside, but they hadn’t met with Mairi yet.
After a few hours, two of his men brought a bound and gagged male hostage into the hangar. They’d put a black bag over his head and dragged him kicking and screaming into the office with Mairi.
She sat at John’s desk, her feet up on the metal, a fashion magazine open in her lap. She didn’t even raise her head when they brought the man in. John briefly wondered if she were pretending not to care. Pretending not to be worried about being taken to a foreign country and held . . . for hours. With no idea about what was going on.
Then again . . . John’s connections at Saughton couldn’t get rid of Mairi fast enough. They took the money offered, but he had the feeling that they would have handed her over for free.
Standing by the side of the desk, John placed a .45 in front of the woman. She didn’t even glance at it.
He started his speech. “You want to work for us? My client needs some proof that you’re willing to do what they need.” He gestured to the still screaming man. “This is your cousin. We grabbed him from your aunt’s—”
John jumped at the shot at the same moment the bound man’s head hit the wall from the power of the bullet and his entire body fell to the floor. The men outside the room scrambled to their feet, weapons drawn, ready to move, but all that activity was unnecessary.
Mairi dropped the gun back onto the desk and returned to her magazine.
Nothing about her changed. Nothing. No signs of stress. No signs of excitement either. Nothing but her one finger flipping the page of the magazine.
“That actually wasn’t your cousin,” John pointed out. “But I sense you really don’t care one way or the other.”
She finally glanced up, and John had known serial killers with warmer eyes.
“Is that it?” she asked. “Because . . . I’m bored. And the last thing you want me to be is bored.”
John nodded, about to go out to the jet and get his clients, but the office door opened and one walked in, smiling at Mairi.
Moving quickly, John grabbed the gun, the barrel still hot, and tucked it into the holster attached to the back of his jeans.
Once he felt things were a little safer, he went to perform the introductions, but that was when he noticed Mairi doing something strange. Strange, even for her.
Gawking up at the client standing over her, Mairi leaned in and . . . well . . . she sniffed, sniffed her hard.
“My perfume, yes?” his client joked. “It is fabulous, I know.”
Mairi continued to stare until she said, “You . . . feel so familiar.”
Grin wide, his client stroked her hand through Mairi’s black and white hair and said, “Lovely girl, you have no idea . . .”
“Actually,” Mairi said with a laugh, “I think you have no idea.”
* * *
The food was awesome. The company perfect. And not once did Berg do anything stupid.
He didn’t accidentally destroy the table. He didn’t accidentally stand up and demolish the overhead lights. He didn’t accidentally rip the door off the hinges by trying to open it. Part of all that was down to how the restaurant was designed. It was made for shifters, especially bears. So he ended up appearing almost normal to Charlie.
As they shared a chocolate soufflé that had Charlie’s eyes rolling to the back of her head, there was a knock, and Ric Van Holtz peeked around the door.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
“No,” Berg immediately said. He didn’t want some model-handsome wolf ruining his night.
But Charlie cleared her throat and lifted a brow, silently reminding him that she had asked the Group for their help.
Sighing, Berg said, “All right.”
Smiling—and did the bastard really have to be so pretty? And have such a freakishly normal height? How was that fair?—Van Holtz stepped into the room smelling like all the best kinds of food and asked, “Did you enjoy your meal?”
“It was great. Did you make it?” Charlie asked, probably noting his chef whites.
“I did. So I’m glad you enjoyed it. This is our newest restaurant and I just took over as head chef from one of my aunts.”
“My salmon could have used more honey,” Berg muttered.
The wolf’s gaze lashed over to Berg and he growled out, “Then next time bring your own damn hive.”
They snarled at each other until Charlie asked, “Any word on who is after me and my sisters?”
“We have one of our best investigators looking into it. She hopes to have something for you tomorrow morning.”
“That would be great.”
“My question, though,” the wolf said, moving farther into the room, “is what do you and your sisters plan to do with this information?”
“Deal with the situation.”
“And that’s what concerns me,” Van Holtz admitted, although he was working hard not to appear threatening. “What happened in the Bronx . . . we had to have our NYPD contacts handle things so that you and your sisters weren’t tracked down and put in prison forever.”
“It was self-defense.”
“Of course it was.” He smiled. “If you’d like, we could keep you informed about what’s happening, but we—and I believe Katzenhaus and the BPC would agree—would prefer to handle the final outcome for you.”
Charlie’s eyes narrowed. “And what would we owe you? For such protection?”
Startled, Van Holtz began, “We wouldn’t—”
“Because,” Charlie cut in, forefinger raised, “my baby sister is not making designer meth. That is not where her science skills lie. And Max isn’t going to become a hired killer for you or anybody else.”
Van Holtz glanced at Berg again but the animosity was gone. Instead, he was just confused.
“It’s a long story,” Berg told him.
Van Holtz nodded, cleared his throat. “Uh, Ms. MacKilligan—”
“Charlie. Just call me Charlie.”
“We—the Group—just want to protect ourselves. If you’re found out . . . then we will all be found out. Trust me, no matter what one shifter breed might think of another, or how purebreds think of hybrids, at the end of the day, our real worry will always be the full-humans. The ones who have found out about us in the past have hunted us. For amusement. Like we’re lions in a nature park.” He took another step closer. “I understand you’re used to working on your own, but now you don’t have to. Now, to protect you and us, you have the full backing of three very powerful entities. The Group,” he said, placing his hand on his chest. “Katzenhaus because of your, uh . . . non-meth-making youngest sister’s tiger bloodline. And this is despite most cats’ aversion to hybrids. And”—he looked over at Berg and smirked a little—“the BPC. We’re all more than willing to help you. So let us.”
Charlie studied the wolf for a long time. Almost an uncomfortable amount of time. But Berg was starting to understand how Charlie thought. How she worked. She was watching him to see if he looked away. If he showed any sign of weakness or lying. It was her instincts she trusted rather than anyone’s words.
Finally, she said, “Get me the information . . . we can discuss it further then.” She leaned in. “But if this turns out to be just a manipulation to get to my sisters”—her head dropped a bit but her eyes stared up at Van Holtz—“I will be very unhappy.”
“Understood. I’ll have my investigator come by your hotel room tomorrow morning.”
“What hotel room? I’m staying in Queens, which you should know since you sent those two hulking broads to come get us there.”
“One of those hulking broads was my mate, the other the coach for my hockey team. That being said, Dutch asked me to give this to you.” The wolf placed a hotel keycard on the table. “He assumed you guys wouldn’t want to drive back to Queens tonight.”
Charlie stared down at the single keycard, but before she could complain about the assumptions being made, the wolf pointed out, “It’s a Kingston Arms Premier suite. Completely paid for.” He smirked at Berg. “Has two bedrooms.”
Rude bastard.
Charlie picked up the gold card, held it between her hands. “That was a waste of Dutch’s money,” she muttered before looking over at Berg. “God knows, we only need the one bed.”
And her gaze was so heated that Berg had to pick up the glass of water he’d ignored all through dinner and drink it down in one gulp.