chapter THIRTY
Berg was quickly learning that the pleasure of waking up with the woman of his dreams asleep on his chest did not come without a price.
He knew that the second his bedroom door slammed open and a honey badger came into the room to turn on the TV and announce, “We have a problem.”
Charlie didn’t even lift her head from Berg’s chest. “Dad?”
“Surprisingly, no.”
Max grabbed the remote from the top of the chest of drawers and began changing channels.
Stevie ran in and jumped onto the end of the bed. “Wow. This is the biggest bed I’ve ever seen. How fun!” She looked back at them, grinning. “You two are so cute!”
“Here it is.” Max stepped back from the TV and Charlie sat up, not really bothering to cover her breasts. Berg wasn’t sure if this was a sister thing—he and his siblings might be triplets but with one girl and two males, they had definite boundaries—but when his own sister walked into the room, followed by Dag, Berg yanked the sheet up to cover her.
When the MacKilligan sisters laughed, he had no idea how to respond.
“Awwww, he’s shy,” Max said.
“Yeah,” Stevie chimed in. “I’m easily panicked and terrified, but I’m not shy. And Charlie’s definitely not shy.”
“My mother said that when I was a baby, I used to snatch off my diaper and wiggle my ass.”
“Maybe it’s because you can’t shift,” Max guessed. “Instead of being covered in fur and hunting, you run around naked wiggling your ass.”
Berg pressed the palm of his hand against his eyes and asked, “Didn’t you want us to see something?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Max glanced at the remote. “Oh, good. I can rewind.” She rewound the local news story and stepped back so Berg and Charlie could easily see.
“Police say, The Ring of Life Jewelry Emporium was hit this morning between midnight and 4 a.m. Thieves opened a hole beneath the store and went into the vault, stealing millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds, gold, and other gems.”
Charlie gestured to the TV and yawned. “Did Dad do this?”
“No. And we know this because Dad was in Stevie’s bedroom last night when it was happening.”
Dag suddenly raised his hand but before he could say anything, Stevie clarified with, “He was just snooping for something among my books.” She shrugged. “Of all the horrible things there is to say about our father . . . what you’re concerned about is, thankfully, not one of them.”
Nodding, Dag pulled his arm back and said, “I just needed to know before we kept going.”
Charlie, whom Berg was starting to realize liked to talk with her hands, raised her forefinger and said, “Putting aside the issue of our father”—she moved her forefinger to the right to illustrate—“what does this heist have to do with us?”
Max smirked. “Carrie’s polar bear? It’s his store. On Forty-seventh. The one he took her to yesterday.”
“But her bachelorette party was last night, right?”
“Which, again, we were not invited to,” Stevie muttered.
“But all the cousins were,” Max said. “All MacKilligans. All honey badgers. All—”
“Thieves,” Charlie finished. “She wasn’t having an affair with that bear. She was setting his ass up.”
“That doesn’t mean she wasn’t having an affair,” Max reasoned. “But I doubt she was really planning to end her upcoming marriage for him.”
“What if he knows?” Stevie asked. “What if he knows that she set him up?”
“Then he’ll come to ruin Carrie’s wedding and demand his shit back,” Max guessed.
There was silence on that and, after nearly a minute, Charlie forced her eyes wide open, shook her head, and announced, “All right. We need to move. Quickly. Suddenly this wedding day—”
“That we were originally not invited to.”
“You need to let it go,” Max admonished Stevie.
“—has gotten a new sense of urgency. Everybody know what they’re doing?” she asked the room. When everyone nodded, “Good.”
Charlie threw off the sheet and Britta and Dag quickly left the room. Max and Stevie followed but with no real sense of urgency.
“What about your father?” Berg asked Charlie.
“What about him?”
“What does he want?”
“I have no idea. We have our money secured, under different names, and scattered over the globe in different accounts or safety deposit boxes in cash just because of our father. The only thing Stevie has that could possibly be important to him or anyone—that Freddy could actually get to—is what she has in her head.”
“Do you think they were trying to take her because of something they think she has?”
“It’s possible. Who knows what my father told the Guerras. What he’s convinced himself Stevie has in her notebooks that he must get his hands on because it’ll give him everything he’s ever wanted.” She pointed at her own head. “He’s stupid.”
“Do you think he’ll really show up today?”
“An event with a lot of rich people drinking and showing off their expensive jewelry? And he’s desperate and out of control? What do you think?”
* * *
They arrived about an hour before the nuptials. The Dunns were sent off to meet up with the security forces Bernice and her wedding planner had already arranged for, while Charlie and her sisters went to find their cousins.
Before walking away, Berg grabbed Charlie’s hand, smiled at her. “You look great in that dress.”
“Enjoy it while it lasts. I’m not big on wearing dresses. Too limiting. I may know fashion, but I do not abide by fashion.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
She tugged on his hand until he leaned down a bit so she could kiss him. When she pulled away, brushing her hand against his jaw, she said, “I know you don’t . . . and I’m learning to find that charming.”
Grinning wide and shaking his head, Berg followed after his siblings.
Charlie caught up with her sisters by the elevators. They got in, pushed the button for the correct floor, and as soon as the doors closed Stevie suddenly announced, “I sent my resignation to CERN.”
Shocked, Charlie gawked at her baby sister. “You did what?”
Stevie let out a sigh. “Do I really have to say it again? Because nothing annoys me more than someone who says ‘what’ but they actually heard fine and all they really need is a moment to gather their thoughts.”
Charlie shook her head and barked, “What?”
“I gave my notice.”
“Why?”
“I thought we should stay.”
“Where?”
“Here?”
Charlie looked around. “In the Kingston Arms? Dude, we can’t afford this.”
“Oh, my God!” Stevie snapped.
Chuckling, Max offered, “I think, Charlie, she’s talking about staying in New York. Most likely the Queens abode we are currently living in.”
“Why would we do that?”
Max sighed. “Gee, I don’t know . . . maybe because you’re in love with that mountain of a man you just soul kissed in the middle of a hotel hallway. We’ve never seen you do that before.”
“Look, I appreciate that you guys are happy that I am . . .” she searched for the right words, “finding romance.”
Max couldn’t even hold back a snort and Charlie glared at her until she looked away. Something she didn’t do with anyone else.
“But your career,” Charlie said to Stevie, “is more important than whether I get laid.”
“My career?” Stevie asked, stepping out of the elevator now that the doors were open. “What does CERN have to do with my career?”
“I don’t know,” Charlie replied, glancing at an equally confused—but less caring—Max. “Everything?”
Stevie’s back suddenly straightened and her chin jerked up a notch. “You think that my brilliance—”
“Uh-oh,” Max warned.
“—is due to where I lay my hat?”
“You don’t wear hats,” Max unhelpfully pointed out.
“Shut up,” Stevie snapped before refocusing on Charlie. “Do you?”
“Of course not,” Charlie said quickly. “But I’ve always thought that . . . uh . . .”
Max blinked when she noticed that Charlie had turned toward her. “What are you looking at me for? I don’t know how to help you out of this.”
“I just assumed it was . . . um . . . helpful for your career.”
“You know what helps my career?” Stevie asked. “Me. Not to sound smug but it’s all about me. My brilliance. My skills. My ability to think beyond the plebes of this universe.”
“Wow,” Max burst out. “Hanging with Kyle has brought out an interesting side of you.”
“Kyle is a child. He has years to realize how amazing he is. I, however, already know.”
“Dude, you’re twenty-three.”
“I’m twenty-four but that’s not the point, you . . .”
“Peons?” Charlie suggested.
“Yes! Peons! I love you both, and I appreciate your protection and absolutely everything you’ve done for me.”
“But,” Max pushed.
“But my career is my own. And if you think that CERN—”
“We don’t think that CERN defines you,” Charlie quickly told her. “I know it has not made you who you are. But I thought it was a good fit for you because you mostly got along with the staff, you got to do whatever you wanted, when you wanted, and they paid for your weird mental health facility obsession.”
Stevie shrugged. “Bluntly . . . I can get that anywhere. I can get any job, anywhere I want in the universe. I’ve got Silicon Valley coming at me. I’ve got universities from all over the globe coming at me. I’m a girl and I’m smart and I’ve got two sisters who are women of color . . . I’m their diversity wet dream. So I don’t need to lock myself into anything. You two, however . . .”
“What about us?” Max asked, sounding indignant for the first time.
“Not to be rude but if either of you find a man . . . you need to hold that man.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Max demanded.
“Yeah,” Charlie chimed in, “what the fuck does that mean?”
“It’s that you need me to explain that hurts.”
“Stevie!”
“What? Do you think just any guy would be okay with your sisters busting into his bedroom to discuss the thievery of other family members? No. But Berg puts up with it because he loves you and he’s already a triplet. He gets siblings. He’ll understand if you need to take off for Norway because Dad has done”—she sighed—“something stupid and you have to fix it before one of us goes to jail for his fuck-up. He’ll be okay with you having weaponry around the entire house. He won’t like it, but he’ll be okay with it. He won’t freak out when he finds me and Max hanging out in his cabinets, eating his honey.”
“You don’t like honey,” Charlie pointed out.
“No, but I really like living in cabinets. And I have to say that my coworkers at CERN . . . they all thought that was a little weird. But not here. For once, do you guys realize, we’re not the weirdest people in the group? I mean, did you see there was a guy with a lion’s mane doing the cha-cha at our party with his wolf girlfriend? And we were playing tech music at the time. Or have you noticed that Kyle has a bodyguard that eats bamboo . . . all. The. Time. Or perhaps you’ve spotted Dag in our backyard doing his full body back scratch on that big oak tree. He was human at the time . . . he could have just used a back scratcher. But no.” She circled her forefinger in the air to signify each of them. “Not the weirdest. I say we revel in that and see what we can make of it.”
Max smirked. “And you’re okay staying on a street with nothing but, as you call them . . . man-eating bears?”
“As long as Charlie keeps giving them baked goods, we should be fine.”
Charlie tossed her arms in the air. “So now I’m beholden to bake all the time for demanding bears?”
“You can’t give wild animals food and then take it away.” Stevie pointed a finger at Charlie and snarled through gritted teeth, “So if that means you need to bake, bitch. Bake!”
Max started to laugh but the sound suddenly cut off and her eyes narrowed as she focused down the hall.
Charlie looked over her shoulder, but didn’t see anything. “What?”
“I saw Dad.”
Charlie didn’t question whether her sister had really seen their father. She knew she had. “Go,” she ordered Max, then pointed at Stevie. “Tell security Dad’s here. I’ll talk to the bride.”
Stevie cringed. “Good luck with that.”
* * *
Max ran down one hall, then another searching for her father. She caught his scent when she started past the stairs. Her father wasn’t using bear spray this time to disguise his scent. Just a cheap knockoff Paco Rabanne cologne that he’d probably picked up from a street vendor in Chinatown. Idiot.
She ran into the stairwell and started up the stairs.
She’d just gotten two floors up when she caught the scent of another honey badger behind her. Not her father, but a female.
Max turned but just in time to watch a steel pipe collide with her head . . .
* * *
Dee-Ann buried her knife into the man’s side, a brutal thrust between ribs. She dropped his body and stepped over him to move around the office, examining everything. But they were gone. She knew it.
Malone came out of the hangar office. “They’re gone,” she said, proving Dee-Ann right.
“I know. We’re too late.”
“The jet is still here, though.”
“They’re like bazillionaires. They could have ten jets like that one.”
“Did you look at that thing? We are so absconding with it.”
“Right now? You just want to drive it off the tarmac?”
Malone laughed and motioned to the two teams they’d brought with them. One from Katzenhaus, one from the Group.
She motioned to the bodies. “Get this cleaned up,” she ordered before coming over to Dee’s side.
“Now what?” she asked.
“We put out the word to our contacts, try to track the two bitches down.”
“Three bitches,” Malone corrected. “The Guerra twins and that honey badger.”
“She’s our problem too?”
“It sounds like it. Word is she’s rabid.”
“Literally? ”
Malone sighed. “No.”
“Well, don’t get that tone. You weren’t being clear.”
“What I mean is that she’s like one of those tigers that sneak into a village in India and start killing everybody but not eating them. She’s what we don’t need out in the world representing our kind.”
* * *
Charlie walked into the hotel room where Carrie was about to be helped into her gown. The room was filled with flowers and bridesmaids. There was girlish giggling and open bottles of champagne. There were also three photographers moving around the bride while Max’s cousin Livy stood off to the side. She had her own camera hanging from her shoulder, but she didn’t seem too interested in taking any pictures.
“Why are you here?” Charlie asked her, still holding the hotel door open.
“They’re paying me a shit-ton of money to choose and oversee the photographers and videographer handling the wedding. This is how low I’ve sunk as an artist.”
“Don’t worry, Liv. You’re about to see something really interesting.”
The badger raised a brow just as Charlie slammed the hotel door with as much strength as she could. So hard, she might have damaged the doorframe itself from the force.
Everyone in the room faced her and she asked, “So which of you crazy cunts were involved in the jewelry heist last night?”
Livy rubbed her nose—hiding her smile behind her hand—before she got control and motioned to the photographers and videographer to get out of the room with a wave of her finger.
It took a little effort for them to pull the door back open after Charlie had closed it though.
Once they were gone, Charlie focused on the bride and her cousins again. “Well?”
“What are you talking about?” Bernice asked. “Carrie had her bachelorette party last night.”
“Nope. She went a-stealin’ last night.”
Kenzi dropped the wedding dress to the floor and demanded, “Is that why you kept giving me that black mamba–infused vodka last night? So that I’d pass out?”
“It’s not like you would have come with us,” Carrie explained to her sister. “You’re such a drag about everything.”
“Wait . . .” Bernice peered at her youngest daughter. “You mean this is true?”
“Did you really think all we would do was go see a bunch of strippers and drink? What are we? Full-human?”
“You insolent little—”
“The heist isn’t the big problem,” Charlie cut in. “It’s who she stole from.”
“Why? Who did she steal from?”
“You going to tell her?” Charlie pushed her cousin.
“You’re doing such a nice job and all.”
“The polar bear . . . he wasn’t her boyfriend. He was her mark.”
“You thought he was my boyfriend?” Carrie sneered. “I’m about to marry Ronald P. Farmington the Fourth. Do you think I’d really risk that for a bear?”
Charlie looked at Livy and at that point her sister’s cousin just laughed out loud.
“The bear you’re talking about,” Charlie explained, “is a dangerous scumbag. A loan shark. A mobster. If you think he won’t figure out—”
“I already sent him an ‘I love you’ text this morning. And by tomorrow I’ll be on my honeymoon, so—”
Bernice had her hands wrapped around her daughter’s neck, attempting to wring the life from her. Charlie watched impassively as the cousins and Carrie’s sisters tried to pry Carrie’s mother off her throat.
When they finally pinned Bernice to a chair, she screamed, “You are the worst daughter ever!”
“It was a flawless heist! The cops will have nothing!”
“The cops are the least of your worries,” Charlie told Carrie. “I mean, does your husband even know you’re a criminal?”
“How can I be a criminal,” Carrie asked, “when I’ve never been caught?”
Bernice was almost out of the chair again, but one of the huskier cousins literally sat on her to keep her down.
“Anyway,” Charlie continued, “the additional security I employed is already on it, but there are a lot of exits and entrances in this hotel and he is a shifter, so regular hotel security won’t notice a polar bear the way they would if we were talking about a full-human. And there’s one other thing . . . Max saw Freddy. About two minutes ago.”
Bernice shoved her niece off her lap, tossing her across the room, and stood. “What?” she exploded.
“Max is already on it and so is the additional security.”
“If you need to,” Bernice said, pointing at Charlie, “you have my permission to kill him.”
“Good to know. Anyway, I strongly suggest we get these nuptials going as quickly as possible. And I also strongly suggest that after the I dos are said, cousin”—she looked directly at Carrie—“you drag that new husband of yours off to a closet somewhere and fuck his brains out. It’ll be harder for him to annul this sham of a marriage if you’ve already fucked after the ceremony.” She spread her arms out. “Are we all clear? Great!”
She winked at Livy and walked out, leaving a room full of screaming honey badgers throwing expensive glass things around in her wake.
As Charlie moved down the hall, she heard the room door open and looked over her shoulder to see Livy sticking her head out, her team of photographers standing by.
“Charlie?” she called out.
“Yeah?”
Livy smiled, tears in her eyes. “I love you.”
Grinning, Charlie replied, “I know you do.”
Laughing, Livy motioned her team in. “Let’s go, people! We have lifelong memories to photograph!”