“Don’t worry. I’ve got this all covered.”
“And,” she went on, “you’ll need to keep Livy away from Melly once you get them out. She’s really cranky when she’s been in jail for a while, and Melly knows every button to push to make Livy snap.”
“I’ll deal with it. Now go before you miss your plane.”
“Vic—”
“Go.”
“She’s erratic when she’s upset,” Toni warned as Ricky Lee walked off with her. “And being asked to be some heifer’s wedding photographer is bound to make her upset!”
Blayne stamped her foot. “You’re still being unreasonable!”
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Melly accused, her eyes locked on Livy across the cell they were sharing with their cousins and several other full-human women Livy didn’t know. “To see me back here. Where you think I belong.”
“Where I think you belong is in rehab or a maximum-security mental hospital.”
“You are such an evil bitch, Livy!”
“I’m evil? You trashed my apartment.”
“I had a little party with family and a few friends. Why are you so uptight?”
“A little party does not involve cobras and puff adders.”
“And black mambas,” Livy’s cousin Jocelyn muttered.
Livy closed her eyes in horror at the thought of one of the deadliest snakes in the world skittering through her defenseless neighbors’ plumbing. “You have to be,” she growled at Melly, “the dumbest twat this side of the universe.”
“I was hungry!” Melly screamed back.
Livy held up her hands. “I can’t with you, right now. I’ve got a lot on my mind and—”
“Boo-hoo,” Melly singsonged, her voice a nasty sneer. “My father died so everybody must pity me.”
Jocelyn’s eyes grew wide. “Wow. She went there,” she said to the other cousins. “I mean . . . she actually went there.”
“Shut up,” Melly snapped at Jocelyn.
“But who the fuck says that to someone who just lost their father?” Joce demanded. “Who?”
“Livy’s always been a bitch. Uncle Damon dying doesn’t change shit about that.”
Livy didn’t say anything. She didn’t move. She didn’t growl, snarl, or hiss. But a true honey badger never actually needed those warning signs to know when a fellow HB was about to go off like a bomb. Quickly, Jocelyn knelt in front of Livy, placing her hands on Livy’s knees. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Livy.” Jocelyn cocked her head to the side. “I can’t let you.”
Studying her cousin, Livy asked, “Because you care if Melly continues breathing? Or because of her talents?”
“Don’t be silly, Liv.” Jocelyn, the oldest and most mature of the Kowalski cousins, reached up and gently petted Livy’s cheek. “If she didn’t have talents, I would have killed her myself before she graduated kindergarten. But this goes beyond our instinctual need to destroy the weakest of our kind. So I can’t let you. Understand?”
Livy let out a breath, nodded. Besides. If she was going to kill her own cousin, she should do it without surveillance cameras and so many witnesses.
Jocelyn, satisfied by Livy’s nonverbal response, smiled and stood. When she turned, Melly was standing there.
“You would have killed me in kindergarten?” When Jocelyn didn’t reply, Melly began to sob.
Jocelyn, disgusted, glanced back at Livy, eyes crossed.
“I can’t believe we share blood,” Jocelyn whispered at Melly before she walked off.
Livy heard someone sniffing, and she looked at the bars she was trapped behind. She recognized the face of the polar bear standing there, sniffing the air. Slowly, dark brown eyes focused on her.
“Olivia.”
“Crushek.”
He gestured to a uniformed cop. The door was opened and Livy stood. “I’ve gotta bring them,” she said, motioning to her cousins.
“Then bring them.”
The bear turned and walked off. With a shrug, Livy and her cousins followed. They were near the elevators when another plainclothes cop ran up to them.
“Hey! Crushek! You can’t just—”
Crushek faced the man, stared down at him.
“I can’t what?” Crushek asked.
The full-human swallowed. “These . . . women . . .”
Crushek blinked. “What about them?”
“They put two of our officers in the hospital.”
Crushek looked down at Livy. “What did you do?”
“They got between me and my cousin, but it wasn’t that big a deal. Couple of busted noses, a few broken fingers, and some bruised egos . . . but everybody’s alive.”
“Don’t do that anymore,” he told her, pointing one, big, blunt finger. “Understand?”
“Yes.”
Crushek looked back at the other cop. “They won’t do that anymore.”
“Look, Crushek, you can’t just take people out of here . . .” He cleared his throat, tried again. “Take people out of here . . .” Another throat clear. “Whenever you feel like . . .” He gawked up into that unrelenting polar bear stare and, after a few moments, threw up his hands. “Do whatever you want,” he snapped before walking off.
Frowning, Crushek asked Livy, “What was that about?”
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Livy offered.
“Yeah. You’re probably right. Let’s go.” The polar walked toward the elevators.
“He has no idea, does he?” Jocelyn asked.
“Like most bears . . . he’s completely oblivious.” Livy shrugged. “That’s kind of what makes him cute.”
Her cousins moved off and Livy was about to follow when she looked over her shoulder at Melly. The little idiot was talking to a cop. She had her butt on his desk and was leaning down so that her top was probably giving him a very nice shot of her braless tits.
Livy briefly entertained the thought of leaving the bitch here, but she didn’t want to hear about it later from her mother. So she walked up to her, grabbed Melly by the back of her head, and yanked her off the desk by her hair.
Instead of fighting while Livy dragged her ass across the floor toward the elevators, Melly waved at the detective and called out with a giggle, “Call me!”
CHAPTER 11
Vic, leaning back against his SUV, glanced over at the full-human female standing next to him.
“I really appreciate you guys helping me with this,” he said.
Dez MacDermot smiled up at him, squinting one eye closed against the midday sun. “It’s no problem. Things are pretty quiet right now for me and Crushek anyway.”
“You know, I heard from Dee-Ann that her bosses and Cella’s have had them back off the Whitlan case. Any idea why?”
“Nope. But our department hasn’t been pushing us, either. Which is weird, because for a while there, that’s all they had me and Crush working on. But Dee-Ann quietly mentioned that you were looking into it for us.”
“Yeah. Just seeing if I can find out anything on my own.”
“Well, just let me know if me and Crush can help you. It bothers me that Whitlan might be able to get away with all this bullshit. I’ve heard rumors there are a lot of fellow law officers who don’t want Whitlan caught. Some high-level guys whose careers will be very hurt if Whitlan’s brought in.”
Frankie “The Rat” Whitlan had turned out to be quite a piece of work, using cops to protect his illegal business by turning rat on fellow criminals who were in his way.
Yet none of that was why shifters of every breed and species had been after the son of a bitch. It was because he’d run one of the most successful shifter-hunting businesses in the world. For an exorbitant fee, Whitlan could arrange a hunt involving anything from lions, bears, tigers, wolves . . . any type of shifter. And for hard-core hunters, shifters were the ultimate prey. The power and strength of the predator combined with the intelligence of thumb-possessing humans.