Sure. They were typical black-backed jackals, which meant they fought amongst themselves whenever the mood struck them, but they were also family. And one messed with a jackal family at one’s own risk.
“Nah, little bro.” She winked at him. “Not this time.”
CHAPTER THREE
Ricky’s brother Rory Lee sat at his big office desk and looked back and forth between Ricky and Reece. “He’s useless to me,” Rory told him. “Useless! I can’t use him for that job tonight.”
Ricky Lee knew as soon as he saw Reece’s wounds that he would end up having this conversation with their eldest brother, Rory. It was something to be expected. Rory Lee Reed was the oldest and the most uptight of the three of them but Rory had always felt it was his role to take care of them—even when they didn’t need it.
Now, true, one could make an argument that Reece Reed always needed someone to take care of him because he seemed to stupidly stumble into deadly situations. But the truth was, their youngest brother knew exactly what he was doing and enjoyed every minute of it. And Rory enjoyed acting put-upon.
And what did Ricky enjoy? Well, as it turned out, Ricky enjoyed watching Rory get all upset while Reece willingly walked into stupid situations to get his ass kicked. It entertained him. Like NASCAR and good American beer.
Reece said something and Rory looked at Ricky. “What did he say?”
“You didn’t understand that?”
“With his jaw wired and his throat still recovering from that nicked artery? No.”
“I could.”
“Ricky,” his brother growled, “you’re irritating me.”
“Reece says he can do the job fine.”
“How? His jaw is wired shut! Because you didn’t keep him out of trouble like I told you to!”
“I’m not my brother’s keep—”
“Shut up!” Rory put his elbows on his desk and dug his hands under his baseball cap and into his hair. He scratched his scalp and made lots of snarling noises.
Poor guy. He took all this so seriously. The minutiae of it, anyway. Ricky and Reece only took their cases seriously. They cared about the clients, wanted to make sure they were as safe as possible. That was their job after all. Protection specialists. That’s what their business cards said. Honestly, the Reed boys couldn’t have a job more perfectly fitted for their natures. When their Packmate, Bobby Ray Smith, had been discharged from the Navy, he and his best friend, Mace Llewellyn, started this protection agency. Their older Tennessee Packmates and kin were none too happy about the idea but Ricky, Rory, and Reece all felt that it was getting a bit crowded in Smithtown, Tennessee, so they’d taken Bobby Ray up on his offer to start fresh in New York. It had been a good decision for all of them.
Llewellyn Security was doing really well, their business growing every day. Though most of their clients were shifters, they happily took on full-humans. Heck, money was money. And the more money they made from the full-humans and the richer shifters, the more they could help out those shifters who didn’t have the money to pay but desperately needed their help. The one thing Ricky truly loved about his kind, no matter the breed or species, was their willingness to protect each other. Sure, lions might fight wolves, wild dogs might fight hyenas, and bears might slap around everybody, but when their kind faced real danger from the outside world, from the full-humans or the full-human governments, they all worked together. It was just understood that all Pack, Pride, or Clan issues took a backseat to the survival of shifters worldwide.
Yet while the bigger shifter-run organizations like The Group or KZS handled big scale situations that might involve one or more governments, it was the smaller companies like theirs that handled individual cases. Because the less full-humans saw any evidence of the existence of shifters—the less full-humans had to die in tragic “accidents.”
Mace Llewellyn walked by Rory’s office. He was staring down at some paperwork and barely glanced at them, grunting out a, “Hey,” before walking on. It would have been meaningless if Reece hadn’t gurgled a return greeting at him.
Mace walked back several steps and slowly looked into the office until his eyes rested on Reece. “What’s going on with his face?” he asked.
“Jaw’s wired,” Ricky told him, not one for beating around the bush.
“Why’s his jaw wired?”
“Fight with Novikov.”
Closing his eyes and letting out a big sigh, the lion male demanded, “How many times are we going to have to talk to you about not fighting with Novikov before a big job?”
Reece gurgled something and Ricky translated, “He didn’t start it.”
“I don’t care!” the lion roared.
Ricky looked at Reece. “He doesn’t care.”
“Is something wrong with his ears?” Llewellyn asked. “Has Novikov hit him in the head so many times that he no longer understands English?”
“Just trying to be helpful.”
“No. You’re trying to piss me off.”
Maybe a little . . .
Llewellyn pointed at Rory. “Fix this, Reed. Fix. It.”
Once the lion stormed off, Rory glared at his two younger brothers.
Yeah, he looked mighty pissed.
“It’s no big deal,” Ricky said. “You just have to find one backup. I’ll still be there.”
That seemed to be something Rory might be able to tolerate until Reece’s eyes rolled to the back of his head and he passed out in the chair. Sweat beaded his forehead, and his entire body sporadically shook as it worked to heal itself.
The fever was actually a good thing for shifters. It allowed their bodies to heal quickly and with little additional damage. But healing shifters couldn’t be left alone. They had a tendency to shift to their animal form and back to their human form several times over. Nothing harder to explain to the general public than coyotes found hanging out in a restaurant’s cold storage or bears hanging out in someone’s pool. So Reece couldn’t go home alone and, at least in the beginning, Ricky couldn’t ask one of the females of the Pack to take care of him, because the fever could make a body a little . . . amorous. Now, if their baby sister, Ronnie Lee, was around, she could do it. Fever Love, as it was sometimes called, was never directed at one’s kin. But the other females in the Pack were fair game, and Reece had had enough trouble with them in his past. Which meant that Ricky would have to take his brother home . . . now.
Looking at Rory, his brother watching him with a slight sneer to his lips, Ricky argued, “I’m sure finding one more backup shouldn’t be too—”
“Get out.”
“But—”
“Pick up that idiot and get the fuck out of my office!”
Ricky shrugged. “All right.”
Standing, Ricky grabbed Reece’s limp hand and dragged him out of the chair and out of the office. He’d pick him up off the floor when they got to the elevator. Right now it was just kind of funny passing all those offices with his brother dragging along behind him.
That wasn’t a good attitude, was it? No. Probably not. Fun? Absolutely!
But not a good attitude.
The car pulled up to the front of a five-story brownstone in the heart of an expensive downtown neighborhood in New York City.
Toni stepped out onto the street and looked up at the building. She could only imagine how expensive this place must be. It wasn’t that her mother couldn’t afford it. She could. They could. Their mother’s career had been unbelievably lucrative over the years. But still . . . why? Why was her mother doing this?
“Are you giving me my cell phone back?” Oriana snapped.
The screen was cracked but it was still a workable technological instrument, which was why Toni immediately said, “No.”
“I’m telling Mom.”
Toni didn’t know why her siblings used that as some kind of threat. It was meaningless to her.
“Whatever.” She headed toward the house. “Get Zia and Denny,” she ordered Oriana. She didn’t look b
ack. Didn’t check to see if her sister would do as ordered. No matter what they were arguing about, the youngest of their family would always be protected and taken care of. Even while the rest of them were yelling at each other like rabid rottweilers.
Toni walked into the house, horrified to find the front door open. This was New York City. One did not leave the door open in New York City.
Yet as soon as she stepped into the hallway, Toni realized how her parents and siblings could have become distracted.
“Holy shit storm,” Oriana muttered, standing beside Toni. She held Zia in her arms and Kyle held Denny’s hand. The five of them stood in the hallway and gazed up at the mile-high ceilings, and down at the marble floors. The staircase was made of mahogany and seemed to go on forever.
Toni walked farther down the hall and checked out one of the adjoining hallways. That’s when she realized that this brownstone had been opened up and was now connected to the brownstone next door. This place would easily fit her entire family inside it but still . . . why were they here? Why were they staying here?
A light breeze flowed in from the open doorway. Oriana sniffed the air. “Why do I smell dog?”
“That’s just us.”
“I know how my family smells.” And the “bitch” was implied. “This is dog.”
Thinking it was probably some stray, Toni lifted her head and sniffed. Spinning around, she walked back down the hall and out the door. She stared across the street. She watched children jump out of a big SUV, bags from a toy store in their hands. Screaming and laughing, they ran up the stairs of their own brownstone and inside.
But it was the adults following the kids inside that Toni recognized.
Snarling, she ran back into the brownstone. “Mom?” Toni called out. “Mom!”
“Upstairs! Come see, Toni! Come see!”
Toni raced up five flights of stairs and found her mother in an enormous room with a skylight. A bright open space that would be perfect for a practice room, something she was sure her mother had already noted.
“Isn’t this place amazing?” her mother asked.
Toni pointed at the window facing the brownstone across the street. “Are we here because—”
“Because I think a summer in New York City is just what this family needs. Everything we could possibly want is here. The classes, the training, the—”
“First off, Mom, what classes? The kind of classes these little brats want to take have already been filled for at least six months, if not at least a full year.”
Jackie chuckled. “Baby, come on. You forget what you’re dealing with here.”
“We still have to make calls, get recommendations from their Washington teachers—”
“I already have Jack on it.”
“Your agent?”
“Uh-huh. He’s already got the boys in some advanced classes at NYU. The twins in Berlitz at Rockefeller Center. Oriana will take her morning and afternoon classes with the Manhattan Ballet Company—”
“How the hell did he—”
“—Cherise will be studying under Herr Koenig.”
“I heard he’s an asshole.”
“A horrible asshole but a talented one who only takes the best performers as his students.”
Toni threw her hands up in the air. “Oh, well then . . .”
“Kyle will be taking master classes at the Steinhardt School at NYU and Denny will go to the School of Visual Arts.”
“How the hell did Jack—”
“He has the kids’ portfolios and recent video performances on file . . . just in case.”
Toni’s eyes narrowed. “Is he their agent?”
“No. He’s my agent. He’s just helping me out.”
“Right.” Toni studied her mom. “You didn’t mention Delilah.”
“She said she’d take care of it herself. She’s eighteen now. I can’t order her to go to classes.”
“And we can’t just have her wandering around on her own, Mom.”
Her mother waved away Toni’s concern. “She’ll be fine.”
“Mom.”
“She’ll be fine. And would you mind taking Freddy over to the hotel to see Irene before she goes back home?”
“Yes, of course.” If her mother didn’t want to discuss Delilah—and when did she ever want to discuss Delilah?—then Toni would ask her another important question. “And what about my job, Mom?”
Her mother blinked at Toni, her expression completely blank. “What job?”
“The one I was starting on Monday. Remember?”
“That little office job?”
“Yes, Mom. That little office job. The one I was doing part-time and had incredibly flexible hours so I could help with the kids? That little office job.”
“I’m sure you can find something here to keep you busy.”
“I’m not talking about something to keep me busy. I’m thinking long term.”
“Long term . . . to what? Being an office drone? You?”
“What do you want me to do? Sit around all day?”
“Find something you’re good at! Look for a real career. You have a college degree.”
“In liberal arts. Not exactly beneficial in this economy.”
“Oh, my God, baby. You worry about the most ridiculous things.”
“And you, Mom?”
“What about me?”
“Why are you here?”
“Do you know how much I can get done being in Manhattan for a few months? This will work out great for me.”
Toni walked over to the window and jabbed her thumb at the building across the street. “And those wild dogs have nothing to do with you moving here?”
“Can you think of a better neighborhood than one with fellow canines?”
“Not just canines, Mom. African wild dogs.”
“We’re all dogs in God’s eye—”
“Mom!”
“Oh, all right!” Letting out a sigh, her mother crossed the room and leaned against the wall by the window. She glanced down. “The Kuznetsov Pack lives there.”
“Mom . . . seriously? At this point it might be considered stalking.”
“I’m not stalking. Just making myself available.”
Toni glowered at her mother. “I can’t believe how sneaky you are.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You were planning this from the beginning. This was never just a little family getaway to Manhattan.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You just wanted to make sure the Kuznetsovs were still in town.” Toni glanced around the beautiful room. “This is their property, isn’t it? You rented from them.”
“Who else would I trust but another canine? And how dare you call me that, Antonella Jean-Louis Parker!”
“What are you talking about? I haven’t called you anything.”
“No. But you’re thinking it.”
Toni shrugged. “Maybe.”
Ricky looked away from the TV baseball game he was watching and up at the She-wolf standing next to the couch.
“Hey, Dee-Ann.”
Dee-Ann Smith. Ricky had grown up with her in Smithtown. She was closer to Rory’s age and to this day they were still best friends. Ricky, however, thought of Dee-Ann as more of a sister. She’d sewn up his head when Rory had rammed it into their daddy’s truck door. Sewn up his face when Reece had chucked a crowbar at him. And held his hand when, at sixteen, he was waiting to find out if his onetime girlfriend was pregnant. His girlfriend hadn’t been, and Dee-Ann had been the first to hug him, then punch him in the stomach, drive him to the local pharmacy, and buy him several boxes of condoms. Something that would have started all sorts of rumors in a little wolf-run town like Smithtown if it had been any other She-wolf but Dee-Ann. She was not a female anyone wanted to start spreading rumors about. She was not a female you wanted to ever notice you.
With eyes just like her father’s—cold yellow like many full-blooded wolves—she gazed down at
Ricky. “Shame’s not a big thing in your family, is it?”
“Don’t know what you mean.”
She motioned to the dog kennel in the middle of his hotel room. The Pack had taken rooms at the Kingston Arms hotel, a shifter-run establishment, when they’d first moved to Manhattan with Bobby Ray Smith. A few of the Packmates had gotten their own apartments but most stayed at the five-star hotel. Why? Because Ricky Lee’s sister was mated to the lion male who owned the place. So even though their rooms usually went for several hundred to several thousand dollars a night for the general public, the Pack got their rooms for much, much cheaper.
“You put your own brother in a dog kennel,” she said.
“He wouldn’t calm down. Kept trying to rip the front door open. Look at this . . .” He lifted the arm that currently held a can of Coke and showed it to her. “Tried to take my dang arm off at the shoulder. I only got two, Dee-Ann.”
“You’re whining about that scratch?”
“I wouldn’t call it whining . . .”
Dee-Ann stepped onto his couch, resting her butt on the seatback, her hands clasped in front of her. “Did you hear from Sissy Mae?” Sissy Mae Smith, the Alpha Female of their Pack, Bobby Ray Smith’s baby sister, and Ronnie Lee’s best friend.
“Nope. Why?”
“Cousin Laura Jane is coming to town. To visit.”
“And?”
“Everyone knows how she broke your heart.”
Startled, Ricky looked at Dee-Ann. “Yeah . . . when I was eighteen. I’m pretty sure I’ve recovered since then.”
“I don’t know. Your sister and Sissy sure are worried.”
“Great. Just what I need. The pity of the idiots.”
Dee-Ann chuckled. “They do seem to be making a big deal out of it.”
“Because that’s what they do. Make a big deal out of absolutely nothing.”
“Yep.”
Ricky offered his can of Coke to Dee-Ann. She took it, took a sip, and handed it back. That’s when Ricky asked, “Is Laura Jane coming here tonight? Is that why you’re here? To give me a heads-up?”
“No. She’s not coming tonight.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Dee-Ann paused a moment, then added, “But your sister and Sissy Mae are coming here to talk—”