“Princess!” Charlie MacKilligan called out from the kitchen. “Come here, girl! I have treats!”
That’s when the three dogs ran off . . . into her husband and his brothers’ pristine kitchen, where no one with fur was allowed for health-safety reasons.
While all three wolves now glowered at her, Tracey said, “See? Complete control . . . just like always.”
“Which is exactly what you said to Gorbachev,” Wolf reminded her. “And you were wrong then, too!”
Chapter 19
Stevie burst into the bedroom with Shen and Zé behind her to warn everyone, “Charlie’s baking . . . in a strange kitchen! We’re all going to die.”
“Not necessarily,” Max debated.
“I smelled brownies.”
“Dear God.” Max pressed her hand to her mouth. “We are all going to die.”
“I like Charlie’s brownies,” Mads admitted. Who didn’t love a good brownie?
“Brownies are her stress-bake,” Stevie explained. “If it were pies, cakes, even a torte, she could be just baking. But brownies? She’ll burn this house to the ground.”
Stevie stopped and smiled. “Ashley? Oh, my God, Ashley!” she cheered, nearly knocking her sister out of her chair to get to Streep’s girlfriend. The pair hugged and laughed.
“Stevie, girl! Cass told me you were back in the States. How was that spa in Switzerland?”
“It was more a mental health facility. And it was good for me.”
Ash leaned back to smile into Stevie’s face. “Did you take over the group sessions?”
“I had to. They didn’t know how to run those things. I always get to deeper shit when I jump in.”
“I have always said you should go back to school and get your psychiatry degree. Get your own shingle, girl! Then maybe you can explain to me why your sister never remembers who I am.”
“Charlie? She loves you!”
“Wait . . . even Charlie knows her?”
“Oh . . . Max,” Stevie sighed out.
*
Tock entered the massive house right behind Dani.
“Wow. This is really nice,” she said to Shay. He nodded, closing the door behind him. “I couldn’t live here, though.”
“Why not?”
“All these rooms?” she noted. “There could be attackers in every one, and I’d never know until they were coming at me with an axe.”
Dani turned to face her, eyes wide.
“Not here, though,” Tock quickly corrected. “It’s totally safe here. I promise.”
Shay sniffed the air. “My brothers are here . . . and wolves. Why are wolves here? Why would those badgers take us to a place with wolves?” He shook his head. “Keane is not going to stop complaining about that.”
“I need to check on Princess,” Dani said.
“You do not need to check on Princess. I’m sure she’s fine.”
“In nature, wolves and dogs don’t always get along, Daddy. She might be frightened.”
“Princess isn’t scared of anything. She’s not even afraid of your Uncle Keane.”
Dani lifted her head and took several sniffs. It was so cute! The kid trying to track down her dog by using her senses. When she hit puberty, those senses would overwhelm her a bit before she got full control of what she was seeing, smelling, hearing. But as a ten-year-old, she was probably just confused by all the scents bombarding her nose at the moment.
Unless, of course, one scent stood out.
“Brownies,” the kid sighed. “I smell brownies.”
Now Dani’s father lifted his head, but instead of just sniffing, he opened his mouth, pulled his lips back over his teeth and stuck his tongue out. It looked ridiculous, but it was something that tigers did to catch different scents in the wild.
“Dani’s right. Brownies. I think Charlie’s baking.”
With that announcement, father and daughter started toward the kitchen, but Tock grabbed them both by their T-shirts and yanked them back.
“What the hell—”
“Run,” Tock ordered. “Run for your lives.”
Shay and his daughter exchanged confused glances before Shay offered, “Or we could just . . . you know . . . go get a couple of brownies.”
*
Walking through the halls of his New Jersey home, he triple-checked all the windows and the doors. Made sure all his nieces and nephews were safe inside the house. Made sure nothing was on his territory that wasn’t supposed to be there. He wanted to be sure everything was secure.
He had known from the start that today was going to be a bad day, but he hadn’t known it would be like this. Idiots. What had they been thinking? They could destroy everything by trying to kill all their problems at one time on the same day.
He pushed open the door to his den with his lion head and stepped inside.
What had gone down was absolutely insane and put them all in danger. But he’d have to deal with that later. For now, he just had to protect the ones who lived under his roof.
So he’d had the house locked down with everyone safe inside. His siblings were watching every possible entrance. Any entry point where someone could—
He spotted the red dot on the floor and stopped, wanting to pounce on it. Wanting to chase it around the house. But it moved from the floor to his chest. He sat back on his haunches as more red dots hit his chest and, he was sure, his head.
Although there were many intruders in his den right now, he couldn’t see any of them. He couldn’t even smell them, which was strange. He also knew, if they were planning to kill him, he’d be dead by now. But that wasn’t what they wanted. At least not yet.
He looked toward his favorite chair. The one by the window, where he sat and read from actual books made of paper and thread and ink. She sat in that chair now, looking so tiny.
In one hand she had a glass of his favorite scotch. In the other she had a Desert Eagle that, with the right ammo, could easily blow a huge section of his lion head into juicy chunks.
“Giovanni Medici,” Mira Malka-Lepstein greeted him. “It seems you have a little bit of a problem, my friend.”
*
Shay watched as Tock slowly pushed open the swinging door that led into the kitchen. He looked at Dani, but she could only shrug. Because Tock was acting so weird. He’d known her for a little bit now, and she never seemed scared of anything. Especially not baked goods. Who’d be afraid of baked goods?
She leaned into the kitchen and almost immediately pulled back.
“Dear God,” she whispered, hand pressed against her chest.
“Can I just get a brownie?” Shay asked.
“You don’t want to go in there,” Tock whispered. “Stay away!”
“I’m going in,” Dani announced.
Shay wasn’t sure that was a good idea and was about to tell his daughter so, but Tock actually tried to stop Dani, grabbing at her with both hands. But Dani was fast and slippery, and she made it into the kitchen.
“Wow!” he heard his daughter say after a moment.
Panicked, Shay shoved past the door and into the kitchen. He stopped short right next to Dani, taking a moment to look around the giant room.
Every possible clear space had been filled with baked goods. Shay didn’t know how Charlie had had time to make so much stuff. Cookies, cakes, pies, pastries. She was still going, too.
“Hey, Dani,” Charlie said. “Hungry?”