Bite Me

Book 9: Pride Series

by Shelly Laurenston

Genres: General Fiction; Romance; Paranormal Romance

Synopsis

Livy Kowalski has no time for idiots. When you shapeshift into a honey badger, getting through life's irritants is a finely honed skill. Until she gets stuck housing her nutso cousin and dealing with her dad's untimely and unexplained demise.

That's where Vic Barinov comes in—or his house does. Vic can't step outside without coming back to find Livy devouring his honey stash and getting the TV remote sticky. It gets his animal instincts all riled up. But he'll have to woo her at high speed: all hell is breaking loose, and Livy is leading the charge . . .

Release date: May 17, 2013

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 384

Sample

Livy Kowalski blew out a breath when the battling females landed hard on top of the casket.

Livy’s father was in that casket. And it was her father’s sister and Livy’s mother busy fighting on top of it.

Her cousin Jake leaned in and whispered, “Like watching a somber and ancient grieving ceremony with the Windsor family, isn’t it?”

Thank God Jake was here. She didn’t know if she could have faced this nightmare without him.

No. Not the death of her father, but dealing with her family. Then again, this was how they mourned. Although why they all seemed so surprised by her father’s death, Livy didn’t know. Damon Kowalski was not exactly known for his quiet, even-tempered ways. He was a thief, a liar, a brawler, an instigator, and a drinker. Not just a drinker, but a honey badger drinker. Her father drank liquor spiked with different snake poisons. Poisons that would kill most humans unless they were treated immediately with antivenin—and sometimes not even then—but for HBs they merely caused a ridiculous high and intense hunger.

Most of Livy’s kind just kept their venom intake to the rattler family, but her father had actually tried the more odious poison-spiked beers and tequila, like Black Mamba or the Puff Adder.

And, sadly, her father hadn’t been right since the first time he drank that swill, going from a verbose, sometimes annoying thief to a downright bastard of a human being.

It had become so bad that, eventually, even Livy’s mother refused to put up with him. She’d thrown him out of their Washington State home and eventually divorced him, but the connection between her parents had always been . . . ridiculous. Because no matter how much they argued, no matter how many times they threw things at each other, or threatened each other with the murder of whomever they might be dating at the moment, there were two things the pair did well together—sex and stealing.

Livy’s parents made a great team when it came to stealing, and money was king to the honey badger shifter. Because money allowed them to pursue their off-putting lifestyle without worries as well as purchase extremely robust and necessary health insurance—plastic surgery for scarring could be costly these days.

And, it turned out, money also allowed for even more robust life insurance that Livy’s aunt didn’t think Livy’s mother had a right to, considering her parents had been divorced since Livy was fifteen. Sadly, Livy’s mother didn’t agree with that logic since she’d been the one paying the premiums on that insurance for the last twenty years, always guessing that she’d easily outlive Damon Kowalski. Even if that meant killing him herself.

Even worse, this particular issue came to a head at Damon’s graveside. Not appropriate for most people during a funeral, but honey badgers . . . well, “appropriate” was relative when it came to Livy’s kind.

Livy looked around at the rest of her relatives, wondering if some of her uncles or cousins would break her mother and aunt apart—but they were too busy watching . . . and drinking . . . and bickering among themselves.

“So you’re still hanging around with her, huh?”

Livy glanced over her shoulder at “her.”

Toni Jean-Louis Parker, in her mourning best, gave Livy a little wave and an encouraging smile. That smile said, “You can get through this!” Livy hoped her friend was right.

But Toni wasn’t here for Livy on her own. There was also Toni’s parents, Jackie and Paul. Sadly, Toni’s brother Cooper and Toni’s sister Cherise were on tour in Europe. They were brilliant musicians who got a lot of money to perform for sold-out audiences. Their sixteen-year-old sister Oriana was training—and soon to perform—with the Royal Ballet in England. Twelve-year-old Kyle was studying art in Italy. Ten-year-old Troy was getting his master’s in math . . . or science . . . one of those. Livy never really knew or cared. Eight-year-old Freddy was getting his bachelor’s in theoretical physics and, in his off time, creating video games that were seriously fun. The youngest brother, six-year-old Dennis, was studying architecture; and the three-year-old twins, Zia and Zoe, were busy learning the many dialects of most of the world’s major languages while terrorizing their nanny by just being themselves.

Oh. And there was nineteen-year-old Delilah, but no one really talked about her much. She was currently running a cult in Upstate New York that saw her as their messiah. She and her cult were also making the federal government kind of nervous, but the family liked to pretend that wasn’t happening.

And no, Livy wasn’t a blood relative of the Jean-Louis Parkers. They were jackals, after all. In the wild, their kind were enemies. Then again, HBs were enemies to . . . well . . . everyone. Lions. Hyenas. Leopards. Beekeepers. Beekeepers really hated their kind, but only because one didn’t find grizzly bears on the African plains. Yet the fact that Livy wasn’t blood had never mattered to the Jean-Louis Parkers. As far as they were concerned, she was family, which was why Toni had left her job in Manhattan and come with Livy to watch Livy’s mother deck her ex-husband’s younger sister while scuffing up the steel casket of her ex-husband.

Jake looked Livy over. “Where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

“Your camera. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without it.”

Livy shrugged. “Seemed wrong to bring my camera to my father’s funeral,” she lied.

“You brought it to our great-aunt’s funeral in Poland. Won awards for the pictures you took, if I remember correctly.”

“I think the novelty of it won that award. You don’t see a lot of knife fights break out at the funerals of hundred-and-eight-year-old women.”

Jake glanced back at Toni again. “I have to admit, she’s gotten really cute.”

“She’s got a mate now.”

“Really? Too bad.”

“Why?”

“Mates complicate things.”

Livy shrugged. “Never did for my parents.”

“Now, now . . .” He motioned to Livy’s mother and their aunt busy slapping each other like they were on an old episode of Dynasty. “Clearly your mom is going through her own form of mourning over her mate.”

“Clearly.”

Vic Barinov waited with his back to the wall. And while he waited, he thought about food. He was hungry.

Thankfully, he knew of at least two good steakhouses in this Albanian city. One catered to all shifters and the other specifically to bears. There were a lot of bears in Eastern Europe, some of the biggest in Ukraine and Siberia.

Unfortunately, Vic wouldn’t be able to have something to eat until he got this done. And he’d already been standing by this wall for the last three hours. But Vic had lots of patience. He could lie in wait for days, if necessary. Yet that sort of thing hadn’t been necessary since he’d stopped working for the U.S. government. He’d left suddenly, fed up with all the politics, but at the time, he wasn’t sure what he’d do with the rest of his life to ensure he could pay his bills, especially his food bill, which could be quite substantial.

Freelance work, however, had worked out better than he could have hoped. And being a crossbreed—grizzly bear and Siberian tiger—had, for once, been to his benefit. Plus his ability not only to speak eight different languages, including Russian, Polish, German, and Albanian, but to know and understand the culture of most of these nations, kept the money rolling in, and for the first time in a long time, Vic was beginning to feel his life had some stability. It was nice.

Ears twitching, Vic heard the sound of heavy panting. He lifted his head, sniffed the air. Scented the full-human running down the street toward him.

Vic waited until the panting was right beside him, then . . .

Reaching out, Vic caught hold of his target’s neck and yanked him into the alley.

Feet still running, arms still pumping, his target hadn’t even realized he was no longer touching the ground.

Vic held him like that until the local police charged past. Once he was sure they were gone, he lowered his target to the ground but kept hold of the man’s neck. By now, the target had realized he was no longer running from the police. He briefly seemed relieved by that, until he was forced to drop his head back in order to see Vic’s face.

“Oh . . . Victor. Hello.”

“There are people looking for you, Bohdan.”

“Don’t hand me over to them, Victor,” Bohdan begged while trying to twist out of Vic’s grasp. “You know what they’ll do to me.”

“I don’t know anything. Except that people are looking for you.”

Vic pushed away from the wall, Bohdan still in his hand.

“Wait! Wait! I have information. Information you’ll want.”

“I don’t need any information.”

“What about Whitlan?”

Vic stopped moving, eyes narrowing on Bohdan’s desperate face. “Lying to me won’t help you, little man,” Vic growled in Russian.

“I’m not lying.”

“No?”

Bohdan pointed at Vic’s hand, which was still around Bohdan’s neck. “Little tight.”

“And it can get much tighter. Don’t make me show you how much.”

Bohdan’s eyes widened in panic, which was kind of sad, because Vic really wasn’t putting any effort into what he was doing. If he did, he could pulverize the bones in Bohdan’s neck. These full-humans . . . so breakable.

“Talk, little man.”

“Packages sent in and out of country from Whitlan.”

Vic frowned. “How do you know they were from Whitlan? They could have been from anybody.”

“I saw him. I saw Frankie Whitlan.”

Now Vic smirked. “You? You saw Frankie Whitlan? A man no one has seen in more than two years?”

“No one has seen him in America, maybe. But he is friend to many in Russia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria . . .”

“Is he a friend of yours?”

“No. But I was in warehouse that day. Big boxes he sent out. He wanted to make sure everything perfect. He sent them on boat.”

“Going where?”

“All over. But I know that at least one went to Miami.”

“And who helped him ship these boxes?”

Now Bohdan smirked. “I like my throat without big slash across it, Victor Barinov.”

That was fair enough. Most likely Whitlan had gotten himself involved with mobsters who’d tear someone like Bohdan apart for no other reason than they were bored.

Vic opened his hand and Bohdan dropped to the ground, landing on his knees with a grunt.

“You won’t regret this, Victor Barinov,” Bohdan said, grinning widely and rubbing his throat. “I knew I could help!”

Vic stepped over Bohdan and walked out of the alley. He stopped at the curb, pulling his phone out of his pocket. While he speed-dialed a number, he saw a few of the local police running back toward the alley, still searching for Bohdan.

Vic pointed into the alley and the officers nodded their thanks before charging in and taking Bohdan down. It was a loss of some easy cash for Vic, but the information he’d received about Whitlan was much more important.

“Yeah?” he heard on the other end of the phone. Dee-Ann Smith of the Smith Pack was not what one would call a chatty She-wolf. Or friendly.

“I’ve got information,” he said cryptically, not willing to put too much detail out over the air. But he didn’t need to say Whitlan’s name to Dee-Ann. Frankie Whitlan was the most wanted full-human in shifter history. All three major organizations were trying to track him down and execute him for participating in and running expeditions to hunt shifters. But the man had the uncanny ability to disappear. Or he had some very powerful people protecting him. Whatever it was, the Group—the American shifter protection agency; Katzenhaus Securities—the feline protection organization—also called KZS; and the Bear Preservation Council—the worldwide bear protection organization—also called BPC, simply could not track the man down. All they needed was a location so they could send in either Dee-Ann Smith or KZS’s sharpshooter Cella Malone to take him out. But after several years, they’d been unable to lock on the guy.

“When can you get back here?” she asked.

“I’ll get the first plane out.”

“Good.”

The call disconnected and Vic continued moving down the Albanian street toward his rental car.

“Where are we going?” a voice said behind Vic.

“Back to the States.”

“Cool.”

Vic stopped walking, faced the shifter behind him. Shen Li smiled at Vic around the short bamboo stalk he had in his mouth.

“I don’t need you to come with me.”

“Were you planning on leaving me in Albania?”

Shen, a giant panda born and raised in San Francisco, had a specific set of skills that Vic used for some jobs. They were longtime colleagues who’d worked for the government together. Now that both were doing freelance work, Vic brought Shen in as needed. But Vic didn’t think Shen was needed for this.

“You can get back on your own, can’t you?”

“Don’t speak Albanian. You do.”

“Oh. Right. Okay. Well then, sure. You can come with me.”

“Great.”

The pair started off again in silence, except for the seemingly never-ending sound of Shen chewing on his bamboo stalks.

“So what’s our next job?” Shen asked and Vic stopped again.

He faced Shen. “You do understand we’re not partners, right?”

“We’re not?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s easier for me to work alone and call you in when I need you.”

Shen chewed and chewed while his dark brown eyes gazed at Vic.

And this was the problem with being a hybrid. Vic’s bear side had no issue with the staring and the silence and the bamboo-munching. The feline side of him, however . . . wanted to tear Shen’s face off. Just for that damn munching sound alone.

Working extremely hard, Vic reined in his feline tendencies and suggested, “Why don’t we talk about this at another time? We need to get our stuff from the hotel and find the first plane out of here.”

“Okie-dokie!” Shen walked off, and in an attempt to get control, Vic shook his head a bit, the feline snarl out of the back of his throat before he could stop it. The few full-humans walking by quickly gave him a wide berth . . . and he couldn’t remotely blame them for it.

Calm and controlled again, Vic followed Shen to the rental car and, eventually, back to the States.

“How’s it going?” Toni asked as she handed Livy a dark German beer.

Livy had insisted Toni’s parents not attend the after-funeral get-together at her parents’ house. The Jean-Louis Parkers were such nice people, it wouldn’t be fair. But nothing would deter Antonella. She was determined to be part of the entire, horrifying ride.

Livy took the cap off her beer with her hand, yawned, took a drink, shrugged. “Fine.”

“That bad, huh?”

“It could be worse.”

“You’re at your father’s funeral—”

“I’m sure he was killed for a very good reason.”

“—your mother is fighting with his entire family over money—”

“In her mind, the fact that she didn’t kill him herself means she earned that money.”

“—someone unleashed poisonous snakes in the backyard—”

“For the kids to have something to play with.”

“—and your father’s mistress just showed up.”

Livy turned and watched the tall Serbian supermodel strut through the hallway toward Livy’s mother. She wore all black, including a black fur stole, and black six-inch Louboutin shoes. Livy’s mother spotted her instantly, and without saying a word, she was suddenly surrounded by her sisters and female cousins.

“Cool,” Livy muttered. “Fight.”

“You can’t let your mother fight her.”

“She probably won’t. But my aunt Teddy will definitely take her on. Because I’m pretty sure before she started dating my dad, that model was dating one of Teddy’s sons. And you know how Teddy is about”—Livy dropped her voice and put on her best Polish accent—“ ‘my beautiful, beautiful boys. They are from God, no?’ ”

Toni shook her head. “I swear, your entire family is like an episode of Dallas.”

“I was thinking more like Dynasty, but without the shoulder pads. My people do not need shoulder pads.”

Livy watched her mother—birth name Chuntao Yang; American name she’d chosen when she was nine and just moved to the States, Joan—stand her ground as the last woman Livy’s father had been sleeping with walked up to her.

Toni rubbed her nose and stated very quietly, “She’s full-human.”

“That was his kink.”

“I mean, Livy, she’s full-human.”

Livy shrugged, watching as her mother leaned in and whispered something to the woman. “Then I suggest we not let her in the backyard.”

“Livy—”

Whatever her mother said, it must have been a doozy, because the woman leaned back, then hauled off and slapped Joan across the face, snapping the She-badger’s head to one side.

Slowly Joan looked at the much younger woman. Her head tilted to the side, cold black eyes examining, judging. Then she head-butted the model, causing the full-human to scream and stumble back. Joan followed that up with a left hook to the jaw, a right to the gut, and another left directly to the face. And she did it all without an ounce of anger. If she were angry, that supermodel would have been missing her eyes.

Joan held her hand out and one of her sisters placed a switchblade in her palm.

Before Toni could say a word—and Livy knew she would because all this was beyond the understanding of the much more controlled and polite Jean-Louis Parkers—Livy strode across the room.

“Let’s see how many Vogue covers that face of yours gets now,” Joan calmly stated, her hand with the blade pulling back.

She was just swinging it down when Livy caught hold of her mother’s wrist, held it.

“No, Ma.”

Lips pursed, her mother looked at her with that disappointment Livy had gotten used to seeing years ago. Ever since Livy had told the man at the candy store he’d given her back too much change. Something her mother had never forgiven.

“No,” Livy insisted.

“You and that weakness of yours.” That weakness being Livy’s conscience. She didn’t use it often, but the fact Livy used it at all disappointed her family greatly.

Joan yanked her arm back. “I know you didn’t get that nature of yours from my family.”

“So you blame us?” Aunt Teddy demanded. “Any weakness this girl has is your fault, Joan. Definitely not my handsome brother’s.”

As if the bleeding, sobbing mistress no longer existed, Joan and her sisters faced off against the Kowalskis.

Livy walked back to Toni’s side. “I’m in the mood for waffles. You want waffles?”

Eyes wide, the jackal said, “But your family—”

“They’ve got snakes in the backyard.” She grabbed Toni’s wrist and led her toward the hallway. “So they don’t need waffles.”

“Yes, but what about—”

Knowing exactly where this was going, Livy stopped by her father’s mistress. “If I were you,” she warned the foolish woman, “I’d get out of here. And feel free to go to the cops at your own risk.”

Figuring she’d done all that she was morally responsible to do, Livy continued out the front door, down the steps, and toward the limo.

“Wait!” a voice yelled from behind them. “Wait!”

Livy stopped, turned around, her hand still tight around Toni’s wrist.

Jake ran up to her. “Going for waffles without me, cousin?”

“I figured you’d be braving the snakes in the backyard.”

“With those vicious little bastard pups? Don’t let their age fool you. They’re mean. But more importantly . . .” He held up a set of car keys. “We can take Dad’s Bentley.”

Livy snorted and released Toni’s wrist so she could snatch the keys out of her cousin’s hand. “Let’s go.”

The pair began to walk off, and Toni emphatically stated, “I’m not going anywhere with either of you two driving!”

Livy looked at her cousin and, smirking, the pair walked back, grabbed Toni by the arms, and dragged her behind them.

“You can’t do this!” Toni protested. “This is kidnapping! A brutal, senseless kidnapping!”

“Stop bragging,” Livy teased.

“I know,” Jake joked. “Like she’s so important she just has to be kidnapped in a two-hundred-thousand-dollar car.”

“God, how much?” Toni demanded. “Your father is going to have your ass if anything happens to this car!”

“Your lack of faith in my driving skills hurts me.” Livy stopped next to the beautiful car, its bright yellow paint job nearly burning her retinas. Yeah. Kowalskis weren’t exactly known for their subtle sense of style.

“Just so we’re clear,” Toni informed both Kowalski cousins, “if I die because of your insane driving . . . I will never forgive you.”

“Noted. Now get your skinny ass and narrow shoulders in the car.”

“She does have freakishly small shoulders,” Jake noted once they’d forced Toni in the backseat.

“I know. But I don’t hate her because of it.”

“That is really big of you, cousin.”

“I think so.”

Jake opened the passenger door while Livy walked around the beautiful car. “What do you wanna do after we eat?” he asked.

Livy looked back at the house she’d lived in during her high school years. You know, when she wasn’t crashing at Toni’s place or finding some house that was left untended for a few days.

“What do you think?” she asked her cousin.

Jake grinned. “Take you to the airport?”

“See? You’re not nearly as stupid as your father says you are.”

Jake’s grin never faded. “Ahhh, yes. The love of a family. See what you’re missing by living in Manhattan?”

Livy snorted and opened the driver’s side door. “No. No, I don’t see.”

As always, Livy’s plans did not turn out as she’d hoped. Although she’d intended to be back in Manhattan the night of her father’s funeral or, at the very least, early morning after, she’d ended up staying another full day in Washington, helping her mother contact the many life insurance companies. Not so that the woman could lay claim to Damon’s money, but because it meant her mother most likely wouldn’t bother Livy for the next few . . . years.

Her mother often forgot how annoying she found Livy until she had to spend some “quality” time with her only child. Then all those memories came flooding back and Livy didn’t have to worry about seeing her mother—or putting up with her—for ages.

And despite Livy’s suggestions that she leave, Toni insisted on staying. Which, in the end, was good. Because the woman knew how to get people through an airport as quickly as possible.

“Sit here,” Toni said, pushing Livy down by her shoulders so that she sat on the one piece of luggage she’d brought with her. “I’ll get a taxi and we’ll be out of here.”

Toni went off and Livy rested her elbow on her knee, her chin on her fist, and gazed off across the busy streets surrounding JFK Airport. As she waited, obscenely long legs and massive bodies began to march by her.

She didn’t move or anything, but she did notice the squealing girls and the crowd of people following the full-human males walking by. It was around that time she heard a low male voice bark, “I am not a football player. Now get out of my face.”

For the first time in days, Livy smiled. She couldn’t help it. What exactly did the man expect? He was seven feet and two inches tall. Nearly four hundred pounds. And even with that handsome face, wickedly sharp cheekbones, and dark brown and gold hair that hung in ragged layers almost to his shoulders—he was terrifying-looking. Of course people thought he was on a national sports team. Their other option was murdering serial killer from a “Friday the 13th” movie.

Livy waited until Vic was a few steps from her before sweetly asking, “Hey, mister. Can I have your autograph?”

Snarling, Vic replied, “I am not a—Livy?” Vic stopped right in front of her, his expression of annoyance fading away and replaced by one of curiosity. “What are you doing?”

“Selling my ass on the streets for a few bucks.”

“Times that tough?”

Thankfully, Vic had learned how to deal with what very few called Livy’s sense of “humor” not long after they’d met. Which was good because Livy really didn’t know how to not ask people strange, disorienting questions. As an artist, she found their confusion fascinating.

“Tough enough,” she replied. “Hi, Shen.”

“Hey, Livy. Like your hair.”

Livy smirked at Shen’s running joke. As a honey badger, she had black hair with a white streak off to the side while Shen, as a giant panda, had white hair with big swipes of black through it. He was also munching on that damn bamboo crap. With his fangs, he was clearly a predator. But for whatever reason, although they had the digestive system of carnivores, giant pandas ate bamboo. The problem was that pandas needed a lot of bamboo in order to survive. A lot. So every time Livy saw the man . . . he was eating.

Still, it was fun to watch him hang around poor Vic Barinov. Although Livy saw the grizzly side of Vic more than she ever saw the tiger, it seemed neither side of the hybrid knew what to do with the sweet, but sometimes chatty, six-foot panda who was nearly as wide as he was tall. Something else Livy and Shen had in common. Massive shoulders on relatively smaller human bodies than most shifters were used to. Oh. And they were both Asian. Well, as Jake liked to say, “Livy is half-Asian, half-Polish and allllll honey badger!”

Livy, however, had much less in common with Vic, but they’d worked together once when helping Toni rescue her baby brother from Delilah’s cult.

“Before we go any further,” Vic said to Livy, “my house?”

“What about it?”

Vic raised an eyebrow.

Livy rolled her eyes. “I haven’t been back since the last time you threw me out.”

“I didn’t throw you out. I asked you nicely to leave so I could call the contractor to fix all the holes you’d put into it.”

“I had to get inside, didn’t I?”

“But you have your own place.”

“I ran out of honey.”

“So you came all the way out to Westchester for honey?”

“You have really good honey.”

Vic blew out a breath. “Just tell me if I’ll be facing holes when I get home.”

“No holes.”

“Do I have any honey left?”

“Yes. You have honey left.”

“I don’t know why I’m getting the tone. You’re the one who keeps eating all my honey.”

Livy smirked. “When you have rum-infused honey in your cabinets—you’re asking for it.”

That made Vic smile, something he didn’t do very often. Then again . . . neither did she.

Using his bamboo stalk to point at them, Shen admitted, “I don’t get the thing you two have for honey.”

They stared at him while he chomped on his bamboo until Vic turned back to Livy and asked, “You need a ride home?”

“Toni went to get a cab. She should be back soon.” She studied Vic a moment. She hadn’t seen him in months; his work took him out of the country very often. “What are you doing back in the States? Or are below-freezing East Coast temperatures where you come to get a break from those balmy Russian winters?”

“I have information on our old friend.”

“That Whitlan guy? Are they still looking for him?”

Vic nodded. “Yeah.”

“You’d think they’d have gotten him by now. How hard is it to find someone in this day and age?”

“The man knows how to disappear.”

Livy shrugged, not really caring. Honey badgers didn’t concern themselves with the problems of other shifters. They saw themselves as honey badgers, not as part of a bigger shifter universe. A good thing, since most of the other breeds didn’t really like them and some didn’t even know honey badgers existed.

“What about you?” Vic asked. “What are you doing here?”

“Just coming in from Washington.”

“Visiting family?”

“Dead family.” Livy chuckled at her own joke, but when Vic and Shen just stared at her, she said, “Sorry. Bad joke. I was at a funeral.”

Vic frowned, which made him look even more terrifying, but Livy knew that was just his face. His handsome but terrifying face. God, those cheekbones are amazing.

“I’m sorry, Livy. Who died?”

“My father.”

Both men blinked and she realized she’d surprised them.

“Livy . . .” Vic looked at Shen, back at her. “My God, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“It is?”

Livy shrugged. “We weren’t close.”

“Still. It’s your father.”

“I threw a baseball bat at him once,” she admitted to the two men. “Clocked him right in the head. He was out for, like, a good thirty minutes.”

Shen blew out a breath. “Oh. Okay.”

But Vic refused to be put off. “He’s still your father. I know this must be hard for you.”

“Not as hard as when he woke up and came after me with that baseball bat. Didn’t catch me, though. I’m superfast when running . . . away.”

Vic stared at her a moment before finally stating, “I want to awkwardly hug you.”

Livy looked up at him. “Awkwardly?”

“Neither of us is very good with affection, so I pretty much assume that any physical encounters between us will be awkward.”

That made Livy laugh, and without thinking about it too much, she stood up and wrapped her arms around Vic’s waist, giving him a hug she hadn’t given her mother when she’d left for the airport to return to New York.

Vic hugged her back and, if Livy wasn’t m