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Synopsis
It's not every day that a beautiful naked woman falls out of the sky and lands face-first on grizzly shifter Berg Dunn's hotel balcony. Definitely they don't usually hop up and demand his best gun. Berg gives the lady a grizzly-sized t-shirt and his cell phone, too, just on style points. And then she's gone, taking his XXXL heart with her. By the time he figures out she's a honey badger shifter, it's too late.
Honey badgers are survivors. Brutal, vicious, ill-tempered survivors. Or maybe Charlie Taylor-MacKilligan is just pissed that her useless father is trying to get them all killed again, and won't even tell her how. Protecting her little sisters has always been her job, and she's not about to let some pesky giant grizzly protection specialist with a network of every shifter in Manhattan get in her way. Wait. He's trying to help? Why would he want to do that? He's cute enough that she just might let him tag along—that is, if he can keep up . . .
Contains mature themes.
Release date: March 27, 2018
Publisher: Kensington Books
Print pages: 400
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Hot and Badgered
Shelly Laurenston
Sixteen years later . . .
What had she been thinking? Using the “Ride of the Valkyries” as a ringtone? Because that shit waking a person up at six in the morning was just cruel. Really cruel.
And, as always, she’d done it to herself. Forgoing her anxiety meds so she could get drunk with a couple of cute Italian guys that she dumped as soon as the first one’s head hit the table.
Charlie Taylor-MacKilligan slapped her hand against the bedside table next to the bed, blindly searching for her damn phone. When she touched it, she was relieved. She had no plan to actually get out of bed anytime soon. Not as hungover as she currently was. But she really wanted that damn ringtone to stop.
Somehow, without even lifting her head from the pillow she had her face buried in, or opening her eyes, Charlie managed to touch the right thing on her phone screen so that she actually answered it.
“What?” she growled.
“Get out,” was the reply. “Get out now.”
Hangover forgotten, Charlie was halfway across the room when they kicked the door open. She turned and ran toward the sliding glass doors she’d left open the night before. She’d just made it to the balcony outside when something hot rammed into her shoulder, tearing past flesh and muscle and burrowing into bone. The power of it sent her flipping headfirst over the railing.
“What do you think?” the jackal shifter asked.
Sitting in a club chair in his Milan, Italy, hotel suite, Berg Dunn gazed at the man holding up a black jacket.
“What do I think about what?” Berg asked.
“The jacket. For my show tonight.”
Berg shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“You must have an opinion.”
“I don’t. I happily have no opinion on what a grown man who is not me should wear.”
The jackal sighed. “You’re useless.”
“I have one job. Keeping your crazed fans from tracking you down and stripping the flesh from your bones. That’s it. That’s all I’m supposed to do. I, at no time, said that I would ever help you with your fashion sense.”
Rolling his eyes, the jackal laid the jacket on the bed and then stared at it. Like he expected it to tell him something. To actually speak to him.
Berg wanted to complain about this ridiculous job, but how could he when it was the best one he’d had in years? Following a very rich, very polite jackal around so that he could play piano for screaming fans in foreign countries was the coolest gig ever.
First class everything. Jets. Food. Women. Not that Berg took advantage of the women thing too often. He knew most were just trying to use him to get to Cooper Jean-Louis Parker. Coop was the one out there every night, banging away at those Steinway pianos, doing things with his fingers that even Berg found fascinating, and wooing all those lovely females with his handsome jackal looks.
Berg was just the guy to get through so they could get to the musical genius. And, unlike some of his friends, being used by beautiful women wasn’t one of his favorite things.
It was a tolerable thing, but not his favorite.
“I can’t decide,” the jackal finally admitted.
“I know how hard it is to pick between one black jacket and another black jacket. Which will your black turtleneck go with?”
“It’s not just another black jacket, peasant. It’s the difference between pure black and charcoal black.”
“We have a train to catch,” Berg reminded Coop. “So could you speed this—”
Both shifters jumped, their gazes locked on the balcony outside the room, visible through doors open to let the fresh morning air in.
Another crazed female fan trying to make her way into Coop’s room? Some of these women, all of them full-humans, were willing to try any type of craziness for just a chance at ending up in the “maestro’s” bed.
With a sigh, Berg pushed himself out of the chair and headed across the large room toward the sliding glass doors. It looked like he’d have to break another poor woman’s heart.
But he stopped when he saw her. A brown-skinned woman, completely naked. Which, in and of itself, was not unusual. The women who tried to sneak into Coop’s room—no matter the country they might be in—were often naked.
What stopped Berg in his tracks was that this woman had blood coming from her shoulder. The blood from a gun wound.
Berg motioned Coop back. “Get in the bathroom,” he ordered.
“Oh, come on. I want to see what’s—”
“I don’t care what you want. Get in the—”
The men stopped arguing when they saw him. A man in black military tactical wear, armed with a rifle, handgun, and several blades. He zipped down a line and landed on the railing of their balcony.
Berg placed his hand on the gun holstered at his side and stepped in front of Coop.
“Get in the bathroom, Coop,” he ordered, his voice low.
“We have to help her.”
“Do what I tell you and I will.”
The man in black dropped onto the balcony and grabbed the unconscious woman by her arm, rolling her limp body over.
“Now, Coop. Go.”
Berg moved forward with his weapon drawn from its holster. The man pulled his sidearm and pressed the barrel against the woman’s head.
Berg aimed his .45 and barked, “Hey!”
The man looked up, bringing his gun with him. Gazes locked, fingers resting on triggers. Each man sizing the other up. And that was when the woman moved. Fast. So fast, Berg knew she wasn’t completely human, which immediately changed everything.
The woman grabbed her attacker’s gun hand by the wrist and held it to the side so he couldn’t finish the job on her. She used her free hand to pummel the man’s face repeatedly.
Blood poured down his lips from his shattered nose; his eyes now dazed.
Still holding the man’s wrist, she got to her feet.
She was tall. Maybe five-ten or five-eleven. With broad, powerful shoulders and arms and especially legs. Like a much-too-tall gymnast.
She gripped her attacker by the throat with one hand and, without much effort, lifted him up and over the balcony railing. She released him then and unleashed the biggest claws Berg had ever seen from her right hand.
Turning away from the attacker, she swiped at the zip line that held him aloft, and Berg cringed a little at the man’s desperate screams as he fell to the ground below.
That’s when she saw Berg. Her claws—coming from surprisingly small hands—were still unleashed. Her gaze narrowed on him and her shoulders hunched just a bit. She was readying herself for an attack. To kill the man who could out her as a shifter, he guessed. Not having had time to process that he was one, too. Plus, he had a gun, which wouldn’t help his cause any.
“It’s okay,” Berg said quickly, re-holstering his weapon. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Yeah,” Coop said from behind him. “We just want to help.”
Berg let out a frustrated breath. “I thought I told you to get into the bathroom.”
“I wanted to see what’s going on.”
Coop moved to Berg’s side. “We’re shifters, too,” he said, using that goddamn charming smile. Like this was the time for any of that!
But this woman rolled her eyes in silent exasperation and came fully into the room. She walked right by Berg and Coop and to the bedroom door.
“Wait,” Berg called out. When she turned to face him, one brow raised in question, he reminded her, “You’re naked.”
He went to his already packed travel bag and pulled out a black T-shirt.
“Here,” he said, handing it to her.
She pulled the shirt on and he saw that he’d given her one of his favorite band shirts from a Fishbone concert he’d seen years ago with his parents and siblings.
“Your shoulder,” Berg prompted, deciding not to obsess over the shirt. Especially when she looked so cute in it.
She shook her head at his prompt and again started toward the door. But a crash from the suite living room had Berg grabbing the woman’s arm with one hand and shoving Coop across the bedroom and into the bathroom with the other.
Berg faced the intruder, pulling the woman in behind his body.
Two gunshots hit Berg in the lower chest—the man had pulled the trigger without actually seeing all of Berg, but expecting a more normal-sized human.
Which meant a few things to Berg. That he was dealing with a full-human. An expertly trained full-human. An ex-soldier probably.
An ex-soldier with a kill order.
Because if he’d been trying to kidnap the woman, he would have made damn sure he knew who or what was on the other end before he pulled that trigger. But he didn’t know. He didn’t check because he didn’t care. Everyone in the room had to die.
And knowing that—understanding that—did nothing but piss Berg off.
Who just ran around trying to kill a naked, unarmed woman? his analytical side wanted to know.
The grizzly part of him, though, didn’t care about any of that. All it knew was that it had been shot. And shooting a grizzly but not killing it immediately . . . always an exceptionally bad move.
The snarl snaked out of Berg’s throat and the muscles between his shoulders grew into a healthy grizzly hump. He barely managed to keep from shifting completely, but his grizzly bear rage exploded and his roar rattled the windows. The bathroom door behind him slammed shut, the jackal having the sense to now go into hiding.
The intruder quickly backed up, knowing something wasn’t right, but not fully understanding, which was why he didn’t run.
He should have run.
With a step, Berg was right in front of him, grabbing the gun from his hand and spinning the man around so that he had him by the throat. He did this because two more men in tactical gear were coming into the suite through the front door they’d taken down moments before.
Using the man’s weapon, Berg shot each man twice in the chest. They both had on body armor so he wasn’t worried he’d killed them.
With both attackers down, Berg refocused on the man he held captive. He spun him around, because he wanted to ask him a few questions about what the hell was going on. He was calmer now. He could be rational.
But when the man again faced him, Berg felt a little twinge in his side. He slowly looked down . . . and found a combat blade sticking out.
First he’d been shot. Now stabbed.
His grizzly rage soared once again and, as the intruder—quickly recognizing his error—attempted to fight his way out of Berg’s grasp, desperately begging for his life, Berg grabbed each side of his attacker’s face and squeezed with both hands . . . until the man’s head popped like a zit.
It was the blood and bone hitting him in the face that snapped Berg back into the moment, and he gazed down at his brain-covered hands.
“Oh, shit,” he muttered. “Shit, shit, shit.”
The other intruders, ignoring the pain from the shots, scrambled up and out of the suite. As far away from Berg as they could get.
Someone touched his arm and he half-turned to see the woman. She raised her hands and rewarded him with a soft smile.
That’s when he calmed down. “Shit,” he said again, holding out his hands to her.
She stepped close, held his wrists, studied the blade still sticking out of his side. She then examined the wounds in his chest. Unlike the intruders, he hadn’t been wearing body armor. The bullets had hit him, had entered his body, but he was grizzly. Even as a human, you had to bring bigger weapons if you wanted to take down one of his kind with one or two shots.
Berg knew, just watching her, that she was going to help him. She was going to try. But she was in more danger than he was, and she needed to get out of here.
“Go,” he told her and she frowned. “Seriously. Go.”
He pulled away from her, went to his travel bag, paused to wipe the blood off his hands on a nearby towel, and took out a .45 Ruger, handing it to her. “Take this.”
Her eyes narrowed again as she stared up at him.
“I get the feeling you need it more than me,” he pushed. “Just go.”
She took the weapon, dropped the magazine, cleared the gun with one hand before shoving the loaded mag back in and putting a round in the chamber.
Yeah. The woman knew how to handle his .45. Maybe better than he did.
She pressed her free hand against his forearm and, with a nod, slipped out the door and out of the suite.
“Can I come out now?” Coop asked from the bathroom. But before Berg could tell him no the jackal was already standing behind him.
“Well . . .” Coop said, “that was interesting.”
“You could say that.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“Yes. And please stop playing with the knife.”
Coop pulled his hand away from the blade handle and attempted to look contrite. “Sorry. Does it hurt?”
Berg frowned at him and Coop nodded. “I’ll take that glare as a yes. Maybe I should call the front desk.” He started toward the phone on the side table by the bed.
“Think we’ll make our train?” the jackal asked.
Slowly, Berg faced Coop and noted, “You’re not used to real life, are you?”
“Not really. Why?”
“This is going to be big.” When Coop’s head tipped to the side like a confused schnauzer, he added, “The hotel room of some big-time penis was just violently invaded.”
“It’s pianist.”
“Yeah. I said that.” No. He hadn’t. “Anyway, we’ll have to get our stories straight. And we should leave out the girl.”
“Oh.” Coop thought a moment, the receiver held loosely in his hand. Finally, he said, “I’ll call my sister first.”
“Why?”
“If anyone can manage this, it’s Toni.” Coop winced. “But she’s going to be annoyed at you. For, you know, letting this happen.”
“You’re alive, aren’t you?”
“Yes, and I’m quite grateful. And I don’t hold you responsible for this at all. But my sister . . . she won’t be as . . . open-minded. You should prepare for that.”
“I’m sure I can handle a She-jackal.”
Using his cell phone to call his sister, Coop chuckled, “Yeah. Sure you can.”
Staring at the open bedroom door, Berg asked, “Think I’ll ever see her again?”
“The girl that was never here?” Coop asked. He shrugged while waiting for someone to answer on the other end of the phone. “If you keep an eye on the FBI’s ‘Ten Most Wanted’ list . . . sure! Because let’s face it. That’s a woman who seems to have trouble following her around like a needy puppy.”
Charlie avoided the elevator and found the stairs. She ran down until she reached the parking lot. She eased the door open, keeping the friendly giant’s gun in her hand. She peeked around the door, didn’t see anyone, so she ran toward the exit.
She dodged around the expensive cars, staying low and moving fast. She dashed past a car valet, and out of the lot.
Charlie moved down the street, cutting around the surprising number of people who were up this early. She’d just reached the corner when a man in a black tactical outfit and body armor stepped in front of her. They both raised their weapons at the same time, Charlie already pulling the trigger when a Lamborghini jumped the curb and rammed into the man. Both weapons missed their marks but now her attacker was pinned to the ground, screaming in agony as the passenger window lowered and Charlie heard the familiar—and shockingly casual, considering the circumstances—“Hey, shithead.”
The petite Asian woman with the short pixie haircut dyed blue grinned at her. They were sisters but one would never know it by looking at them.
Max MacKilligan asked, “Miss me?”
“Can you just drive?” Charlie got into the passenger seat. “But be careful. You still have human stuck to the grill.”
“I should let him shoot you? What kind of sister would I be?”
“One I don’t have to visit in an Italian prison.”
Chuckling, Max put the car in reverse and Charlie worked hard to ignore the short-lived begging and too-long crunching sounds coming from under the car as she pulled out. Charlie knew her sister was taking her time driving back over the gunman.
Max “Kill It Again” MacKilligan was known for being vengeful.
Once they were on the road and cutting through early-morning Milan traffic, Max pointed down. “Check by your feet.”
Charlie did and found a small case. She opened it and let out a relieved sigh.
“Thank you!” she said, putting the eyeglasses on. Suddenly she could see again! She hadn’t had time to grab her regular pair off the bedside table before she had to make a run for it and she hadn’t gotten her contact prescription refilled in a few months. She kept forgetting. So for the last fifteen minutes, everything had been one blurry mess. Even the helpful giant was just a big, blurry spot. She’d have had to get close to his face to identify him. But he had sounded cute. And so nice!
“Better?” Maxie asked.
“Much. I can now see who’s trying to kill me.” She looked at Max and immediately cringed at the sight. “Oh, wow. They really beat the shit out of you.”
“Excuse me,” Max replied, indignant. “These lacerations and bruises are not because of the men who came to kill me. With my usual aplomb, I have dealt with those scumbags.”
“Uh-huh. Then what did happen?”
“Why do we have to discuss that? Our lives are in danger.”
Charlie gazed at her sister for a few moments before guessing, “Squirrels again?”
“They started it!”
“It’s nice to see that nothing has really changed since we last saw each other.” Charlie glanced out the window, but she had to look away. Her sister was moving so fast that it was kind of making her nauseous. “What about Stevie?”
“I’m waiting to hear back from her boss.”
“Her boss?”
“She’s not answering her cell and her assistants have no idea where she is.”
“Is she still in Switzerland?”
Max shrugged. “Maybe. And stop glaring at me.”
“How hard is it to keep an eye on one woman? I take six months. And you take six months. That was our agreement.”
“Why is she still our responsibility?”
“Because she’s our sister and we love her and if we don’t watch out for her, she will get involved with the wrong people, and destroy the world. Is that what you want?”
“You always ask me that question, and you’re always disappointed with my answer.”
Charlie sighed. “Well, we need to find her.”
“I know.”
“She’s in as much danger as we are.”
“I know.”
“They sent trained military after us.”
“I know.”
“And I know this car is stolen.”
“Of course it’s stolen.”
“Well, that seems like kind of a problem since we have cops behind us.”
“Buckle up.”
“Oh, God.” Charlie put on the seat belt. “We’re going to die before we even get to her.”
“Stop whining. You know how hard we are to kill.”
“Hard to kill doesn’t mean we can’t lose body parts in tragic car accidents. And we can’t exactly save our little sister if we’re both in prison . . . and legless.”
“What is your obsession with losing your legs?”
“It could happen!”
Max downshifted and swerved around a truck making a turn, barely missing the front end.
“I don’t understand why you insist on worrying about something that may or may not happen,” Maxie noted casually as a group of nuns dove out of her way, their panicked screams horrifying Charlie. “If you lose your legs, I’ll get you a wheelchair with a Ferrari motor that goes from zero to sixty in four seconds. Wouldn’t that be great?”
Hands pressed against the dashboard, Charlie admitted, “I’d rather have my legs still attached to my body.”
“That’s such a narrow view. What about bionic legs?”
“Schoolchildren,” Charlie warned.
“Bionic legs would be so cool.”
“Schoolchildren!”
“I see them. Calm yourself.”
The car stopped—somehow—and Max patiently waited for the children and their teachers to get across the street. Out of nowhere, she began to whistle “H.R. Pufnstuf.” Charlie had no idea why, but she blamed her mother. She loved that crap and made them all watch it in re-runs when they were too young to put up a fight.
Once the children were safely out of the way, Maxie hit the gas and roared down the street. Still whistling.
“We need a new car,” Charlie told her sister when the cops caught up with them again.
“What’s wrong with this one?”
“A lot.”
Maxie’s phone rang and she insisted on taking one hand off the wheel to answer it.
“Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, sir.”
She disconnected the call and glanced at Charlie.
“What?” Charlie pushed when her sister didn’t say anything.
“She needed a break.”
“A break? She needed a break? What does that mean?”
“You know what that means, Charlie.”
“I do?” Charlie thought a moment, then rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on! Again?”
“You know how she is. But hey! At least she’s still in Switzerland. We’ll get there in no time.”
“But it’s a mental hospital! Not a resort!”
“To her, all mental hospitals are resorts. Besides, it could be worse,” Max said happily. “This could all be so much worse!”
Charlie shook her head. “Dude, I seriously don’t know how.”
The black Mercedes-Benz AMG G63 SUV stopped in front of the mental health and rehab clinic.
Usually, it was only the wealthiest of European royalty who came to this place. Most Americans didn’t even know it existed, but Charlie’s baby sister had a gift. She could track down high-end mental institutions anywhere in the world. They all seemed to have spa-like amenities, five-star chefs making the meals, and group therapy, something her sister truly seemed to enjoy.
The first one Stevie Stasiuk-MacKilligan had ever checked herself into was somewhere in Malibu and cost a thousand a day. She never paid a cent, though. The lab she “interned” for took care of that, which could explain why no one bothered to question why a fourteen-year-old girl—at the time—was checking herself into a Malibu mental health clinic without a parent or guardian in sight.
And what did these brilliant and pricey psychologists discover about Stevie over the years? Exactly what Charlie already knew: That her sister was a high-strung prodigy who suffered bouts of extreme panic like any abandoned child would.
Stevie’s mother, a Siberian She-tiger from a very wealthy family, had shown up at Carlie Taylor’s door one day, asking for Carlie to babysit five-year-old Stevie for “a few hours.” Charlie’s mom, a She-wolf who never really learned how to say no to anyone but Charlie’s grandfather, agreed. After three days, she told Charlie and Max that “it looks like your little sister is staying. Isn’t that great?”
At the time, Charlie didn’t think so. It was bad enough they already had one of their father’s castoffs to take care of in the first place; now they had two. But that first situation had made more sense because Max’s mother was doing hard time in a Bulgarian prison for armed robbery. She couldn’t take care of her kid. But the She-tiger . . . she’d just walked away. From her own daughter.
Of course, Stevie didn’t let any of that bother her. In her mind, she had so many other things to worry about “in the universe” that her mother’s desertion didn’t rate as important enough for her to hold a grudge.
So Charlie did it for her. She was very good at grudge-holding. Just ask her idiot father.
Charlie met up with her sister at the front of the SUV.
“All right,” Charlie began, “you know the drill.”
Max nodded and flatly replied, “Go in. Kill everybody. Get Stevie out.”
Charlie briefly closed her eyes, took a moment to breathe and try to relax her shoulders. When she felt she wouldn’t yell, she said, “That is not the drill.”
“It could be.”
“Could be, but it isn’t. The drill is we go in, I do all the talking, you don’t pick on Stevie.”
“She’s too sensitive.”
“But because you already know that, you’re not going to pick on her.”
Max smiled. “What if I really want to?”
“Then I’ll let her take your eye out this time. And you’ll wear an eyepatch . . . and we’ll call you One-Eye McGee.”
Laughing, Max headed toward the front doors, Charlie right behind her.
When they stepped inside, both of them glanced at each other. Their sister really did have a knack when it came to finding beautiful places for the mentally ill.
There was so much white marble and beautiful white furniture. Stunning and expensive oriental rugs were laid out in front of white couches. White marble coffee and end tables rested on top of them. Floor-to-ceiling windows displayed the remarkable beauty of the Swiss countryside that surrounded the entire building.
“You have got to be kidding,” Max muttered, staring up at the cathedral-like ceilings. “I think I’m feeling mentally ill because I could really use some valium and a massage.”
“Stop it.”
Charlie grabbed Max’s arm and pulled her to the desk, which was not white but clear glass. And perfectly clean. The stunning woman sitting on the other side in a white button-down shirt and tight, white skirt smiled, revealing perfect white teeth.
“Hallo. Sprechen sie Englisch?” Charlie asked.
“Yes,” she immediately replied. “May I help you?”
“I’d like to see my sister. Stevie MacKilligan.”
“Please have a seat. I’ll contact her doctor.”
“Thank you.”
Charlie walked over to the couch, but it was so white that she was worried about putting her less-than-clean body on it. Max had had an extra pair of jeans and bright red Keds in Charlie’s size—they always had backup clothes for each other—so she wasn’t walking around in only a T-shirt, but Charlie hadn’t had time for a shower. Just a quick stop at a gas station to wash the blood off, and let Max bandage up her shoulder so the bullet wounds could heal without a mess.
And for Charlie, nothing would be more humiliating than getting up from that bright white couch and leaving an unfortunate stain behind.
But Max didn’t seem to have those issues, turning and dropping on the couch like she owned it.
Of course, Max didn’t worry about much, which worried Charlie. She knew her sister could be reckless when it wasn’t necessary. Max did, however, always manage to find a way to wiggle out of whatever situation she’d gotten herself into. And if she couldn’t wiggle free, she would attack head-on without stopping.
It was the honey badger way.
Max pulled a baggie of honey-covered peanuts from the back pocket of her jeans and began munching, wiping her hands on the white couch after each handful she put in her mouth.
“Dude.”
Max looked up. “What?”
“You’re being sloppy.”
“So?” She gave that lovely but still off-putting smile. “We don’t have to clean it up.”
“Dude.”
Rolling her eyes, Max pushed the nearly empty baggie back into her jeans and brushed both hands against each other. She motioned to a spot behind Charlie and Charlie turned to see a man walking toward them. He wore a white coat and held a clipboard. He also had on a gold Rolex and Gucci leather shoes.
The doctor had expensive taste.
Smiling, Charlie immediately put out her hand for a shake.
“Ladies,” the doctor greeted, grasping Charlie’s hand. He went for Max’s but Max just stared until he pulled his hand back. She didn’t even bother getting up from the couch.
“Do you speak English?” Charlie asked.
“Of course,” the doctor replied. “I am Dr. Gaertner. I am the director here. Come. Let’s talk in my office.”
He led them down the wide hallway, which looked out over the front of the building through more of those big, grand windows.
“Your center is beautiful,” Charlie noted as they walked.
“Ahhh. Danke. Thank you, I mean. We are very proud.”
He ushered them into a big office with white leather chairs and couches and even more glass windows revealing more amazing views.
No wonder her sister had come here for a break. It was way better than any spa Charlie had ever been to before.
“Please. Sit,” he offered with a smile. Charlie immediately noted that except for a lamp, blotter, and phone . . . the man had nothing else on his desk.
Maxie plopped into a chair, her legs swinging up, about to land on the man’s glass desk before Charlie punched them back down. With a warning glare at her grinning sibling, she sat down on the very edge of her chair and realized she should have left Max out in the car.
“Now, how can I help you ladies?”
“We’d like to see our sister, please.”
“Ahhh, our dear Fräulein MacKilligan.”
“Doctor MacKilligan,” Charlie corrected out of habit. And, when Max raised an eyebrow at her, she reminded her sister, “She worked hard for those PhDs.”
“True, true,” Gaertner said, still smiling. “She is one of our favorite patients here. She is so helpful during our group sessions.”
Max snorted, but Charlie quickly leaned forward to keep the doctor’s attention. “I’m so glad she’s here and getting the help she needs, Dr. Gaertner. But we’d really love to see her for a few minutes.”
“I’m sure we can arrange something . . . in a few weeks. Right now it is too . . . uh . . . early in the process for family meetings. You understand?”
Before Charlie could explain that “no! I do not understand!” in the politest way possible, Max slammed her fist on that expensive-looking glass desk and announced, “Motherfucker, we wanna see our sister now!”
“Max!” Charlie barked, locking gazes with her sibling. “Could you let me han
What had she been thinking? Using the “Ride of the Valkyries” as a ringtone? Because that shit waking a person up at six in the morning was just cruel. Really cruel.
And, as always, she’d done it to herself. Forgoing her anxiety meds so she could get drunk with a couple of cute Italian guys that she dumped as soon as the first one’s head hit the table.
Charlie Taylor-MacKilligan slapped her hand against the bedside table next to the bed, blindly searching for her damn phone. When she touched it, she was relieved. She had no plan to actually get out of bed anytime soon. Not as hungover as she currently was. But she really wanted that damn ringtone to stop.
Somehow, without even lifting her head from the pillow she had her face buried in, or opening her eyes, Charlie managed to touch the right thing on her phone screen so that she actually answered it.
“What?” she growled.
“Get out,” was the reply. “Get out now.”
Hangover forgotten, Charlie was halfway across the room when they kicked the door open. She turned and ran toward the sliding glass doors she’d left open the night before. She’d just made it to the balcony outside when something hot rammed into her shoulder, tearing past flesh and muscle and burrowing into bone. The power of it sent her flipping headfirst over the railing.
“What do you think?” the jackal shifter asked.
Sitting in a club chair in his Milan, Italy, hotel suite, Berg Dunn gazed at the man holding up a black jacket.
“What do I think about what?” Berg asked.
“The jacket. For my show tonight.”
Berg shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“You must have an opinion.”
“I don’t. I happily have no opinion on what a grown man who is not me should wear.”
The jackal sighed. “You’re useless.”
“I have one job. Keeping your crazed fans from tracking you down and stripping the flesh from your bones. That’s it. That’s all I’m supposed to do. I, at no time, said that I would ever help you with your fashion sense.”
Rolling his eyes, the jackal laid the jacket on the bed and then stared at it. Like he expected it to tell him something. To actually speak to him.
Berg wanted to complain about this ridiculous job, but how could he when it was the best one he’d had in years? Following a very rich, very polite jackal around so that he could play piano for screaming fans in foreign countries was the coolest gig ever.
First class everything. Jets. Food. Women. Not that Berg took advantage of the women thing too often. He knew most were just trying to use him to get to Cooper Jean-Louis Parker. Coop was the one out there every night, banging away at those Steinway pianos, doing things with his fingers that even Berg found fascinating, and wooing all those lovely females with his handsome jackal looks.
Berg was just the guy to get through so they could get to the musical genius. And, unlike some of his friends, being used by beautiful women wasn’t one of his favorite things.
It was a tolerable thing, but not his favorite.
“I can’t decide,” the jackal finally admitted.
“I know how hard it is to pick between one black jacket and another black jacket. Which will your black turtleneck go with?”
“It’s not just another black jacket, peasant. It’s the difference between pure black and charcoal black.”
“We have a train to catch,” Berg reminded Coop. “So could you speed this—”
Both shifters jumped, their gazes locked on the balcony outside the room, visible through doors open to let the fresh morning air in.
Another crazed female fan trying to make her way into Coop’s room? Some of these women, all of them full-humans, were willing to try any type of craziness for just a chance at ending up in the “maestro’s” bed.
With a sigh, Berg pushed himself out of the chair and headed across the large room toward the sliding glass doors. It looked like he’d have to break another poor woman’s heart.
But he stopped when he saw her. A brown-skinned woman, completely naked. Which, in and of itself, was not unusual. The women who tried to sneak into Coop’s room—no matter the country they might be in—were often naked.
What stopped Berg in his tracks was that this woman had blood coming from her shoulder. The blood from a gun wound.
Berg motioned Coop back. “Get in the bathroom,” he ordered.
“Oh, come on. I want to see what’s—”
“I don’t care what you want. Get in the—”
The men stopped arguing when they saw him. A man in black military tactical wear, armed with a rifle, handgun, and several blades. He zipped down a line and landed on the railing of their balcony.
Berg placed his hand on the gun holstered at his side and stepped in front of Coop.
“Get in the bathroom, Coop,” he ordered, his voice low.
“We have to help her.”
“Do what I tell you and I will.”
The man in black dropped onto the balcony and grabbed the unconscious woman by her arm, rolling her limp body over.
“Now, Coop. Go.”
Berg moved forward with his weapon drawn from its holster. The man pulled his sidearm and pressed the barrel against the woman’s head.
Berg aimed his .45 and barked, “Hey!”
The man looked up, bringing his gun with him. Gazes locked, fingers resting on triggers. Each man sizing the other up. And that was when the woman moved. Fast. So fast, Berg knew she wasn’t completely human, which immediately changed everything.
The woman grabbed her attacker’s gun hand by the wrist and held it to the side so he couldn’t finish the job on her. She used her free hand to pummel the man’s face repeatedly.
Blood poured down his lips from his shattered nose; his eyes now dazed.
Still holding the man’s wrist, she got to her feet.
She was tall. Maybe five-ten or five-eleven. With broad, powerful shoulders and arms and especially legs. Like a much-too-tall gymnast.
She gripped her attacker by the throat with one hand and, without much effort, lifted him up and over the balcony railing. She released him then and unleashed the biggest claws Berg had ever seen from her right hand.
Turning away from the attacker, she swiped at the zip line that held him aloft, and Berg cringed a little at the man’s desperate screams as he fell to the ground below.
That’s when she saw Berg. Her claws—coming from surprisingly small hands—were still unleashed. Her gaze narrowed on him and her shoulders hunched just a bit. She was readying herself for an attack. To kill the man who could out her as a shifter, he guessed. Not having had time to process that he was one, too. Plus, he had a gun, which wouldn’t help his cause any.
“It’s okay,” Berg said quickly, re-holstering his weapon. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Yeah,” Coop said from behind him. “We just want to help.”
Berg let out a frustrated breath. “I thought I told you to get into the bathroom.”
“I wanted to see what’s going on.”
Coop moved to Berg’s side. “We’re shifters, too,” he said, using that goddamn charming smile. Like this was the time for any of that!
But this woman rolled her eyes in silent exasperation and came fully into the room. She walked right by Berg and Coop and to the bedroom door.
“Wait,” Berg called out. When she turned to face him, one brow raised in question, he reminded her, “You’re naked.”
He went to his already packed travel bag and pulled out a black T-shirt.
“Here,” he said, handing it to her.
She pulled the shirt on and he saw that he’d given her one of his favorite band shirts from a Fishbone concert he’d seen years ago with his parents and siblings.
“Your shoulder,” Berg prompted, deciding not to obsess over the shirt. Especially when she looked so cute in it.
She shook her head at his prompt and again started toward the door. But a crash from the suite living room had Berg grabbing the woman’s arm with one hand and shoving Coop across the bedroom and into the bathroom with the other.
Berg faced the intruder, pulling the woman in behind his body.
Two gunshots hit Berg in the lower chest—the man had pulled the trigger without actually seeing all of Berg, but expecting a more normal-sized human.
Which meant a few things to Berg. That he was dealing with a full-human. An expertly trained full-human. An ex-soldier probably.
An ex-soldier with a kill order.
Because if he’d been trying to kidnap the woman, he would have made damn sure he knew who or what was on the other end before he pulled that trigger. But he didn’t know. He didn’t check because he didn’t care. Everyone in the room had to die.
And knowing that—understanding that—did nothing but piss Berg off.
Who just ran around trying to kill a naked, unarmed woman? his analytical side wanted to know.
The grizzly part of him, though, didn’t care about any of that. All it knew was that it had been shot. And shooting a grizzly but not killing it immediately . . . always an exceptionally bad move.
The snarl snaked out of Berg’s throat and the muscles between his shoulders grew into a healthy grizzly hump. He barely managed to keep from shifting completely, but his grizzly bear rage exploded and his roar rattled the windows. The bathroom door behind him slammed shut, the jackal having the sense to now go into hiding.
The intruder quickly backed up, knowing something wasn’t right, but not fully understanding, which was why he didn’t run.
He should have run.
With a step, Berg was right in front of him, grabbing the gun from his hand and spinning the man around so that he had him by the throat. He did this because two more men in tactical gear were coming into the suite through the front door they’d taken down moments before.
Using the man’s weapon, Berg shot each man twice in the chest. They both had on body armor so he wasn’t worried he’d killed them.
With both attackers down, Berg refocused on the man he held captive. He spun him around, because he wanted to ask him a few questions about what the hell was going on. He was calmer now. He could be rational.
But when the man again faced him, Berg felt a little twinge in his side. He slowly looked down . . . and found a combat blade sticking out.
First he’d been shot. Now stabbed.
His grizzly rage soared once again and, as the intruder—quickly recognizing his error—attempted to fight his way out of Berg’s grasp, desperately begging for his life, Berg grabbed each side of his attacker’s face and squeezed with both hands . . . until the man’s head popped like a zit.
It was the blood and bone hitting him in the face that snapped Berg back into the moment, and he gazed down at his brain-covered hands.
“Oh, shit,” he muttered. “Shit, shit, shit.”
The other intruders, ignoring the pain from the shots, scrambled up and out of the suite. As far away from Berg as they could get.
Someone touched his arm and he half-turned to see the woman. She raised her hands and rewarded him with a soft smile.
That’s when he calmed down. “Shit,” he said again, holding out his hands to her.
She stepped close, held his wrists, studied the blade still sticking out of his side. She then examined the wounds in his chest. Unlike the intruders, he hadn’t been wearing body armor. The bullets had hit him, had entered his body, but he was grizzly. Even as a human, you had to bring bigger weapons if you wanted to take down one of his kind with one or two shots.
Berg knew, just watching her, that she was going to help him. She was going to try. But she was in more danger than he was, and she needed to get out of here.
“Go,” he told her and she frowned. “Seriously. Go.”
He pulled away from her, went to his travel bag, paused to wipe the blood off his hands on a nearby towel, and took out a .45 Ruger, handing it to her. “Take this.”
Her eyes narrowed again as she stared up at him.
“I get the feeling you need it more than me,” he pushed. “Just go.”
She took the weapon, dropped the magazine, cleared the gun with one hand before shoving the loaded mag back in and putting a round in the chamber.
Yeah. The woman knew how to handle his .45. Maybe better than he did.
She pressed her free hand against his forearm and, with a nod, slipped out the door and out of the suite.
“Can I come out now?” Coop asked from the bathroom. But before Berg could tell him no the jackal was already standing behind him.
“Well . . .” Coop said, “that was interesting.”
“You could say that.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“Yes. And please stop playing with the knife.”
Coop pulled his hand away from the blade handle and attempted to look contrite. “Sorry. Does it hurt?”
Berg frowned at him and Coop nodded. “I’ll take that glare as a yes. Maybe I should call the front desk.” He started toward the phone on the side table by the bed.
“Think we’ll make our train?” the jackal asked.
Slowly, Berg faced Coop and noted, “You’re not used to real life, are you?”
“Not really. Why?”
“This is going to be big.” When Coop’s head tipped to the side like a confused schnauzer, he added, “The hotel room of some big-time penis was just violently invaded.”
“It’s pianist.”
“Yeah. I said that.” No. He hadn’t. “Anyway, we’ll have to get our stories straight. And we should leave out the girl.”
“Oh.” Coop thought a moment, the receiver held loosely in his hand. Finally, he said, “I’ll call my sister first.”
“Why?”
“If anyone can manage this, it’s Toni.” Coop winced. “But she’s going to be annoyed at you. For, you know, letting this happen.”
“You’re alive, aren’t you?”
“Yes, and I’m quite grateful. And I don’t hold you responsible for this at all. But my sister . . . she won’t be as . . . open-minded. You should prepare for that.”
“I’m sure I can handle a She-jackal.”
Using his cell phone to call his sister, Coop chuckled, “Yeah. Sure you can.”
Staring at the open bedroom door, Berg asked, “Think I’ll ever see her again?”
“The girl that was never here?” Coop asked. He shrugged while waiting for someone to answer on the other end of the phone. “If you keep an eye on the FBI’s ‘Ten Most Wanted’ list . . . sure! Because let’s face it. That’s a woman who seems to have trouble following her around like a needy puppy.”
Charlie avoided the elevator and found the stairs. She ran down until she reached the parking lot. She eased the door open, keeping the friendly giant’s gun in her hand. She peeked around the door, didn’t see anyone, so she ran toward the exit.
She dodged around the expensive cars, staying low and moving fast. She dashed past a car valet, and out of the lot.
Charlie moved down the street, cutting around the surprising number of people who were up this early. She’d just reached the corner when a man in a black tactical outfit and body armor stepped in front of her. They both raised their weapons at the same time, Charlie already pulling the trigger when a Lamborghini jumped the curb and rammed into the man. Both weapons missed their marks but now her attacker was pinned to the ground, screaming in agony as the passenger window lowered and Charlie heard the familiar—and shockingly casual, considering the circumstances—“Hey, shithead.”
The petite Asian woman with the short pixie haircut dyed blue grinned at her. They were sisters but one would never know it by looking at them.
Max MacKilligan asked, “Miss me?”
“Can you just drive?” Charlie got into the passenger seat. “But be careful. You still have human stuck to the grill.”
“I should let him shoot you? What kind of sister would I be?”
“One I don’t have to visit in an Italian prison.”
Chuckling, Max put the car in reverse and Charlie worked hard to ignore the short-lived begging and too-long crunching sounds coming from under the car as she pulled out. Charlie knew her sister was taking her time driving back over the gunman.
Max “Kill It Again” MacKilligan was known for being vengeful.
Once they were on the road and cutting through early-morning Milan traffic, Max pointed down. “Check by your feet.”
Charlie did and found a small case. She opened it and let out a relieved sigh.
“Thank you!” she said, putting the eyeglasses on. Suddenly she could see again! She hadn’t had time to grab her regular pair off the bedside table before she had to make a run for it and she hadn’t gotten her contact prescription refilled in a few months. She kept forgetting. So for the last fifteen minutes, everything had been one blurry mess. Even the helpful giant was just a big, blurry spot. She’d have had to get close to his face to identify him. But he had sounded cute. And so nice!
“Better?” Maxie asked.
“Much. I can now see who’s trying to kill me.” She looked at Max and immediately cringed at the sight. “Oh, wow. They really beat the shit out of you.”
“Excuse me,” Max replied, indignant. “These lacerations and bruises are not because of the men who came to kill me. With my usual aplomb, I have dealt with those scumbags.”
“Uh-huh. Then what did happen?”
“Why do we have to discuss that? Our lives are in danger.”
Charlie gazed at her sister for a few moments before guessing, “Squirrels again?”
“They started it!”
“It’s nice to see that nothing has really changed since we last saw each other.” Charlie glanced out the window, but she had to look away. Her sister was moving so fast that it was kind of making her nauseous. “What about Stevie?”
“I’m waiting to hear back from her boss.”
“Her boss?”
“She’s not answering her cell and her assistants have no idea where she is.”
“Is she still in Switzerland?”
Max shrugged. “Maybe. And stop glaring at me.”
“How hard is it to keep an eye on one woman? I take six months. And you take six months. That was our agreement.”
“Why is she still our responsibility?”
“Because she’s our sister and we love her and if we don’t watch out for her, she will get involved with the wrong people, and destroy the world. Is that what you want?”
“You always ask me that question, and you’re always disappointed with my answer.”
Charlie sighed. “Well, we need to find her.”
“I know.”
“She’s in as much danger as we are.”
“I know.”
“They sent trained military after us.”
“I know.”
“And I know this car is stolen.”
“Of course it’s stolen.”
“Well, that seems like kind of a problem since we have cops behind us.”
“Buckle up.”
“Oh, God.” Charlie put on the seat belt. “We’re going to die before we even get to her.”
“Stop whining. You know how hard we are to kill.”
“Hard to kill doesn’t mean we can’t lose body parts in tragic car accidents. And we can’t exactly save our little sister if we’re both in prison . . . and legless.”
“What is your obsession with losing your legs?”
“It could happen!”
Max downshifted and swerved around a truck making a turn, barely missing the front end.
“I don’t understand why you insist on worrying about something that may or may not happen,” Maxie noted casually as a group of nuns dove out of her way, their panicked screams horrifying Charlie. “If you lose your legs, I’ll get you a wheelchair with a Ferrari motor that goes from zero to sixty in four seconds. Wouldn’t that be great?”
Hands pressed against the dashboard, Charlie admitted, “I’d rather have my legs still attached to my body.”
“That’s such a narrow view. What about bionic legs?”
“Schoolchildren,” Charlie warned.
“Bionic legs would be so cool.”
“Schoolchildren!”
“I see them. Calm yourself.”
The car stopped—somehow—and Max patiently waited for the children and their teachers to get across the street. Out of nowhere, she began to whistle “H.R. Pufnstuf.” Charlie had no idea why, but she blamed her mother. She loved that crap and made them all watch it in re-runs when they were too young to put up a fight.
Once the children were safely out of the way, Maxie hit the gas and roared down the street. Still whistling.
“We need a new car,” Charlie told her sister when the cops caught up with them again.
“What’s wrong with this one?”
“A lot.”
Maxie’s phone rang and she insisted on taking one hand off the wheel to answer it.
“Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, sir.”
She disconnected the call and glanced at Charlie.
“What?” Charlie pushed when her sister didn’t say anything.
“She needed a break.”
“A break? She needed a break? What does that mean?”
“You know what that means, Charlie.”
“I do?” Charlie thought a moment, then rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on! Again?”
“You know how she is. But hey! At least she’s still in Switzerland. We’ll get there in no time.”
“But it’s a mental hospital! Not a resort!”
“To her, all mental hospitals are resorts. Besides, it could be worse,” Max said happily. “This could all be so much worse!”
Charlie shook her head. “Dude, I seriously don’t know how.”
The black Mercedes-Benz AMG G63 SUV stopped in front of the mental health and rehab clinic.
Usually, it was only the wealthiest of European royalty who came to this place. Most Americans didn’t even know it existed, but Charlie’s baby sister had a gift. She could track down high-end mental institutions anywhere in the world. They all seemed to have spa-like amenities, five-star chefs making the meals, and group therapy, something her sister truly seemed to enjoy.
The first one Stevie Stasiuk-MacKilligan had ever checked herself into was somewhere in Malibu and cost a thousand a day. She never paid a cent, though. The lab she “interned” for took care of that, which could explain why no one bothered to question why a fourteen-year-old girl—at the time—was checking herself into a Malibu mental health clinic without a parent or guardian in sight.
And what did these brilliant and pricey psychologists discover about Stevie over the years? Exactly what Charlie already knew: That her sister was a high-strung prodigy who suffered bouts of extreme panic like any abandoned child would.
Stevie’s mother, a Siberian She-tiger from a very wealthy family, had shown up at Carlie Taylor’s door one day, asking for Carlie to babysit five-year-old Stevie for “a few hours.” Charlie’s mom, a She-wolf who never really learned how to say no to anyone but Charlie’s grandfather, agreed. After three days, she told Charlie and Max that “it looks like your little sister is staying. Isn’t that great?”
At the time, Charlie didn’t think so. It was bad enough they already had one of their father’s castoffs to take care of in the first place; now they had two. But that first situation had made more sense because Max’s mother was doing hard time in a Bulgarian prison for armed robbery. She couldn’t take care of her kid. But the She-tiger . . . she’d just walked away. From her own daughter.
Of course, Stevie didn’t let any of that bother her. In her mind, she had so many other things to worry about “in the universe” that her mother’s desertion didn’t rate as important enough for her to hold a grudge.
So Charlie did it for her. She was very good at grudge-holding. Just ask her idiot father.
Charlie met up with her sister at the front of the SUV.
“All right,” Charlie began, “you know the drill.”
Max nodded and flatly replied, “Go in. Kill everybody. Get Stevie out.”
Charlie briefly closed her eyes, took a moment to breathe and try to relax her shoulders. When she felt she wouldn’t yell, she said, “That is not the drill.”
“It could be.”
“Could be, but it isn’t. The drill is we go in, I do all the talking, you don’t pick on Stevie.”
“She’s too sensitive.”
“But because you already know that, you’re not going to pick on her.”
Max smiled. “What if I really want to?”
“Then I’ll let her take your eye out this time. And you’ll wear an eyepatch . . . and we’ll call you One-Eye McGee.”
Laughing, Max headed toward the front doors, Charlie right behind her.
When they stepped inside, both of them glanced at each other. Their sister really did have a knack when it came to finding beautiful places for the mentally ill.
There was so much white marble and beautiful white furniture. Stunning and expensive oriental rugs were laid out in front of white couches. White marble coffee and end tables rested on top of them. Floor-to-ceiling windows displayed the remarkable beauty of the Swiss countryside that surrounded the entire building.
“You have got to be kidding,” Max muttered, staring up at the cathedral-like ceilings. “I think I’m feeling mentally ill because I could really use some valium and a massage.”
“Stop it.”
Charlie grabbed Max’s arm and pulled her to the desk, which was not white but clear glass. And perfectly clean. The stunning woman sitting on the other side in a white button-down shirt and tight, white skirt smiled, revealing perfect white teeth.
“Hallo. Sprechen sie Englisch?” Charlie asked.
“Yes,” she immediately replied. “May I help you?”
“I’d like to see my sister. Stevie MacKilligan.”
“Please have a seat. I’ll contact her doctor.”
“Thank you.”
Charlie walked over to the couch, but it was so white that she was worried about putting her less-than-clean body on it. Max had had an extra pair of jeans and bright red Keds in Charlie’s size—they always had backup clothes for each other—so she wasn’t walking around in only a T-shirt, but Charlie hadn’t had time for a shower. Just a quick stop at a gas station to wash the blood off, and let Max bandage up her shoulder so the bullet wounds could heal without a mess.
And for Charlie, nothing would be more humiliating than getting up from that bright white couch and leaving an unfortunate stain behind.
But Max didn’t seem to have those issues, turning and dropping on the couch like she owned it.
Of course, Max didn’t worry about much, which worried Charlie. She knew her sister could be reckless when it wasn’t necessary. Max did, however, always manage to find a way to wiggle out of whatever situation she’d gotten herself into. And if she couldn’t wiggle free, she would attack head-on without stopping.
It was the honey badger way.
Max pulled a baggie of honey-covered peanuts from the back pocket of her jeans and began munching, wiping her hands on the white couch after each handful she put in her mouth.
“Dude.”
Max looked up. “What?”
“You’re being sloppy.”
“So?” She gave that lovely but still off-putting smile. “We don’t have to clean it up.”
“Dude.”
Rolling her eyes, Max pushed the nearly empty baggie back into her jeans and brushed both hands against each other. She motioned to a spot behind Charlie and Charlie turned to see a man walking toward them. He wore a white coat and held a clipboard. He also had on a gold Rolex and Gucci leather shoes.
The doctor had expensive taste.
Smiling, Charlie immediately put out her hand for a shake.
“Ladies,” the doctor greeted, grasping Charlie’s hand. He went for Max’s but Max just stared until he pulled his hand back. She didn’t even bother getting up from the couch.
“Do you speak English?” Charlie asked.
“Of course,” the doctor replied. “I am Dr. Gaertner. I am the director here. Come. Let’s talk in my office.”
He led them down the wide hallway, which looked out over the front of the building through more of those big, grand windows.
“Your center is beautiful,” Charlie noted as they walked.
“Ahhh. Danke. Thank you, I mean. We are very proud.”
He ushered them into a big office with white leather chairs and couches and even more glass windows revealing more amazing views.
No wonder her sister had come here for a break. It was way better than any spa Charlie had ever been to before.
“Please. Sit,” he offered with a smile. Charlie immediately noted that except for a lamp, blotter, and phone . . . the man had nothing else on his desk.
Maxie plopped into a chair, her legs swinging up, about to land on the man’s glass desk before Charlie punched them back down. With a warning glare at her grinning sibling, she sat down on the very edge of her chair and realized she should have left Max out in the car.
“Now, how can I help you ladies?”
“We’d like to see our sister, please.”
“Ahhh, our dear Fräulein MacKilligan.”
“Doctor MacKilligan,” Charlie corrected out of habit. And, when Max raised an eyebrow at her, she reminded her sister, “She worked hard for those PhDs.”
“True, true,” Gaertner said, still smiling. “She is one of our favorite patients here. She is so helpful during our group sessions.”
Max snorted, but Charlie quickly leaned forward to keep the doctor’s attention. “I’m so glad she’s here and getting the help she needs, Dr. Gaertner. But we’d really love to see her for a few minutes.”
“I’m sure we can arrange something . . . in a few weeks. Right now it is too . . . uh . . . early in the process for family meetings. You understand?”
Before Charlie could explain that “no! I do not understand!” in the politest way possible, Max slammed her fist on that expensive-looking glass desk and announced, “Motherfucker, we wanna see our sister now!”
“Max!” Charlie barked, locking gazes with her sibling. “Could you let me han
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Hot and Badgered
Shelly Laurenston
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