Aunt Tina took a sip of some fruity-looking drink before calmly asking, “And why do you keep focusing on that little one?” She put her drink down, took a few grapes from a bowl. “We know you were in the Netherlands when she was.”
“And how do you know that, Auntie?”
Now Tina smirked. While Rina was nothing but raw rage and hatred, her twin was the cold plotter. Together, they were a dangerous pair because they had nothing but money and time.
“I’ll never understand you two,” Mairi admitted. “You could be anywhere, doing anything, but instead you focus on a family that could not care less about either of you.” It was true: Mairi’s granddad was like most of the MacKilligan men, fucking anything that walked and had a pussy. But the MacKilligan male honey badger didn’t like the single life. So no matter how many girlfriends he might keep, he always chose a mate as mean and as vicious as he could find. Sometimes she was another honey badger, sometimes a full-human. And no matter who he fucked on the side, who he lied to about divorce and children, who he promised “forever” to, it didn’t matter. Because at the end of the day, the mate the MacKilligan male had chosen was the one he stayed loyal to until the end.
“Your father—me granddad—would have never left our grandmum for your mum and he never would have claimed you two as his own,” she told them frankly. “Not ever. So I don’t see why either of you are sweatin’ about it.”
“He didn’t have a problem claiming his American children.”
There was truth to that. But, in Granddad’s defense, he’d bred those children through the meanest and most vicious honey badger female he could find in the States. He had wed both women. Just not legally. But what was a badger to do with all those stupid laws that prevented him from being married to two women at the same time? Of course, Granddad’s tragic end came when those two females found out about each other. That’s when they lured poor old Granddad to some place in Paris to plan a heist—and he never came back. The pair, however, did return. They met with the uncles, split up the available funds between the two families, and the American returned to her cubs in the States while Grandmum returned home. It was never discussed again; it was never analyzed or thought about. It was the risk a male took when he tried to have more than one honey badger mate.
“Well, choosing to acknowledge his American cubs over you . . . that was different, wasn’t it? That was because he loved their mum.”
This time the blow to Mairi’s face came from a fist. Impressive, when she thought about those ridiculous nails her aunts filed so that they resembled actual claws. Considering they both had claws naturally, it seemed excessive.
“You piece of shit,” Rina spit out in her Italian accent, “you do what we tell you.”
“We’re not paying for you to go after that Asian one,” Tina said.
Ah, yes. The Asian one. The one who thought she was so special. So smart. So much better than the rest of them. At least the other two knew their place among the MacKilligan clan. Knew exactly where they belonged. But Max Yang thought she was unique. Blessed. She was none of those things, and Mairi was committed to showing her cousin exactly that.
A commitment Mairi was not going to be dissuaded from no matter what her aunts ordered.
“Well . . . I won’t get near Uncle Will,” Mairi responded. “Not now. His sons will make sure of that.”
“You focus on Freddy,” Tina said, standing up. She pulled at the bottom of her gold bikini, digging it out of her ass. Classy! “He still has our money.”
“Don’t you mean Uncle Will’s money?”
“He lost it. Now it’s ours.”
“Everyone wants Uncle Freddy,” she reminded them.
Rina leaned in close to her and growled, “Find him. Or the money stops and then we start—on you. Understand?”
“Perfectly.”
In their matching gold bikinis and six-inch designer heels, the twins stomped off. Guards followed them and the one who had asked for Mairi’s weapons stepped in beside her. He gestured to the exit that would take her back to the little table and the helicopter that would fly her to the private airstrip and the private plane that would whisk her back to the States.
But before she followed the armed guard, she took a moment to look over the super yacht. She could still feel where Rina had hit her. Could still hear the ringing in her ears from her condescending tone. But that was okay. She didn’t mind. Not now. Not when she had much bigger, long-term plans.
Mairi grinned as she took in the beauty of this yacht that would, one day . . . one day soon . . . be all hers.
* * *
Zé sat down on the couch in the living room, but the back of his foot struck something under it and he reached down and grabbed the object.
When he’d fished it out, he immediately realized it was a sneaker. A sneaker that required him to hold it up with two hands. A sneaker that was the biggest he’d ever seen. Did the NBA stay here on weekends or something? Because who else had feet this big? This thing was Shaq sized.
“It’s a Viking boat,” he muttered. “It’s a shoe the size of a goddamn Viking boat.”
He tossed the sneaker down and leaned back, but he kept leaning until he was lying flat, staring up at the ceiling. Zé sat up and examined the couch. It was also enormous.
He was not a small man. He was six-two, nearly two-hundred-and-sixty. He used to play football in school. Could have gotten a scholarship to play ball in college but, just to irritate his grandfather, he joined the Marines instead, pissing the old man off. Because they both knew he could have easily gone pro. He used to be that good. But despite knowing other players who were way bigger than he was, he’d never gone to their houses and found couches this size—although he was sure many of them would have appreciated something so comfortable.
Zé shook his head. No, no. He was letting those crazy women get into his head. He was letting them convince him of something that was just not possible. There was no way what they were saying . . . no way he could be . . . no way there was even a chance that . . .
Resting his elbows on his knees, he dropped his chin on his raised fists and simply sat there. Staring across the room at a TV that wasn’t turned on.
He had no idea how long he sat there like that before the back of his head itched. Without really thinking, he reached around and scratched his scalp. That’s when he felt it. Just under the skin. Small pieces of bone . . . moving into place. He jerked his hand away and immediately noticed his headache was abruptly gone.
What was happening? What the hell was happening?
He heard a door open at the front of the house and five men walked into the living room. They didn’t look at him and Zé didn’t speak. One older man seemed to lead the others, strutting in front of them. They weren’t tall like the brown-haired men he’d spoken to earlier but they were stocky and powerfully built. He could see their muscles under their suit jackets. He also heard accents as they spoke to each other. Scottish. Or Irish. He’d always had trouble catching the difference.
They’d barely made it to the far side of the living room when Stevie rushed in. She held her hands up but the men simply walked around her. She blinked in surprise at being ignored as if she wasn’t even standing there and she ran around to block them again. This time stretching out her arms wide and yelping, “No!”