“I know you,” Charlie said after staring at him for a few seconds. “We went to high school together. You used to call me ‘fat thighs’ behind my back.”
Max and her teammates cringed. That was not something a man wanted to be remembered for saying to a woman when that woman now had a gun pressed to his forehead.
“Listen,” Charlie went on, “I’m going to explain something to you: You don’t come to my territory and fuck with my sister’s friends. Because if they’re my sister’s friends, they’re under my protection.”
One of the hyenas on the ground attempted to stand up, so Charlie shot him once in the shoulder blade.
Max knew her sister’s precision with a gun was not in question. Charlie would make sure she didn’t hit any major arteries or organs. But what she did do, what Max was sure her sister did do . . . was cause as much pain as she possibly could.
The hyena’s intensified screams proved that.
“So, if I were you, I’d leave now. Mads, out of the truck, please.”
Mads slipped out of the vehicle and went to stand behind Max with their teammates.
“All right,” Charlie said, stepping back and motioning with the gun. “All hyenas in the truck. Time to go. Come along, fellas, let’s hop-hop-hop along. Thank you!”
Not once did Charlie raise her voice. Not once did she lose her temper. Because she didn’t have to do any of that.
The hyenas fled and, after lowering the weapon, Charlie faced them.
“You all right, Mads?”
“I’m . . .” Mads cleared her throat. “I’m fine. Thank you.”
“Any more problems with them . . . you let me or Max know. Okay?”
“Sure.”
Charlie headed back to the house, then stopped, looked at them. “I’ve got muffins if you guys want some.”
Everyone nodded but continued to stand behind Max. Clearly they were still terrified of Charlie and this probably hadn’t helped.
But once she reached the front door, Charlie stopped and barked, “The muffins are not getting any fresher.”
Max watched her friends power-run to the house, terrified to piss off the most dangerous woman they knew, but also the only woman willing to protect them when they needed it.
chapter TWENTY-SIX
The first half hour of their meeting involved listening to their coach yell at them because they had not been at the team meeting with everyone else. They were video chatting through Max’s laptop so that they could witness the full extent of Coach’s rage and not just hear it over the phone. Not that her anger wasn’t valid. They did have a playoff game that night and “You five idiots have the nerve not to be here?”
“It’s not my fault,” Max argued. “I was busy having sex!”
The entire team of Wisconsin Butchers cheered until Coach Fitzgerald snarled and barked, her wolf fangs fully extended.
“And she was attacked!” Nelle threw in, attempting to help.
“By her own cousin!” Tock added.
“If she were my cousin, I’d beat the shit out of her, too!”
Streep burst into tears. “Why are you being so mean to us?”
“Oh, stop it!”
The tears ceased immediately and Streep flatly replied, “Fine.”
After that, the rest of the meeting involved going over plays and plans and warnings about the kind of death they’d be subjected to if they were even a minute late to the pregame bus that would pick up the team at the Kingston Arms.
“Can’t we just meet you at the arena?” Tock asked, looking at her watch.
“What did I just say?”
“No need to yell!”
When they finally logged off with Coach and the rest of the team, Mads leaned back in her chair and remarked, “You had sex on this table.”
The rest of the team reared back, lifting their arms and hands off the hard wood, but Max quickly pointed out, “I cleaned it. Before we sat down.”
“You didn’t clean it that well.”
“Shut up.”
That’s when Nelle adorably crinkled her nose at her.
“What the fuck was that?” Max asked.
“You and Zé.” She crinkled her nose again.
“We’re not doing this.”
“We’re not doing what?”
“Doing this girlfriend thing.”
“Aren’t we girlfriends, though?” Streep asked. “Aren’t we best friends? Friends forever. B-F-Fs!”
“No!” the other four said.
“So no cute shit,” Max informed them. “No girly shit. Or I start throwing people out the window.”
“We’re on the first floor, so no one cares, Max.”
“Thank you, Mads.”
“I saw Imani talking to your sister,” Tock suddenly announced. “In the club last night. What was that about?”
“Shhhhh!” Max stood and did a quick check of the kitchen, living room, and the backyard. When she saw Charlie outside with Zé, Shen, and Berg, playing with the basketballs she and her teammates had left lying around the yard, she returned to the dining room.
“Okay. This is the deal: Charlie agreed to work for Imani. On a test job.”
“What?” Nelle asked. “Why the hell would she do that?”
“Is Imani blackmailing her?” Mads wanted to know. “Because if she is, I’m going to chew that She-cat’s legs off.”
“That seems excessive.” But a very hyena thing to say. “And unnecessary. Imani’s not blackmailing her. Charlie wants to do this. She wants a job.”
“Can’t she just bake professionally?” Tock asked. “Once I hit that diamond shipment, I can definitely buy her a store.”
“And then you’ll use her to launder the money.”
Tock nodded. “Probably.”
“I think she’s trying to get away from that.”
“Is she going alone?” Streep asked. “Is she a Dee-Ann Smith now? ”
Every shifter involved in work outside the norms of society—or at least shifter society—knew the Smith name. They were the ones you went to when you needed untraceable weapons or a car stripped and made to disappear or a whole hog for a luau—that was because quite a few of them had wild hog farms. But Dee-Ann Smith and her daddy, Eggie Ray Smith, were known for being killers. Nothing more, nothing less. They didn’t do rescue missions. They didn’t do heists. They didn’t involve themselves with anything except taking out people who had done something that had made them a liability. Luckily for the world, they’d both ended up working for the Group, which meant they used their kills for good. Or what Tock, the team’s philosopher, called “relative good.” Mads, however, had played Dungeons & Dragons since she was eleven and she liked to call it “chaotic good.”
Whatever one called it, that’s what Dee-Ann Smith and her tiger girlfriend, Cella Malone, did for a living and they were very good at it. The question for Max was what was her sister about to get into? Could she be like Dee-Ann Smith and just kill on order? Charlie had done a lot of things over the years, but there had always been a reason. Maybe not a valid one, depending on whom one spoke to, but at least Charlie felt it was valid. That’s what Max needed to make sure of. She needed to know that her sister was going to do something that, at the end of the day, she could be proud of. Or at the very least, something she could live with. A MacKilligan with PTSD was like a Godzilla with rabies: a situation that was not going to end well for anyone.