Mila gave her father’s hand a supportive squeeze as they headed to the dining table. She sat between him and Dominic while Valentina piled food on plates, filled glasses, and generally fussed over everyone before finally joining them at the table.
Digging into his meal, Dominic silently marveled at how fast and how much the male wolverines ate as he listened to them talk of the many people they’d spoken with about Mila’s brother. Alex had been sighted in various places, but he didn’t stay anywhere for long and didn’t seem to be heading in a particular direction. “How long does Alex usually go roving for?”
“A few months at a time,” Mila replied, holding a forkful of pasta to her mouth. “Though he did disappear for a year once.”
“A year?” Dominic repeated.
“Wolverines like to roam,” said Isaak, his voice deep and gruff. “It is in our nature, our blood, our bones. Only a mate can anchor us.”
Dimitri lifted his glass. “Aleksandr roams more than most, though.”
Lips thinning in disapproval, Sergei nodded. “The boy needs a father.”
James bristled, pausing in slicing into his meat. “He has a father.”
Isaak glanced around. “I heard another squeak, Valentina.”
Giving her brother a light slap on the head, Valentina urged, “Eat your food, Isaak.” That only appeared to amuse the male.
Sergei drummed his fingers on the table. “Tell us more about the website your mother mentioned, Milena.”
“Dominic knows more about it than I do,” she said, but she relayed what information she had. Dominic added a few details in between bites of food.
“How confident is the other wolf that he can crash the anonymity network?” asked Dimitri.
“Very. If Donovan says he can do it, I believe him,” said Dominic.
“Once we have the website manager’s name, we will deal with him,” declared Sergei. “First, we must track Aleksandr. A wolverine can only be found by another wolverine. We will retrace his steps. He will be found, Milena—do not worry.”
Isaak nodded. “Then we will kill who put out the hit. All will be fine.”
“Except that Mila’s cat will probably attack Alex the second she sees him,” said James, shooting her a droll look. “I can’t count the number of times I saw that feline launch at his face in a fury. She always got him good.”
“He always deserved it,” Mila asserted.
Dominic’s mouth quirked. “You fought a lot with your brother?”
James snorted. “They fought constantly. There was no disciplining them over it. If I yelled at her for hurting him, he’d turn on me, saying no one got to shout at his sister. The same thing happened if I yelled at him for hurting her. They stuck together, even as they drove each other insane.”
Isaak lifted his chin. “Wolverines always stick together. It is in our nature, our blood, our—”
“Bones, right.” James sighed. “I remember the time I went out into the yard to find that Mila had dug a shallow grave. She was also shoveling dirt back into it. It was only when I went over that I saw Alex lying in the grave, out cold and hog-tied with a goose egg on his head. When I asked her what the hell she was doing, she said, ‘It’s a kindness, Daddy, he’s not fit to live.’”
Dominic chuckled. “How old was she?”
It was Valentina who responded, mock frowning at Mila. “Ten.”
Sergei nodded, proud. “Even then, she knew to bury evidence of her crime.”
“Why did you try to bury him alive?” Dominic asked her.
Her mouth tightened. “He drew satanic symbols on my bedroom floor and threw all my underwear into the front yard.”
Dominic frowned. “Why?”
Mila sipped her soda. “Alex never needs a reason to be an ass. He often breaks into my apartment in the middle of the night and raids my fridge.”
“He doesn’t have his own home?”
“Sure he does, but he’s a scavenger of the worst kind.”
“He will be angry that he did not get hand in making death adder snake pay,” said Valentina.
Mila flexed her fingers. “I fought that motherfucker hard.”
“Well, of course you did,” said Isaak. “You are an Ivanov.”
James sighed. “She’s a Devereaux, actually.”
Isaak looked at his sister. “There is more squeaking.”
Valentina slapped the table. “Isaak Ivanov, you will cease with your games!”
Isaak leaned toward her, scowling. “You could have had good Russian mate! Wolverine. Strong. Powerful. Instead, you chose dumb, psychopathic cat!”
Valentina’s eyes flared. “He is not dumb or psychopathic!”
“A man who does not drink vodka must have heads in the freezer and bodies in the walls!”
“I will not do this with you!”
Mila turned to Dominic with a sigh. “Unreal, right?”
Smiling, he draped an arm over the back of her chair. “Is it wrong that I really like your uncles?”
Rubbing her temple, she grabbed her glass. “I had a feeling you’d say something weird like that.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Miss Devereaux?”
Looking up from where she’d been cleaning her station, Mila took in the lean, balding, slickly dressed male walking toward her. His scent reached her first. Human. That meant he’d believe that she, too, was human. His smile was open and polite, but her gut told her he was as sneaky as a cockroach in a Michelin-star restaurant. “That’s me.”
His smile widened, flashing a set of gleaming white veneers. “My name is Emmet Pierson. I’m an attorney.”
Well, fuck. This was just what she damn needed. Someone had snapped photos of her and Dominic together when they were walking down the street yesterday, and those photos were uploaded to the internet. Dominic—who was currently at the deli across the street getting them lunch—hadn’t been happy about it, concerned that Pierson would see the pictures and then target her in some way. She didn’t care that the bastard had approached her; she cared that Dominic would feel responsible.
Picking up on Mila’s agitation, her cat sat up straight. Hopefully he didn’t start talking smack about Dominic, because the feline wouldn’t handle it well. The last thing Mila needed was her eyes flashing cat, giving away that she wasn’t human.
Feigning ignorance, Mila echoed, “Attorney? Am I being served papers or something?”
“No, nothing like that,” he assured her. “This isn’t a legal matter. I was hoping you and I could talk. There’s a coffeehouse just across the street.”
Like she’d go anywhere with this asshole. “That’s not possible, I’m afraid. My next client will be arriving soon. Why don’t you tell me what this is about?”
He cast a glance at Evander, who was stacking shelves and looking for all the world like he wasn’t paying them a lick of attention, but she knew the male cat would be listening to every word. She also knew he’d leap on the fucker if Pierson proved to be a physical threat. Well, Evander would try. Mila would get there first.
“It’s regarding my daughter, Rosemary. She is a latent shifter; her inner wolf has been in a deep sleep all her life.”