not that I’m surprised you were fighting your own cousin,” Vic said, resting his ass against the kitchen counter. “Because that happens so often. But this one didn’t actually do anything.”
“We have a past.”
“Shocking.”
“Why do you call them freaks?” Dag asked.
“Because they are.” She lowered her voice a bit. “Can’t you see that?”
“They’re hybrids,” Shen replied. “All hybrids are a little freaky.”
Livy shook her head. “For every other honey badger mix, from the beginning of time, it never mattered what else a honey badger was mixed with. Our vicious DNA has always destroyed everything else, leaving only the honey badger and some human.” She lowered her voice again to a whisper. “Except for those two. Charlie and Stevie are the only honey badgers I know who are not all honey badger. But they’re not the problem.”
“They’re not?”
“No. I actually like them. Well . . . I like Charlie. I don’t know what the fuck to say about Stevie. But my cousin who is all honey badger . . . still a freak.” She motioned the males over with a wave of her hand. Vic and Shen stood next to her by the doorway while Dag kept his place at the kitchen table, nursing his balls.
“Just look at her out there,” Livy said, pointing at her cousin, who was standing in the living room by the younger sister. “What do you see?”
“A woman quietly standing by her still-unconscious sister?” Shen asked.
“Vic, do you see what’s wrong with her?”
“Yes,” he said with an eye roll. “But it’s stupid.”
“Tell him,” Livy pushed.
Vic sighed. “She’s smiling.”
“Exactly. And what the fuck does she have to smile about?” Livy moved back into the center of the kitchen. “That’s not normal behavior.”
Shen shrugged. “Maybe she’s just happy.”
“What honey badger do you know who’s fucking happy?”
“Well—”
“None! That’s who. Not unless liquor and snake poison’s involved. But her . . . ?” Livy finally admitted what everyone in the Yang family already knew. “She’s completely sober right now, which tells me one thing.”
Vic gazed down at her. “Which is?”
“She’s a serial killer.”
“Because she . . . smiles?”
“Yes.”
* * *
With her hair in a top knot and the ends scrunched a few times to help the curls form, Charlie washed her hands, dried them, and groped for her glasses. She knew she’d left them on the counter, but now she wasn’t quite sure where they were.
The blur placed them into her hand and she put them on. Then she faced the blur and . . .
“Oh . . . my.”
A brow arched. “Something wrong?”
Nope. Nothing was wrong. Everything was kind of... perfect.
He was so pretty.
Square jaw. Brown hair with gold highlights. And dark brown eyes. And that perfect head sat comfortably on a thick neck attached to giant shoulders that were joined to a frighteningly large body.
Not a fat body. An overwhelmingly muscular body. How did he find clothes for that physique? The dark blue T-shirt he currently had on seemed to barely contain all those muscles.
Charlie realized she was staring . . . she might even be drooling.
“What was the question?” she asked.
“Is something wrong?”
“Wrong? What could be wrong?”
“People are trying to kill you?”
“Well, yeah, there’s that,” she admitted. “That’s definitely a problem. But, ya know . . . sadly not the first time.”
“So all three of you are on the run?”
Charlie sighed. “Very. I thought we could at least stay here a couple of days but now . . .”
“I think I can help.” He pointed a finger at her. “I might know a place you can stay. You’ll be safe. Really safe.”
Dropping her hands on her waist, Charlie said, “Dude—”
“Berg.”
“Whatever. I can’t ask you to do any more than you’ve already done. I mean, you’ve been amazing. I owe my life to you. I already can’t pay that back.”
“You don’t have to pay back anything, and you’re still not safe.”
“That’s not your problem. That’s my problem because being the daughter of Freddy MacKilligan means safety and security are just not part of my vocabulary.”
“You need a place to re-group. Figure out what you’re going to do next. And I think we both know you can’t do that here. I don’t know Livy well, but she makes it clear when she doesn’t like someone. And she does not like your sister. But I think I can get you a place where you’ll have a little time to breathe.”
Charlie hated bothering this man again. But, as always, her father had put her in a situation where she was left with few—if any—options.
How could anyone be that big a fuck up? How could one man cause so much damage to so many without putting in that much effort to begin with? He was known for ridiculous schemes that managed to destroy entire banking systems. Deals that went so bad, his partners either ended up in prison or dead. Poorly planned plots and cons that blew up, but somehow didn’t affect Freddy MacKilligan at all, yet had his daughters running for their lives . . . again.
Her father, as always, was the king of the fuck up.
Until now, though. Because, finally, he was sitting in cold storage, and Charlie couldn’t wait to bury him. To be done with him. To pretend someone so idiotic had never existed.
“Want me to make the call?” her handsome savior asked when her silence went on and on.
“I . . .”
“I really don’t mind. In fact, I want to do this for you.”
“Why? I mean . . . are you really that good a person?”
He shrugged and said, “Yes. I am. But I’m a bear, so we’re naturally loving and giving.”
“Really?
