chapter SIXTEEN

chapter SIXTEENThey wen for fancy, choosing the ultraexpensive Van Holtz Steakhouse not far from the Sports Center. The team must have planned for them to go there, because even though Mads was positive she could hear her teammates somewhere within the four-story building, and the fox hostess instantly recognized Mads from the other times she’d come in with her team after a win, the pair was led to a private dining room that clearly had been reserved by snooty Nelle.Not that Mads really minded missing out on a big team dinner. This had just been the playoffs. Her mind was already on the championships. If they won that, then they could celebrate together as a team.The gruff black bear waiter handed them each a menu, took their drink orders, then lumbered out the door.Giving each other awkward smiles, they disappeared behind their menus, and Mads studied the myriad of options. Cape buffalo. Red deer. Zebras. Giraffe. Antelope. Even wildebeests. She could add a mushroom sauce. Or garlic shrimp. Or an expensive wine. Or a honey glaze. Or . . .Mads put the menu down. “I don’t want any of this.”Finn put his menu down. “I don’t either. I feel like I’m eating at Grandmother Malone’s house. With the fancy napkins and the glassware you can’t break. She kept slapping our hands until Ma slashed her with her claws. The Malone brothers were never invited back to Grandmother Malone’s house.”“I’ve eaten here before but always with Max and the others. So most of my time is spent making sure they don’t kill themselves from the poison-infused tequila they bring or others from the fights they start. But without anything to worry about, I realize how uncomfortable I am here. That’s no fun.”“We come to one of these out on Long Island every Mother’s Day. They have an amazing onion sauce that goes great with everything, including a regular New York strip. But without my mom, my brothers, and Nat, it just feels . . . uncomfortable.”They sat in awkward silence, Mads wondering when this torture would end.“Wanna make a break for it?” Finn finally joked.“That waiter looks like he could take us down.”“He’s a typical steakhouse waiter. Looks like he’s been here a thousand years. Has a voice like broken granite. Doesn’t look like he gives a shit whether we stay or go as long as we pay for our drinks and leave him a tip.” He grinned. “Where would you like to eat instead?”Mads thought for a little bit, but after a robust game, she really only had one choice. “Do you like Jamaican?”Finn shrugged. “I never had Jamaican.”“Never?”“I was born in Syosset. Not a lot of Jamaican restaurants there.”“That you know of.”“That’s true. We weren’t exactly looking for Jamaican restaurants.”“Then want to try it?”“Is there going to be zebra on the menu?”“Jerk chicken. Jerk goat. Peas and rice. Meat patties. Those are really good. And no zebra in the meat patties. Just chicken or beef.”“Let’s give it a try.”They both stood as their waiter walked in with their drinks. He took one look at them, grunted, and warned as he walked back out, “You better leave a tip.”Finn shrugged again. “Told ya.”* * *They ended up back in Queens, only a few blocks from her new place and the MacKilligan’s rental house. It wasn’t exactly surprising that Mads would choose a restaurant in the neighborhood where she’d been staying for weeks, and Finn was just glad to be out of the city.What Finn didn’t expect, though, was not only how well Mads was known by the waitstaff, but how loved. As soon as she walked in, she was greeted with calls and hugs. Everyone was full-human, so there were no mentions of shifter pro basketball playoffs or zebras and Cape buffalo. Instead, Mads simply introduced Finn as her friend and they were led to a small table in the corner that he sensed Mads always sat at.“Hey, girl,” greeted a tall man with shoulder-length dreads, leaning down to kiss Mads’s cheek. He placed plastic-covered menus in front of them.“Hey, Danny. This is Finn. Finn, this is Danny. He owns this place along with his wife, Cherie.”“You sure you comfortable there, my man? Your shoulders look a little”—Danny moved his hands around—“cramped.”“Well . . .”“You don’t mind if we move you, Mads, yeah?”“No.”“This is Mads’s usual table. But you need a little more space. Let’s get you a table over there.”Finn stood and Danny watched as he rose until Finn towered over him, which only made Danny laugh.“Did you really need all this, Mads? Seems like a lot for a little girl like you.”“I thought you were taking us to a new table.”“No need to get snippy.”They moved to the new, bigger table and Finn was relieved that he could actually move his shoulders and stretch out his legs.“Now isn’t that nicer?” Danny asked.“Don’t you have something to do?” Mads asked.“I’m just making sure everyone’s happy.”“Cherie!”A stunning older woman with amazingly long dreads that nearly reached the back of her knees came out from behind an office door and, without saying a word, silently pointed a damning finger toward the kitchen.Laughing, her husband moved on; a waiter quickly replaced him to take their drink orders.Mads mouthed, Thank you. And Cherie gave a wink and smile before heading back into the office.Finn looked around and immediately knew he liked the place. It reminded him of his favorite restaurant, where his family often went for authentic Mongolian food. Not Mongolian barbeque. Those were actually a Taiwanese invention and not remotely “authentic Mongolian.” But after their father died, and her family had been forced to go back to their own lives, their mother had needed some comfort food that she didn’t have to cook herself. She’d been lucky to discover a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant with a chef transplanted from Mongolia. They’d become fast friends, and he always made sure that Lisa’s growing boys had enough food. Easy enough when they were younger, but when the Malone brothers kept growing and eating more and more and more, he did seem to find it a little disturbing. Not that anyone could blame him. Especially when they had their growth spurts. Going from five-six or five-seven to six-two or six-three in the two-week period between family visits to the restaurant would freak anybody out.“This is a nice place,” Finn said after the waiter dropped off lemonade for Mads and passion fruit punch for Finn.“I love it here. Reminds me of home.”Finn looked around again, lingering on the giant wall mural of Bob Marley.“This place reminds you of Wisconsin?”“Oh, God, no.” Mads laughed a little. “I mean Detroit. I lived in Detroit until we moved to Wisconsin. I spent most of my time in my great-grandmother’s store with her. Next door there was this Jamaican fast-food restaurant. She and the owner hated each other, but I liked him. He gave me free food because he thought Solveig was purposely starving me, and he taught me about reggae music.”“You like reggae?”“Reggae and ska.” Her eyes narrowed. “What’s so funny?”“I haven’t heard about ska since high school.”“My dad’s favorite sister was a huge fan. She got me into it.”The waiter returned with a plate of what Mads called, “Meat patties. They’re really good. These are chicken. These are beef.”Finn smiled.“What?”“They look a little bit like khuushuur.”“Which is . . . ?”“Fried dough with meat, onion, and seasonings inside. Kind of like these. Although if you get them in Mongolia, you might get mutton or camel instead of chicken.”“Camel? Never had camel. But I’ve had black mamba, so I don’t judge.”“Millions of people eat camel as part of their regular diet, so you shouldn’t.”Finn tried the beef patty and enjoyed it so much, the waiter brought another plate of beef patties just for him when he finished off the first plate in a few minutes.“I’m going to order the combo plates for us,” Mads announced. “Jerk chicken, oxtail stew, and beef stew. That way you get to see what you like.”“What about the curry goat?”“I don’t like curry.”Finn frowned. “I don’t know what that has to do with me.”The waiter came and Mads gave their order before explaining it. “I don’t like curry because I can’t stand the smell of curry. You get curry, I’m leaving.”“Oh. Okay. So you don’t go to a lot of Indian restaurants, huh?”“No. Which makes Streep insane, because she loves Indian food. Apparently I’m ruining her life because she’s not able to go out for Indian food with all her teammates. That’s my fault.”“Streep’s an interesting woman.”“Streep’s a nut. But she’s a shit-hot baller, so I put up with her craziness.”“I think I’ll be saying that to the league a lot about Charlie.”A smile spread across Mads’s face. “You drafted Charlie MacKilligan to your team?”“We did.”“That’s . . . bold.”“You should have seen her,” Finn explained around bites of beef patty. “When she was coming at you, she was like a locomotive and you were just the car stuck on the tracks. But when you were going at her . . . she was just the mountain you couldn’t move. The coaches love her and fear her in equal measure.”“That’s how I feel about her.”“And yet you don’t fear Max?”She shook her head. “I only fear what Max will do to others. Or any civilians that get in her way. She does not care about civilians in the heat of the moment. So the rest of us have to. Her sister has to. It’s a lot of work for all of us.”Their main meal arrived and both of them dove in. After all the physical work they’d each done that day, they worked through their plates of delicious food without much effort. The problem was that Finn was still hungry. Very hungry. Starving, in fact. And about to ask for more when another plate of food was placed in front of him before he could say a word.“I came in here with the Dunn triplets once for lunch,” Mads explained while continuing to eat, her head over her plate, her fork shoveling food in. “They had to close the restaurant down for the rest of the day. They couldn’t even open for dinner afterward.”She leaned back and a different waiter whisked her empty plate away and replaced it with a full one. She went back to work and so did Finn.Mads finished eating after her third plate of food. But Finn didn’t until after his fifth. Still, the wait staff and owners didn’t say much about it. Maybe because of his size.About halfway through their meal, a reggae band took the stage at the front of the restaurant. They weren’t bad and Mads seemed really happy. He got the feeling that she kept her love of reggae to herself, maybe by listening through headphones when around her teammates. He got that. though. He’d always liked tech music. But it drove Keane nuts and, according to him, made him want to kill the first full-human male he saw. So it made sense for Finn to listen to that kind of music through his headphones. If only to protect full-human males from Keane and Keane from a lifetime in prison.When the band took a break about forty minutes later, Mads asked, “Want to order dessert and take it back to my house? I don’t know if I have coffee but . . . I’m sure I have something.”“Sounds great.”She motioned a waiter over and picked out a few things from the dessert menu, doubling up on the dark chocolate cake since Mads promised, “It’s the best. Seriously. The lemon cake is good too . . . but the dark chocolate cake is life changing.”They didn’t pay at the table, but up front. Finn gave Mads the paper bag filled with their desserts and sent her outside to his SUV. Danny cashed him out and Finn made sure to break a few twenties so he could tip everyone who’d taken care of them that night. At a young age, he’d worked as a bouncer in enough restaurants and bars to know how important tips were to the waitstaff and bartenders.When he was done and heading toward the front door, Danny asked, “You hoping I tell Mads what a good tipper you are?”“I’m always a good tipper,” Finn replied. “But you can tell her how charming and handsome I am.”“So you want me to lie to the poor girl?”Finn smiled. “Only about the charming part.”* * *Mads electronically opened the back of the SUV and leaned in to carefully place their desserts in the rear, trying to find the right spot so the bag wouldn’t topple over. She didn’t want to lose any of that dark chocolate ganache icing to the containers holding their cake.“Hey, Mads.”“Mads!”“Yo, Mads!”Mads quickly straightened up and looked around. Her head tilted, ears trying to lock onto where those voices were coming from.“Mads! Come here!”“Max?”She reached for her .40 semiauto but then remembered that she didn’t have it on her. She didn’t like to go to her games armed. It was just asking for trouble with some of the teams they were up against.Mads moved slowly toward the dark alley, but she could look inside it just fine. The problem was, she didn’t see anyone. Not Max. Not her team. Not a dude in military-type gear lying in wait while holding a tape recorder. No one. And yet the voices sounded as if they’d come from—“Oh, shit!”Mads spun around, ready to fight. But they’d already grabbed her wrists and forearms, dragging her into that dark alley and slamming her back against the wall so hard she briefly thought she saw actual yellow birds tweeting and flying around her head.“Hi, cousin!”“Hey, cous.”The twins that Max had tortured with scorpions on the school bus all those years ago. That event had led to a brief hospital stay they had not forgotten or forgiven. But they didn’t blame “the beavers”—Mads had stopped correcting them with “badgers” a long time ago.They blamed her.Meaning they were delighted that they’d been sent here to make Mads’s life hell. Why not? It wasn’t like they had anything better to do in between the occasional bank heist.“Get off me!” Mads ordered, pushing them and nearly getting away. But the pair of them together was a lot of combined strength. They slammed her against the wall again.“Where is it?” one asked.“The family wants it back,” the other said.“I don’t know. I don’t have it.”That’s when she got punched by other female cousins who crept in behind Tilda and Gella. She got hit in the face. In the stomach. A few hits to the kidneys. So hard Mads nearly dropped to her knees.They hadn’t even bothered sending the males this time. Except maybe to drive or be lookouts. This abuse was coming from her female cousins, who’d always hated her. Had never wanted her around. And didn’t understand why she wasn’t left in Detroit with Solveig when they’d moved, or been sent off to live with her father since he’d always seemed to want her.“We’re going to ask you one more time—” Tilda began.“And then what?”Gella punched her three times in the face and yelled, “Tell us where it is, you little bitch!”The roar from the end of the alley had the hyenas breaking out in panicked laughter and whoops, calling to the males nearby. But the way Finn filled up that alley opening with just his shoulders had Mads’s cousins immediately releasing her. The weaker ones simply backed away.But Tilda and Gella had dreams of leading one day.They didn’t attack, though. They were human enough to play it smarter. They sauntered up to Finn as Tilda sweetly asked, “You wouldn’t punch a girl, now would you?”And Finn didn’t. He didn’t punch a girl. He head-butted her. Sending Tilda tumbling back several feet. Gella came at Finn with claws and fangs out, but he just slammed his palm against her chest and sent her crashing into a nearby wall, causing something on her body to audibly crack.Finn roared again, and lights came on in nearby upstairs apartments.Her cousins made a run for it, Tilda having to help Gella up and out. The rest of the Clan had left the twins behind.Finn walked over to Mads, but before he could say anything, she stomped out. Mads didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t want to talk to anyone.Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to get that message.He caught up to her at the SUV. He didn’t grab her arm but he did block the passenger door before she could open it.“Why didn’t you fight them?” he asked.“There were a lot.”“Bullshit! I saw you take on two tigers with nothing but a baseball bat and your rage. And then you went looking for more. Those were just hyenas. Why didn’t you fight them?”“I wanna go home.”“Why won’t you answer me?”“I want to go home.”“You didn’t even unleash your fangs or claws.”“Are you going to take me home or am I going to walk? Is that how you want this date to end?”Finn pulled his hand away from the door and Mads yanked it open. She got in and he got in on the other side. They didn’t speak the entire way back to her house, which was only a few blocks away, but it had to be the longest ride of her life.* * *Finn didn’t understand. There’d only been about six or seven hyenas on her. He hadn’t really counted. When he’d found her in that alley, he was shocked to see her just standing there. Taking that abuse. She hadn’t put up a fight. She hadn’t called for help. She hadn’t even told them to fuck off. She’d done absolutely nothing but . . . take it.True, Mads wasn’t as . . . well . . . insane as Max MacKilligan or sneaky as Nelle and Streep. Or as 007 meets Smiley as Tock. But she definitely wasn’t a “stand there and take it” kind of gal either. Not from what he’d seen.Except . . .Finn pulled into Mads’s driveway, turned off the motor, and asked, “Was that your family?”It was the only thing that made sense. The only other person he’d seen her react passively to had been her mother.Instead of answering him, Mads got out of the SUV and stormed toward her house. Snarling, he followed her to the front door. She stopped on the low stoop and faced him but wouldn’t look him in the eyes.“Thank you for a lovely evening. Have a nice night.”“Mads—”She turned away from him with her house keys out, but before she could put them in the lock, she realized her front door was slightly ajar.“Did they break into your house?” he whispered.“I . . . they . . .”Mads kicked the door in and charged into the house, flicking on the overhead lights. She took a quick look around the living room. Didn’t see anything, so she ran upstairs. Finn kept looking, going into the kitchen, peering out into the backyard. He even went into the basement.But nothing seemed out of place. Nothing obvious, anyway. He didn’t know if Mads would notice anything.The one thing he did know? He didn’t smell any hyenas. Not just the general scent of a hyena, but the markings a hyena would have left behind if he or she were bold enough to leave the front door open. And, to be blunt, hyenas left a foul-smell marking. It would have been the first thing Finn and Mads caught as soon as they entered the house.He came back upstairs and closed the front door. But as he turned away, Mads was coming down the stairs and in her hands was . . . a stainless-steel Viking sword.She held it as she would an offering to a god: both hands beneath it, the sword laid aloft on her palms. Her eyes wide in shock.“Where did you find that?” he asked.“On the bed. Next to the coyote.”“I doubt he was the one who put it there.”She glared. “Funny.”“Did you scent someone else in the house? Because I don’t.”“No. I don’t. Which makes me think it was someone very good at what they do.”“You’ve known all along who took that stupid thing . . . haven’t you?”“Probably.”“And?”Her entire face cringed as she announced, “My father.”