chapter FOUR

chapter FOURTom O’Connell—Tommy to his friends or anyone who owed him money—came into his bar from the front and before he even turned on the lights, he knew something was wrong.He should have walked back out, but he decided to turn the overhead lights on first. He did and let out a surprised gasp.Having been in the bar business since he was a very young man, he’d come into more than one joint to find it fucked up. Usually by gangsters leaving a message. For instance, they hadn’t been paid or they wanted to start getting paid. Or maybe some rowdy kids had found a way in and decided to get drunk and do something stupid.Over the years, he’d seen all sorts of shit.But this . . . this he’d never seen before.He couldn’t explain the difference, but it was definitely different.First, it was the scent. A strong, powerful scent that sent him reeling. And it was everywhere. Then he realized that what he was smelling was urine. And that he could see the urine because it had been sprayed all over his wood-paneled bar. Not just on the wood floor or as high as a man could lift his penis but . . . ceiling high. How the hell did anyone get piss up that high?Then there were the tables and chairs. They weren’t just tossed around. Or merely broken into pieces. They were . . . stripped? Like something had slashed across each item. Again and again. Brutally. And they’d been chewed. He could see fang marks in the wood. Had dogs broken into his bar?That didn’t make sense, though. How could dogs get their piss up on the ceiling? Even a Great Dane wouldn’t find that move possible.Three of his men walked in from the back. The expressions on their faces told him that the back of his bar looked just like the front.The four of them were staring at one another when he heard the front doors lock and he turned.Keane Malone stood in front of the doors like a Mac truck parked sideways.Tall with terrifyingly wide, muscular shoulders, Malone filled any room he entered without saying a word or making a move. It was assumed by anyone who saw him that the man must be on some weird combination of steroids. Something from Russia. Or Ukraine. Because Tommy had never known a man with shoulders like that. Except, of course, Malone’s two younger brothers.Tommy glanced around, expecting to see those two as well. The Malones usually traveled together. Like three mountains in some picture vista, the two younger ones always slightly behind Keane. But nope. He didn’t see those two.And Tommy had to admit that made him more concerned than if the brothers had been standing right next to Keane sporting brass knuckles.Even worse, these Malones weren’t like the other Malones he’d dealt with over the years. Those Malones were Travelers who had done some work for him and his father back in the day. They could be counted on to break some bones, crack some skulls and, when necessary, whip up some amazing soda bread for the church’s Christmas bake sale.These Malones, though . . .The Black Malones they were called. Even by their own family. Tommy remembered their father. Thought maybe he’d married a Black woman and that’s how the sons had gotten the nickname but no. The wife he’d seen at the father’s funeral was Asian or whatever. And all the Malones had black hair with streaks of red and white. Tommy figured it was some family dye job. Like a family tattoo. But these Malones didn’t have the red. Just the black hair with some white. That was it. So he didn’t understand the nickname . . . until they grew up and came into his bar, looking for information on their father’s death. A brutal murder that the Black Malones were not going to forget or forgive.He knew why Keane Malone was here, though.“Malone,” Tommy said by way of greeting.“Surprised to see me?” Malone asked. “You know . . . alive?”Actually, he was surprised. He’d heard that the kid hadn’t made it. Neither had his brothers.Tommy should have known better than to trust rumors.Still, he shrugged and said, “I don’t know what you mean.”“Really?”“Yeah. Really.”Bobby was the first one dragged off. It happened so fast, Tommy didn’t even see it happen. One second Bobby was standing there with the rest of them, the next . . . he was disappearing down the hall, screaming his head off, attempting to dig his fingers into the hardwood floors or grab onto walls or furniture, but before Tommy knew it . . .They could hear Bobby’s desperate, panicked screams coming from down the hall until he suddenly rolled back into the main bar. As if he’d been slapped into it by a big hand.Bobby was still alive but he was covered in blood from all the lacerations riddling his body. Sobbing, Bobby began to drag himself across the floor, trying to reach the front door.His remaining men had moved around Tommy, their weapons now drawn, but Malone didn’t seem to notice or care.Instead, he grabbed what seemed to be the only undamaged wooden chair in the whole bar and pulled it to the middle of the room. He turned it so that the back faced Bobby and his men and sat down with his big legs straddling it. The creak of the chair made Bobby wince. Fat guys who did nothing but drink beer and eat nachos while watching football games had sat in those chairs every day for years and they never creaked. How much did this kid weigh? And was all that weight from his muscle alone?“So let’s try this again, and I’ll be more direct,” Malone said calmly. He didn’t pull out his own gun. He didn’t have to. Then again, Tommy wasn’t even sure if Malone was ever armed. “I got information from you that sent me and my brothers to an island where a bunch of guys tried to kill us. Can’t help but think you were somehow involved in that.”He opened his mouth to reply but Malone raised one big, blunt finger. “And before you answer, you should know, I only give two chances to give me an honest response. Poor crying, crawling Bobby there was your first chance.”Look, Tommy had grown up with gangsters. He personally knew made guys. Had let them use the basement of his bar to tear out the teeth of men they felt deserved it. Although he never got actively involved in their business, he was savvy enough that he didn’t have to pay too much in protection while managing not to get his face bashed in for saying too much or anything at all. So he knew how to play this game better than some juice head that still whined about his dead daddy.But the kid wasn’t alone. Somewhere in the bar his brothers lurked, which meant he had to play this smarter than usual.“Look, kid, I get that you’re upset but—”“Wrong answer,” Malone calmly cut in.That’s when Gary got snatched off his feet and yanked up into the ceiling. Screaming hysterically, Gary begged for help. Begged for Jesus himself to save him. That went on for some time until poor Gary was tossed back down, landing in a bloody heap. He was still alive, too, but one ear was gone, the fingers on his right hand had been mangled beyond anything . . . useful. His left leg appeared . . . chewed? But the worst part was the opening in his chest. Like something had just ripped across it. Tommy was sure he could actually see the rib cage.Tommy Jr., Tommy’s first born, dropped his gun, went to a corner and sat down. He pulled his legs up and covered his ears with his hands. When he began rocking back and forth and sobbing, Tommy simply blocked him out.“Now,” Malone said, his expression surprisingly neutral for once—he wasn’t smiling but he wasn’t glowering either, “I’m feeling pretty good today. Like in a giving spirit. So I’m going to break my rule.” He lifted one big forefinger. “Just this one time.”* * *Mads watched Max open a cabinet drawer and then proceed to study the bottle of pills she pulled out.“Oh, my God. These are over a month old. She has gone off her meds.” She shook her head. “This is crazy. She can’t do this.”Mads knew she shouldn’t say anything. She’d learned a long time ago not to get between sisters. Long before she’d ever met the MacKilligan sisters. But she found it impossible to just sit there and listen to Max lose her ever-loving mind.“Don’t you think this is a little invasive of your sister’s privacy?”“You don’t know my sister.”“I’ve known her since she was nine. I know she can get . . . moody.”“Moody?” Max gave a harsh laugh, started to say something else, but stopped. “Look, just trust me on this. Going off her meds is not a good idea. I mean, how can she just decide to go off her meds without discussing it with me?”“Maybe because you insist on asking her, ‘Have you had your meds today?’ every time she decides to cry.”“Who cries at puppy commercials?”“Your sister! So what? Who doesn’t like puppies? Even I like puppies and I hate almost everything.”“I need to talk to Charlie.”“You really don’t.”“I’ll be back.”She ran from the room as if she was on fire and Mads pulled out her phone. She downloaded an app that she’d heard was a shifter-run car service. For those drunken nights when fangs might make an appearance and you didn’t want to freak out your driver. After ordering a car, she grabbed her training bag from behind the couch and returned to the kitchen.While she pulled a couple of bottles of water from the refrigerator, Stevie walked in with the kitten.“We need to get you something to eat,” she told the kitten, opening the door of a cabinet that was filled with cans of cat food and big bags of high-end dog food. She grabbed a can of what appeared to be cat food but then paused. “How old do you think this kitten is?”Mads shrugged. “I have no idea.”“She may be too young for canned food. Or he.” Stevie lifted the kitten over her head and studied what Mads liked to call “the undercarriage.”Stevie nodded. “It’s a he.”“Why are you whispering?”“I actually don’t know.” She dismissed the issue with a hand wave and closed her eyes.“What are you doing?” Mads asked when Stevie just stood there with her eyes closed.“Finding what I’ve previously read on taking care of newborn kittens and looking at it again.”Rearing back a little, Mads asked, “What the hell does that even mean?”Stevie held up one finger to silence her. After a few more minutes, Stevie finally opened her eyes and let out a breath. “Okay. I’m up to speed. Probably should take him to the vet, though.”“Up to speed with what?”“How to care for a newborn kitten, which is what he is. Poor thing.” She snuggled the kitten close. “Did you lose your momma? I’m so sorry. Well, I’m going to take care of you.”Max returned to the kitchen. “Where’s Charlie?”“Triplet house.”“And the panda?”“In the backyard, eating his morning bamboo and hanging from trees,” Stevie replied. “Just follow the crunching.”Max stormed out the back door.Mads blew out a breath and, unable to help herself yet again, she said, “I wouldn’t worry.”Stevie carefully placed the kitten on the kitchen table. “About what?”“About Max’s reaction to your having a baby. She’ll get over it and be a wonderful aunt. I’m sure of it.”She snorted. “I’m not having a baby.”Mads blinked and took a step back. “Wait . . . what?”* * *Finn and his brothers got back into the SUV and Keane grabbed the bags of bagels, glancing into each one to hand out the correct bagels to Finn and Shay.Once they each had their food, they began to eat and sip their Starbucks coffee. Shay ate his bagels with big slathers of cream cheese. Keane liked his with just thin layers of butter. But Finn just ate his plain. They didn’t speak during their meal. They rarely did. Eating wasn’t a time to talk; it was a time to feed.When the bagels were finished and the brothers gazed out the windows and sipped the remainder of their coffee, Finn asked, “Think we went too far?”“Nope.”“People are going to be pissed.”Keane glanced at him. “People?”“Katzenhaus Securities. And those other people.”“What other people?”“I don’t know. And that group run by dogs.”“Who cares?” Shay barked from the backseat. “None of those people have ever cared about what happened to Dad. Why should we care now about anything they have to say? They’re just lucky we’re not leaving a trail of shredded and half-chewed bodies up and down fucking Fifth Avenue. That’s what I feel like doing to the bastards we even think had something to do with Dad’s murder.”Finn reached into the backseat and wrenched the steel thermos out of his brother’s hand. “No more coffee for you before practice.”* * *Stevie picked up the kitten again so it didn’t walk off the table and said very definitively, “I am not having a baby.” Then she added, “I mean, one day Shen and I plan to have a baby. When I’m in my thirties. By then I’m sure I’ll have worked out something very specific and detailed with my doctors regarding my meds, and Shen and I will have our own house. Don’t know if we’ll be married, though. I personally think marriage is a sham forced upon us by the patriarchy. But, yeah. Marriage, no marriage . . . doesn’t matter. We’ll have a kid one day. Maybe two. But that’s a good decade away.”“Oh.” Confused, Mads scratched her head. “Then why did you tell Max . . .”“The other day there was this ad on TV for a department store and it was about this mom who was taking her daughter to college for the first time. And it was really sweet and at the end, the girl calls her mom from her new dorm room and she says, ‘I love you, Mom,’ and the mom says, ‘I love you, baby,’ and I started to cry, and right off the bat, Max goes—”“ ‘Did you take your meds today?’ ”“Yes!” Stevie gasped. “So I decided to fuck with her. Because she pissed me off and I’m sick of it. I manage my mental health quite well, thank you very much, and have since I was seven years old and realized I had some issues. What I don’t need is my big sister treating me like I have ever been an out-of-control psychotic that she has to hover over. Besides . . . the question was rude.”“You’re right. It was rude.”She smirked at Mads. “So are you going to rat me out now? I know how close you five are.”“I learned a long time ago not to get between sisters.”Stevie rolled her eyes. “Is this where you tell me some long, shifter-centric story about that’s how you got that scar on your neck?”Mads pointed at the scar that lashed across the left side of her throat. “This scar? No. This scar I got from my mother when she let my father know that if he ever tried to get custody of me again, she’d make sure to go deep enough to open up the jugular.”Leaning across the table, Mads gently closed Stevie’s now open mouth. “Sorry, sweetie. I forget sometimes you’re not used to my stories the way Max and my teammates are.”* * *“Do you think O’Connell told us the truth?”Keane shrugged. “If he did, then we don’t really have anywhere to go, do we?”“I was just thinking that.”“We’ve run out of contacts. And those we can trust.”“We never had many of those to start with.”Shay leaned forward, resting his arms on the front seats. “So now what?”“I think I know someone who might be able to help. Maybe.” Finn felt the need to stress.“A friend?”“No. Gambler. At least he used to be. Both you guys met him, but trust me . . . you don’t remember him. He does know everybody, though, and he’s got a lot of contacts.”“Why didn’t you ever go to him before?” Keane wanted to know.“Because he’s annoying.” Finn snarled. “And a dog.”“Sirens,” Shay announced. “We better go.”Keane started the SUV and pulled away from the curb. When he reached the end of the street, he stopped at the red light and looked from Finn to Shay.“I don’t want you guys to worry. We’re going to find out who killed Dad. And everyone who was involved, who had a hand in it. We’re going to kill ’em all. You have my word on it.”Shay reached between the seats and patted Keane’s shoulder. “You give the best pep talks, man.”Finn quickly looked out the passenger window so he wouldn’t laugh in Keane’s face. His brother hated that. Besides, he knew the sound of Keane’s elbow slamming into Shay’s face so well by now, he didn’t really need to see it to know when it happened.* * *Dez MacDermot had been a cop for a long time. In fact, if you ever talked to her father, he’d say that she’d been born a cop. Still, there was a time when a murder scene like this would have confused and freaked her out. But now . . . ? Not so much.She always examined a scene like this herself so she knew exactly what she was dealing with . . . because she could already tell it was going to be a massive issue. Especially because no one was dead.Two men had clearly been mauled by something . . . animal. They were alive but barely and had already been taken away by ambulance.Usually, shifters kept their shit quiet, and cleaned up after themselves. She knew this from experience. Her husband and son were lions. Two of her best friends were wolves. She’d been part of this world for years now and she knew how careful shifters were. How careful they had to be in order to protect not only themselves but those they loved. Unfortunately, it usually meant that when a full-human saw something he wasn’t supposed to see, hard choices had to be made. At least that’s how her husband always put it. If possible, the shifters just acted as if the full-human was simply insane or had been drunk or high when they saw whatever they saw. If that didn’t work or if they tried to move some video, then things got very difficult.Thankfully, shifters were positioned everywhere protecting their own. It was something they all had to do in order to ensure that none of them ended up test subjects for government agencies looking for the next super soldier.That’s how Dez had gotten her job. She’d started off just being a cop. An everyday, run-of-the-mill cop. Now here she was . . . staring at an ear on the floor, busy trying to figure out which species had ripped it off a man’s head.My, how things had changed.She tore her gaze away from that mangled ear and took another look around the bar until it rested on the bar owner, Tommy O’Connell. Dez had known O’Connell a long time.Dez stepped closer to him as the EMTs tied his screaming son to a gurney; he didn’t even bother to look up. “So you’re sure you didn’t see anything?” she asked. “Absolutely nothing at all?”O’Connell, who’d inherited this bar from his old man and had been working in it from the early seventies when the Manhattan streets were beyond tough and terrifying, stared blindly across the room and muttered, “I didn’t see anything. I got here and . . . it was like this. My guys all fucked up. The bar looking like this. And my guys . . . they won’t remember nothin’ either. I can promise you that.”Yep. O’Connell was lying. It wasn’t just the way he kept repeating that same little speech over and over that gave away his lie either. It was the way his bar had been torn up. She’d seen a lot of destroyed bars in her time. She’d also seen quite a few places destroyed by big guys who shifted into wild animals. This had that wild-animal flavor. Plus, her entire team—made up of varying types of shifters—had done nothing since they’d walked through the door but sniff the air like they were locking on a herd of water buffalo.Dez, however, didn’t have to sniff the air to know this could get messy. They’d sent away the full-human cops who’d arrived first at the crime scene. That had already caused a conflict she would be hearing about later.“Tigers.”She glanced up at her close friend and former partner, Lou Crushek, who now reported directly to her in their mostly shifter-only precinct. “What?”“Tigers.”“What about them?”“They peed everywhere.”“Ewww. What is wrong with you people? You’re fucking up the crime scene.”“Not our tigers. Other tigers.”Dez scrunched up her face. She couldn’t help it. “Why? Why would anyone do that?”Crushek, a polar bear, shrugged massive shoulders. “Honestly? That’s what tigers do when they’re really mad.” He pointed toward the deep recesses of the building. “There’s a load of shit in the back rooms.”She let out a long, painful sigh. “Just lock it all down. Only our people, in or out.”Crushek smirked. “Sometimes you hate this job . . . don’t you?”“You have no idea.”