Vic cleared his throat, nodded at her uncles. “Gentlemen.”

“Vic, these are my uncles.” She pointed at each one. “Baltazar, Kamil, Gustav, Edmund, Otto, and David. Uncles, this is Victor Barinov.”

“Barinov?” Otto asked, frowning a little.

“Yes.”

“You have information for us?” Balt asked Vic.

“Uh, yes.” He grabbed a folder off the nightstand. “Here’s what we’ve pulled together so far. Do you want me to go over it with you?” Vic asked as he handed the info to Balt.

“I can read,” Balt snarled, snatching the folder.

“I wasn’t suggesting—”

“We will talk later, Olivia,” Balt said before he and the rest of her uncles walked away.

Once they were gone, Vic sat down on the bed and dropped his head into his hands.

“What’s wrong?”

“They hate me,” Vic said. “Couldn’t you tell how much they hate me?”

“They don’t hate you,” Livy told him, closing the door and walking over to the bed. “They hate your father. And I think they all have a thing for your mother.”

Vic’s head slowly came up. “My father?”

“He’s helped INTERPOL prevent several Kowalski jobs over the years. And helped to put away a few of my uncles’ cousins.”

“Oh.” Vic thought about it a moment, then said, “Yeah. That does make it awkward, doesn’t it?”

Livy chuckled. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Besides, your parents are badass if they’ve got my uncles worried.”

Vic grinned. “My parents are kind of badass. Of course, they both come from two families of badasses. Stalin actively avoided my great-grandfather. And my mother’s mother was one of the most feared snipers in the Red Army. The Germans called her der Schrecken.”

And together they said, “The Nightmare.”

“Was she really that bad?” Livy asked.

“Oh yeah. She was a Siberian She-tiger with amazing aim. As soon as those guys turned around, they’d get picked off from behind. Then at night, she’d shift to her tiger form and . . .”

“Get a little snack?”

Vic grimaced. “It was a long Russian winter, and food was scarce. She did what she had to do, I guess.” Vic shrugged. “I liked her, though. She made the best cookies.” He let out a breath. “I hope I didn’t make things weird for you and your uncles.”

“Weird how?”

“Accidentally suggesting we’re sleeping together.”

“We are sleeping together.”

“I know. But no uncle wants to hear that about his niece. Especially when he still calls his niece Little Olivia.”

“They couldn’t care lessabout that. They’re more worried I’m bedding down with someone as dangerously close to a cop as they’re willing to allow.”

They were silent for a few minutes until Vic asked, “So, what’s next?”

“I go back to work tomorrow. Like everything is normal. You should know, though, they think a shifter might be involved. But I made it clear we’re not playing that game. We are out for Whitlan. That’s it.”

“They could be right, though. Keep in mind all three organizations had backed off this case . . . that suggests someone with the power to make that happen.”

“Or the money.” When Vic frowned a bit, Livy added, “Even shifters have bills to pay. But we’ll wait and see. If a shifter or shifters are involved, we’ll talk about it then.”

“If you’re telling me that because you want me to be prepared for the fallout . . . don’t worry about it. You betray your own . . . you get whatever’s coming to you.”

“I’m fine with that. But I’m more worried about my family using this opportunity to fuck with shifters they’ve always hated. And that isn’t what this is about. Not for me.”

Again they sat in silence for several minutes. Then, Livy stretched out on the bed and placed her head in Vic’s lap.

Vic gently stroked her head, big fingers easing through her hair, stopping briefly to massage her scalp.

He didn’t speak, seeming to understand that Livy didn’t want a lot of conversation. She just wanted to lie here, quietly, and let the guy she was fucking play with her hair.

And the fact that he got that without Livy saying a word spoke volumes about the man.

Wearing her mink coat—something other shifters thought was tacky—and smoking one of her French cigarettes, Joan sat on the marble bench in the backyard and stared up at the sky.

Melly had finally been dragged off by one of her cousins so there was no more crying and screaming about how, “No one understands that I loooooooovvvvveeee him!”

So that was something to be grateful for.

Her sisters and Aunt Li-Li had gone off, as well, to get a hotel suite at the Kingston Arms. The Yangs didn’t have the reputation that the Kowalskis did at the local Manhattan hotels, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Joan had briefly entertained staying here with her daughter, but why torment herself? They’d never gotten along, and she didn’t think that would change now. Especially since Joan didn’t think she’d done anything wrong. But leave it to Olivia to turn this whole thing into a big deal.

Of course, any time Joan thought about what her husband must have gone through during his final moments, the indignity of being hunted like some poor animal in the wild . . . well, her rage took over. Something no one should want.