Wolf with Benefits (24 page)

A
s soon as Toni stepped off the small plane in Siberia, she remembered to turn her cell phone back on and it immediately began to go off with texts.

Toni had turned off her phone before she got on the plane in Long Island. She always turned it off when she got onto flights. She didn’t use it for entertainment like most of the universe. It was strictly for communication. Usually, this wasn’t an issue. But that’s because she traveled with most, if not all, of her family at the same time. However, right now, her family was back in New York and eight hours behind her current time zone, which meant that by now . . . they were just starting to get the full Novikov organizational treatment.

And after reading the first couple of texts, she knew that they were not enjoying it.

Toni stood in the middle of the tiny airport and quickly responded to Oriana, then Cooper, then Kyle. She was about to respond to Troy when a hand pressed against her back. Without thinking, she spun and swung her right fist.

Shocked but instinctively blocking that wildly swinging fist, Ricky quickly stepped back, his eyes wide.

“Oh,” she said, pulling her hand back and scratching her neck. “Sorry.” She turned away from him and began typing again on her phone.

“Are you all right, Toni?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Just . . .” She got a reply from Oriana and ended up shaking her phone in her now-sore fist and gritting her teeth.
“Ridiculous, demon children!”

“Ooookay.” Ricky stepped closer to her but didn’t touch her this time. “We have to go.”

“Go?” she snapped. “Go where?”

“We’re taking a helicopter to Lake—”

“Christ! Now we have to get on a helicopter?”

“Well, to get to this particular location—”

Fed up, “Oh, whatever!”

She stormed off, just expecting Ricky to follow.

 

Ricky watched the She-jackal march off as Barinov eased up behind him.

“What the hell—” the hybrid asked.

“I have no idea. I’ve never seen her like this before.”

“Well, she needs to calm down, Reed. If she goes at the bears like that . . .”

“I know. I know.” He shrugged and started to follow. “Maybe she’s just tired. We were on a fourteen-hour flight, then that six-hour flight on a smaller plane.”

“Should we get a hotel tonight and wait before we meet with the bears?”

“They’re expecting us tonight, I think. Plus, I’m afraid what she’ll do if we try to stretch this out the tiniest bit.”

The males arrived at the row of glass doors where people came and went. Toni stood on the other side—screaming.

Ricky glanced at Barinov. “Maybe a good night’s sleep is what she needs.”

“Or some puppy Prozac.”

“Stop.”

 

The helicopter flew them to a small full-human city just an hour or two outside a little-known and never discussed shifter-only territory.

“I have a car waiting,” Barinov told them. He carried a small bag in his hand and led the way to a Range Rover that looked as if it could handle all sorts of terrain.

Ricky held the door open for Toni and she got inside, leaning back into the comfortable seats and resting her bag next to her.

“How are you holding up?” the wolf asked her.

Toni texted Kyle back, informing him that it was definitely illegal to put anything in anyone’s food that “might make them, ya know . . . kinda sick.”

Making someone “kinda sick” was not okay!

She reminded Kyle, once again, that if he ever went to jail for
anything,
no one in the family would pay to have him bonded out. No one.

Hitting SEND, she finally looked up at the wolf and asked, “What?”

“I said how are you holding up?”

“How do I look like I’m holding up?” she snapped, because it was such a fucking stupid question. “I’m exhausted. I’m stressed out. And I just want to get this stupid trip over with.”

“All right then.” He gestured out the front window. “Vic here tells me we’re almost at the hotel.”

“Hotel? Why are we going to the hotel first? I thought we were going straight to meet with the bears.”

“Nah. Not tonight. It’s way too late. A good night’s sleep and—”

“You’re not listening to me,” she told the wolf. “I want to see the bears. I want to see the bears
tonight!
”

 

Ricky stared into the backseat at the She-jackal he was beginning to believe was losing her dang mind. And whether she was or she wasn’t, for safety reasons, there was no way he could let Toni meet up with those bears tonight. It would have to be tomorrow after she had a shower, some sleep, and maybe some valium if he could get his hands on any.

“That’s not in your or the team’s best interest, Antonella.”

Toni dropped her phone in her lap so she could ball her hands into fists. “I want to see the bears now. Now! Do you hear me? Now!”

“Not going to happen, so you might as well just suck it up.”

“I hate you!”

“Well, I’m not liking you much right now either, darlin’, so that only seems fair.”

Frustrated, Toni tried to roll down her window by pushing on the button. Ricky didn’t know what was going on, but the window didn’t go down. That’s when she started punching the window with her fists.

“Hey,” Barinov said low. “Reed.”

“What?”

“You know what’s going on here, don’t you?”

“No,” Ricky quickly shot back. “That is
not
what’s going on here.”

“Are you kidding? What else could it be?”

Ricky shook his head. “It’s something else. Exhaustion or sudden onset of mental illness. That’s it.”

“You’re serious?”

“I’m very serious. I’m telling you, it’s not . . .
that.
”

Ricky glanced into the backseat to see Toni pawing at the window with her hands because she still couldn’t get it to open.

“I’m trapped,” she snarled at the air.
“Trapped!”

“Nope,” Barinov muttered. “It couldn’t possibly be
that.
”

 

They reached a large hotel that straddled the border between full-human and shifter territory.

Toni stepped out of the vehicle and looked up at the building. “Here?” she asked. “We come halfway ’round the world and you bring us to a chain hotel? We might as well have met them on the Jersey Turnpike.”

Ricky looked at Barinov. “Could you get us checked in?”

“Sure.”

Once the hybrid had gone inside the hotel, Ricky faced her. “Look, darlin’, I’m tryin’ desperately not to get real cranky with you. But you are pushing my last redneck nerve.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means we’re in a foreign country and in a hostile part of said foreign country, at least where our kind is concerned. My whole goal is to get you home safe and sound. Your father made it clear that he would accept nothing less. And getting you home safely means that you don’t piss off bears. And the way you’re acting right now . . . you’re gonna piss them off.”

“Fine.”

Ricky frowned. “Fine?”

“Fine.”

Maybe she was being a little . . . terse. Toni was willing to admit that. She probably just needed some sleep. It had been an excruciatingly long trip and dealing with the texts from her siblings hadn’t helped.

Ricky nodded. “Then let’s go.”

They entered the hotel and Toni was pleasantly surprised to find that the interior had a wonderful look and feel to it. Like a hip, sixties apartment, but nothing felt dated or old. It actually felt quite modern and European. She loved it.

Not that she’d admit that now to Ricky.

By the time they reached the front desk, Barinov had already gotten their rooms. His Russian was fluent and his accent almost as good as the twins’—although their accent was flawless after watching some Russian language movie on cable one afternoon. More than one person had asked Toni and her mother what Russian adoption agency they’d used.

Barinov handed Toni her electronic key and, without a word, headed toward the elevators. They went to the ninth floor and walked down the hall.

“This is your room,” he said, briefly stopping in front of it. “I’ll be in the room to your left. Reed in the room to your right. If you need either one of us—”

“Oh, please.” Toni used her keycard and went inside. She closed the door in the faces of the two males, not even in the mood to say good night. She stepped farther inside and took a good look around. She was as impressed with her room as she was with the hotel’s lobby. This would be a nice place to stay for the next few days.

Placing her bag on the dresser, Toni sat down on the bed. Her cell phone vibrated and she sighed. She’d gotten three texts at the same time. Oriana informing Toni that she could not “exist under this regime!” Kyle begging her to re-think her stance on his sketching a naked Novikov. And Bo Novikov imploring her to get her little brother to stop asking him about sketching him naked. “It’s beginning to make me uncomfortable.”

Unable to answer any of those texts, Toni tossed her phone on the bed and fell back against the mattress. She could do this. She
would
do this. All she needed was a little room service and a good night’s sleep.

 

Vic focused on Ricky.

“What?” Ricky asked him, annoyed although the hybrid hadn’t actually done anything yet.

“Are you going to admit the problem now?”

“She’s just tired,” he said again. “By tomorrow, she’ll be—”

“Even worse.” Vic briefly pursed his lips. “I always thought you weren’t as stubborn as your brothers. Guess I was wrong.”

“No call to get nasty.”

Shaking his head, Vic headed toward his own room. “See you in the morning.”

“Yeah.” Ricky waited until the door to Vic’s room closed, then stood in front of Toni’s door for several more minutes. He stared at it, debating with himself if he should stand out here all night or not.

When he didn’t hear anything hysterical coming from inside, he decided to go to his own bed. Room service would be shutting down soon and he really needed something to eat. A steak and fries would really hit the spot.

“All she needs is sleep,” he softly reminded himself. “A good night’s sleep and she’ll be just fine.”

T
he unfamiliar ring of his in-room phone woke Ricky up the next morning. He’d managed to get a few hours’ sleep the previous night, but it hadn’t been easy. His body was still on New York time, but he had a job to do. So Ricky picked up the still-ringing phone off the receiver.

“Yep?”

“Ready to face the day?”

Ricky growled. “You are too damn cheery.”

Vic laughed. “See you in thirty?”

“Yeah. That’ll work.”

“We’ll go get breakfast down in the restaurant.”

Ricky grunted, sounding a little like his daddy at that moment, and hung up the phone. He took a shower and put on black jeans, black T-shirt, black boots, and secured a holstered .45 semi-auto to the back of his jeans that Vic had given him when he’d arrived in Russia. He pulled a denim jacket on to hide the weapon and left his room to go over to Toni’s. He knocked but there was no answer. He knocked again.

By now, Vic was standing next to him.

“Nothing?” he asked.

“Nope.” Ricky looked down one end of the hall, then the other. When he didn’t see anyone around, he leaned in, pressed his nose against the doorjamb, and sniffed.

Ricky stepped back. “She’s in there.”

Vic reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a keycard.

“Had an extra for her room made?”

“Yep.”

Vic was just reaching for the door when it opened from the inside. The two males instinctively reared back, but Toni only smiled.

“Sorry I took so long to get to the door. I just got out of the shower a few minutes ago.”

Dressed in blue jeans, sexy, knee-high brown boots with three-inch heels, and a plain white T-shirt, Toni motioned both men in. “I’m almost done,” she said.

“Okay.” Ricky closed the door. “Vic suggested we get breakfast downstairs in the dining room.”

“Sounds good,” she said from inside the bathroom, the door open. “The room service was good, too.”

She stepped back into the room with a towel. Her hair was dripping wet, thick curls reaching past her shoulders, bangs in front of her eyes. “Did you both sleep well?”

“Yep,” Ricky replied.

She smiled—appearing much more relaxed than she had been last night—bent at the waist, and flipped her hair over. While Toni proceeded to carefully squeeze the water out of her hair with the towel, Vic bumped Ricky’s shoulder with his own. When Ricky glanced over, Vic motioned to the bedroom door with a jerk of his head.

Ricky looked behind him, his eyes immediately widening at what he saw. And what he saw was paw marks on the back of the door. As if a wild animal had been locked in a room and unable to get out.

Disgusted, Ricky returned his attention to Toni. She stood straight, shook her hair. The curls were shorter now, getting curlier as her hair became drier.

“Okay. I’m ready.” She threw the towel back into the bathroom and grabbed a small backpack and thick file folder from her bed. She walked to the door, pulling it open with her free hand.

“What happened to the back of the door?” Ricky asked her.

“Huh?” Toni asked, eyes wide as if she didn’t know what he was talking about. She continued to keep moving, saying nothing more.

“Going to say it now?” Vic asked him.

“No. I’m not.” He pointed at the hybrid. “I know it’ll be impossible for a bear-tiger freak of nature to understand, but although every dog may be a canine, not every canine is a dog.”

“Did you get that from your college Logic one-oh-one class?”

“Maybe.”

“Come on, guys,” Toni called from the hallway. “Let’s go. I’ve got a lot of work to get done today.”

“Just leave it,” Ricky warned the hybrid. “She’s fine.”

“If you say so.”

“Watch that tone, son.”

Vic chuckled and walked out of the room; Ricky followed.

Still disgusted.

 

She saw the girl, Delilah Jean-Louis Parker, sitting on the steps in front of that church. She couldn’t be more than eighteen or nineteen, but Miss Parker was strikingly beautiful.

It was extremely late when she sat down beside the girl. Glancing over her shoulder, she realized that Parker wasn’t alone. At least three men, probably members of the church—or cult, depending on whom you talked to—were standing in the shadows, there to protect Parker.

That was all right. She had her own backup.

“Hi,” she finally said to the girl. She knew she had a “warm way about her” as it said in her evaluations. It was something she used to her benefit.

“Hello.” Parker looked at her. She had a soft smile and dead eyes.

“I got your message through our mutual friend and we are definitely interested.”

“Okay.”

“We’re willing to pay you—”

“I want a million. In this account in the Cayman Islands.” She handed over a piece of paper with numbers on it. “Get me that and I’ll give you what I have.”

“A million? That seems . . . substantial. For something we’re not even sure will work.”

“A million or you get nothing.”

“Look, Miss Jean-Louis Parker—”

“Gasp,” Parker said flatly. “How do you know my name? Oh, no. If you know my name . . . you know where I live. What will I do now? The horror. The horror.” Parker leaned in a bit. “Is that what you wanted to hear? Was that the reaction you needed?”

A girl this one might be, but smart. And cold. Ice fucking cold.

“I’ll talk to my superiors, Miss Parker.”

Parker gave a little shrug, her small, misleading smile still in place. “Okay.”

Tucking the piece of paper into her jeans pocket, she stood and walked down the steps and out onto the street. She walked a block until her team picked her up. She got into the Town Car and closed the door.

“Well?”

“Snotty little slit.”

“We know where she lives.”

“Strong-arming this girl isn’t going to work. Not with this one.”

“Then what do you want to do?”

“We’ll see if we can find it on our own.”

“And if we can’t?”

She thought back on her superior’s excitement when she’d shown him the information one of her contacts had sent her. “Then we give the bitch what she wants.”

 

Although Toni had been to Russia before—several times, in fact—she’d never been this far outside a major city. She’d never been to Siberia.

And Siberia was, in a word, astounding.

So lush and green. Not at all what Toni expected.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Barinov asked as he glanced at her in the rearview.

“It is. I guess I expected—”

“A snow-covered wilderness?”

“It’s Siberia.”

“There’s summertime here, too. It’s actually kind of extra hot for this time of year. Nearly sixty-five Fahrenheit when I checked this morning.” Considering Toni had just left what she considered the oppressive heat of the East Coast, she had to chuckle a little.

The drive took a good thirty minutes until they reached the location where they’d be meeting with the bears. A ridiculously large . . . well . . . palace. Yeah. It was a palace. Not a mansion. Not a castle. A palace.

“Good Lord,” Ricky muttered.

Barinov chuckled. “This is the house—”

“House?” Toni asked, incredulous.

“—that belongs to whoever is currently running this town. And for the last century and a half, that’s been the Zubachevs.”

“Why do I know that name?” Ricky asked, yawning and taking off his cap to scratch his head.

“Lots of Zubachevs in the States, a bunch of them in Maine. Like my mother’s family, they’re from Kamchatka.”

“Lovely.” Ricky put his hat back on his head. “Just lovely.”

“What’s wrong?” Toni asked.

Barinov shrugged. “Kamchatka bears kind of hate—”

“Canines,” Ricky filled in. “They hate us a lot. Wolf. Jackal. Wild dog. Foxes. Doesn’t matter the breed or where you fall in the genetic line, if you’ve even got a bit of canine blood in you, they hate you.”

Barinov pulled to a stop in front of the palace. “It’s called the one-eighth rule.”

“The one-eighth rule?”

“If there’s more than one-eighth canine blood in a shifter, Kamchatka bears consider them canines.”

“And let’s face it,” Ricky said, grinning at her, “we all know there’s a little canine in everybody.”

She rolled her eyes but couldn’t help smiling. Such a goofball, this guy.

“Any special instructions before we get out of this car?” Ricky asked Barinov.

“Yeah. No sudden movements. Even if there aren’t any grizzlies within a mile of you, no sudden movements. None of them will like you, just accept that now. And all of them hate Novikov.”

“That boy sure has made a name for himself.”

“It’s not his fault,” Toni felt the need to remind them, since she was sure that one day she’d be having the same conversation about any or all of her siblings. “When you’re the best at what you do, it’s hard to remember there are other human beings standing right next to you.”

Ricky turned, rested his arm on the back of his seat. “How long have you been practicing that speech?”

“Since Kyle was six. Only this time I didn’t add, ‘it’s hard to remember there are other human beings standing right next to you, Senator’ or ‘your honor’ or ‘Mr. Prosecutor.’ ”

“The thing you need to keep in mind, Miss Parker—”

“Just call me Toni.”

“That’s Toni with an ‘i,’ ” Ricky felt the need to explain. “Not a ‘y.’ ”

“Right. Well, what you need to keep in mind, Toni, is that no matter what the bears here say, all they care about is keeping their territory safe, playing hockey, and making money off hockey. Keep that in mind, and you should be just fine.”

The front doors to the palace opened and very large males began to walk through those double doors. Toni had assumed the double doors were there just to look fancy; now she realized they needed to be there to allow males that wide to enter and exit the building.

Toni nodded and reached for the door handle. By the time she was stepping out of the car, Ricky was there, his hand pressed into the small of her back.

“No matter what,” he told her, “just remember I’m here. Vic is here. You’re not on your own, darlin’.”

“I know that,” she said honestly. “Because otherwise I would have made a wild run for the woods by now. Jackals are brave when our pups are around, but we’re not stupid.”

Toni headed up the stairs with Barinov leading the way. He spoke in Russian to the bear standing at the top of the stairs, a grizzly who was surrounded by a bunch of other bears that ranged from grizzly to black to polar to speckled.

“Ivan Zubachev,” Vic finally said in English, “this is Antonella—”

Zubachev cut Vic off with an angry snarl. “That American bitch, Malone,” he grumbled in an impossibly low voice, “sent this
dog
to talk to Yuri Asanov. Greatest hockey coach to ever live?”

Toni fought the urge to roll her eyes. She had to agree with Kyle. She simply did not understand the love of sports.

Instead of pointing that out, she said, “Miss Malone apologizes for being unable to attend, but she had a prior—”

“I don’t want to hear! Your mere presence insults this team. Insults Yuri Asanov. Go, pet doggy. No one wants to talk to you.”

“Wait a minute.” Toni couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I do understand you’re upset about this, Mr. Zubachev. But I am authorized to negotiate with Mr. Asanov and the team.”

The bear glowered down at her. He had to be at least eight feet tall while human. She didn’t even want to imagine how big his bear form was.

His lip curling, he growled, “I hear dog barking . . . but it means nothing to me.” He gestured with his hand. “Go, little dog. Go play in next town with other dogs. There’s no place for you here.”

With one last glower, Zubachev turned on his heel and stalked off. The rest of the bears followed him.

Rage ripped through Toni’s system. She heard roaring in her ears. And as she saw those double doors begin to close, the proverbial leash she’d always used to keep herself calm in any situation snapped.

Ricky stared at the empty spot where Toni had been standing. Usually he reacted quickly in dangerous situations, but he had to admit he just never expected anyone to suddenly bolt
after
bears. Away from bears, yes. But after?

“Fuck,” Vic snarled. The hybrid charged up the stairs after her, but by the time he got to the doors, they were shut in his face and locked.

“Can we kick in the door?” Ricky asked as he ran up behind Vic.

“This palace was built by bears just before the Russian civil war hit Siberia in 1918. And none of the things that happened in the rest of Siberia happened here, because no one could get past the bears who guard this territory or their incredibly strong wooden doors.”