Growl (10 page)

“Nope. I didn't tell you.”

Said with absolutely no sign of repentance.
“Didn't you feel like this was information I should have?”

“I would have eventually gotten around to it.”

Eventually?
She blinked in disbelief. Never mind she knew the first rule Lycans learned was “tell no one,” for some reason she felt he should have divulged the truth. “And exactly when was that going to be?” Because it sure as hell wasn't before they'd jumped into bed.

“Probably about the same time you told me that you were working for Fabian. Because you are, aren't you, as a spy on Pierre? Only Fabian double-crossed you, had Pierre killed, and then framed you to take the fall.”

Not quite. “The whole Pierre assassination was my job.” She flung that at Gavin with a cocky smirk and waited for his reaction.

While Gavin's face went through a myriad of emotions, Fabian exuded only one, mirth. “Oh, this was so worth waking up early for. Broderick, why aren't you taping this? I swear, I've not been so amused in ages.”

Broderick held up empty hands. “Sorry, boss. I left my phone in the car in case I had to suddenly shift. Things were a little tense between me and my best bud on the way over.”

“Thing still are tense,” Gavin growled. “But I'll deal with you later. I'm kind of busy right now trying to wrap my head around the fact my client did indeed kill the victim. You lied to me.”

Draping a leg casually over the armrest of the chair, she waved her gun, which she'd yet to tuck away. “Not quite. I said his death was my job. I was hired by him”—she jerked a thumb at Fabian, who raised his coffee cup in acknowledgment—“to keep an eye on Pierre and feed him certain information. As his secretary, I had access to files and codes, which allowed me to discreetly shuffle a few business interests. Once the moves were done, Pierre was to have an unfortunate accident.”

“But he caught you fucking with his shit, and you killed him.”

“Bzzt. Wrong. I said I was supposed to, but someone got to him first and framed me.” She couldn't help the incredulity in her tone. It still galled her that someone had dared screw with her like that—and scoop her job from under her.

“Framed?” Gavin snorted. “That's priceless coming from an assassin.”

“Says the guy who turns into a freaking wolf.”

He glared at her, and she arched a brow and smiled.

Strange and tense as the moment was, oddly enough she enjoyed herself. Something about Gavin truly brought her alive. She found his alpha tendencies and uptight attitude highly entertaining. What a shame about his howl-at-the-moon condition.

The silence stretched, Fabian and Broderick steering clear of the conversation but avidly watching.

Widening her grin, which only deepened his scowl, Gavin broke the standoff. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Did you agree to kill Pierre, of course?”

Fabian replied. “You mean other than the fact it's her job and she's good at it?”

Oh, way to make her sound mercenary. The fact that it was true didn't mean she liked it bandied about. Megan tossed Fabian a glare that screamed,
Zip it!

As if he'd listen to her. He grinned, completely unrepentant. The jerk knew she wouldn't kill him.

Stupid family. He might only be a distant cousin on her dad's side, but it still made him someone she couldn't kill—and hope to make it out alive at Grandpa's Thanksgiving dinner. Unusual were the extremely rare times when their clan gathered and things didn't get a little hairy. Grandma said it wasn't a true family reunion unless some blood was shed.

One hundred percent human or not, no one messed with Grandma. The most excellent cook went everywhere with a knife. And food. Megan was pretty sure Grandma could probably pull the ingredients to make a gourmet seven-course meal—for fifty—from her large canvas purse covered in tropical flowers.

It was a talent Megan, sadly, didn't inherit. But Grandma forgave her since her only granddaughter, who was also human, could at least wield a knife and a gun, plus a myriad of other weapons.

However, Gavin knew nothing of her history, and the arrogant wolf snapped at her cousin, “Do you mind? I was talking to Megan.” He practically snarled the words.

Despite Megan having grown up around a father and other male relatives who could do the same thing, having Gavin do it took it to a whole new level. A sexy one.

But his primal wolf attitude was also silly, and she rolled her eyes. “Why else would anyone do it? For the money, of course. It's not the first time either.”

“Megan here has been working for the family for quite some years now. Mostly on the West Coast, but she recently moved to the big city to take a more active part in my empire.”

“Actually, I did it to drive my dad nuts. He's a touch overprotective,” she warned Gavin. As a matter of fact, if dear old dad knew that Gavin had seduced her things could get hairy. Especially if her other cousins got involved. And her uncles. And Grandpa. As for Grandma, she'd probably cackle, pull a cow from the walk-in freezer, and start cooking a feast for when they were done playing with Gavin.

And he wondered why she'd become an assassin—other than because of the money. She came from a family of somewhat psychotic wolves. And before anyone began assuming they'd been born that way, it should be made clear that Lycanthropy was given, usually intentionally. It was triggered by a bite, several of them, while a male was in wolfman form, not human or full wolf—which usually happened only during full moons. Only when a Lycan stood with one foot in both camps was his bite contagious. Yet the chomping didn't always turn a man.

Some died; the weaklings, her dad said, not without a little scorn. Some recovered, victims of an attack. But some … some turned Lycan, the first moon triggering the full change. After that, with practice a male could control his inner beast and allow only parts of it to emerge. Except when the full moon shone in the sky. Then they all went 100 percent hairy, no matter what.

Not that she'd ever experienced it. Megan, to this day, remained human.

So how, some might wonder, if it took a bite to infect, was she descended from a line of male wolves that went back generations? Simple. Her family was freaking nuts.

Each generation birthed a son or two, sometimes more. And each generation got bitten by their dads on their sixteenth birthday. It was barbaric. It was also tradition.

It was also for guys only.

Girls couldn't turn wolf. Women were immune to the bite.

No one was sure why. Daddy said many had tried. Hell, apparently Grandma made Grandpa bite her because she wanted to be furry like her boys. It failed.

Luckily, the men could still marry human women and father children. Mostly boys in her family, with the occasional girl like Megan, who was raised among wolves.

Had she mentioned the psychotic part?

“Ahem.” Fabian cleared his throat. “You know, while all these lovely introductions are fascinating, I'm finding myself less intrigued with your banter than I am with the body on my floor. Doesn't he work for me?” Fabian asked as he nudged the thug with a bare toe.

At that announcement, Megan snapped her attention to her cousin. “He's one of yours? I can't believe you sent a gunman after me. Wait until my daddy finds out.”

Alpha of a contending clan or not, Fabian vehemently denied it and perhaps even blanched a little. “I most definitely did not send him after you. I'm not insane enough to challenge your father.”

Dear Daddy. His reputation since his return from the war preceded him.

“Then if you didn't send him, who did?”

They all stared at the thug, who groaned as consciousness returned to him.

With so many violent personalities in the room, it didn't take much threatening to have him spill his guts. The verbal kind, not the messy intestinal ones.

His voice earnest, the hired gunman told them what he knew, which wasn't much. “I was hired for the job. Well, less hired, more like I accepted an open call.”

Broderick, who tapped away on a laptop Fabian had fetched by his guards, confirmed it. “What do you know? I'm on the forum he was talking about, and here's the posted bounty.”

The forum he referred to was an online Web group under several layers of security and encrypted so that only those in the business could decipher the contents.

Megan, gun tucked in the waistband of her pants—no panties because she couldn't find them when she'd fled earlier—peered over his shoulder.

Sure enough, as she scanned the board she saw the announcement.

A whistle blew past Fabian's lips. “Five million to end your life. That's not what I would have paid.”

Affronted, Megan shot him a dark look.

He grinned. “I would have paid more of course, dear cousin.”

His face set in a perpetual scowl, it seemed, Gavin paced before Broderick. “How do we get this message taken down?”

“We don't. Only the poster can erase it.”

“But we can nullify it to a certain extent,” Fabian added. “We will post a message saying that if anyone succeeds in killing dear Megan they will incur my wrath and I will hunt them down myself and ensure they die screaming.”

“I was planning on doing that anyway,” added Gavin, his tone quite ominous.

And sexy.
Damned wolves and their protective ways.
To think Daddy wondered why she had fled to the East Coast. Grandma and Megan's mother understood and had abetted her departure. Now Daddy sulked because his little girl left him.

“Gavin, I am most delighted to see this violent side. And to think I'd wondered if you were soft when it came to justice.”

“Sometimes the law just isn't enough,” Gavin replied.

Megan shook her head. “Men. Always promising more violence. I'll take care of this. After all, this person dared to screw with me.”

“What do you plan to do?”

What a dumb question.
“I'll kill whoever is behind this of course. No money getting paid means no attempts on my life. Simple.”

“Easier said than done. We don't know who is bankrolling this.”

“Yet. Given their erratic behavior, I'd say it's not long now before they reveal themselves.”

“But do we have that long to wait? They've set a pretty trap around you, Megan,” Broderick reminded. “The cops are currently looking for you on account of the body in your apartment.”

“What body?” she asked. They brought her up to speed, and she lost her smile. “This is getting ridiculous. What the hell did I do to incur this kind of vendetta?”

“I'll admit I'm a tad jealous. No one puts this kind of effort in their attempts on me,” Fabian huffed.

“It's because you're soft.” She coughed it in her hand, and her cousin glared.

She beamed.

“What if we could get the charges dropped?” Gavin said.

“Exactly how are you going to do that? You have seen the pile of evidence they've gathered, right? The best we can hope for is having the most current arson and murder charges dropped.”

“That's what you think. I have a plan.”

And it was a good one, too.

In return for their letting Larry—the hotel intruder—live, he would not only confess to his part in the murder and arson at Megan's place, which resulted not long after her threat to remove his ability to procreate, but also admit he'd killed Pierre and framed the innocent secretary for it. It should be noted that, despite the measures they used to make him speak, Larry swore, and quite unimaginatively, that he didn't have a part in that plot. Not that it mattered. Given the choice between life in prison and facing their wrath—which again, Megan punctuated with more bodily threats, good ones that made all the men wince—Larry wisely chose the least harmful route.

With their plan in place, it was decided that Gavin would bring Larry in on a citizen's arrest. Gavin would concoct some story about having taken down Larry when the thug visited Megan at her hotel room. Brave lawyer traps criminal intent on killing his scapegoat. Why Larry wanted to kill her they left vague. With a confession in hand, it was doubtful the cops would dig too deeply, especially once one of Fabian's men on the inside pushed the paperwork through.

“I'm going to time it so that I arrive about a half hour before the end of shift. The cops will just want to process the paperwork as fast as they can to get out of there.” Gavin eyed the watch on his wrist and tapped it to set an alarm.

Wearing no underpants and no bra, Megan felt quite unprepared beside his impeccably turned-out attire. She didn't let his suave exterior beside her grubby one, though, daunt her.

After all, I've seen him naked. And dirty. Oh, so dirty.
She crossed her legs in the chair she'd once again commandeered.

“With Larry's confession, it will be a cinch to get the arrest warrant for Megan canceled. Then I'll work on the rest of the charges. You'll be a free woman. That is, if you can stay out of trouble. Anything else I should know about? Some other crime that will pop up to mess with my plan? Did you perhaps sneak out and kill someone while I was sleeping?” He fixed her with a dark stare.

She snorted. “As if you gave me enough time. I barely got any sleep.” Too late she realized what she'd admitted, aloud, to an audience. Killer since her college days or not, she blushed.

Wisely, no one remarked on it.

Gavin shot a look at Larry, who sat quietly on the floor, no longer so intimidating when surrounded by real predators. “Broderick, zip tie his hands, would you, and put him in the car.”

“Why me?”

“Because you owe me. That and I need to speak to my client some more before I handle the cops. Also”—he poked Broderick in the back—“after you're done with that, I want you to work on unscrambling the identification of whoever posted the bounty. While you”—he jabbed a finger in Fabian's direction—“need to do something criminal that I can tie back to you so I can at least throw you in jail for a few nights for irritating the fuck out of me.”