her in, and lifted her. Then he carried her over to the table.
“What are you two doing?” Charlie asked.
“I am impressing the masses,” Dutch said with a shoulder shimmy, then he shimmied his ass back to the others.
“I begged you to get better friends,” Charlie only half-joked.
Max pulled a chair from another table and put it right beside the woman harassing her sister. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Charlie scratched her forehead. “Max—”
“If you think you’re going to blackmail my sister like you tried to do to me, I’ll make sure the only thing you know for the rest of your miserable life is pain.”
“Imani, could you excuse us?” Charlie said.
“Yeah. I’ll text you tomorrow.”
Max waited until the She-cat had walked away before turning to her sister. “Are you letting that bitch blackmail you?”
“I need you to calm down.”
“I need you to grow a set. Don’t let her push you into anything!”
“I’m not!”
“Then what are you doing?”
Charlie shrugged. “I’m taking a job.”
“A job?”
“Yeah.”
“Doing what?”
“Hopefully . . . helping people. She’ll give me the resources I need and the intel, and I do what I do.”
“You don’t even know her.”
“No, I don’t. But I don’t get a bad vibe from her either. And she’s not stupid.” She rested her elbow on the table and her chin on her fist. “I don’t know. But I want to give it a try.”
“Why?”
“I need a job, Max. I need to do something with my life. Something that provides regular money that I don’t have to worry about laundering.”
“Is this about my mother again?”
“No. It’s about me.”
“You’re putting yourself at risk. Putting us at risk.”
“We’re always at risk. We’re MacKilligans. Which is also the reason this is the closest I will ever get to a government job. So I’m going to try it out.”
Max knew her sister was probably right, but she wanted to talk to Imani. She left the table as Charlie yelled, “I’m not running after you! I’m not!”
“Good!”
* * *
Zé walked through the club with the keycard that Nelle had given him burning a hole in his back pocket.
He was trying to find Max but everyone kept getting in his way. He’d never been so popular. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be that popular. But the wild dogs kept introducing themselves. He didn’t know why. And the cats and wolves kept sort of challenging him with looks and the occasional body slam. He also didn’t know why.
Honestly, he just wanted to find Max and get out of here.
When Dutch landed on the ground in front of him, Zé stepped over him and kept going.
“Aren’t you going to help me up?”
“Nope.”
Zé did stop at the bar, though, when he saw Charlie standing there . . . seething. And the woman seethed well. Arms crossed over her chest, brown eyes flashing. And every predator in the room avoiding her.
“Hey, Charlie. Are you okay?”
“She’s making me crazy!”
That was direct.
“She makes me crazy, too,” he admitted.
“I’m just trying to do what’s right for me and our family. So I don’t need her shit.”
“I understand.”
“Why does everything I do always have to be about my sisters?”
“It doesn’t.”
“Are you just agreeing with me?”
“No. But I can tell you and Max are close. She just wants you to be happy and you just want her to be happy. The pair of you are running around, trying to make each other happy. It’s sickeningly sweet. Or would be if she wasn’t always covered in military knives under her clothes and even now you have a .45 holstered to the back of your jeans.”
Charlie looked over her shoulder. “Oh, can you see it?”
“No. The T-shirt covers it.”
“Great.” She gave a small smile. “You really care about Max, don’t you?”
“She’s insane and dangerous and has managed to convince my old team leader that I am taking advantage of a mentally unstable woman. How could I not care about her?”
Charlie’s snort turned into a laugh, her wide smile lighting up her face.
“Come on.” She grabbed his hand. “Let’s go find her. I’ll slap her around a little bit, then you can take her home.”
“That’s big of you, Charlie.”
She wrapped her arm around his back. “Isn’t it?”
* * *
Max lost Imani in one of the hallways. She sniffed the air but there were tons of cats and dogs in the club, making it hard to focus on just one scent.
Thinking she caught the female’s scent going down a flight of stairs, Max followed. But when she opened the first-floor door it was another hallway with