A Chip on Her Shoulder (Magical Romantic Comedies #11) - R.J. Blain Page 0,1

gone, replaced by a chipmunk with a rodent’s puny little brain.

No, he was still my brother, but he possessed a rodent’s puny little brain. He might remember me. He might even be able to understand English and allow me to keep him outside of a cage.

Maybe.

That stung.

My brother was an asshole. He probably deserved some form of punishment at the hands of the mafia, but he was my asshole brother, and nobody beat him other than me.

I would make that our third household rule, and I would adhere to it.

I took my time memorizing the faces of those who’d pay for their crimes. Their scars would make them easy to identify. I wouldn’t forget their scars, I wouldn’t forget their faces, and I gave it a week for me to learn their names.

Then the fun would truly begin.

They weren’t the only ones who could get their hands on transformative drugs. It just cost a little money or having the right ingredients available. I could get the money, and I could go where the rare ingredients grew.

So hellbent on revenge, I barely remembered the conversation leading up to my brother’s transformation into a rather small rodent. I remembered the part about the money, where they wanted me to bring it and when, but the rest remained a blur.

I needed to memorize their scarred faces so I could do what an Esmaranda woman did when she got mad.

I’d get even, and I’d charge interest.

My mother, may her soul rest in peace, had taught me that from the day I’d busted out of maternal prison and escaped her womb.

Picking my brother up by his furry little tail, the lead asshole, who had a rather ugly scar over his nose where someone had failed to slice his skull in half, tossed him my way. I forgot about the gun pointed at me, scrambling to catch my brother so he wouldn’t escape. He squealed and squeaked protests before biting the hell out of my hand.

What an utter asshole. I prevented him from running away and losing all chance of becoming human again, and he bit me? When I refused to let my brother go, he took another chomp out of the fleshy part of my hand connecting my index finger and thumb.

I bled.

The mafia goons laughed, and then they left.

They’d pay for that, too.

Come hell or high water, they’d pay.

As there was no way in hell I could afford my brother’s debts without selling off the shit he’d spent borrowed money to buy, I stuffed the asshole into a shoebox until I could get him into a chipmunk-proof cage. Earning the money back would take a few days, and I’d have to play the game just right.

To get revenge would require I play dumb and act like I didn’t have all the money, but some of it; I’d need to give them enough of it for them to lure me into the cycle. They’d then charge me extra interest to profit on the situation.

I’d gather information, and once I was ready, I would destroy them.

Jonas squeaked and scraped his tiny claws against the cardboard, which warned me I’d have a limited amount of time to get a cage before I would need to find some other container for him.

“You’re a pain in my ass,” I complained, taping the box closed before I transformed my hand enough I could stab holes into the lid with my claws. Jonas squeaked. “Oh, shut up. I didn’t hurt you.”

While my brother was a pain in the ass, I’d never hurt him. Well, permanently. If he ever became human again, I’d be beating common sense into his thick skull so he’d never cut a deal with the mafia ever again.

He deserved a sound beating, one that’d teach him not to be so infernally stupid.

Spewing curses that would’ve had my mother either beating the sin out of me or laughing at my creativity, I grabbed my purse, which contained the spare keys to my brother’s car. I marched for the street, where the source of my brother’s misfortune waited. The mafia could’ve taken the sporty vehicle and gotten more than they’d ordered me to give them without an issue, but no. That would’ve been too easy.

That wouldn’t have sent any messages to anyone. It wouldn’t have forced me to play their game.

Thugs like them, pasty white trash who thrived on suffering, never wanted the easy way out. They liked the hunt.

Well, they picked on the wrong woman. Not only did I