Surprised to find the lights on, Livy walked down the marble-floored hallway, which reminded her of a very small Versailles, and past the living room by the stairs, where she heard what sounded like an episode of Dr. Phil coming from the large-screen TV . . .

Livy stopped walking, freezing right in the middle of the arched entrance, her gaze locked onto the twelve-year-old boy watching that large-screened TV from the couch.

“Kyle?” she snarled.

Eyes wide, Kyle Jean-Louis Parker slowly looked over at Livy. “Uh . . . Livy? Wow. Uh . . . hi?”

“Why aren’t you in Italy?” Livy demanded.

Kyle was an artistic prodigy, sculpting and painting his greatest strengths. He was so amazing, he’d been accepted into a prestigious Italian art school at the age of eleven while getting tutored in the basics like math and science so he wasn’t left behind scholastically.

Yet he was supposed to be in Italy receiving all that great education, not here in the middle of his parents’ rental home. And he especially wasn’t supposed to be in his parents’ rental home without his parents.

“Does Toni know you’re here?”

Kyle stared at Livy a moment before replying, “Sure.”

“You are the worst liar, Kyle Jean-Louis Parker,” Livy complained as she pulled out her cell phone to call Toni. There were just some lines Livy never crossed when it came to Antonella, and all those lines involved Toni’s siblings. And the kids knew that. So Livy had no qualms about ratting out Kyle to Toni, even if that meant Toni would be flying back from Russia on the wings of her rage.

But before Livy could complete the call, an arm reached around her and took the phone. Startled, she spun around, fangs unleashed, which had Cooper Jean-Louis Parker immediately crossing his arms over his chest, tucking his hands under his armpits, and barking, “Not my hands! Not my hands!”

Livy retracted her fangs and gazed at the eldest male sibling of the Jean-Louis Parkers. “Not your hands? Most people tell me not to touch their face.”

“I can play without my eyes,” he said, now grinning. “Can’t play without my hands.” He held those hands up. “These babies are insured for a reason.”

Cooper was a pianist who’d been playing for massive audiences since he was five or so. Of all Toni’s siblings, he was the most normal. At least as normal as any child prodigy could be, she guessed.

“What’s going on?” Livy asked.

“We’re giving Kyle and all of Italy a break.”

Livy’s head tipped down as she studied the handsome jackal she thought of as her own brother. “Really?”

“They’re trying to control me!” Kyle yelled from the couch. “Control my brilliance! They have yet to realize they can’t control me! Their narrow, noncreative minds simply don’t understand what I’m trying todo! They can’t conceive—”

“Stop it, Kyle,” Livy cut in calmly.

“Whatever,” the boy muttered. “They don’t deserve me.”

Coop shook his head. “How do you do that?”

Livy was one of the few people Kyle ever listened to, but Livy had no idea why. Although if she had to guess . . . “He may have seen what I did to that squirrel who got between me and that beehive in your parents’ backyard. You know how cranky I get when the squirrels fight back.”

Coop chuckled and handed the phone back to Livy. Together they slowly walked down the hallway toward the kitchen. When they were out of earshot of Kyle, Coop said softly, “Don’t call Toni.”

“I don’t get between you guys and Toni, Coop. You know that.”

“I do know. But there’s no reason for her to come back right now. Cherise and I have control of the situation, and my parents know what’s going on.”

“What is going on?”

Coop smirked, shrugged. “He’s been fighting with all the teachers, making the other students homicidal and suicidal.”

“Aren’t these all adult students?”

“Oh yeah, they are.”

“Then why doesn’t the school just get rid of him?”

“The school doesn’t want to lose him. You should see the piece he made for his midterm project.” Shaking his head, mouth open a bit, Coop searched for the right words. “It was . . . breathtaking.”

If Coop thought it was breathtaking and he was willing to admit it out loud . . . Livy couldn’t wait to see it.

“So it was decided to give everyone involved a break. And since Cherise and I have a concert coming up in Manhattan, Mom and Dad thought a little winter break here would help Kyle.”

“Why not send him to Washington to be with your parents?”

“I think they were hoping a little Kyle-only time would be to his benefit. It’s a bit harder to make that happen when you’ve got five other kids to manage.”

Livy understood that. In all honesty, she’d never figured out how the family managed to do as well as they did. Eleven pups, ten of them prodigies, one of those prodigies a definite sociopath—it shocked many to find out that wasn’t Kyle—how could the family not fall apart? Yet they never did. Instead each of the children thrived in their own way.

The problem with Kyle, though, was that he wasn’t just an artist. He was also kind of a twisted psychologist-in-training. With a few choice words, he could destroy a person’s self-confidence and will to live. And although most of his siblings were so used to Kyle and so certain of their own brilliance, they could handle him, it still made for lots of fights. Fights that could get on anyone’s nerves eventually.