“So, Doogan. What can I do for you?”

He glanced at his brothers. “Smart, ain’t he? I told you he’d be smart. He knows we aren’t stopping him in the street to just say hi.”

“I know you didn’t simply find me in the street by accident either. So can we cut the bullshit?”

Doogan grinned. A true predator this one. Not a soft bone in his mammoth body. “I wanna tawk to youse sometime ’bout ya sistas.” The man’s New York street accent painfully assaulted Mace’s ears. Dez’s made him laugh and turned him on, especially when she struggled to hide it. Not Doogan’s. Mace wanted to slash the man’s vocal cords with his paw. “See if we can discuss some…uh…possible business arrangements regardin’ the Llewellyn Pride.”

Mace shrugged. “Sure. That would be great. And you have sisters that I can have…and fuck. Right?”

Doogan’s eyes narrowed, while Smitty softly chuckled next to him.

“Since that is what you want my sisters for, right? To mate with you? To breed with you? To rub your fuckin’ feet?”

“I don’t like to be fucked with, Llewellyn.”

“Then you shouldn’t bend over and hand me the lube.”

Mace couldn’t believe how angry he felt, but discussing his sisters like high-priced collateral galled him to no end. True, on any given day he detested them severely, but still…they were his sisters. His sisters. You don’t talk about a man’s sisters like you’re buying hookers for a bachelor party.

He watched, fascinated, when the façade of one cat chatting with another turned to outright hatred. Doogan hated what Mace represented. What Doogan and his equally large brothers would never be.

“I’ll have your sisters, Llewellyn, and I’ll fuck ’em all.”

“You’re underestimating the women of my family. They don’t play nice with others. They’ll rip your cock off and show it to ya. And when they do, I’m going to laugh my ass off.”

Mace turned to walk away, but Doogan’s voice stopped him cold.

“Tell me, Mason. How’s Petrov doing these days?”

Mace sighed. “You know why you’ll never have the Llewellyn Pride?” He looked back at Doogan. “Cause you have no class.”

In less than a second, Doogan was on him.

Dez pushed past the fifty or more people standing in line, waiting to get into the hottest club in the Village. She told the bouncer her name and watched him stare at her breasts for a good ninety seconds before letting her into the club.

Immediately Dez knew she didn’t belong. This was not her kind of place. An Irish cop bar. A biker bar. The local bowling alley. Those were her kinds of places. Here she felt…old. Her gun pressed into her back under her leather jacket. She was glad that the bouncer hadn’t checked her. She wouldn’t like to be here without herweapon.

Packed to capacity, the club had the rich and the connected mixing with the famous and the drug dealers. Vice would have a field day in this place.

She walked to the bar. “I’m looking for Gina Brutale.”

“Yup. In the back bar.”

She headed toward the back part of the club, pushing her way through a throng of barely dressed, overperfumed people. She’d almost made it to her destination when she caught sight of him. All gold and beautiful. Talking to a lean, dark-haired woman. Dez moved over to him and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Mr. Shaw?”

He turned to her, and he was as beautiful as the picture of him in the Petrov file. Only now he seemed really annoyed. And not nearly as beautiful as Mace. She laughed to herself. Hopeless. Absolutely hopeless.

“Do I know you?” It would be real nice if he directed that question to her and not her breasts.

She leaned into him. She couldn’t announce to the bar she was NYPD, but the man clearly had idiotic tendencies if he insisted on being out in the middle of the night after one of his business partners had so recently been blown away.

“Mr. Shaw, I think you’d be safer back at home, don’t you? At least until we get a handle on this Petrov situation.”

“Ah, you must be one of the detectives. Must be the one Missy threw out of the house.” Shaw leaned into her and sniffed her neck. He grinned. “How is Mace tonight, anyway?”

Dez pulled away from him. What? Did the entire Llewellyn family know she had gone out with Mace? And did they all go around sniffing each other? Oh whatever.

“Mr. Shaw, I really think you should go home. Now.”

Shaw leered at her and she raised her eyebrow, daring him to give her real attitude.

“I was leaving anyway, Detective.”

“Good. Thank you. Cause I’d really hate to have to watch Forensics catalog pieces of your brain—like we did with Petrov.”

Dez headed off to the back bar. As she came around the corner she caught sight of five women. At least, she was pretty sure they were women—they were a tad butch—sitting at the bar. They looked very similar, and Dez guessed a blood connection between all of them. It was the one nursing a straight scotch and staring sadly at the floor that had her complete interest, though.

The fourth kick to his ribs sent him flipping up and over. He landed on his hands and knees. Ready to shift, but holding back until he had absolutely no choice.

He saw one of Doogan’s brothers going for the weapon he had hidden under his silk jacket and long cashmere coat. Mace didn’t wait for him to get a good grip on it. He moved, catching the man’s arm and twisting it back until it snapped. The roar of pain he let out shook the block and made people run. Doogan moved toward him because Smitty had the other brother and was definitely seconds away from snapping his neck.