“No way, Smith.” Gowan shook his head. “The man has been clinically diagnosed by three separate psychiatrists, including the one working for his defense team, as a sociopath. So you must have done something to him because”—Gowan opened the door, looked in again, and closed it—“he’s in there sobbing. Sociopaths don’t sob, Smith. They don’t know how to sob unless it’s to get what they want.”

“Maybe he’s faking it,” Cella suggested. “Sociopaths can fake anything.”

“No,” Smith said. “He’s not faking it.”

Try to help a canine and this is what I get . . .

“Then what did you do?” Gowan pushed.

“Nothing,” Smith insisted. “Just stared at him.”

“You didn’t hit him?” Gowan asked. “Cut him with that knife of yours? Shoot him in the knee cap?”

“No.”

“Any reason I need to rush him to the infirmary?”

“No.”

“Did you at least find out anything?” Crush asked.

“Yep.”

When the wolf said nothing else, Cella began rubbing her eyes so that she didn’t get into a fistfight with Smith.

“How about you tell us what he said,” Crush prompted, because the bear had way more patience than any cat.

“Whitlan’s got a kid. A daughter.”

Cella sat up in Crush’s lap. “A daughter? Are you sure?”

“He wasn’t lying to me,” Dee said about Barton.

“Where is she? Did you get a name?”

“He didn’t have the kid’s name, but he had her mother’s.”

Crush stood, carefully placing Cella on her feet. “Good work, Dee.”

“Thank you kindly.” She looked up at Gowan. “Sorry about the mess, hoss.”

“Yeah. Sure.” He pushed open the door and entered the room. Smith looked in at the convict and said, “Bye now, darlin’. Thanks for all your help!”

Cella cringed when she heard a sound familiar to any Malone who’d attended a St. Patrick Day’s parade.

“Jesus, Smith!” Gowan exploded from the room. “You made him throw up! God! He’s throwing up all over the goddamn place!”

Smith shrugged and came over to Cella and Crush. Another shifter, a black bear, waited to lead them out, the security cameras conveniently and temporarily turned off.

“What did you really do to him?” Cella had to ask her.

“Nothin’.”

“Smith,” she said, stopping by the bear. “The man shit, pissed, and vomited after spending less than thirty minutes with you. There has to be a reason.”

“Got me. All I did was stare at him until he toldme something I could use.”

The bear looked Smith over. “Did you stare at him with those eyes of yours?”

“I have my daddy’s eyes.”

“Annnnd, we now have our answer,” Cella announced before they made their way out of the maximum security prison and headed home.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

As soon as Toni stepped off the small plane in Siberia, she remembered to turn her cell phone back on and it immediately began to go off with texts.

Toni had turned off her phone before she got on the plane in Long Island. She always turned it off when she got onto flights. She didn’t use it for entertainment like most of the universe. It was strictly for communication. Usually, this wasn’t an issue. But that’s because she traveled with most, if not all, of her family at the same time. However, right now, her family was back in New York and eight hours behind her current time zone, which meant that by now . . . they were just starting to get the full Novikov organizational treatment.

And after reading the first couple of texts, she knew that they were not enjoying it.

Toni stood in the middle of the tiny airport and quickly responded to Oriana, then Cooper, then Kyle. She was about to respond to Troy when a hand pressed against her back. Without thinking, she spun and swung her right fist.

Shocked but instinctively blocking that wildly swinging fist, Ricky quickly stepped back, his eyes wide.

“Oh,” she said, pulling her hand back and scratching her neck. “Sorry.” She turned away from him and began typing again on her phone.

“Are you all right, Toni?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Just . . .” She got a reply from Oriana and ended up shaking her phone in her now-sore fist and gritting her teeth. “Ridiculous, demon children!”

“Ooookay.” Ricky stepped closer to her but didn’t touch her this time. “We have to go.”

“Go?” she snapped. “Go where?”

“We’re taking a helicopter to Lake—”

“Christ! Now we have to get on a helicopter?”

“Well, to get to this particular location—”

Fed up, “Oh, whatever!”

She stormed off, just expecting Ricky to follow.

Ricky watched the She-jackal march off as Barinov eased up behind him.

“What the hell—” the hybrid asked.

“I have no idea. I’ve never seen her like this before.”

“Well, she needs to calm down, Reed. If she goes at the bears like that . . .”

“I know. I know.” He shrugged and started to follow. “Maybe she’s just tired. We were on a fourteen-hour flight, then that six-hour flight on a smaller plane.”