Page 245 of Hate to Love You
Besides Ana, I hadn’t exactly told anyone about my plans to send my youngest brother home with Jaxon, but that’s because I didn’t trust any of them not to let it slip. However, I can’t allow myself to think about that right now. I can’t think about anything but making a man who is affiliated with the injury to my dog pay…in blood.
“Take the leg away,” I snap at Jeremy, while still glaring at my brother. “He can have it later…if he’s still hungry.”
“Boss, I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Jeremy says cautiously. “Taking food away from a bear is—”
“I’ll distract him,” Lev says loudly, also not taking his eyes off of me. “Show my brother here that he’s a pet, not a beast.”
Part of me wants to scream at him, worried that he’s going to derail my punishment of Sean by getting his stupid ass killed.
But my pride screws my mouth shut and before I know it, Lev is climbing the metal railing.
He puts his first two fingers to his lip and whistles loudly. The gigantic Kodiak bear looks up from tearing meat off of the dismembered animal carcass, and the moment he sees Lev standing there, he drops his dinner and comes galloping over to him, his thundering paws shaking the earth around him.
Baloo stops right in front of Sean, and as he stands on his two hind legs to nuzzle my brother. Even atop the railing, Lev is barely taller than the nine-foot bear.
“Holy fucking shit!” Sean screams, frantically pulling at his restraints.
“Hey Baloo,” Lev chuckles, scratching the head of the grunting bear as Jeremy hops the railing back into the ring, and snatches the bloody deer’s leg away. “Who’s my big muddy buddy?”
Hearing Lev call this thousand-pound-wood-tank a pet name and watching him snuggle his head like he’s a lap dog, is both ironic and terrifying.
“I changed my mind!” Sean shouts in the background. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know!”
Oh, right, he’s still here.
“Lev,” I snap. “You’ve proven your point. He’s your bear. Now, get the fuck down so I can get on with my business.”
I nod to Cal, who presses the button again, this time in a shorter burst, but still just as effective. When Sean stops seizing from the shock, he starts screaming…Which immediately attracts Baloo.
And as he slowly stalks his way across the dirt center of the roller derby rink, Sean’s pitches nearly reach an operatic tone.
“Get him the fuck away from me! No! No! Don’t come near me!”
But Sean’s pleas do absolutely nothing to stop the advancing bear, who upon reaching the incapacitated man starts licking the blood from off his clothes, and face.
Exactly as I hoped.
It’s true that on my eighteenth birthday, my father had given me Baloo as a symbol of my maturity and acceptance as the future don of this family. But my “lessons” were more than a fulltime job. Lev, being the animal lover of the group, found himself inadvertently delegated to the care and training of Baloo, and obviously that loving bond had lasted over two decades.
However, loving the bear wasn’t the problem, keeping it was. As he grew, Baloo simply needed more space. And although Lev loved the Prius-sized teddy bear, he was ultimately a city boy at heart, who never wanted to be more than walking distance from his beloved fight club.
That’s where Jeremy came into play.
Jeremy was a retired zoologist, who owned a large swath of land upstate, and with a few necessary renovations, and even a few paid relocations, Baloo’s life got an upgrade. He had forests to roam, trees to climb, and all the sweet honey rolls his heart could handle.
The only rule that Jeremy enforced, whenever we’d visit, was that we were never ever to turn our back on Baloo, as it could trigger his natural instincts and cause him to see us as prey.
…But Sean McCleary doesn’t know this.
“Get this fucker off me!” He screams, his pained voice echoing loudly in the room. “Let me out of here!”
“You know what?” I say facetiously. “I think I will.”
Cal presses another button on the keypad, and all at once, the metal restraints unlock, freeing him.
And once again, Sean does exactly what I want him to do.
He runs.