“And let you have all the fun by yourself?” She mocked him. “I don’t think so.”

For a second, an amused grin tilted his lips. “Fun? Is that what we’re calling your family today?”

The low, almost intimate tone of his voice soothed that rising panic inside her just enough to allow her to give him a little smile in return. Her stomach was still jumpy, though, nerves eating at her self-control, and it was all she could do to keep her hands from shaking.

“I’ll check your room. Wait here for me.” Doogan drew her to the wall next to her bedroom door. “This will take just a few minutes.”

She almost rolled her eyes. “Really, Doogan?”

“Really, Zoey,” he assured her, a glower beginning to darken his expression. “This has nothing to do with ability and everything to do with someone trying to force you into destroying yourself. Admit this is a battle you need help with.”

Pressing her lips together tightly, she watched as her brother and cousins carefully checked the rest of the apartment. Rowdy and Natches were slipping into the spare guest room while Eli stepped cautiously into his own. And they were all armed. Just as she should have been.

Her bedroom door opened and Doogan stepped out, his expression still somber, his dark brown eyes still worried.

“It’s clear,” he promised, stepping back and allowing her inside. “Why don’t you let me take care of this, Zoey?”

A mocking laugh fell from her lips. “When did you decide you had a death wish?” She shook her head, glancing into the apartment to see her brother and cousins converging in the kitchen. “No. You don’t handle the Mackays, Doogan. That was your first mistake.” She turned her gaze back to him, betrayal slicing at her as vague, barely-there memories of him and Sam began filtering through the shadows of her mind.

His jaw clenched, his gaze becoming hard and cool once more. “Of course you do, darling,” he drawled. “The same way you handle any other wild animal. Look it in the eye, growl deeper, and be prepared to bite harder.”

She would have laughed if she’d had anything even approaching humor left inside her right then.

“Try honesty first,” she whispered painfully. “It works wonders.”

“Does it really?” His fingers curled firmly around her upper arm as she started to turn away from him, holding her in place and sending a rush of pleasure from his touch racing through her.

She was so weak. Why did his touch affect her as it did? Why couldn’t she deny him as she’d denied so many other men in the past?

“I hate to disagree with you, sweetheart, but honesty doesn’t work with that fucking drug they pumped into you that night or the suggestions they left in your very complicated little brain,” he informed her, his voice gruff. “So until you’ve remembered every fucking whisper they planted there, don’t assume you can judge me, or my level of honesty toward you. Doing so could well end up being disastrous.”

Her heart was racing, his suggestion causing her head to ache further, the disjointed memories to slip through her mind like shadows, there then gone, never staying in one place long enough to force them to make sense.

Doogan stepped back, the icy chill in his gaze only growing deeper as Rowdy stepped to the doorway.

“Sis?” he questioned her, the compassion and concern in his voice and expression causing her heart to clench.

He and Natches had taken her and her sisters to their hearts just as Dawg had. They weren’t cousins in the Mackay males’ eyes. They were sisters to all of them, just as they were more brothers than cousins.

Doogan held her gaze; the warning she could see in the dark depths caused her throat to tighten and trepidation to rise. This wasn’t over by a long shot. And she had a very bad feeling that she still hadn’t remembered nearly enough.

“You have five minutes,” Doogan told her. “But have no doubt, Zoey, the days of protecting those men in there from their own natures is over, as far as you’re concerned. They’re big boys. It’s time to let them face the fact that you’re probably more of a Mackay than any of your sisters ever thought to be. That, or put your damned head down and deny everything you’ve fought for in the past five years. Marry their choice of man for you and settle down to having babies and being the nice, safe sister Dawg dreams of.”

Zoey flinched at the suggestion. “You’re an asshole, Doogan.”

“And I take great pride in the fact.” His gaze sliced to Rowdy before a hard smile tugged at his lips. “But then, I’m not alone, am I?”

Doogan strode from her bedroom, his shoulders straight, his expression so arrogant and damned confident it made her back teeth clench.

“Zoey?” Rowdy stood at her bedroom door, his worried expression causing her breathing to hitch painfully.

“Why are you guys even here, Rowdy?” Rubbing her hands over her face, she wondered if her life would ever come close to making any sense at all.

“Because you’re in trouble,” he answered her without hesitation. “And like him, we’ll always be here whenever you’re in trouble, Zoey, whether you want us to be or not.”

Whether she wanted them to be or not.

When it came to her family, she had no idea what she wanted and what she didn’t. Staring beyond Rowdy’s shoulder, she glimpsed Doogan as Eli stepped to him. The secrets those two probably shared would make grown men shudder. Eli resented it sometimes, felt anger in it other times, but watching them now, Zoey could see the innate trust the younger man felt for Doogan, despite his anger.

“I need a few minutes,” she told Rowdy. “Please don’t let them hurt him before I get back.”

“So you can have that privilege?” Rowdy grinned.

Zoey shook her head, sighing deeply. “No, so I can protect him from himself and that death wish I’m still convinced he has. Why else would he ever consider taking on a Mackay?”

Why would anyone choose such a completely irrational battle?

—

Doogan was furious, and he knew it was a mistake to allow the anger to grow inside him as it was. He wasn’t at his most rational when he couldn’t control the dark, building fury that could burn deep and far too hot. And when dealing with a Mackay, a man had to be at his most rational, with no anger marring the logic he had to use to keep them under control.

Not that anything or anyone completely controlled the wayward impulses that came with that particular bloodline.

“Tell me where you lost your mind, Doogan, because this is going to get you killed.” It was Graham who approached him once he stepped into the living area, preparing himself to face the less than rational male family members.

Graham was a good man; Doogan had known that the first time they met, in their early twenties. And he was a hell of an agent. Of the three agents to have married into the Mackay family, Graham was the one Doogan had depended upon the most.

“What is the ‘this’ you’re talking about?” Doogan questioned, wishing Eli would hurry with the files he’d been sent for.

“Zoey,” Graham answered, his voice low. “Letting her remain in danger . . .”

“From the moment I learned she’d been targeted, she was protected far more than you know.” Doogan’s head snapped up, that anger he always fought to keep chilled with logic slipping its leash a bit. “Never doubt that for a moment, Graham. And remember one damned thing, it wasn’t my security those bastards slipped past to threaten her to begin with.”

“No, it wasn’t. That failure’s mine.” Timothy Cranston’s admission as he stepped to them earned him a glare from Doogan.

As much as Doogan liked the other man, they still clashed as often now as they had in the past.

Dammit, he hadn’t meant for Timothy to hear that. This was why he fought to control his temper rather than letting it free.

Doogan sighed wearily, rubbing at the back of his neck. “What do you know, Timothy?” he asked as he let his hand drop, glimpsing Eli moving from the guest room with the box of files and written reports he’d kept over the past year.