Born to Be Badger (Honey Badger Chronicles #5)(112)

“Human trafficking of any kind is indefensible,” Mira said. “Why they take these people does not matter. What matters is that they take them at all.”

“Which is why we were attacking their businesses,” Nelle pointed out. “Although we’ve only dealt with one of their operations.”

“Have you done anything else?” Mira asked, looking over her teacup.

“Anything else?” Nelle glanced at their team. “I don’t think so. Just the one operation so far. And the only shifters we took down that day were bears. American bears. No Italians.” Nelle’s eyes narrowed on the She-badger. “Why do you ask? What’s happened?”

Tock’s grandmother placed the teacup back on the saucer, balancing both on the top knee of her crossed legs. Shay would expect it to slide over and fall to the floor, but it just sat there. Perfectly poised. He found it kind of frightening.

“That day,” Mira Lepstein said, “you may have only killed bears but then, soon after, you killed someone much more important. And now the entire de Medici Coalition wants all of you dead.”

*

Tock, and everyone else in the room, immediately looked over at Max.

“Why are you all looking at me?” she asked.

“What did you do?” Mads demanded.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Max, come on,” Nelle pushed.

“I didn’t!”

“Wait,” Tock cut in. Her grandmother had a knack for setting people at odds. She wasn’t going to let Mira do that to her teammates. “Savta, who are you talking about?”

Glaring across the room directly at Max, her grandmother snarled out, “She killed Giuseppe de Medici.”

“Ohhh, fuck,” one of the Dunn triplets gasped. Tock didn’t know which one. She was too tired to tell the difference between them. But maybe the girl . . . ?

“Who’s Giuseppe de Medici?”

“He was the father and head of the Coalition,” the Dunn triplet explained. “But if he’s dead . . . that means his oldest boy is in charge.” She shook her head. “That’s not good.”

“Jesus, Max,” Streep complained. “What is with you?”

“I didn’t kill anybody!” She stopped. Thought a minute. “I mean, I don’t think I’ve recently killed anyone important. And definitely not some old man from Italy.”

“Just admit it.”

“It wasn’t me! I don’t even know what this Giuseppe person looks like! How would I know to kill him?”

Nelle quickly typed into her phone, then showed it to Max. “This is him.”

Max, Mads, Streep, and Tock all moved closer to take a look.

Max immediately shook her head. “I did not kill him.”

For once, Tock had the feeling Max wasn’t lying. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. Look at the big white-and-brown mane on that old dude. I would remember killing him.”

“Max is right,” Charlie said after looking at the picture herself before putting down a plate of cinnamon buns. “She didn’t kill him.”

“Why do you insist on protecting such an unstable badger?” Tock’s grandmother sneered, as if she didn’t protect her own blood just as insistently.

“I’m not protecting her.”

“Then how do you know she didn’t kill him?”

“Because that dude?” Charlie pointed at Nelle’s phone. “I killed him.”

There was a moment of stunned silence before Savta slammed her teacup and saucer on a nearby counter and stood. “What do you mean you killed him?”

“I mean, I killed him.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “He and some big-muscled cats were in my house. Uninvited. So, yeah!” she said, without any remorse or concern. “I killed them. I killed them all.”

Max crossed her arms over her chest. “I told y’all it wasn’t me.”





Chapter 22


A few days ago . . .



Charlie loved baking and cooking, but she hated doing the dishes. It was literally her least favorite thing to do in the world. She tried to keep the workload manageable by washing things along the way, but usually when she finished mixing up her last batch of anything, there was still a mess to clean up.

That was what she was doing when she sensed someone sitting at her kitchen table.

She was busy scrubbing a baking pan with her back to the kitchen. Deep in her thoughts about whether she should take a couple of classes at the closest community college. She’d always wanted to go to school, but lacking money and needing to protect Stevie, there hadn’t been the time and/or the finances. And although her time was still short, she did have money now and Stevie had Shen.

But then these people suddenly appeared in her house and she realized that maybe an academic career was just not in the cards for her.

“Signorina MacKilligan,” she heard a voice say from behind her. “We should talk.”

With her hands still stuck in hot soapy water, she looked over her shoulder. Even with her allergies acting up, preventing her from smelling much of anything at the moment, she’d still know these lion males. All that hair. Italian lions, in fact. The old man’s accent was thick.