Born to Be Badger (Honey Badger Chronicles #5)(113)

“Before you try to run, signorina . . . think of your family. Think of your sisters. Think of what I can—”

He stared at her with wide eyes, his words cut off as he tried to take in a breath. The ten-inch chef’s knife she’d used to cut up almonds an hour ago was buried so deep in the side of his upper chest, it had impaled a lung and stopped him from talking.

She’d moved so fast, the old cat’s protection detail didn’t even realize what she’d done until she’d slammed a smaller paring blade into another cat’s jugular. That’s when they went for their guns. But they didn’t already have them out and ready. Their sloppiness gave Charlie precious seconds she could use to snap a neck. Lacerate a spine. Crush a windpipe. And open up two femoral arteries.

By the time she again stood in front of the old cat, he’d begun to choke on his own blood.

She didn’t say anything to him as he died. What was there to say?

The swinging door between their kitchen and the living room opened and Max walked in. She stopped immediately and looked around until her gaze settled on her sister.

“Need some help with cleanup?” she asked.

Charlie nodded.

“Okay. Let me change my sneakers, though. I just got these Air Jordans.” She grinned. “I’d hate to get blood on them right after I got ’em out the box!”




Now . . .

“What?” Max demanded when everyone in the room looked at her. “They were new Jordans. You never waste those on a cleanup.”

“Shut up, useless badger!” Savta barked at Max.

“Hey!”

“Why didn’t you just talk to him?” Savta asked Charlie, ignoring her sister.

“Talk to him about what?”

“You don’t even know why he was there!”

“I don’t care why he was there. He walked into my house uninvited. He vaguely threatened my family. I have no regrets.”

“When someone says they want to talk, you let them talk!”

“If they want to talk, they should make an appointment.”

Max snorted a laugh but quickly stopped when Tock’s grandmother pinned her with a vicious glare.

“You are a stupid, reckless child!” Savta told Charlie. “And now look what you have done.”

Charlie stepped across the room until she stood in front of the older She-badger. She folded her arms over her chest and bluntly told Tock’s grandmother, “The last time strangers walked into my house uninvited, just to talk . . . they killed my mother.”

Another shocked silence filled the room, this one lasting for more than a minute. Maybe even two. With Charlie and Savta glowering at each other. In that moment, it was as if the entire world was sitting on the tip of a knife.

At least, that’s how it felt until Max said, “Awkward burn, old lady!”

Mads’s aunt barked out a surprised laugh, but she quickly covered her mouth and looked away. Yup, the whole thing was awkward, all right, but at least it broke the tension.

“Look, the deed is done,” CeCe álvarez announced to the room before moving from her seat to sit on the kitchen table. “There’s no point in bitching about it. The question is, what happens now?”

“What happens now?” Savta repeated. “Now there’s war.”

“Oh, my God!” Streep gasped. “We’re going to war with Italy? But I’m honeymooning there! Ash even arranged lunch with His Holiness!”

“What exactly would you talk to the pope about?” Nelle wanted to know.

Streep’s smile was wide. “About his philosophy on love and life and humanity.”

“While your mother is stealing shit out of Vatican storage?” Mads guessed.

“No!” Streep snapped. Then she cleared her throat. “That would be my Aunt Trudi and my cousins. What?” she barked into the following silence. “It’s not like the Church uses most of that shit anymore!”

Slowly, painfully, Savta put her fingers against her temples, pressing them deep and massaging the tiny muscles before she snarled out, “Master of the Universe, save me from these idiots.”

Since Mira Lepstein wasn’t exactly known in Israel for her religious zeal, Tock was pretty sure her grandmother was seconds from ordering a drone strike on them all before signing a deal with the de Medicis that would allow them to rule North America, for no other reason than she just didn’t want to deal with the aggravation for another second.





Chapter 23


“I would have done the same thing if someone walked into our kitchen uninvited,” Keane admitted to his brothers.

Tock had moved quickly, getting her grandmother out of the kitchen and taking her someplace they could talk privately. Not that Shay blamed her. Tock’s grandmother looked ready to go on a murderous rampage.

Mads’s aunt and her friends had followed them out, leaving the rest of the group to eat Charlie’s baked goods and chat with one another.

“You would have done the same thing if someone looked at you wrong,” Finn told his brother.

“That’s true. I don’t like when people look at me wrong.”

Now that there were empty seats at the round kitchen table, Streep patted a spot next to her, motioning for Shay to join them. Not a problem. He’d already finished the platter of Danish he’d grabbed earlier, but he was still hungry.